Political Economy of Media and it's impact on Media Discourse - Post 1991

With the liberalization of the Indian economy, a number of new players have entered the media sector. Although the intervention of the machineries of the state apparatus, has relatively reduced yet the interests of the Corporate houses have managed to replace it. In a world where TRP's are more important as compared to journalistic ethics, the media houses are bound to fall prey to the factors that influence the media, most importantly the political economy of the respective media houses.

The flow of money and political will influences, to a great extent, the discourse generated in the media. It is obvious that, owing to these factors, a particular media organization is bound to have political affiliations. It is a very well known fact that western media organizations such as CNN and BBC work towards promoting the ideologies of the West - be it western cultural intricacies or the free-market agenda of the Bretten wood institutions.

For instance the coverage of the US+allied effort against the ISIS is depicted in a very different way as compared to what a channel like Al Jazeera portrays. It is very interesting to note that - while the ISIL (parent organization of the ISIS) was fighting against the Assad regime in Syria, with the help of US+allies - they were not regarded as terrorists. They were regarded as rebels who were fighting against the Assad regime and this was all in the backdrop of the age old Sunni-Shiate conflict - the very angle that Al Jazeera had covered. Now the question that arises here is -

Isn't Journalism supposed to be unbiased? Isn't it important for media organizations to not take a stand?

Coming closer, talking about the Indian context, the recent debate of Dissent v/s Freedom of Expression, that shook up the entire country, at JNU, is a very important example. While Zee News was evidently supporting the Ideological State Apparatus, in this case, the BJP Government, Ravish Kumar - an eminent journalist from NDTV started a crusade against the BJP led Government in support of an enhanced Freedom of Expression, where dissent is not seen as sedition. (For reference please refer to the judgement of Balwanth Singh v/s State of Punjab - why sloganeering cannot amount to sedition)

The media organizations had in fact managed to polarize the masses to such an extent that both the parties, with their conflicting ideologies, started lambasting the other with widespread abuse, extending to social media as well as violence on the accused - the case of lawyers beating up Kanhaiya Kumar. Social Media also went ludicrous with hashtags like #shutdownJNU, #saveJNU, #bhakhtlogic etc. widely trending on twitter.

Now, the issue of sedition v/s Freedom of Expression is not our concern here but the widespread polarization that the respective media discourses created, is our cause of concern. The media organizations displayed a total lack of sensitivity while handling such a volatile issue.

While the so called unbiased media should have made efforts to construe a constructive debate out of the incident, they managed to further polarize the masses making the situation spin out of control.

The political economy of media and it's impact on the media discourse is further understood by the lack of coverage of the bad corporate loans by the likes of Adani, even after the 9000 crore loss through Vijay Mallya. Adani has a loan of 72,000 crores and a lack of coverage of such huge loans to any corporation further establishes the fact that the media houses are nothing but pawns at the hands of the ruling power elite (C J Mills) who use it from time to time to manufacture consent (Chomsky, 1988) among the masses to adhere to the dominant paradigm.