The contemporary Western media is smart! It practices the prowess of behavioural sciences across its production fleet. Especially with some smart infusions of neuro-linguistic and cognitive behavioural-science-applications, it gained unvanquishable grounds as compared to the rest and ruling the roost ever since – adapting to modern demands while also conforming to the public’s taste buds. The art of grabbing public opinion in the buds, shaping their perspectives as per their agendas has brought them a certain degree of credibility as the consumer passively responds in a controlled incubation set up by the media itself.
However, this was not the case ever!
In the start, the Western media served as a basic news carrier and information handle whereby the masses became effective receptors. Gradually, it evolved into gimmickry and picked up persuasion and framing tools-to morph public opinions into desired narratives. This was short-lived; the viewership extricated off the charming tactics and Yellow prints started losing eyeballs. This happened right after a bleak era of disinformation where, along with many others, one of the fictional stories about an alien invasion broke all hell loose as soon as it was announced on the radio broadcast of War of the World 1938. Not only had that people believed they essentially panicked. The story later came as a mere visual artefact. During the Soviet War, the media became the mouthpiece of respective power resources and influenced consumers for politico-military ends. It ran a bandwagon of cherry-picked narratives and bruited them out as high-value fact-checked sacred one-liners.
Despite Western media heavily relying on Hypodermic Needle models of communication, the degree of acceptance of news items still varies owing to fact-checking practices and intellectual viewership. At the moment, western media symbolizes Libertarian theory which seeks to advocate political freedom, free will, and autonomy and minimize the state’s encroachment on and violations of individual liberties. However, this is partially true. The talk shows, paid campaigns and celluloid look agenda-driven, as they have to keep checks with state ownership and conservation of nationalism.
Over the years, the media think tanks and policymakers have realized that the only way to get public patronage is to offer the public an ownership. This might come in the form of civil and political rights, bodily autonomy, free association, pluralism, cosmopolitanism, cooperation, free trade, freedom of expression etc. This has credited Western media with popularity and credibility.
We all know that media rhetoric influences the masses: individuals, commoners, elites, decision-makers and statesmen, in a way that controls policy-making and regulations. However, it now stands out as the most potent tool to manoeuvre voters’ minds during elections. Apart from the cognition restructuring, the public opinions are formulated as per the nature of the content they consume -the hypodermic needle model. People, irrespective of their cast and creed, speak with free will and therefore freedom of expression is a buzzword with Western media -‘Spiral of Silence.
Unlike the West, Pakistan and India, despite being intellectually polarized societies, offer dense heterogeneity in their respective media consumption. However, on political fronts, they operate on entirely new levels with some common overtones: Pakistan predominantly follows ‘Authoritarianism’ models while rejecting political plurality, whereas the Western media is more susceptible to preserving political stability, reducing the status quo, and reducing feudalism. Indian media, besides being a proclaimed democratic country, operates upon framing and agenda-based algorithms.
Given the fact that Pakistan and India possess strongholds of political juggernauts, mushroom-growing sectarianism, and vicious ethnic groups, the consumption of media is unevenly divided across the length and breadth of the country. This growing peninsula between the comprehension levels of projected content and the value of screen in both countries takes a toll on the sanctity and purposefulness of mass media communication.
The spurt of the information revolution has merged East and West into a global village. Media skeletons being adopted on either side of the globe, east and west, seem tantamount though yet their respective practices are entirely different. The discrepancies between media practices of Western and Subcontinent media models have grown to unrealistic proportions. This is serving as a disparity between the two sides and it is only growing.
Whether India or Pakistan, both of them need to evolve: “The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact.” Rightly put by Neil deGrasse Tyson, “When transition is due, transition is inevitable!”
The writer can be reached at [email protected] and Facebook/mbilal.16