Media_-Public_Policy_Interface

1.1 INTRODUCTION “Democracy provides opportunity for effective participation, equality in voting, gaining enlightened understanding, exercising final control (by the people)over the agenda and the inclusion of adults”. The political institutions that are necessary to pursue these goals according to Dahl are: “1)elected officials, 2)free, fair and frequent elections, 3)freedom of expression, 4)alternative source of information,5)associational autonomy, and 6)inclusive citizenship”.(Dahl ,1998, Yale, university press.) Democracy is a form of government where people’s power reign supreme. Democracy and good governance go together. Governance implies exercise of power and decision making for a group of people. A good government tries to promote common good through governance by functioning effectively and efficiently, being accountable to the people. In a democracy, Good Governance is possible both in theory and practice only if the citizens participate in the decision making process (because it is they who make or mar the government). Access to relevant information becomes a prerequisite for effective participation. And this important task is performed by the mass media. In a democracy freedom of expression is one of the important freedoms which every citizen enjoys. It is the media which helps people to enjoy this particular freedom completely, in other words it provides avenues of expression. People articulate their demands, express their grievances, participate in the political process and seek recognition by making use of this freedom through media. Media occupies an important place in the process of good governance .It plays a vital role as a gatekeeper by disseminating critical information to the public .It works for the common good by encouraging the people to participate in the decision making process . It influences the decisions of the legislators and public administrators and evaluates policies and actions of the government. The word ‘media ‘is derived from the Latin word ‘medium’ meaning ‘middle’. It is defined as “an essential element in the process of democratic politics by providing an arena and channel for wide debate, for making candidate for office widely known for distributing diverse information and opinion.”(Eoin Devereux, understanding the media, sage publications, 2005). It refers to those which enable development agent or agencies to reach a large number of persons directly or indirectly with one exposure or a single source. They are the tools or technologies that facilitate the dissemination of information and entertainment to large number of people. The media are of two types viz., electronic media and the print media. Electronic media includes T.V, Radio and Internet (websites, blogs and online videos). Print media includes newspapers, wall newspapers, folders, newsletters, farm journals etc. Mass media have made the world shorter by providing access to all kinds of information from every nook and corner of the world for people. In India, media especially the Print media has had a profound impact on India’s struggle for independence. Before independence its main task was to support the cause of independence and now after independence, it has been playing a significant role in the twin process of nation building and national development. Radio, was widely used during the Second World War. In India after independence, radio was under the control of the central government, which was vigorously used as an instrument of public policy. Radio in particular enjoys primary importance in disseminating the message of moral development. Television came to India in the late 1950’s but did not altogether reach the rural masses as it was confined to the affluent section of society. It reached the masses only in the 1980’s and thus India became a TV society. The development in science and technology radically transformed India’s broadcasting environment with the invention of international satellites. With the onset of globalization, the online media have had a far reaching effect making India the largest software communication centre. The media of today occupies a pre-eminent position than any other time. The new media reaches tens of millions of people within no time. Mukul Sharma country head, Heinrich Boll Foundation, New Delhi says, “It is very much a mixed bag with enormous variations''. According to Ketaki Gupta, "It is almost as if there are several countries within a country”. Success of democracy depends on well informed, participating people which calls for the existence of people oriented media. In other words it has become one of the necessary requisites facilitating the functioning of democracy. Media is one among the many institutions and practices of democratic life and thus it is imperative for media to be informative so as to promote good governance. Media promotes good governance through citizen empowerment, policy initiation and evaluation. It informs the public about all the matters and provides voice to the voiceless. It creates awareness among the people about their rights and makes them duty conscious. It also makes the government responsible towards the people by acting as a mediator between the two. In the context of the Right to Information Act 2005, the space occupied by media has increased. • It educates the people about the RTI Act and • Disseminates right information to the people. For instance: NDTV and other civil society organizations(CSO’S) had launched a nationwide campaign on RTI where they educated people about the RTI and insisted them to demand for the information to find solution to their problems instead of paying bribes. Not only NDTV and CSO’s, Indian express and Dooradarshan also educated the masses about the RTI in a different way. Media is an agent of social change. Through its right of disseminating information, it has transformed the traditional and conservative society to a modern and educated one. By publishing the news which concern the public it acts as a public agenda builder their by affecting the policy making process. It brings to notice those issues, which the government would have otherwise avoided. It is through media that the citizens know about how the policies are made which adversely affect their living and the government gets the feed back of their programmes and policies. The degree of influence differs from one policy to another. It depends upon how important a policy is to a particular section of the society. Policy by which people are more affected has wider media coverage. Thus makes a policy maker to make necessary changes in the policies. In a democracy, media acts as a ‘fourth estate’ of the government .It examines the day to day activities of the government. It acts as the watchdog of democracy by keeping the government on the right track. The media has an extensive role to play especially in the policy making process. Without media intervention many government policies remain unimplemented. In the absence of a clear and a well -defined policy, the government is subject to severe criticism by the media. Policy making is a process which includes a number of actors both official and unofficial like ‘the government’ ,‘the interest groups’, ‘the think tanks’, ‘the media’ etc. The policy making process passes through four stages viz., policy initiation, policy formulation, policy implementation and evaluation. It is an important function of any kind of government. It refers to the various aims and objectives the government set forth’s to achieve the goal of administration. Policies are the necessary condition for a government to be successful. It includes all those that the government wants to achieve to promote the welfare of the people. Through policies the government seeks to meet the demands of its citizens. It embodies certain guidelines of action according to which the superiors and subordinates discharge their duties to reach the goal of the organization. Policies may be made with respect to agriculture, industrial development, transport and communication, women and children etc. the policy making process differs from one governmental setup to another, a number of factors contribute to the policy making process within in a political system. “Policy making process is an extremely analytical and political process to which there is no beginning or end and the boundaries of which are most uncertain”. (Charles .E .Lindblom, 1968) According to Terry “A policy is a verbal, written or implied overall guide setting up boundaries that supply the general limits and direction in which managerial action will take place”. Dimock defines policies as “the consciously acknowledged rules of conduct that guide administrative decisions”. Democracy is a representation of millions by hundreds. These hundreds make assurances to the millions during elections. A unique kind of relationship exists between the media and the government. The freedom of media is constitutionally enshrined; it is expected to follow certain norms of behaviour because it enjoys greater degree of social responsibility. It is a powerful agent of the society that creates informed citizenry. It is answerable not only to the public but also other institutions for its behaviour. However, though media plays a significant role, yet the adverse effects of it can’t be ignored in particular media obscenity, communalism, and one-party considerations and so on. Media’s lack of coverage or over coverage affects adversely the policy process, many policies get aborted in the initial stage never seeing the light of the day and some others are born premature, that affects the lives of people particularly the vulnerable section of society. Therefore a positive and responsible media is a pre requisite for the proper functioning of state. For the media to be positive and responsible there are several constraints like that of independence and its capacity to present the standard reporting. As a result, the government can be a harbinger, providing the capacity building measures to media, by training them to be more effective in its performance, by liberalizing the media laws and by access to the journalists the information regarding the administration of his country. 1.2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE Media occupies a very dominant place in every society whose work is to bring about social and economic transformation and reforms in public service. Media activism is on the increase, thereby keeping a check on the three branches of the government. It identifies the problems with which the people are affected and brings it on the public agenda, thereby initiating the policy and affecting the policy making process. Thus the unofficial policy maker media enters into the official process of policy making However, many writers have come up with serious studies about media and the policy making process. Books, newspaper articles, journals and symposium presentations are being reviewed. Some studies have raised and discussed how the press and the media liberate people from the bondage of distance and isolation and help to bridge the traditional and modern in the society in transition. (K S Padhy and R N Sahu, 1997) Pune tabloid shows how newspapers can empower citizens to address and resolve issues that concern society (Chandana Banerjee, 2009). Some studies have focused on media becoming people centric and assisting women and other marginal sections of the society (Mukul Sharma, 2002). Some studies have focused on how media has empowered women through information and communication technology (Theo Schilderman and Otto Ruskulis, 2007). It scrutinizes the work of the institutions of the state in is often referred to as the extension of the parliament (Vinod Sethi, 1989). Ammu Joseph (2006) writes how even after the centre’s ban on child labour, it is still thriving on the nose of the officials and lack of initiative on the part of the government to eradicate the child labour completely. Media brings substantial amount of information to the large audiences in the form of policies. For the public policy makers, media acts as a microphone (Larry N Gerston, 2009) and policy is the outcome of the political compromise among the policy makers (Charles E Lindblom, 1968) Few writers throw light on the Press council of India, the apex body of print media and discuss the privileges and the specific rights granted to media by the state(G N Ray,2006 ; Kundra S 2005) Finally, Rajashree Dasgupta and Laxmimurthy (2009) speak of the media sensationalisation of the trivial issues and its inaccuracy in presenting the data of facts. To this adds David Watson (1999) suggesting the capacity building measures for the effective functioning of the media. Thus, from the above readings the following inferences can be drawn. Media penetrates in all walks of life of the people proving to be a helping hand and at the same time, there is an all round erosion of media values which is evident by the publication of spicy news as the issue of national importance. It is clear from above that there are many studies on media and policy making but there is hardly any material on the role of media and policy making in Karnataka. So far no comprehensive and systematic study has been made. Here lies the importance of the study.