Power without Responsibility
Media is often considered fourth pillar of a state. It is commonly believed that it has to work as a watchdog for all those vulnerable and marginalised communities whom every state is constitutionally and morally responsible to listen to, cater to and help them live a decent life. But is that happening? The resounding NO we can hear from the communities is a cause of, both, concern and action. When a watchdog gets compromised, especially the one who has become trigger happy and part of daily life of people, the concern is genuine and needs our immediate and focused attention.
Training, capacity buildings, policy dialogues and what not has been used in the recent years to bring the media towards its stated role of educate, inform, entertain and build opinions independently of any influence. But the fact remains that commercially driven media houses are more interested in doing all these things to build opinions for their own ends. Result is we can see pro-this and pro-that kind of media hence the status quo remains intact.
There is no denying the fact that visual impact is having far more impact on its viewers than the print world or even the airwaves of radio used to have. Blog sphere has also emerged in the recent past to counter the influence of visual masters (TV Houses) but its limitation in developing or under developed countries is not having as huge an impact as is needed to counter the visual impact of TV and media houses. Available ICT platforms like Vimeo, Youtube, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and what not are there but still the TV's agenda setting role controls the public sphere.
Obviously, someone has to fill the empty public sphere and media with a Mic is doing that. So whats the fuss all about? That's the question, I often hear when i try to explain the agenda setting role of media houses in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Kenya and other countries like these developing democracies.
As I have mentioned the watchdog's concept above, just imagine that when the watchdog can be bought by the powerful elite to ensure that status quo of power remains tilted towards them. Be it budget formation, education, access to information, health or other fundamental rights of the people, it should be given a spin to ensure that public sphere should remain cloudy, dusty and dirty to let the ruling elite continue with corruption and incompetence.
Now what can we do, we need to develop platforms where public sphere can be snatched back from aides and abettors of power elites so that real people can develop a trust within themselves and their communities that "YES They will be heard, noticed and their voices will bring a change."
How we can do that needs a vision, a mission and a passion. Of course we can do it and believe me it will be such a contributing factor which may not earn anything for any organisation but credibility, enabling environment for all our aims and goals and a room where ultimately the policy makers will refer to for amending their practices, policies and power relationship with real people/communities.
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