Media-today and the day before

             It dates long back when the only means of communication were words in different forms embedded in different manuscripts, distributed among the mass. Society grew with media. Right from the pre-historic periods when fire, beacons, smoke signals, drums and horns were predominant to the advent of mail, pigeon post, semaphores and heliographs saw an abrupt change in the science and technology arena of society. In the later stages Graham Bell made it possible to introduce Telephone, the second means of electrical communication after the Electrical telegraph. But the world does not only run on science; commercialization is its staple food. Renaissance period rocked the world with revolutions. The world was soon to be captivated into the hands of capitalists. This led to the first commercial radio-telephone service by U.S. After that whatever happened is crystal clear to all the people.

Now, the term is no longer inclusive of mere words, but its spectrum has expanded taking into account the fasting moving world into electronics. Android applications and many others can let you read all the newspapers even before they are published. Social networking sites have rocked the information industry since the advent of electronic media. Some people have taken a good advantage of it and some are deep into the ditch of misuse.

Today we have all the telecommunication facilities but when it comes to avail them, the world has been split into two parts, one part is comprised of ignorant people who don’t know anything in the world because the media has thrown them into the world of fantasies and the other part is too conscious about the current affairs such that societal forces such as theological views have become irrational for them because again the media has made them to do so. The world runs on sentiments of the people and when it comes to sentiments, religion is what matters. Communal riots, terrorism and killings are more prominent even though we have stepped into an era of high technology. Why is it still prevailing- because the media has made it so. This has given rise to third category that is the so called capitalists who take advantage of both the above types. This shows the dark picture of media on society.

So it can be said that the present day media has so impacted on society that people have become intelligent to manipulate its very existence for their benefit. Man has made media miserable for man. The 20^th century has witnessed rapid growth in current affairs. One can easily get the data about it on websites. But today this media has become a tool of capitalists. The society no longer relies on media as a means of information broadcast but rather it has started to use it to create fake publicity. Various local channels as well as newspapers are no where behind. One can see more advertisements than day-to-day happenings in local daily. The political parties threaten news channels against publishing anything against them. Recently we came to know that Facebook has bought WhatsApp for $16 billion, increasing its monopoly over social networking sites. So this shows how media has become a medium for money-making.

Another greater impact that media has gifted to the society is its range of simplicity. As mentioned earlier, everything under the sun has been covered by the media. As a result people have become lazier as their hunt for knowledge has died out. Everything is now spoon-fed by the media. Being an engineering student I can say that today whatever I have written is just a mere search of few surface things from websites. But if someone asks me about the depth of the subject then I am clueless because the media has made me to know only the gist of the topic. The modern society has become too much dependent on media. One may never find another Socrates or Einstein who can question or reason over things in a crowd of people who take things for granted.

Well this was just one face of the coin; the other face speaks the good things that media has gifted us. On a sociological level I must say I am blessed by media because through social networking sites I got many of my friends back, came to know about many competitive exams and also the medium to prepare for them. “Google it!!!!” is a term that I use more than any other word in a day. I have an entire “Offline Wikipedia” installed in my laptop; entire world in my hands. I get to know about the current affairs of the world, new technologies and of course through entertainment (through films, serials etc) which replenishes my life, every now and then. This is what a modern man would say if he is asked about the impact of media.

Concluding it, I can say that media has shaped the modern man. But the modern day man is one step ahead, so misuse is obvious. As a matter of fact it is predisposal to adopt means not to exploit media, rather make use of it in a greater good fashion such that there always exist an unending predilection towards it.  As Pierre Boulez (French composer, conductor, writer, and pianist) had once said

            “Revolutions are celebrated when they are no longer dangerous “