Misrepresentation; The Pandemic Infected Media

"And if all accepted lie which party imposed, if all records told same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth". This is a fact George Orwell reiterated in his last novel "1984", a satirical attack on western left-wing intellectuals, Stalinism, and totalitarianism. It is true, science and technology are developing at a prodigious speed along with the modern and the post-modern concepts of freedom of expression. Also, we are, now, no longer living under the ruthless tyranny of Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot when even the thought of dissention and dissidence brought nothing save death warrant. One of the gravest catastrophes the world ever faced had been the lack of freedom to express whatever it wished to. All means of communication were curbed and censored. Those who endeavored to speak out against injustice and human rights abuses were publicly executed. Those who tried to unveil the truth were ruthlessly slain admonishing the rest not to dare commit that ‘sin’. Nonetheless, under the present social and political structure, much significant is given to the freedom of expression and the media that even the illiterate farmer living in the hamlet holds the most stupendous views on politics, economics, and society. Superficially, the media is seen enjoying the full-length freedom to express, communicate and give out any information it intended. Still, regrettably, what lies pervasive in the entire means of mass communication including newspapers, television, radio, channels, and the rest is the lie. Fabricated lies!!!

The technology has developed in such an extent that the total information about the events occurring in remote deserts of Africa, could be accessed from here in Kerala within moments. The new danger that emerges pervasive in the present form communication and media consumption is misrepresentation. Through the multi forms of under-representation, exclusion, discrimination and bias, this danger is prodigiously suffusing the entire areas of mass communication with no exception. The entire media which were established on the healthy intention and splendid aim of speaking up for the justice representing everyone equality with no prejudice or bias, gradually become merely the sycophants of the authority, corporates, despots, and the like. Representing a certain group or people save others contributed to the unimaginable tensions and thus the obliteration of the stupendous morals and ethics of media. Instead of a media which dares represent everyone equally, what we today have is ‘Captive media’ which is controlled by and adhered to a peculiar organizations, political parties, or other sects. This is true in all means of communication weather it is print media, news media, photography, and cinema. A despicable pandemic infected the entire means of Media!

The effect media might create when it begins to exclusively represent the white supremacists, upper castes or the majority while misrepresenting the black, unprivileged, suppressed, impoverished and the minority, would be quite nefarious. Today, Newspapers, Magazines, television channels, YouTube channels and all other means of mass communication are captive and adhered to certain organizations and political parties. While “Organizer” and “Panchjanya” represent the Hindutva ideologies of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the “National Herald” favors the political visions of Indian national Congress. ‘Sudarshan’ news channel is blatantly excoriated for communal broadcastings and Anti-Muslim fear mongering propagandas. That the Republic tv channel is one of the many that practice biased and opinionated reporting in favor of the ruling Bharathiya Janata Party (BJP) and thus the Hindutva across a wide spectrum, is an undeniable fact. Quite unfortunately, even each of the Malayalam Newspapers in Kerala is funded and controlled by and adhered to peculiar political parties and religious organizations.

While the media representation is circumscribed within a particular group, the Media then becomes the sycophants of them, fabricating the lies, veiling the truth, morphing the facts into myths and myths into facts, adorning even the nefarious crimes as praiseworthy and presenting the most repulsive and loathsome news in the fetching dishes. This form of misrepresentation is contributed to the perennial perpetuation and bolstering of racial apartheid, fascist chauvinism, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, Minority pogroms and the rest. The ‘Islamophobia’ that millions are still using to justify the cold-blooded massacres by the United States of America in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and other Islamic states, is created by this form of misrepresentation. When we announce the world that terror is suffering every nooks and crannies and we find a peculiar group of people to point out our fingers at in blame, we actually are creating a death sentence to those people. One of the worst things the media can do and always did is to fill the gaps in story with assumption and hypotheses that leads to the publication of the incorrect information.

There are too much causes for this outright regrettable situation. The freedom of expression we cater today still remains only in the papers. A particular type of circumscribed freedom is what media enjoys today. They are free to give out the news and broadcast the channels but only in the favor of the authoritative establishments. In a country like Syria, for instance, where the mass genocide of the indigenous dissidents is committed by the government itself, who dares to speak and write for the oppressed or against the tyranny? None, of course. Today, we are civilized but uncivilized, we are developed but impoverished, and we are free but still curbed. As Orwell put it “the world is more primitive today than it was fifty years ago.