We live in an age of quid pro quo. Something for something.
Cash for questions. Graves for independence. Fasts for democracy.
Quid pro quo.
I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Shares for media space. Fingerprints for social security. I’ll ‘like’ you if you ‘like’ me.
And in this perfectly imperfect market, where then , fits our ‘person of the year’- Small Independent Media.
With no bargaining power for shelf space or cost per click. No backing by corporates who hardly think beyond circulation figures and believe in critical thought generation. Add to that a generation of readers who have grown up on the cult of cricket, cinema and crime and have little taste or appetite for indepth analysis.
Yet, time and again it is small media that plays a crucial role in revolutions .For example, in Iran during the Shah’s regime big media played an important role in revealing many state atrocities and a general atmosphere of discontent. Predictably, all media came under strict controls. Following censorship , entire networks – newspapers, television , radio went on strike for months .There was no way to reach out to the masses .It was then that a host of small underground media gained ground – audiotapes, leaflets , pamphlets and graffiti that kept the dissent alive . What the government had mistaken as ephemera, manifested as the most potent medium propelling the overthrow.
Little Magazine movements, festivals like the Vidrohi Marathi Sahitya Sammelan(yes, this too is a literature festival ), in the theatre scripts of Manipuri director Lokendra Arambam, websites like Tamil.net are all initiatives of small but effective media .
The problem then comes back to that of market . When publishers start determining what books are to be written rather than published , and entrepreneurs take editorial roles , and window dressers of bookstores decide the best sellers , and twenty four hour news channels have to keep maintaining an aura of drama to keep their viewers engaged then it should not cause so much chagrin to Mr Katju that levels of media are declining by the day. And maybe this is a good time to realize the role small media can play in this thriving oligopoly and to give some kind of cognizance to that.
More often than not regime hegemony is exerted by big media. Recently I read an article on the upcoming elections in the United States and a quote stuck to my head.
“You don’t win Iowa in Iowa. You win it on this couch. You win it on Fox News’’
That is the power of big media. And if any channel would have cared (or dared), Irom Sharmila too may not have been fasting till date.
But perhaps the quid pro quo in this case was not substantial.Thus…
