Mac Bride commission had 15 countries as their members and the representatives included one from India as well and hence I will be analyzing the commission’s existence in India. When the commission was first brought about, the main ideology was to analyse the communication problems in the modern society. In the beginning of this commission India, which is a developing country, was only having a few means to communicate which was not very effective as it was in the other part of the world. It was more or less like the beginning of communication through Johanne Guttenberg’s printing press in the other part of the country. Even though communication through media did exist, it was the time the audience took to understand various factors like reliability, credibility, etc. It is prominent and well known that the media catch up gradually and while the western countries are relying more on new media, for Indian’s traditional media is more reliable.
One of the factors the commission concentrated on was the denial of commercialization of media. The society matters and then there used to be a set of audience who relied on media for some valid and valued news and they depended mainly on radio channels like AIR and channels like DD, , which has not undergone a vast change till date. It was more than just news to them and it was more reliable. But today, with more than 500 channels in India alone, every channel has commercialisation as their hidden agenda, which is based on the TRP. The ads shown during prime-time and non prime-time helps the broadcast media management earn a living, as per my analysis. In this scenario when everything is merely business, the means to inform and educate the audience has also be used as a string to business. They sensationalise the news before they reach the public with the strong ideology of portraying their channel as more interesting and entertaining than the other competing channels, which most part of the society is still unaware about. The social responsibility was supposed to be the counter part of communication and the removal of it was not permitted in the commission and with this situation the commission has lost in its recommendation.
This commission also had media’s freedom recommended. According to the commission the media will have freedom and the violation was also controlled. Today there is no means to control the media. There can be a legal side to every problem but not every problem finds its way to justice due to the ultimate power given to money. It is not a unique thing to say that a particular media is biased due to the same reason. There can be any external force that can pull the string of a media and there can be any corrupt matter on the other side of the string. The society’s right has been curbed by the media or the external forces that control them. In this scenario, if there is a control over the freedom of the press there cannot be a justice to the society and if at all there is a limited freedom allotted to the press, it is curbed by the other external forces like a political party, entrepreneurs, etc. We have gone through this several times and there is no possibility to sustain the recommendations in this scenario, and gradually the commission will be a better failure.
The commission should be capable and free to take away the right to publish their materials if they violate the freedom and other factors specified in the report and only then the commission can sustain and only then media will start recognizing what social responsibility means.
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