Jagannath Institute of Management Sciences

Jagannath Institute of Management Sciences BMC IV Sem Global Social and Environmental Media [

UNIT 1- GLOBAL MEDIA a)Global Media Concept b)Origin and Present Situation c)Types of Media d)Global Broadcasting

UNIT – 4

ENIVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION

Definition, Nature and Scope,

Need of Environmental Communication

Ecology and Society

Need of public Education through media

Stories about the environment surround us daily—on CNN or the Daily Show or the award-winning blog Dot Earth (http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com). We find in-depth environmental news in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times as well as at online sites or RSS feeds from the Environment News Network (www.enn

.com) or Real Climate (www.realclimate.org). Our ideas about nature are influenced when we watch popular movies such as Avatar, and the list goes on.

This describes environmental communication as a multidisciplinary field of study and a practice or mode of influence in daily life in the media, in business and government affairs, and in civic life. Environmental communication describes the many ways and the forums in which citizens, corporations, public officials, journal-ists, and environmental groups raise concerns and attempt to influence the impor-tant decisions that affect our planet. They and others realize that our understanding of nature and our actions toward the environment depend not only on science but on public debate, media, the Internet, and even ordinary conversations.

The Field of Environmental Communication

Along with the growth of environmental studies, educational and professional opportunities that stress the role of human communication in environmental affairs also have emerged. On many college campuses, environmental communication courses study a range of related topics: environmental news media, methods of public participation in environmental decisions, environmental rhetoric, risk communication, environmental conflict resolution, advocacy campaigns, “green” marketing, and images of nature in popular culture. And, a growing number of scholars in communication, journalism, literature, science communication, and the social sciences are pioneering research in the role and influence of environmental communication in the public sphere.

Finally, on a practical level, the study of environmental communication helps to prepare you to enter many professions in which communication is central to an entity’s involvement in environmental affairs. Indeed, some predict that, like the Internet, “the green economy will create a massive new set of opportunities” for pro-fessionals in new technologies as well as businesses (Martini & Reed, 2010, p. 74). For example, businesses, government agencies, law firms, public relations (PR) firms, and nonprofit environmental groups employ consultants or staff in environmental com-munication. As one firm noted, “Environmental communications professionals are working in every sector of the economy. . . . The field is becoming more and more important as the stakes have become greater . . . and the tools for communicating become more diverse”

Growth of the Field

Communication scholar Susan Senecah (2007) has observed, “Fields of inquiry do not simply happen by wishing them into existence. The field of [environmental communication] is no different” (p. 22). In the United States, the field grew out of the work of a diverse group of communication scholars, many of whom used the tools of rhetorical criticism to study conflicts over wilderness, forests, farmlands, and endan-gered species as well as the rhetoric of environmental groups (Cox, 1982; Lange, 1990, 1993; Moore, 1993; Oravec, 1981, 1984; Peterson, 1986; Short, 1991). Christine Oravec’s 1981 study of the “sublime” in John Muir’s appeals to preserve Yosemite Valley in the 19th century is considered by many to be the start of scholarship in what would become the field of environmental communication.

At the same time, the subjects that such scholars studied widened to include the roles of science, media, and industry in responding to threats to human health and environmental quality. Early studies investigated issues such as industry’s use of PR and mass- circulation magazines to construct “ecological” images (Brown & Crable, 1973; Greenberg, Sandman, Sachsman, & Salamone, 1989; Grunig, 1989); the nuclear power industry’s response to dramatic accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl (Farrell & Goodnight, 1981; Luke, 1987); and risk communication in conveying the dangers of recombinant DNA experiments (Waddell, 1990). Scholars in the fields of journalism and mass communication began a systematic study of the influence of media depictions of the environment on public attitudes (Anderson, 1997; Shanahan & McComas, 1999, pp. 26– 27). In fact, the study of environmental media has grown so rapidly that many now consider it a distinct subfield, and journalists practicing in this area formed the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ, sej.org).

By the 1990s, a biennial Conference on Communication and Environment began to attract scholars from a range of academic disciplines in the United States and other nations. Also, a new Environmental Communication Network and web-site were launched to provide online resources for scholars, teachers, students, and practitioners. And, new journals in communication and environmental topics have begun to appear, including Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture.

In 2011, scholars and practitioners established the International Environmental Communication Association (http://environmentalcomm.org) to coordinate research and activities worldwide. Interest has grown not only in the United States, but Europe, particularly, has seen “ample signs that environmental communication has grown substantially as a field” (Carvalho, 2009, para. 1). Professional associations linking communication or media with environmental topics now exist in China, Southeast Asia, India, Russia, and Latin America. The Environmental Communication Network of Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, offers support for envi-ronmental reporters in fifteen countries in the regions. (For a list of some of these associations and journals, see “FYI: Professional Associations and Journals in Environmental Communication.”)

The sheer range of subjects makes defining the field of environmental communi-cation somewhat difficult. For example, environmental communication scholar Steve Depoe (1997) earlier defined the field as the study of the “relationships between our talk and our experiences of our natural surroundings” (p. 368). Yet, Depoe cautioned that the field is more than simply “talk” about the environment. Let’s look at some of the areas that such scholars study.

Areas of Study

Although the study of environmental communication covers a wide range of topics, most research and the practice of communication fall into one of seven areas. I explore many of these areas more in later chapters. For now, I’ll briefly identify the kinds of concerns that environmental communication scholars currently are studying.

1. Environmental rhetoric and the social–symbolic “construction” of nature. Studies of the rhetoric of environmental organizations and campaigns emerged as an early focus of the new field. Along with the related interest in how our language helps to construct or represent nature to us, this is one of the broadest areas of study.

Studies of the persuasion of groups and individuals have given us rich insights into a wide range of practices aimed at influencing the public’s views about the environ-ment. For example, Marafiote (2008) has described the ways in which environmental groups reshaped the idea of wilderness to win passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act; and Brian Cozen (2010) has examined the images of food in advertising by corporations such as Shell and Chevron, concluding that food images help to “naturalize” the energy industry’s “essential role in supplying substance to bodies” (p. 355).

Relatedly, studies of language and other symbolic forms have allowed scholars to probe the constitutive power of communication to shape our ideas and the meanings of nature and the environment that it invites. For example, scholars have studied Earth First! activists’ questioning of the ideology of progress (Cooper, 1996) and, more recently, challenged the assumptions behind popular documentary films. DeLuca (2010), for example, ques-tions Ken Burns’ film The National Parks: America’s Best Idea for its treatment of wilder-ness “as an historic relic and vacation spot . . . [sapping] it of its vital relevance and political power” (p. 484). (I’ll explore this area more in Chapters 2–3.)

2. Public participation in environmental decision making. The National Research Council has found that, “when done well, public participation improves the quality and legitimacy of a decision and . . . can lead to better results in terms of environ-mental quality” (Dietz & Stern, 2008). Still, in many cases, barriers prevent the mean-ingful involvement of citizens in decisions affecting their communities or the natural environment. As a result, a number of scholars have scrutinized government agencies in the United States and other nations to identify both the opportunities for—and barriers to —the participation of ordinary citizens, as well as environmentalists and scientists, in an agency’s decision making.

Environmental communication scholars’ work in this area has ranged from the study of citizens’ comments on national forest management plans (Walker, 2004), public access to information about pollution in local communities (Beierle & Cayford, 2002), obstacles to meaningful public dialogue with the Department of Energy over the cleanup of nuclear weapons waste (Hamilton, 2008), and ways that public involve-ment in a hydropower (dam) project in India was compromised by communication practices that denied citizens access to information and privileged technical discourse (Martin, 2007). (We take up the study of public participation in Chapter 4.)

3. Environmental collaboration and conflict resolution. Dissatisfaction with some of the adversarial forms of public participation has led practitioners and scholars to explore alternative models of resolving environmental conflicts. They draw inspira-tion from the successes of local communities that have discovered ways to bring disputing parties together. For instance, groups that had been in conflict for years over logging in Canada’s coastal Great Bear Rainforest reached agreement recently to protect 5 million forest acres (Armstrong, 2009).

At the center of these modes of conflict resolution is the ideal of collaboration, a mode of communication that invites stakeholders to engage in problem-solving discus-sion rather than advocacy and debate. Collaboration is characterized as “constructive,open, civil communication, generally as dialogue; a focus on the future; an emphasis on learning; and some degree of power sharing and levelling of the playing field” (Walker, 2004, p. 123). (I describe collaboration further in Chapter 5.)

4. Media and environmental journalism. In many ways, the study of environ-mental media has become its own subfield. The diverse research in this area focuses on ways in which the news, advertising, and commercial programs portray nature and environmental problems as well as the effects of different media on public attitudes. Subjects include the agenda-setting role of news media, that is, its ability to influence which issues audiences think about; journalist values of objectivity and balance in reporting; and media framing or the way that the packaging of news influences readers’ or viewers’ sense-making and evokes certain perceptions and values.

Studies in environmental media are also beginning to explore online news and the role of social media in engaging environmental concerns. These range widely, from an analysis of Facebook profiles created by environmental advocacy groups (Bortree & Seltzer, 2009) to studies of postnetwork television such as TreeHugger.com, a “col-lection of online videos that explores how to create, consume, and live in environ-mentally friendly ways” (Slawter, 2008).

5. Representations of nature in corporate advertising and popular culture. The use of nature images in film, television, photography, music, and commercial advertis-ing is hardly new or surprising. What is new is the growing number of studies of how such popular culture images influence our attitudes or perceptions of nature and the environment. Scholars explore such questions by examining a range of cul-tural products —film (Retzinger, 2002, 2008); green advertising (Henry, 2010); Hallmark greeting cards, SUV ads, and supermarket tabloids (Meister & Japp, 2002); and wildlife films and nature documentaries (Hansen, 2010). For example, Brereton (2005) has traced the evolution of images of nature in science fiction, Westerns, nature, and road movies from the 1950s to the present, including films like Emerald Forest, Jurassic Park, Easy Rider, Thelma and Louise, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Blade Runner.

Scholars in cultural studies also are mapping some of the ways in which images in popular media sustain attitudes of dominance and exploitation of the natural world. For example, a special issue of Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture examined the idea of food in modern society, where food is “the thin end of environmental awareness—a site where fundamental questions can . . . be asked, questions that . . . lead to challenging re-conceptions of our environments, our soci-eties, and ourselves” (Opel, Johnston, & Wilk, 2010, p. 251). (I look at the role of green advertising in Chapter 10.)

6. Advocacy campaigns and message construction. A growing area of study is the use of public education and advocacy campaigns by environmental groups, corpora-tions, and by climate scientists concerned about global warming. Sometimes called social marketing, these campaigns attempt to educate, change attitudes, and mobilize support for a specific course of action. They range from mobilizing the public to protect a wilderness area, convincing the U.S. Congress to raise the fuel efficiency of cars and SUVs, and influencing public attitudes about coal (e.g., “clean coal” TV ads) to corporate accountability campaigns to persuade businesses to abide by strict envi-ronmental standards, for example, convincing building supply stores to buy lumber that comes only from sustainable forests.

Scholars have used a range of approaches in the study of advocacy campaigns. For example, a growing number of communication scholars, scientists, and others are now studying the challenge of communicating the risks from climate change to the public as well as barriers to the public’s sense of urgency (Moser & Dilling, 2007). A pivot concern in such studies is the effectiveness of different messages or basic fram-ings in conveying the urgency of climate change

7. Science and risk communication. Do signs announcing a beach is closed and warning that the water is unsafe adequately inform the public of the risk of water pollution? Did federal regulators ignore warnings about the risks from deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico? How can science educators communicate the risks of climate change more clearly to a public worried about the economy or jobs? These questions illustrate a growing interest in public health and science communication—the study of environmental risks and communication about them to affected audiences.

Risk communication encompasses a range of practices—public education cam-paigns about the risks from eating fish with high levels of mercury; risk communica-tion plans for use after a potential biological attack that unleashes the plague (Casman & Fischhoff, 2008); or guides for scientists, journalists, and educators for communicating about climate change created by the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University (2009) are just a few examples.

Since the late 1980s, scholars also have begun to look at the impact of cultural understandings of risk and the public’s judgment of the acceptability of a risk (Plough & Krimsky, 1987). For example, risk communication scholar Jennifer Hamilton (2003) found that sensitivity to cultural—as opposed to technical— understandings of risk influenced whether the residents living near the polluted Fernald nuclear weapons facility in Ohio accepted or rejected certain methods of cleanup at the site

Defining Environmental Communication

With such a diverse range of topics, the field can appear at first glance to be confus-ing. If we define environmental communication as simply talk or the transmission of information about the wide universe of environmental topics—whether it’s global warming or grizzly bear habitat—our definitions will be as varied as the topics for discussion.

A clearer definition takes into account the distinctive roles of language, art, pho-tographs, street protests, and even scientific reports as different forms of symbolic action. This term comes from Kenneth Burke (1966), a rhetorical theorist. In his book Language as Symbolic Action, Burke stated that even the most unemotional language is necessarily persuasive. This is so because our language and other symbolic acts do something as well as say something.

The view of communication as a form of symbolic action might be clearer if we contrast it with an earlier view, the Shannon–Weaver model of communication.

Shortly after World War II, Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver (1949) proposed a model that defined human communication as simply the transmission of informa-tion from a source to a receiver. There was little effort in this model to account for meaning or for the ways in which communication acts on, or shapes, our awareness. Unlike the Shannon–Weaver model, symbolic action assumes that language and symbols do more than transmit information: They actively shape our understand-ing, create meaning, and orient us to a wider world. Burke (1966) went so far as to claim that “much that we take as observations about ‘reality’ may be but the spinning out of possibilities implicit in our particular choice of terms.

If we focus on symbolic action, then we can offer a richer definition. In this book, I use the phrase environmental communication to mean the pragmatic and consti-tutive vehicle for our understanding of the environment as well as our relationships to the natural world; it is the symbolic medium that we use in constructing environ-mental problems and in negotiating society’s different responses to them. Defined this way, environmental communication serves two different functions:

1. Environmental communication is pragmatic. It educates, alerts, persuades, and helps us to solve environmental problems. It is this instrumental sense of communi-cation that probably occurs to us initially. It is the vehicle or means which we use in problem solving and is often part of public education campaigns. For example, a pragmatic function of communication occurs when an environmental group edu-cates its supporters and rallies support for protecting a wilderness area or when the electric utility industry attempts to change public perceptions of coal by buying TV ads promoting “clean coal” as an energy source.

2. Environmental communication is constitutive. Embedded within the pragmatic role of language and other forms of symbolic action is a subtler level. By constitutive, I mean that our communication about nature also helps us construct or compose representations of nature and environmental problems as subjects for our under-standing. Such communication invites a particular perspective, evokes certain values (and not others), and thus creates conscious referents for our attention and under-standing. For example, different images or constructions of nature may invite us to perceive forests and rivers as natural resources for use or exploitation, or as vital life support systems (something to protect). While a campaign to protect a wilderness area uses pragmatic communication for planning a press conference, at the same time, it may invoke language that taps into cultural constructions of a pristine or unspoiled nature.

Communication as constitutive also assists us in defining certain subjects as problems. For example, when climate scientists call our attention to tipping points, they are naming thresholds beyond which warming “could trigger a runaway thaw of Greenland’s ice sheet and other abrupt shifts such as a dieback of the Amazon rainforest” (Doyle, 2008). Such communication orients our consciousness of the possibility of an abrupt shift in climate and its effects; it therefore constitutes, or raises, this possibility as a subject for our understanding. Finally, in seeing some-thing as a problem, such communication also associates particular values with these problems—health and well-being, caring, economic prosperity, and so forth

Communication in Messages About Climate Change

Examples of communication about climate change occur daily in news media, websites, blogs, TV ads, and other sources. Select one of these messages about climate change that particularly interests you. It might be, for example, news reports about a new scientific study of rising sea levels or acidification of oceans, a YouTube video about the impacts of global warming on the Arctic, or a TV ad about coal as a form of “clean energy.”

The message or image you’ve chosen undoubtedly uses both pragmatic and constitutive functions of communication; that is, it may educate, alert, or persuade while also subtly creating meaning and orienting your consciousness to a wider world. After reflecting on this message, answer these questions:

1. What pragmatic function does this communication serve? Who is its intended audi-ence? What is it trying to persuade this audience to think or do? How?

2. Does this message draw on constitutive functions, as well, in its use of certain words or images? How do these words or images create referents for our attention and understanding, invite a particular perspective, evoke values, or orient us to the exter-nal world? And, how do these representations of nature or the environment affect our response to this ad?

Environmental communication as a pragmatic and constitutive vehicle serves as the framework for the chapters in this book and builds on the three core principles:

1. Human communication is a form of symbolic action.

2. Our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors relating to nature and environmental problems are mediated or influenced by communication.

3. The public sphere emerges as a discursive space in which diverse voices engage the attention of others about environmental concerns.

These principles obviously overlap (see Figure 1.2). As I’ve noted, our communica-tion (as symbolic action) actively shapes our perceptions when we see the natural world through myriad symbols, words, images, or narratives. And, when we communicate publicly with others, we share these understandings and invite reactions to our views.

Nature, Communication, and the Public Sphere

Let’s explore the three principles that organize the chapters in this book. I’ll introduce and illustrate these briefly here and then draw on them in each of the remaining chapters.

Human Communication as Symbolic Action

Earlier, we defined environmental communication as a form of symbolic action. Our language and other symbolic acts do something. They actively shape our understanding,

create meaning, and orient us to a wider world. Films, online sites and social media, photographs, popular magazines, and other forms of human symbolic behavior act upon us. They invite us to view the world this way rather than that way to affirm these values and not those. Our stories and words warn us, but they also invite us to celebrate.

And, language that invites us to celebrate also leads to real-world outcomes. Consider the American gray wolf. In late 2008, a federal judge restored protection to wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains under the nation’s Endangered Species Act (ESA) (Brown, 2008). But, it was not always this way. Wolves had become almost extinct until the federal government initiated a restoration plan in the mid-1990s.

In 1995, former Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt delivered a speech celebrating the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park. Earlier that year, he had carried the first American gray wolf into the transition area in the national park where she would mate with other wolves also being returned. After setting her down, Babbitt recalled, “I looked . . . into the green eyes of this magnificent creature, within this spectacular landscape, and was profoundly moved by the elevating nature of America’s conserva-tion laws: laws with the power to make creation whole” (para. 3).

Babbitt’s purpose in speaking that day was to support the beleaguered ESA, under attack in the Congress at the time. In recalling the biblical story of the flood, Babbitt evoked a powerful narrative for revaluing wolves and other endangered species. In retelling this ancient story to his listeners at Yellowstone, he invited them to embrace a similar ethic in the present day:

And when the waters receded, and the dove flew off to dry land, God set all the crea-tures free, commanding them to multiply upon the earth.

Then, in the words of the covenant with Noah, “when the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between me and all living things on earth.”

Thus we are instructed that this everlasting covenant was made to protect the whole of creation. . . . We are living between the flood and the rainbow: between the threats to creation on the one side and God’s covenant to protect life on the other. Because communication provides us with a means of sense making about the world, it orients us toward events, people, wildlife, and choices that we encounter. And, because different individuals (and generations) value nature in different ways, we find our voices to be part of a conversation about which meaning of nature is the best or the most useful. Secretary Babbitt invoked an ancient story of survival to invite the American public to appreciate anew the ESA. So, too, our own communica-tion mediates or helps us to make sense of the different narratives, ideologies, and appeals that people use to define what they believe is right, feasible, ethical, or just common sense.

It may seem odd to place “nature” in quotation marks. The natural world definitely exists: Forests are logged or left standing; streams may be polluted or clean; and large glaciers in Antarctica are calving into the Southern ocean. So, what’s going on? As one of my students asked me, “What does communication have to do with nature or the study of environmental problems?” My answer to her question takes us into the heart of this book.

Simply put, whatever else nature and the environment may be, they are entangled with our very human ways of interacting with, and knowing, the natural world. At a very basic level, our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors toward nature are mediated by human modes of representation—by our language, television, film, photos, art, and contemplation (Cox, 2007, p. 12). Mediating is another way of saying that the acts of pointing to and naming something in the world are our means for recognizing and understanding it. As Tema Milstein (2011) explains, “Pointing and naming generate certain kinds of ecocultural knowledge that constitute aspects of nature as consid-ered, unique, sorted, or marked” (p. 4).

When we name the natural world, we also orient ourselves in this world. We become located or interested in it; we have a view onto this world. As Christine Oravec (2004) observed in her essay on Utah’s Cedar Breaks National Monument, this act of naming is not only a mode by which we socially construct and know the natural world, but it orients us and thus “influences our interaction with it” (p. 3). For instance, is wilderness a place of primeval beauty, or is it a territory that is dark, dangerous, and alien to humans? Early settlers in New England viewed North American forests as forbidding and dangerous. The Puritan writer Michael Wigglesworth named or described the region as

A waste and howling wilderness,

Where none inhabited

But hellish fiends, and brutish men

That Devils worshiped. (quoted in Nash, 2001, p. 36)

As a result of these different orientations to the natural world, writers, scientists, business leaders, citizens, poets, and conservationists have fought for centuries over whether forests should be logged, rivers dammed, air quality regulated, and endan-gered species protected.

Consider the weather (and climate): The last two winters in the United States and Europe have been harsh, with record cold temperatures and blizzards. As I write, in winter 2011, another snowstorm is pounding the Midwest in the United States. As you might image, the search for the cause of such cold weather invites caustic remarks, such as “Where’s that global warming?” as well as competing narratives about climate change from skeptics and climate scientists. Conservative FOX TV commentator Glenn Beck (2011), for example, quipped, “Um . . . if the globe is warm-ing why is my car buried under all this snow?” (para. 1). On the other hand, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists offered this interpreta-tion: The winds that normally circle the North Pole (the Polar Vortex) act as a fence keeping cold air in; however, when “this circle of winds . . . breaks down, cold air spills south,” while warmer air rushes in (Schoop, 2011). (I suspect many of you also encounter very different views about weather and its relation to global warming!)

For those enduring frigid winters, Glenn Beck’s sarcasm makes “common sense.” For some, it is counterintuitive to believe the Earth is warming when they can see and experience cold weather personally. Yet, climate scientists insist such localized weather does not contradict research that, globally, the Earth is continuing to warm. While parts of the United States and Europe were shivering, for example, northeast-ern Canada and Greenland were experiencing 15 F° to 20 F° warmer temperatures than normal (Gillis, 2011). And, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists concluded that 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest year, and 2001–2010 as the warmest decade since measurements began in 1880 (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2011).

In their own way, commentators like Beck and climate scientists are offering their construction or view of complex, atmospheric systems, that is, the weather and what it means. And, depending on which view we adopt in our own sense-making about climate change, we will have differing beliefs and will be likely to act in different ways. This is what I meant earlier in saying that our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors relating to nature are mediated by communication.

My point is that, although nature invites different responses from us, it is, in itself, politically silent. Ultimately, it is we—through our symbolic actions—who invest its seasons and species with meaning and value. Similarly, some problems become problems only when someone identifies a threat to important values we hold. Decisions to preserve habitat for endangered species or impose regulations on greenhouse gases seldom result from scientific study alone. Instead, our decisions to take action arise from a crucible of debate and (often) controversy in the wider public sphere.

Public Sphere as Discursive Space

A third theme central to this book is the idea of the public sphere or, more accurately, public spheres. Earlier, I defined the public sphere as the realm of influence that is created when individuals engage others in communication—through conversation, argument, debate, or questioning—about subjects of shared concern or topics that affect a wider community. The public comes into being in our everyday conversations as well as in more formal interactions when we talk about the environment. And, the public sphere is not just words: Visual and nonverbal symbolic actions, such as marches, banners, YouTube videos, photographs, and Earth First! tree sits, also have prompted debate and questioning of environmental policy as readily as editorials, speeches, and TV newscasts.

The German social theorist Jürgen Habermas (1974) offered a similar definition when he observed that “a portion of the public sphere comes into being in every conversation in which private individuals assemble to form a public body” (p. 49). As we engage others in conversation, questioning, or debate, we translate our private concerns into public matters and thus create spheres of influence that affect how we and others view the environment and our relation to it. Such translations of private concerns into public matters occur in a range of forums and practices that give rise to something akin to an environmental public sphere—from a talk at a local ecology club to a scientist’s testimony before a congressional committee. In public hearings, newspaper editorials, online alerts, speeches at rallies, street festivals, and countless other occasions in which we engage others in conversation, debate, or other forms of symbolic actions, the public sphere emerges as a potential sphere of influence.

But, private concerns are not always translated into public action, and technical information about the environment may remain in scientific journals, proprietary files of corporations, or other private sources. Therefore, it is important to note that two other spheres of influence exist parallel to the public sphere. Communication scholar Thomas Goodnight (1982) named these areas of influence the personal and technical spheres. For example, two strangers arguing at an airport bar is a relatively private affair, whereas the technical findings of biology that influenced Rachael Carson’s (1962) discussion of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) in Silent Spring were originally limited to technical journals. Yet Carson’s book presented this scientific information in a context that engaged the attention—and debate—of millions of readers and scores of public officials. In doing this, Silent Spring gave rise to a sphere of influence as she translated technical matters into subjects of public interest.

Goodnight cautioned that, in contemporary society, information needed for judg-ments about the environment and other technical subjects may cause both private and public conversations to defer to scientific or technical authority. The danger in such situations obviously is that the public sphere can decline. It can lose its relevance as a sphere of influence that exists in a democracy to mediate among differing viewpoints and interests. Goodnight (1982) himself feared that “the public sphere is being steadily eroded by the elevation of the personal and technical groundings of argument” (p. 223).

The idea of the public sphere itself is often misunderstood. Three common mis- conceptions occur about it. These are the beliefs that the public sphere is (a) only an official site or forum for government decision making, (b) a monolithic or ideal collection of all citizens, and (c) a form of “rational” or technical communication. Each of these ideas is a misunderstanding of the public sphere.

First, the public sphere is not only, or even primarily, an official space. Although there are forums and state-sponsored spaces such as public hearings that invite citizens to communicate about the environment, these official sites do not exhaust the public sphere. In fact, discussion and debate about environmental concerns more often occur outside of government meeting rooms and courts. The early fifth-century (BCE) Greeks called these meeting spaces of everyday life agoras, the public squares or marketplaces where citizens gathered to exchange ideas about the life of their community. At the dawn of one of the first experiments in democracy, Greek citizens believed they needed certain skills to voice their concerns publicly and influence the judgment of others, skills they called the art of rhetoric. (I return to this background in Chapter 3.)

Second, the public sphere is neither monolithic nor a uniform assemblage of all citizens in the abstract. As the realm of influence that is created when individuals engage others discursively, a public sphere assumes concrete and local forms: They include calls to talk radio programs, blogs, letters to the editor of newspapers, or local meetings where citizens question public officials, for example, about risks to their health from contaminated well water. As Habermas (1974) might remind us, the public sphere comes into existence whenever individuals share, question, argue, mourn, or celebrate with others about their shared concerns.

Third, far from elite conversation or “rational” forms of communication, the pub-lic sphere is most often the arena in which popular, passionate, and democratic communication occurs, as well as reasoned or technical discourse. Such a view of the public sphere acknowledges the diverse voices and styles that characterize a robust, participatory democracy. In fact, in this book, I introduce the voices of ordinary citi-zens and the special challenges they face in gaining a hearing about matters of envi-ronmental and personal survival in their communities.

Diverse Voices in a “Green” Public Sphere

The landscape of environmental politics and public affairs can be as diverse, contro- versial, colorful, and complex as an Amazonian rainforest or the Galapagos Islands’ ecology. Whether at press conferences, in local community centers, on blogs, or in corporate-sponsored TV ads, individuals and groups speaking about the environ-ment appear today in diverse sites and public spaces.

In this final section, I’ll describe some of the major sources, or voices, communi-cating about environmental issues in the public sphere. I use Myerson and Rydin’s (1991) concept of voices to stress the different concerns (for example, the “anxious citizen voice” or “expert voice”) that place certain “voices in relation to other voices” (pp. 5, 6). These include the voices of:

1. Citizens and community groups

2. Environmental groups

3. Scientists and scientific discourse

4. Corporations and lobbyists

5. Anti-environmentalist and climate change critics

6. News media and environmental journalists

7. Public officials

These seven voices also include multiple, specific roles or professional tasks—writers, press officers, group spokespersons, information technology specialists, communication directors, marketing and campaign consultants, and other communication roles.

Citizens and Community Groups

Local residents who complain to public officials about pollution or other environ-mental problems and who organize their neighbors to take action are the most common and effective sources of environmental change. Some are motivated by urban sprawl or development projects that destroy their homes as well as green spaces in their cities. Others, who may live near an oil refinery or chemical plant, may be motivated by noxious fumes to organize resistance to the industry’s lax air-quality permit.

In 1978, Lois Gibbs and her neighbors in the working-class community of Love Canal in upstate New York became concerned when, after they noticed odors and oily substances surfacing in the school’s playground, their children developed headaches and became sick. Gibbs also had read a newspaper report that Hooker Chemical Company, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, had buried dangerous chemicals on land it later sold to the local school board (Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, 2003).

Despite an initial denial of the problem by state officials, Gibbs and her neighbors sought media coverage, carried symbolic coffins to the state capital, marched on Mother’s Day, and pressed health officials to take their concerns seriously. Finally, in 1982, the residents succeeded in persuading the federal government to relocate those who wanted to leave Love Canal. The U.S. Justice Department also prosecuted Hooker Chemical Company, imposing large fines (Shabecoff, 2003, pp. 227–229). As a result, Love Canal became a symbol of toxic waste sites and fueled a citizens’ anti-toxics movement in the United States.

Lois Gibbs’s story is not unique. In rural towns in Louisiana, in inner-city neigh- borhoods in Detroit and Los Angeles, on Native American reservations in New Mexico, and in communities throughout the country, citizens and community groups have launched campaigns to clean up polluting plants and halt mining oper-ations on sacred tribal lands. As they do, activists and residents face the challenges of finding their voices and the resources to express their concerns and persuade others to join them in demanding accountability of public officials.

Environmental Groups

Environmental and allied concerns such as health and social justice groups are fre-quent sources of communication about the environment. This diverse movement comprises a wide array of groups and networks, both online and on the ground. And, each has its own focus and mode of communication. They range from thou-sands of grassroots groups to regional and national environmental organizations

such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Audubon Society, and National Wildlife Federation to international groups such as Conservation International, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, and groups across the planet fight-ing unsustainable development in their communities. Online networks have prolif-erated by the tens of thousands, included global networks like 350.org, linking other groups in the fight against climate change.

These groups address a diversity of issues and often differ in their modes of advocacy. For example, the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council focus on climate change through their advocacy campaigns and lobbying of the U.S. Congress on energy policy. On the other hand, the Nature Conservancy and local conservancy groups protect endangered habitat on private lands by purchas-ing the properties themselves. Other groups such as Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network use “image events” (DeLuca, 1999) to shine the spotlight of media attention on concerns as diverse as global warming, illegal whaling, and the destruction of tropical rainforests.

Scientists and Scientific Discourse

The warming of the Earth’s atmosphere first came to the public’s attention when climate scientists testified before the U.S. Congress in 1988. Since then, scientific reports, such as the periodic assessments of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have prompted spirited public debate over appropriate steps that national governments should take to prevent a “dangerous anthropogenic inter-ference” with the global climate (Mann, 2009, para. 1). As we shall see in succeed-ing chapters, the work of climate scientists has become a fiercely contested site in today’s public sphere, as environmentalists, public health officials, ideological skeptics, political adversaries, and others question, dispute, or urge action by Congress to adopt clean energy policies. (The IPCC’s next report is scheduled for release by 2014.)

As in the case of climate change, scientific reports have led to other important investigations of—and debate about—problems affecting human health and Earth’s biodiversity. From asthma in children caused by air pollution and mercury poisoning in fish to the accelerating loss of species of plants and animals, scientific research and the alerts of scientists have contributed substantially to public awareness and to debate about environmental policy.

News Media and Environmental Journalists

It would be difficult to overstate the impact of news media on the public’s under-standing of environmental concerns. Media not only report events but act as conduits for other voices seeking to influence public attitudes. These voices include scientists, corporate spokespersons, environmentalists, and citizen groups. News media also exert influence through their agenda-setting role or their effect on the public’s per-ception of the salience or importance of issues. As journalism scholar Bernard Cohen (1963) first explained, the news media filter or select issues for attention and there-fore set the public’s agenda, telling people not what to think but what to think about. For example, the public’s concern about pollution and harm to Gulf Coast economies soared after extensive news coverage of the millions of gallons of oil that spilled from the BP Deepwater Horizon well in 2010.

Although the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill story focused on a single, dramatic event that fulfilled criteria for newsworthiness, most environmental topics, even quite serious ones, are less dramatic. As a result, media often have discretion in choosing what events or information to cover and also how to frame or package a news story. Indeed, the many voices and platforms that distribute news and information—from newspapers to blogs and Internet news sites—illustrate a wide range of approaches to environmental concerns. They range from a business story about how “Climate Change May Cause ‘Massive’ Food Disruptions” to a story in the New York Times about Congress’s plans to “slash EPA’s budget by $3 billion and defund the agency’s climate program”

Public Officials

At the heart of debates over the environment are public officials at every level of government—both elected and appointed persons—whose roles are to shape or enforce local ordinances, enact state and national laws, and develop and enforce environmental regulations. Such individuals are at the heart of the political and legislative process because it is they who must reconcile the arguments and inter-ests of the diverse voices speaking for or against specific measures. For legislators, particularly, this is “characteristically, a balancing act,” as they must “reconcile a variety of contending forces [who are] affected in various ways” by a proposed law (Miller, 2009, p. 41).

As we shall see throughout this book, public officials are, therefore, the audience for a range of environmental communication practices—for example, citizens testi-fying before state regulators about permits for a coal-fired power plant or industries’ advocacy campaigns to mobilize public opinion in hopes of persuading members of Congress to preserve tax breaks for oil companies or extend tax credits for wind and solar energy groups.

Less visible to the public, but arguably as important as legislators, are environmental regulators. These are the professional staff whose role is to ensure that laws are actually implemented and enforced. As political scientist Norman Miller (2009) explains, pub-lic officials “must turn to engineers, scientists, land use planners, lawyers, economists, and other specialists . . . to set protocols, standards,” and so forth to ensure that a law can be carried out (p. 38). The wordings of these regulations frequently have powerful

implications for industry, local communities, or the public’s health. As a result, interested parties often attempt to persuade regulators to adopt a certain definition, inter- preting the intent of a statute favorably to their interests.

SUMMARY

This unit described the emerging field of environmental communication, its major areas of study, and the principal concepts around which the chapters of this book will be organized:

• The field of environmental communication consists of several major areas of study, including: environmental rhetoric and the social–symbolic “construc-tion” of nature, public participation in environmental decision making, envi-ronmental collaboration and conflict resolution, media and environmental journalism, representations of nature in corporate advertising and popular culture, advocacy campaigns and message construction, and science and risk communication.

• The term environmental communication itself was defined as the pragmatic and constitutive vehicle for our understanding of the environment as well as our relationships to the natural world; it is the symbolic medium that we use in constructing environmental problems and in negotiating society’s different responses to them.

• Using this definition, the framework for the chapters in this book builds on three core principles:

(1) Human communication is a form of symbolic action.

(2) Our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors relating to nature and environmental problems are mediated or influenced by communication.

(3) The public sphere emerges as a discursive space for communication about the environment.

Now that you have learned something about environmental communication and its practices, I hope you’ll feel inspired to join the public conversations about the environment that are already in progress. Along the way, I hope you’ll discover your own voice in speaking on behalf of the natural world and your own communities.

UNIT – 5

RELEVANCE OF ECO-EDUCATION

Rethinking of Eco-education through media

Impact of Environment on Human development.

Human behavior and Environmental Education through media

Environmental communication refers to the study and practice of how individuals, institutions, societies, and cultures craft, distribute, receive, understand, and use messages about the environment and human interactions with the environment. This includes a wide range of possible interactions, from interpersonal communication to virtual communities, participatory decision making, and environmental media coverage.

From the perspective of practice, Alexander Flor defines environmental communication as the application of communication approaches, principles, strategies and techniques to environmental management and protection.

As an academic field, environmental communication emerged from interdisciplinary work involving communication,environmental studies, environmental science, risk analysis and management, sociology, and political ecology.

Flor (2004) considers it as a significant element in the environmental sciences, which he believes to be a transdicipline. He begins his textbook on environmental communication with a declarative statement, "Environmentalism as we know it today began with environmental communication. The environmental movement was ignited by a spark from a writer’s pen, or more specifically and accurately, Rachel Carson’s typewriter." According to Flor, environmental communication has six essentials: knowledge of ecological laws; sensitivity to the cultural dimension; ability to network effectively; efficiency in using media for social agenda setting; appreciation and practice of environmental ethics; and conflict resolution, mediation and arbitration (Ibid). In an earlier book, Flor and Gomez (1993) explore the development of an environmental communication curriculum from the perspectives of practitioners from the government, the private sector and the academe

Climate change communications has historically focused on news coverage and disseminating information. Academic fields such as psychology, environmental sociology, and risk communication have argued that public nonresponse to climate change is due to a lack of information. In her book Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life,Norgaard's (2011) study of Bygdaby (a fictional name used for a real city in Norway) found that non-response was much more complex than just a lack of information. In fact, too much information can do the exact opposite because people tend to neglect global warming once they realize there is no easy solution. When people understand the complexity of the issue, they can feel overwhelmed and helpless which can lead to or skepticism. Environmental skepticism is an increasing challenge for environmental rhetoric

Symbolic action

Environmental communication is also a type of symbolic action that serves two functions. Those functions are pragmaticand constitutive. Environmental communication is pragmatic because it helps individuals and organizations to accomplish goals and literally do things through communication. Examples of this include educating, alerting, persuading and collaborating. Environmental communication is constitutive because it helps to shape people's understandings of environmental issues, themselves, and Nature; it shapes the meanings we hold of these things. Examples of this include values, attitudes, and ideologies vis-à-vis Nature and environmental issues and problems

Communication Theory has one universal law, written by S. F. Scudder in the early 1900s, and later published in 1980. The Universal Communication Law states that, "All living entities, beings and creatures communicateIn an unpublished interview, Scudder clarified the concept - "All of the living communicate through movements, sounds, reactions, physical changes, gestures, languages, breath, color transformations, etc. Communication is a means of survival, existence and being and does not need another to acknowledge its presence. Examples - the cry of a child (communication that it is hungry, hurt, cold, etc.); the browning of a leaf (communication that it is dehydrated, thirsty per se, dying); the cry of an animal (communicating that it is injured, hungry, angry, etc.). Everything living communicates

Scudder's thesis is aptly reinforced by General Systems Theory, which submits that one of the three critical functions of living systems is the exchange of information with its environment and with other living systems (the other two being the exchange of materials and the exchange of energy). In his book, Flor (2004, page 4) extends this argument by forwarding that, "All living systems, from the simplest to the most complex, are equipped to perform these critical functions. They are called critical because they are necessary for the survival of the living system. Communication is nothing more than the exchange of information. Hence, at its broadest sense, environmental communication is necessary for the survival of every living system, be it an organism, an ecosystem, or (even) a social system."

Environmental communication is all of the forms of communication that are engaged with the social debate about environmental issues and problems.

Also within the scope of environmental communication are the genres of nature writing, science writing, environmental literature, environmental interpretation and environmental advocacy. While there is a great deal of overlap among the various genres within environmental communication, they are each deserving of their own definition.

Environment plays an important role in human life. Psychologically a person's environment consists of the sum total of the stimulations (physical & Psychological) which he receives from his conception. There are different types of environment such as physical, environment, social environment & psychological environment.

Physical environment consists of all outer physical surroundings both in-animate and animate which have to be manipulated in order to provide food, clothing and shelter. Geographical conditions i.e. weather and climates are physical environment which has considerable impact on individual child.

Social environment is constituted by the society-individuals and institutions, social laws, customs by which human behavior is regulated.

Psychological environment is rooted in individual's reaction with an object. One's love, affection and fellow feeling attitude will strengthen human bond with one another.

So Growth and Development are regulated by the environment of an individual where he lives.

Nature writing is the genre with the longest history in environmental communication. In his book, This Incomparable Land: A Guide to American Nature Writing, Thomas J. Lyon attempts to use a “taxonomy of nature writing” in order to define the genre. He suggests that his classifications, too, suffer a great deal of overlap and intergrading. “The literature of nature has three main dimensions to it: natural history information, personal responses to nature, and philosophical interpretation of nature” (Lyon 20). In the natural history essay, “the main burden of the writing is to convey pointed instruction in the facts of nature,” such as with the ramble- type nature writing of John Burroughs (Lyon 21). “In essays of experience, the author’s firsthand contact with nature is the frame for the writing,” as with Edward Abbey’s contemplation of a desert sunset (Lyon 23). In the philosophical interpretation of nature, the content is similar to that of the natural history and personal experience essays, “but the mode of presentation tends to be more abstract and scholarly” (Lyon 25). The Norton Book of Nature Writing adds a few new dimensions to the genre of nature writing, including animal narratives, garden essays, farming essays, ecofeminist works, writing on environmental justice, and works advocating environmental preservation, sustainability and biological diversity. Environmental journalism pulls from the tradition and scope of nature writing.

Environmental interpretation is a particular format for the communication of relevant information. It “involves translating the technical language of a natural science or related field into terms and ideas that people who aren’t scientists can readily understand. And it involves doing it in a way that’s entertaining and interesting to these people” (Ham 3). Environmental interpretation is pleasurable (to engage an audience in the topic and inspire them to learn more about it), relevant (meaningful and personal to the audience so that they have an intrinsic reason to learn more about the topic), organized (easy to follow and structured so that main points are likely to be remembered) and thematic (the information is related to a specific, repetitious message) (Ham 8–28). While environmental journalism is not derived from environmental interpretation, it can employ interpretive techniques to explain difficult concepts to its audience.

Environmental literature is writing that comments intelligently on environmental themes, particularly as applied to the relationships between man, society and the environment. Most nature writing and some science writing falls within the scope of environmental literature. Often, environmental literature is understood to espouse care and concern for the environment, thus advocating a more thoughtful and ecologically sensitive relationship of man to nature. Environmental journalism is partially derived from environmental literature

Environmental advocacy is presenting information on nature and environmental issues that is decidedly opinionated and encourages its audience to adopt more environmentally sensitive attitudes, often more biocentric worldviews. Environmental advocacy can be present in any of the aforementioned genres of environmental communication. It is currently debated whether environmental journalism should employ techniques of environmental advocacy.

UNIT – II :

MEDIA AND SOCIAL PROCESS

1-MEDIA AND SOCIETY

Media empowerment is a sign of true democracy, a medium to communicate with the youth and the entire world. Media definitely has a responsibility on its shoulders, which is to guide the people. People have blind faith in the media and they are convinced that what they hear or what the media has declared is correct. But have we ever deliberated over the fact that media can also be selfish? The truth is that in this competitive world – the media is also a victim.

The media has exposed our very own celebrities whom we normally idolise. Thanks to the media, we got the true picture of these celebrities who have shamelessly indulged in wrong doings. If this be true, then why do we blame the media for interfering in their lives? It is their duty to expose the people. Once a person is a celebrity, his life or his actions definitely make the news, then why do they forever crib and blame the media? The Casting Couch is a ubiquitous phenomenon in many industries. As an average reader, we may already know that it exists in the film industry. If you ever had any doubts after all those newspaper articles, gossip magazine stories during the last couple of decades, which featured the infamous casting couch – India TV and Suhaib Ilyasi have definitely convinced the public that it is indeed in existence. Thanks to the media, we now know that there exists an industry where you have beautiful people, aggressive bosses and ambitious new entrants – yes, the Indian TV industry too which is equally affected.

The Bollywood beefcake Salman Khan has never been far away from controversies or brushes with the law. He has been in the news for killing an animal of an endangered species in the forests of Rajasthan.He has always been in the news for all the wrong reasons, be it roughing up scribes, man –handling his ex-girlfriend Aishwariya Rai or his verbal assault at actor Vivek Oberoi. However, he has always escaped because of his celebrity status and popularity.

When the deadly bird flu has finally hit India after affecting the other countries in Asia – the first case was reported in Maharashtra when a few chickens died after being affected by this virus. Today, almost about 91 people have died according to a report given by the WHO. Tamiflu, a drug which is widely consumed is considered as a precautionary measure to escape from this disease. This virus has affected the western regions of the country like Jalgaon in Maharashtra and Gujarat too. The media has been giving latest updates on its large-scale spread along with precautionary measures and safety tips to help save the people from this life taking disease.

The thought of the ‘Underworld’ sends shivers down our spine; it is a symbol of terror. But have we ever realised that all the celebrities as well as the politicians are under the aegis of these underworld dons? They are mere puppets in the hands of these dons; the media has tried its best to expose these dons by discovering recorded tapes and other incriminating evidence which expose the connection between the underworld and the various Bollywood bigwigs.

The Jessica Lal case ended on a comparatively more on a positive note than could have ever been expected thanks to the media. The media is brought to the public’s attention forward the real picture of the case. Through the media there have been many petitions filed to punish the accused in this case who so far were living without guilt. More and more people are disappointed by the judicial system because even after knowing the accused – the judges and lawyers set them free only because they are associated with political biggies. The judiciary appears to be a mere puppet in the hands of the politicians. But the media is trying relentlessly to achieve justice by bringing this to the notice of the people.

Media has a significant and indispensable place in our lives. It brings to us the true face of today’s world – a face which is usually hidden from the common man. It makes us realise that we are being ruled by the wrong people – politicians who are only interested in their personal gains and not the welfare of their people. I salute the media for its incomparable contribution… which will definitely, benefit the nation and its people in the long run.

MEDIA INDUSTRY –SOCIAL POLITICAL AND CULTURAL INFLUENCE

Both in India and the United States, scandals related to abuse of information are the headlines.In India, the Amar Singh wiretapping case is the big news, having replaced the Parliament bribery scandal, which, in turn, came at the heels of the oil-for-food scam exposed by Paul Volcker. There is an old saying that money is the mother's milk of politics, but in this post- modern age information is no less. Politics, money and the media are intertwined in the most unlikely situations, especially because of the power of information to fashion reality.In the US, a cloud of corruption hangs over the Republican leadership of the Congress. Tom DeLay, the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, has lost his position, and we don't know what other heads will roll. This corruption, as a consequence of a nexus between lobbyists and politicians, was facilitated by the media that did not do its job. After the 9/11 attacks, the media chose to defer to politicians. It even participated in the manipulation of public opinion prior to the Iraq war as in the notorious Judith Miller stories in The New York Times, which made it possible to sell the war. More recently, the same newspaper sat on the story of domestic snooping by the National Security Agency for a year before publishing it. In India, last month, Parliament expelled 11 members (10 from the Lok Sabha and one from the Rajya Sabha) who were snared in a cash-for-questions sting operation. Some have decried this decision on procedural grounds; others see a conspiracy behind the sting, calling it an 'anti-Adivasi conspiracy'; others bemoan that bigger fish has 'gone scot-free'. Some say the conduct of the expelled MPs was more a reflection of their stupidity at having been caught, given the level of corruption that pervades the system. Although the acceptance of money for asking questions is unconscionable, the MPs were clearly naïve about the ways of Delhi. If they had only asked for contributions to their election fund before granting access, there may not have been any impropriety in the transactions. Is it that new MPs are not given orientation classes in ethics and 'rules of the game' when they arrive in Delhi? Good doctors like to treat the roots of a disease, rather than its symptoms, although in urgent situations the symptoms must be alleviated to gain time for the treatment. The expulsion episode has already taught the MPs to be careful about how they sell their services. Corruption will go on. The deeper problem as to why MPs are willing to do what they did does not appear to have been addressed. The Lok Sabha committee that investigated the scandal did an extremely poor job at analysis and it produced a very shoddy report. This Committee, headed by Pawan Kumar Bansal , arrived at its conclusions in just five days. The television show was broadcast on December 12. The committee started its work on the 14th. On December 18 it interviewed some of the MPs to hear their side of the story; on the 19th, it viewed further tapes; on the 20th its draft report was ready, which was presented the following day to the Lok Sabha. The MPs or their representatives were not given a chance to question the accusers, as is the basic right of the accused in any legal proceedings! If this is to become a precedent to future action against MPs, it would be easy for the ruling majority to expel any MP it did not like. The committee did not examine finer points related to ethics of accepting money in lieu of asking a question. What if the money was an election fund contribution? What if the money involved was Rs 100 rather than Rs 100,000? Should there be proportionality in the punishment? The committee seems to have followed the precedent of the expulsion of one H D Mudgal on September 24, 1951 whose crime was 'his dealings with a Bombay Bullion Association, which included canvassing support and making propaganda in Parliament on certain problems on behalf of that association, in return for alleged financial and other business advantage.' In Western democracies, it is considered perfectly appropriate to speak in the legislature on behalf of matters where one might have a personal interest. It is, of course, unethical to write legislation that would give monetary benefit to organisations on a quid pro quo basis. But certainly the hustle and bustle of shifting perspectives in the crafting of legislation requires 'canvassing support and making propaganda.' Unlike the West, the MP in India has very little agency. He is not allowed to vote his conscience on issues that come up in Parliament. If he votes against his party's whip, he is liable to be expelled. He can ask questions, but even they must be approved by the Speaker. No wonder, some MPs find their only autonomy at Question Hour! Given that the ten MPs named in 1996 by the CBI for taking money to vote in favour of the P V Narasimha Rao government have still not been punished by the courts or Parliament, the belief must have been that it was all right to accept money for questions. According to the Lok Sabha Rule Book, 'Voicing the constituents' concerns on the floor of the House is the primary parliamentary duty of an elected representative.' This is different from Western democracies where the primary duty is to enact laws, and the question of implementation is left to the executive and the courts. Meanwhile, more sophisticated MPs are abusing the system in different ways. Brinda Karat's attempt to discredit Swami Ramdev by accusations about the quality of his Ayurvedic medicines is one example. If she was concerned about adulteration, she should have filed a formal complaint with the competent authority in the state against Swami Ramdev's pharmacy. Ms Karat slandered him for her political agenda, and the Union health ministry did its bit to help her by using dubious samples submitted by her and bypassing the protocol to get them 'tested.' There is nothing honourable about any of this, and the media should have pointed it out at the start, but it did not. Parliament and the courts must also investigate this abuse of power.

The political economy approach

Political economy approach contrasts with liberal pluralist approach Developed in 1960-70 - a way to look at mass communication organisation because of dissatisfaction with research in the US.

Its a radical critique of society from a Marxist approach: 1970 - class analysis. framework - power and class, power and economy - linked with content 1990 - globalisation, identity, consumption, stress on individual and how they make sense of their worlds - less stress on class.

How do - societies organise and change - as a result how does mass communication changes - as a result language also changes

Political economy

• control over production and distribution of ideas is concentrates in the hands of the capitalist owners of means of production; • as a result, their views … receive constant publicity and come to dominate the thinking of subordinate groups; • this ideological domination plays a key role in maintaining class inequalities/ These propositions raise key questions concerning • the relationship between ownership and control; • the process though which dominant ideology is translated into cultural commodities; • the dynamics of reception and the extent of adoption of dominant ideas. Murdock, G. and Golding, P. (1978) Culture, communications and political economy in Curran, J., et al (eds) Mass Communication and society, Open University Press

(The political economy) sets out to show how the different ways of financing and organising cultural production have traceable consequence for the range of discourses and representation in the public domain and for audiences' access to them.

(It is) materialist, in its focus on the interaction of people with their material environment and its further preoccupation with the unequal command over material resources and the consequences of such inequality for the nature of the symbolic environment.

A focal question for the political economy of communications is to investigate how changes in the array of forces which exercise control over production and distribution limit or liberate the public sphere. Two keys issues are important. First, the pattern of ownership. The second is the nature of the relationship between state regulation and communication institutions.

Political economy is concerned to explain how the cultural dynamics of production structure public discourse by promoting certain cultural forms over others.

Four characteristics

• the need to understand social change and historical transformation • be firmly rooted in an analysis of the wider social reality • moral philosophy - refers to the social values and to conceptions of appropriate social practices …to make explicit the moral position… • praxis - refers to human activity and specifically to the free and creative activity by which people produce and change the world and themselves. Mosco, V. (1996) The political economy of communication London: Sage

The main attempt of this approach is to trace in detail how the central dynamism of capitalism, and the shifting balance between markets and public, shape the making and taking of meaning. In everyday life, across multiple sites of production and consumption. And how they facilitate, or block, the building of a truly democratic common culture. Strengths 1. An understanding of power - the relation between economic power, political power and the media. 2. Study of mass media as an economic system that dictate and determines relation between organisation and work / workers. 3. Highlights economics of production - profitability, revenue, advertisement. 4. Reminds us we exist in capitalist society.

- diversity - range of issues class, gender, ethnicity

Weakness

1. Difficlut to find evidence. 2. Assumes subordinate groups are making meaning exactly according to analysis. 3. Unable to study of media content.

Contrasting approaches to the study of media industry

How do we understand content of mass media? What are the forces/pressure that operate on the mass media to produce content? - who plays a part in designing content- owner?- journalist? - consumer? - and what sort of evidence do we have to arrive at a conclusion?

Liberal Pluralist: different vision of how society is organised - power is not concentrated but dispersed into many groups. Power shifts, and is dispersed, from group to group. Views society as fundamentally fragmented and hence offering very little scope for centralised structures of power or control.

Political economy: sets out to show how the different ways of financing and organising cultural production have traceable consequence for the range of discourses and representation in the public domain and for audiences' access to them.

Political economy approach contrasts with liberal pluralist approach.

The significance for contrasting Liberal pluralist vs Marxist for mass media - Marxism looks as ownership as producing content whereas Liberal Pluralist looks at ownership as one of the things that produce content. Liberal Pluralist. - Liberal Pluralist - different owners as important whereas Marxism - differences less important. Conceptions of the socio-economic order

Focus of analysis Capitalism Industrial society ACTION/ POWER Asks Instrumental approaches Pluralist approaches start the question: "who controls stress the continuing from the position that the corporations?" centrality of ownership as a ownership is relatively source of control over the unimportant and declining policies and activities of control over the activities of large corporations. They large modern corporations. operate at two levels: (a) At They also operate at two the specific level they focus levels: (a) Specific on the control exercised by approaches emphasise the individual capitalists to use and power of the advance their own particular managerial strata and the interests. (b) At the general relative autonomy of creative level they examine the ways personnel within in which the communication communication corporations. industries as a whole operate (b) General approaches to bolster the general stress the autonomy of interests of the capitalist media elites and their class, or of dominant factions competitive relation to other with it. institutional elites.

STRUCTURE/ Neo-marxist political Commercial laissez-faire DETERMINATION Asks economies focus on the ways models stress the centrality of the question: What factors in which the policies and 'consumer sovereignity' and constrain corporate operations of corporations focus on the ways in which controllers?" are limited and circumscribed the range and nature of the by the general dynamics of goods supplied is shaped by media industries and the demands of consumers capitalist economies. expressed through their choices between competing products in the 'free' market.

INFORMATION SOCIETY

The public sphere

A brief description

“… a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed.” (Habermas, 1974, p.49)

“…public life…. went on it the market place (agora), but of course this did not mean that it occurred necessarily in this specific locale. The public sphere was constituted in discussion…” (Habermas, 1989, p.3)

“…[a] portion of the public sphere comes into being in every conversation in which private individuals assemble to form a public body.” (Habermas, 1974, p. 49) ”… site governed neither by the intimacy of the family, the authority of the state, nor the exchange of market, but by the public reason of private citizens.” (Peters, 1993 p. 542)

“Between the realm of the public authority or the state, on the one hand, and the private realm of civil society and the family, on the other, there emerged a new sphere pf ‘the public’: a bourgeois public sphere which consisted of private individuals who came together to debate among themselves concerning the regulation of civil society and the conduct of the state.” (Thompson, 1993, p. 176).

“With this journal, followed by the Gentleman’s Magazine, the press was for the first time established as a genuinely critical organ of the public engaged in critical public debate: as the fourth estate. Thus raised the status of an institution, the ongoing commentary on and criticism of the Crown’s actions and parliament’s decisions transformed [emphasis added] a public authority now being called before the forum of the public.” (Habermas, 1989, p. 60).

“… the concept of the Public Sphere and the principles it embodies represent an Ideal Type against which we can judge existing social arrangements and which we can attempt to embody in concrete institutions in the light of the reigning historical circumstances.” (Garnham, 1986, p. 43).

Why is it politically important? - media/ mediation - ideals and concepts of present day context.

Technical dimension – helps us to evolve a common framework.

Communicative dimension – public should have a say in determining the rules and regulations/ laws they have to live with/ in. These rules and laws are shaped through the Public Sphere.

Democracy needs to be 1. Inclusive. 2. Directed towards Public / private interest. 3. Driven through the force of arguments.

Democracy can be classified as direct or participatory OR indirect/ representation.

However, whatever the definition of democracy – one common factor is the inclusion of the public in decision making.

So how do we, the people, participate? Vote. Before elections - effected by public debate that leads to the creation of public opinion and guides the relationship between people and government, civil society and state.

Public - Debate - Public Opinion.

Public Opinion – what is it? Where does it come from? 1. Collection of individual opinions – through surveys. 2. Product of communication and dialogue between individuals. Where does it come from? According to Habermas: it takes place in the public sphere – a forum or arena of the public – where individuals can come together. - It is a social space, NOT a physical space. It does not have a fixed physical character. - the public sphere is not defined by the institution.

Concept of public sphere has a normative/ idealistic value

1. Inclusiveness. 2. Equality – nobody is inherently greater, or has or should have greater claims to truth. 3. The only authority is rationality. 4. All citizens are free to engage in the public sphere without coercion. 5. Autonomy – the communication space – the public sphere – has to be autonomous i.e. free from state and market and from private sphere.

Assumptions 1. A true public sphjere created from citizens. 2. 2. Depends on the fact that all citizens have the same opportunity. 3.

Structural transformation – from feudal society to capitalist Public sphere did not exist – came into being.

What difference does the Public Sphere make in our lives? 1. Institutionalise the practice of critical debate. 2. Facilitates the new social phenomenon of public opinion. 3. Public obtain the means to influence the state.

Criticism 1. Inaccuracy. 2. Idealism. 3. The Public sphere locates communication as an ideal rather than recognise what is existing. Public sphere provides us with a model.

Habermas conceptualised direct dialogical – face to face communication, participatory – limited to human voice. OK for small scale – clearly given the scale and size of modern society requires some form of mediation – transmission and reception – different media.

All modern media – institute/ constitute (?) public sphere

However, media – social space plus programming

Similarly – media do not constitute the public sphere – they inhabit the public sphere

Mediation – the role of journalists / politicians in the public sphere Journalists – select, analysis, interpret, structure news. Journalists – influence the nature of news. Journalists – influence the political picture we receive. Journalists – influence the agenda of public debate.

Politicians are accessed – journalist a favour them.

Stuart Hall – primary definers – they have power, they are not neutral – they have political agendas.

Journalists and politicians can have significant influence.

Because of the mediation it allows the mediators: journalists and politicians greater/ unequal effect on the public sphere.

Problems Dialogical model. How far can ideas be translated. Mediation creates problems for the dialogoue/ dialogical model.

Media privatization

Media ownership trends in India

Who owns the mass media in India? That is a rather difficult question to answer. There are many media organisations in the country that are owned and controlled by a wide variety of entities including corporate bodies, societies and trusts, and individuals. Information about such organisations and people is scattered, incomplete, and dated, thereby making it rather difficult to collate such information leave alone analyse it. Nevertheless, a few salient aspects about media ownership stand out from the inadequate information that is available.

The sheer number of media organisations and outlets often conceals the fact there is dominance over specific markets and market segments by a few players – in other words, the markets are often oligopolistic in character.

The absence of restrictions on cross-media ownership implies that particular companies or groups or conglomerates dominate markets both vertically (that is, across different media such as print, radio, television and the internet) as well as horizontally (namely, in particular geographical regions).

Political parties and persons with political affiliation own/control increasing sections of the media in India.

The promoters and controllers of media groups have traditionally held interests in many other business interests and continue to do so, often using their media outlets to further these. There are a few instances of promoters who have used the profits from their media operations to diversify into other (unrelated) businesses.

The growing corporatization of the Indian media is manifest in the manner in which large industrial conglomerates are acquiring direct and indirect interest in media groups. There is also a growing convergence between creators/producers of media content and those who distribute/disseminate the content. These trends can be perceived as instances of consolidation in a sector in which big players have been steeped in debt and strapped for cash over the past few years. The shake-out also signifies growing concentration of ownership in an oligopolistic market that could lead to loss of heterogeneity and plurality. The emergence of cartels and oligarchies could be symptomatic of an increasingly globalised but homogenized communication landscape, despite the growth of internet technology bringing about a semblance of democratization by allowing for more user- generated content by “prosumers” (producer-consumers). While the growth of the internet has led to a collapse of geo-spatial boundaries and lower levels of gate-keeping in checking information flows, the perceived increase in diversity of opinion has been simultaneously accompanied – paradoxically – by a shrinking in the number of traditional media operations in television and print.

Consolidation

In the last few years there has been a growing consolidation of media organisations across the globe. In the political economy of the media the world over there is clearly an alarming absence of not-for-profit media organisations. Neither subscription- nor advertising revenue-based models of the media have been able to limit this tendency of large sections of the corporate media to align with elite interest groups. In not just economic terms, the media is perceived as an active political collaborator as well seeking to influence voters on the basis of allegiances of owners and editors. This can, and often does, constrain free and fair exchanges of views to facilitate democratic decision-making processes.

The Indian media market differs from those of developed countries in several ways. For one, India is a developing country and all segments of the media industry (including print and radio) are still growing unlike in developed countries. The media market in India remains highly fragmented, due to the large number of languages and the sheer size of the country.

In India’s unique “mediascape”, it is often contended that the proliferation of publications, radio stations, television channels, and internet websites is a sure-fire guarantor for plurality, diversity, and consumer choice. There were over 82,000 publications registered with the Registrar of Newspapers as on 31 March 2011. There are over 250 FM (frequency modulation) radio stations in the country (and the number is likely to cross 1,200 in five years) – curiously, India is the only democracy in the world where news on the radio is still a monopoly of the government. The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has allowed nearly 800 television channels to uplink or downlink from the country, including over 300 which claim to be television channels broadcasting “news and current affairs”. There is an unspecified number of websites aimed at Indians.

Despite these impressive numbers of publications, radio stations and television channels, the mass media in India is possibly dominated by less than a hundred large groups or conglomerates, which exercise considerable influence on what is read, heard, and watched. One example will illustrate this contention. Delhi is the only urban area in the world with 16 English daily newspapers; the top three publications, the Times of India, the Hindustan Times, and the Economic Times, would account for over three-fourths of the total market for all English dailies.

India’s established media conglomerates have staunchly refused to accept the need for restrictions over ownership and control, arguing that this would result in devious and dubious forms of censorship and have resurrected the ghosts of the 1975-77 Emergency. The government too has played along. After all, powerful politicians need media barons as much as they need them – a mutually beneficial back-scratching society of sorts. A few randomly-chosen examples would include Shobhana Bhartia of the Hindustan Times group, the late Narendra Mohan of the Dainik Jagran group (which brings out India’s most widely circulated Hindi daily), the Dardas of Lokmat, the Marans of the Sun group, and Chandan Mitra of The Pioneer.

A report prepared by an independent institution recommending imposition of cross-media ownership restrictions recently entered the public domain nearly three years after it was submitted following a rebuke to the government by a panel of lawmakers. The report, running into nearly 200 pages, was prepared by the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) at the instance of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B). Though this report was submitted in July 2009, it was placed on the Ministry’s website only after Parliament’s Standing Committee on Information Technology sharply criticised the government for not initiating any action on the ASCI report’s recommendations.

Market dominance

The Hyderabad-based ASCI report pointed out that there is “ample evidence of market dominance” in specific media markets and argued in favour of an “appropriate” regulatory framework to enforce cross-media ownership restrictions, especially in regional media markets where there is “significant concentration” and market dominance in comparison to national markets (for the Hindi and English media).

The government seems unlikely to accept the recommendations of the report prepared by ASCI, which describes itself as an “autonomous, self-supporting, public-purpose” institution. In fact, a senior official of the I&B Ministry said so to this writer in an off-the-record conversation. The Ministry has, for the time being, tossed the contentious set issues on cross- media ownership on to the court of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The Standing Committee on IT, headed by Congress MP Rao Inderjit Singh, noted that the issue of restrictions on cross-media ownership “merits urgent attention” and needs “to be addressed before it emerges as a threat to our democratic structure”. It urged the Ministry to “formulate” its stand on the issue in coordination with the TRAI “after taking into account” international practices.

The earlier (February 2009) report of the TRAI had stated that it is important that “necessary safeguards be put in place to ensure plurality and diversity are maintained across the three media segments of print, television and radio”. Before the TRAI report was finalised, during the consultation phase, there was strong resistance on the part of media groups to the idea of restrictions on their sector. Many different arguments were proposed, among others that regulation would stifle growth, that the multiplicity of media and the highly fragmented nature of the Indian market prevents monopolization, and that regulation of the sector amounts to an impingement on the Constitutional right to freedom of speech. Further, some groups, “particularly those associated with print” even argued that it was not under the jurisdiction of the Authority to make recommendations on any matter which did not relate directly to telecommunications. This view was not accepted by the government.

Having taken into account all the arguments of the media groups, the TRAI nevertheless came to the conclusion that certain restrictions are required. It argued for restrictions on vertical integration, that is to say on media companies owning stakes in both broadcast and distribution companies within the same media. The reasoning behind this restriction is that vertical integration can result in anti-competitive behaviour, whereby a distributor can favour his/her own broadcasters’ contents over the content of a competitive broadcaster. In this scenario, large conglomerates would be able to impose their preferred content, a clearly dangerous situation. Disputes

According to the TRAI’s report, vertical integration in the media market is already causing serious problems. There have been numerous disputes brought before the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) between broadcasters and cable operators alleging denial of content by other service providers. New cases are being added regularly, which the TRAI regards as “a clear indication that the current market situation requires corrective measures”.

Further, the report calls attention to the fact that all restrictions on vertical integration are currently placed on companies. However, as we have seen, the large conglomerates of the Indian media are usually groups that own different companies. This allows them to have controlling stakes both in broadcasting and distribution by acquiring licences under their different subsidiary companies, thus totally bypassing current restrictions and defeating the purpose of their existence in the first place. The report, therefore, suggests that restrictions no longer be placed on “companies” but on “entities” or groups, which would include large groups and conglomerates such as BCCL and Dainik Bhaskar.

With regards to cross-media ownership, the report points out that no such restrictions exist in India, in stark contrast with most other countries in the world with a free press, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada. It argued that restrictions are necessary and recommend that the Ministry should conduct a detailed market analysis in order to identify which safeguards would be most appropriate in the Indian context.

Debates on media ownership are almost as old as the nation itself. The country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon would castigate the “jute press” in a clear reference to BCCL which was then controlled by the Sahu-Jain group which also controlled New Central Jute Mills. Then came references to the “steel press”. The Tata group, which has a substantial presence in the steel industry, used to be a part-owner of the company that publishes the once-influential The Statesman. Ramnath Goenka, who used to head the Indian Express group, made an aborted attempt in the 1960s to control the Indian Iron and Steel Company (IISCO). What was being clearly suggested by politicians was that particular family-owned groups would use their news companies to lobby for their other business interests.

Today, the situation described by Nehru has intensified multifold. In fact, instead of using their media companies to lobby for their non-media business interests, a few large media groups have been able to diversify their business activities, thanks to the profits generated by their media business. In India at present, promoters of media companies have subsidiary business interests in sectors as varied as aviation, hotels, cement, shipping, steel, education, automobiles, textiles, cricket, information technology, and real estate. For example, the Dainik Bhaskar group, which, in 1958, ran a single edition Hindi newspaper from Bhopal, has a market capitalization of Rs 4,454 crore (as on July 30. 2010), owns seven newspapers, two magazines, 17 radio stations, and has a significant presence in the printing, textiles, oils, solvent extraction, hotels, real estate, and power-generation industries.

According to research conducted by Dilip Mandal and R. Anuradha, that has been published in Media Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2011), the boards of directors of a number of media companies now include (or have included in the past) representatives of big corporate entities that are advertisers. The board of Jagran Publications has had the managing director (MD) of Pantaloon Retail, Kishore Biyani, McDonald India’s MD Vikram Bakshi, and leather-maker Mirza International’s MD Rashid Mirza; besides the CEO of media consulting firm Lodestar Universal India, Shashidhar Sinha, and the chairman of the real estate firm JLL Meghraj, Anuj Puri. The board of directors of HT Media, publishers of Hindustan Times and Hindustan, has included the former chairman of Ernst & Young K. N. Memani and the chairman of ITC Ltd Y C Deveshwar. Joint MD of Bharti Enterprise Rajan Bharti and MD of Anika International Anil Vig are a part of the TV Today’s Board of Directors. The board of directors of DB Corp (that publishes Dainik Bhaskar) includes the head of Piramal Enterprises Group, Ajay Piramal, the MD of Warburg Pincus, Nitin Malhan, and the executive chairman of advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather, Piyush Pandey. NDTV’s Board of Directors has Pramod Bhasin, President & CEO of the country’s biggest BPO company GenPact as a member of its board of directors.

Media companies tend to have a variety of professionals on their boards, such as investment bankers, venture capitalists, chartered accountants, corporate lawyers, and CEOs of big companies. Professional journalists, ironically, rarely figure. As a result, those at the top of the decision-making hierarchy are those for whom the bottom-line, not the by-line, is most important.

Evil of “paid news”

This closeness between the media and corporate India leads to a deplorable confusion of priorities. Instead of media houses relying on advertisers to fund quality journalism, the relationship becomes insidiously reversed. Advertisers and corporate units begin to rely on news outlets to further their interests. In 2003, Bennett Coleman Company Limited (publishers of the Times of India and the Economic Times, among other publications) started a “paid content” service, which enabled them to charge advertisers for coverage of product launches or celebrity-related events. In the run-up to the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the more clearly illegal practice of “paid news” emerged and became widespread.

The behind-the-scenes influence of corporate and vested interests was made particularly apparent by the leaking of tapes recording conversations between Niira Radia, a powerful lobbyist with clients such as the Tata group and Reliance Industries, and a variety of business men, politicians, and journalists. They revealed what had long been an open secret: the collusion and uncomfortable closeness among corporate units, politicians and journalists, a world in which the line between politics and business, public relations and news, is increasingly blurred.

That many media companies argue in favour of relaxed legislation with regard to media consolidation is not surprising, when one considers the difficulties of breaking even, let alone making money, in the business. From a business point of view, media consolidation has undeniable advantages. It allows for economies of scale, which enable media companies to absorb the costs of content and distribution over a large volume of revenue. This in turn allows companies to invest in better resources such as talent or technical equipment. In a competitive market, small media companies have a very hard time surviving. Consolidation makes a lot of economic sense and can even, to some extent, translate into improvements in quality.

Unacceptable

However, what is unacceptable is media barons using news outlets as tools to further their business interests. Rupert Murdoch, whom we recently watched fall from the heights of his empire due to the News of the World phone-hacking scandal in the UK, had spun a whole web of political influence, based mostly on the power wielded by the many newspapers and organs of propaganda (such as the far-right conservative Fox News) at his command to influence public opinion. This was also true in Italy where media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi has been that country’s longest-serving Prime Minister after the Second World War. A few recent developments point towards the growing corporatization of the India media and the growing convergence between producers of media content and those who distribute the content.

On January 3 2012, the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) – India’s biggest privately-owned corporate entity with a turnover of Rs. 2,58,651 crore in the financial year that ended on March 31, 2011 – announced that it was entering into a complex, multi-layered financial arrangement that involved selling of its interests in the Andhra Pradesh- based Eenadu group founded by Ramoji Rao to the Network 18 group headed by Raghav Bahl and also funding the latter through a rights issue of shares. The deal will make the combined conglomerate India’s biggest media group, according to Bahl -- bigger than media groups such as STAR controlled by Rupert Murdoch, and BCCL controlled by the Jain family.

On May 19, 2012, the Aditya Birla group announced that it had acquired a 27.5 per cent stake in Living Media India Limited, a company headed by Aroon Purie. Living Media acts as a holding company and also owns 57.46 per cent in TV Today Network, the listed company that controls the group’s television channels (Aaj Tak and Headlines Today) and a host of publications (including India Today).

On December 21, 2012, Oswal Green Tech, formerly Oswal Chemicals & Fertilizers, acquired a 14.17 per cent shareholding in New Delhi Television in two separate block deals from the investment arms of Merill Lynch and Nomura Capital.

Key concerns

Deals like the three outlined raises several key concerns relating to consolidation within the Indian media industry. With larger television broadcast networks, including Zee, Turner/CNN, Viacom/MTV and Sony, expected to acquire/partner regional networks, the commoditization of news seems almost inevitable but not necessarily desirable. In this country, as in the world over, large media corporations are today clearly playing a bigger role in the political economy that they report on. Though a free media is fundamental to the existence of a liberal democracy, concerns about the accountability and transparency of media companies remain.

For instance, the RIL deal has enabled Network 18, Eenadu, and the merged group to expand its offerings to benefit both its stakeholders and its advertising target audiences. What remains to be seen is whether clear boundaries can be etched between the boardroom and the newsroom. The deal, therefore, raises significant questions about the diminishing levels of media plurality in a multilingual and multicultural country. Most of the reportage on the deal has focused on its business aspects. Questions about the future nature of editorial control remain unanswered. The complicated holding structures and investments made through layers of subsidiary companies make it difficult to discern the real “bosses” and the powers they wield.

The real challenges that lie ahead for the media in India are to ensure that growing concentration of ownership in an oligopolistic market does not lead to loss of heterogeneity and plurality. In the absence of cross-media restrictions and with government policies contributing to further corporatization, especially with respect to the television medium, diversity of news flows could be adversely affected contributing to the continuing privatization and commoditization of information instead of making it more of a “public good”. MEDIA AUDIENCE –

AUDIENCE EXPLAINED

'Audience' is a very important concept throughout media studies. All media texts are made with an audience in mind, ie a group of people who will receive it and make some sort of sense out of it. And generally, but not always, the producers make some money out of that audience. Therefore it is important to understand what happens when an audience "meets" a media text.

Constructing Audience

When a media text is being planned, perhaps the most important question the producers consider is "Does it have an audience?" If the answer to this is 'no', then there is no point in going any further. If no one is going to watch/read/play/buy the text, the producers aren't going to make any money or get their message across. Audience research is a major part of any media company's work. They use questionnaires, focus groups, and comparisons to existing media texts, and spend a great deal of time and money finding out if there is anyone out there who might be interested in their idea.

It's a serious business; media producers basically want to know the

 income bracket/status  age  gender  race  location of their potential audience, a method of categorising known as demographics. Once they know this they can begin to shape their text to appeal to a group with known reading/viewing/listening habits.

One common way of describing audiences is to use a letter code to show their income bracket Audience theory

Audience theory is an element of thinking that developed within academic literary theory and cultural studies.With a specific focus on rhetoric, some, such as Walter Ong, have suggested that the audience is a construct made up by the rhetoric and the rhetorical situation the text is addressing. Others, such as Ruth Mitchell and Mary Taylor, have said writers and speakers actually can target their communication to address a real audience. Some others, such as Ede and Lunsford, try to mingle these two approaches and create situations where audience is "fictionalized", as Ong would say, but in recognition of some real attributes of the actual audience.

There is also a wide range of media studies and communication studies theories about the audience's role in any kind of mediated communication. A sub-culturally focussed and Marxism- inflected take on the subject arose as the "new audience theory" or "active audience theory" from the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies during the 1980s.

The hypodermic needle model

The intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver. Two-step flow The people with most access to media, and highest media literacy explain and diffuse the content to others. This is a modern version of the hypodermic needle model.

Uses and gratifications People are not helpless victims of mass media, but use the media to get specific gratifications.

Reception theory The meaning of a "text" is not inherent within the text itself, but the audience must elicit meaning based on their individual cultural background and life experiences

Obstinate audience theory This theory assumes that there is a transactional communication between the audience and the media. The audience actively selects what messages to pay attention to.[5] The Zimmerman- Bauer study found that the audience also participates in the communication by influencing the message.

Hypermedia seduction theory This theory assumes that computer and Internet audiences are linked to the narratives those people like to see and express, and that people will befriend and defriend people in order to maintain access to those narratives to the exclusion of less seductive ones

Media effects Early research into media audiences was dominated by the debate about "media effects", in particular the link between screen violence and real-life aggression. Several moral panics fuelled the claims, such as the incorrect presumptions that Rambo had influenced Michael Robert Ryan to commit the Hungerford massacre, and that Child's Play 3 had motivated the killers of James Bulger.

In the 1990s, David Gauntlett published critiques on media "effects", most notably the "Ten things wrong with the media effects model" article. Then, in the 2000s, he sought to develop new methods which would explore possible media influences using "creative" approaches, in which participants were asked to make things such as collage, video, drawings, and Lego models using metaphors.

Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies

Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies From the 1970s, researchers from the CCCS produced empirical research about the relationship between texts and audiences. Amongst these was The Nationwide Project by David Morley and Charlotte Brunsdon.

Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model can be seen as the beginning of research into how audiences are active consumers rather than passive recipients.