Globalisation and Media--Is Marx finally proving right? | N.R.Mohanty

Published on 26-10-2007 In National

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Globalisation and Media--Is Marx finally proving right?

Nilotpal Basu, the CPI(M) leader, raised some fundamental issues in his column on this platform
('The role of media in the nuclear debate needs to be reviewed') last week (October 19) when he ticked off the media for its dubious role in the Indo-US nuclear debate. Let me quote the relevant extracts to put his argument in perspective: "Is the attitude of the mainstream media, an one off development or is there something more fundamental? In a very well researched paper the Delhi based media watch group Centre for Media Studies(CMS) has come out with startling figures. The study has established that `today advertising and market research in many ways determine the scope of mass media, including journalistic trends'. It is also an interesting coincidence that hundred percent FDI has been permitted in these two fields in the last two years.

"The study also establishes that from the supplementary nature (25 to 30 per cent) the share of advertising in total revenue of media has gone up to 60 to 75 per cent now. In case of television channels this is even larger – 70 to 80 per cent. In case of some big newspapers, advertising revenue is 60 per cent of the total. The size of the advertising market is also huge – Rs. 12,000 crores of which three-fourths are consumed by the mass media. Again, overwhelming bulk of mass media advertisement is accounted for by big corporates both Indian and foreign. There is a major concentration as well with 15 advertisers accounting for three-fourths of such advertising revenue. The advertising agency business is also getting concentrated with top five advertising agencies having major holding from outside the
country. This is a development commensurate with growing entry of foreign brands and increase in the share of foreign corporates.

Mr. Basu, armed with the CMS study, has raised the larger debate – the inter-relationship between Globalisation, Market and the Media. We need to carry the debate forward. Let us first discuss the Globalisation. The simplest explanation of this term is increasing inter-dependence. Mr. Basu is, I suppose, not opposed to the very idea of Globalisation per se, because his basic ideology draws from the Marxist dictum: 'Workers of the world unite!'

Whether one likes it or not, Globalisation is a reality today; even the so-called anti-globalisation groups admit as much. Their only concern is to make Globalisation inclusive, to make it fair and just so that every section of the society benefits from it.

Globalisation is a process that has deeply affected the market and the media-- the two major players in the modern-day world. Mr. Basu must be happy that what Marx had predicted about the capitalist world in the 19th century is at least taking shape today. Marx had said that the inexorable laws of the capitalism would lead to the increasing concentration of the capital in a few hands, raising the spectre of the monopoly capital on the one hand and increasing im-miserisation of a vast majority on the other. That was the ideal setting for a communist revolution, he had said.

It is a different matter that the world history did not unfold according to the Marxist script. But what Marx had said then is largely coming true today, as can be corroborated even by the CMS study that Mr. Basu refers to. The Market today is witness to increasing takeovers and consolidation. If the current trend persists, there will be only a few mega players who will hold the centre-stage in the world market in the coming years.

This brings us to the last, but the most important, segment of the raging debate: the impact of Globalisation and Market on the Media.

In the rapidly changing technological interface that we are witnessing of late, even the definition of the Media is expanding everyday. We will keep it confined to what Marshal McLuhan, who first used the term to denote the institutions of mass communication, meant by it. Mr. Basu's pejorative reference to the media is largely in this context.

The globalization of the media has an amazing effect – it makes information available everywhere and instantaneously. That 500 million people all over the world watched a second plane crashing into the second tower of the World Trade Centre live on television on 9\11, 2001 was a big testimony to the effects of globalization on the media.

The large corporatisation, which is the mainstay of the global market today, has its positive spin-offs for the media sector – economies of scale favour the consumer, in terms of price and quality of products. People get to read multi-section newspapers and watch multi-channel television at a very nominal price.

But the negative fall-out of the process is that media 'products' – like newspapers and news channels – are increasingly being subjected to market rules – the rules of supply and demand with the controlling stake of the advertiser over the media. Some of those who are in the media business would say that they find nothing wrong with it; after all, the saying goes that one who pays the piper calls the tune.

But then there is a fundamental difference between commercial products such as a detergent powder and toothpaste on the one hand and media products such as a newspaper and a news channel on the other. The former have a limited, peripheral role in our life; the latter leave a much deeper influence, as they affect our thought structure, our beliefs and our information base. So we cannot allow the market to take control of our lives.

Then who should control the media? Clearly, it should be the civil society. There are three kinds of mechanism in any given society – it works well if each is confined to its own boundaries. The government must keep a tab on the governing institutions. The private sector (the market) must engage in activities of trade and commerce. But the civil society must have the decisive say in the functioning of the social institutions, of which the media constitute the most crucial component.

Unfortunately, the media has become a commercial proposition, with profit maximization as the guiding spirit. That is why, the market (the private sector) in cahoots with the big guns of the governing institutions are having a controlling stake over it.

Those media players who have refused to play by the market rules, those who have refused to subscribe to the journalistic code devised by the big advertisers have fallen by the wayside. Their circulations and TRP ratings have dipped. So the buzz in the media circle today is – Good journalism does not make good business. If you want to survive, play by the market.

That is the soft option and most have gone for it. But there is a challenging option, which only the brave hearts could embrace – that we need to do good journalism (social journalism, not market journalism) in such an exciting way that it becomes popular and makes good business.

I think, we all need to take comfort from a film like Chak de India, which without the song, dance, romance and melodrama – the staple of formula Hindi cinema – went on to become a box-office hit.

It just needs courage of conviction and plenty of creativity to break the shackles of market-government nexus and bring the civil society to the centre-stage of our life.

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