The whistle blower’s road map

The only problem, of course, is that the media itself is inherently flawed. Can, for example, the electronic media offer the possibility for more equal participation? Today there are specific TV or radio slots for programmes revolving around issues of social justice and equality. But the big question is who is regulating the media? People find themselves demoted — reduced to being ‘an audience’, rather than an equal partner in the exchange of ideas.

General participation in the media has, if it is to be effective, go beyond writing letters to the editor or figuring in viewer statistics. The more the common users are patronised, the more they are treated as objects on whom second-hand experience is to be dumped, the less likely are they to develop a critical consciousness and be agents of change.

Also, if mass communication exhibits an unprecedented ability to bring divided communities together; it can also divide society. The majority of people then end up by losing the ability to take a critical view of reality. Something like fear of conflict stops all possibilities of asking questions. As national badminton legend, Prakash Padukone, puts it, ‘Right from childhood we are asked to be blindly submissive and obedient. This proves to be a block later when we lose our ability to take decisions…’

What is particularly disturbing is the tendency in people when confronted with a problem they cannot solve to pretend it does not exist. For instance, why don’t we react when we get information of thirty crore rupees being paid by way of ransom to Veerappan for the release of Raj Kumar? We don’t and the brigand continues to play his deadly game of hide-and-seek.

Part of the reason is that while the media gives you the information, it takes away agency. The problem becomes somebody else’s to solve. The viewer is rendered into a passive consumer of events. The media talks, knows, gives orders, decides, judges, notes and punishes. But how can it strengthen the voice of the voiceless and articulate dissent? A whistle blower’s road map to communication needs to be consolidated at ground zero. These attempts can be replaced gradually by sustainable people’s movements in bridging the communication gap between the ‘news manufacturer’ and the ‘news consumer’.

There is a real need to instal a participatory communications system to rebuild society and bring it in touch with real problems and needs. Our silence is a big mistake.