Towards a Deeper Democracy

Vidyut Latay

Electronic media has a distinction over other mediums of communication. It is commonly perceived to be objective, true, and catering to millions of people all around the globe with their news and views. The television’s capacity in being “live” and creating realism has made this “idiot box” in our living rooms irreplaceable by any other means!

Today both fiction as well as the non-fiction programming on television caters programs covering almost all the genres of edutainment. The niche and the mass channels broadcast all the subjects on the face of this earth. There is no experience that you cannot see or feel on television. It’s indeed an age of “television movement.” We all grew up listening to our elders saying that, “Books can be your vehicle of transport to any corner of the world.” Today these books have been replaced by television, from the Statue of Liberty in the US to the Taj Mahal in India, to the world of breath taking romantic emotions to utter deprivation and agony of the same world, television has set us all in motion, motion of constant pursuit to know more and more about the world “beyond our mental and physical” vision.

Unfortunately this “movement” of our society through the media has been primarily very horizontal, catering to the variety and taste of a particular high class section of the society. The lowest common denominators of the society have unfortunately been left behind in this race of observing objectivity and seeing the world through the television’s “broad” interpretation. It is difficult to expect of these people to broaden their horizons by watching these television images. This broadening of the spectrum of television has in fact led the television media to lose its attention towards the specific problems of the marginalized class. The primary reason for the media not being able to cater to the lowest common denominator is because of the lack of these lower community people’s participation in the programming process. Media, barring a few exceptions, belongs and is controlled by high profile elite powerful conglomerates in the society. And it’s a fact that these power elites are incapable of getting deeper insights of the classes deprived of the basic means of existence as, education, information, health, finance, and communication. The reasons are but obvious; revenues, business, the economy, and market forces drive the content at the end of the day. Reasons whatsoever, today’s media has only been able to depict and exhibit the issues concerning these marginalized people through a bird’s eye view only. It’s time to get a much “closer shot” towards an attempt of deeper penetration in these societies through television programming. Media can be instrumental in creating a “deeper democracy.” And it is possible only through “active” participation of people from all sections of the society, most importantly the marginalized, less educated, less wealthy classes.

Arjun Appadurai in his essay “Deep Democracy: Urban Governmentality and the horizon of Politics” suggests that “Roots, anchors, intimacy, proximity and locality are important associations.” He has sighted out a real life successful example of attaining participation and inclusion of the under privileged classes in the city of Mumbai that lead to the betterment in the life style, health and educational facilities for the people. The concept of deep democracy was practiced and shown to be affecting positively to the millions of underprivileged people not only in India, but also all over the world, with the UN Secretary General also recognizing this initiative.

Electronic media is an integral part of the same society in which the other types of tried and tested media have existed over the years. Electronic media has merits of covering a range laterally, but it is time to realize that the current media is not capable of encouraging vertical participation. Participation of equal voices and sentiments are the hallmark of this vertical participation. Alternative media programming could serve the purpose.

Folk media seems to me the right alternative. The synthesis of the elements of the folk media and the popular electronic media seems to me the best possible option to make the today’s popular media deeper and more democratic. The folk media today is often sidelined as a cheap entertainment tool to reach out to the less privileged classes and is often an entity of amusement amongst the school children. Popular forms of folk media have got restraint in the gamut of tourism industry: used for the entertainment of tourists in explaining history and traditions.

One often forgets that it is the folk media that actually sowed the seeds of participation and democratization of media. The major difference between folk media and the other media is that the folk media is more direct; in terms of its address, accessibility, and content. The characters, the news anchors of the folk media reach out to the people physically: “live,” in “reality” which is a lot different than reaching out to people through any kind of “live realism”—the TV monitor. No media other than the folk media has the power of catching its target audience. The performers of folk media talk and perform in context, the context that falls in to the social and cultural realm of their audience.
Folk media primarily uses tools that are used by today’s popular media like the television and film. Tools like poetry, dance, songs, choral music, drama, skits and story telling are “the” universal tools to convey messages. The messages are relevant and cater to the masses with a specific objective of attaining social awakening, health, nutrition, and education. Popular electronic media does not have any different intention in terms of the content. Its intention is pretty much the same as the folk media. But what makes television and the folk media different is basically the medium’s intrinsic difference in propagating their views and the viewer’s acceptance of the views.

Television, as folk media has the potential of reaching out to the masses in real sense. Television’s domesticity makes it reach people in much large numbers, but that is exactly where television has lost its grip. From a television studio in the US, the medium performs an arduous task of catering to the wide audience that encompasses every nationality, religion, class, creed, and gender on this planet. The time has come for us to collectively think that does it really help for a viewer in Nepal to know what is happening in America when his/her own life is not getting sorted by the media in the US. Media’s intention is appreciated but is the end justifying the means? Is this broad information really serving any substantial purpose? In the spree of encompassing the whole world in the news room, are we losing the grip of the television’s content and precision of its messages? Complaints sighting this loss of command over the content needs a thorough introspection. Folk media fortunately does not have to perform the task as television media. It can actually “see” its audience and that is where it scores on “seeing thorough” its audience and in effect touching the audience’s sentiments. Folk media generates the active relation of the audience with the medium, and gets a better grasp of the content meant for them.

Television can imbibe some of the characteristics of this medium. Television can have more participative programming that invites the viewers of a particular section of the society and community not only to give its feedback but instead to become an important part of their editorial team. For example: A program that has been made to assess whether a community of daily wage workers are getting health benefits needs the participation of a person belonging from the community to be on board of that channel. The logistics of his participation can be worked out but the idea is that his voice should not be seen only as a “complainant” or a “poor victim” but instead he should be the one contributing towards the content of such story. The idea sounds too far- fetched but by just appointing a “stringer” to cover the views and get some agitated voices do not serve the purpose and intention of the program/ news story, and it certainly does not derive any change. As folk media, television news need to have the attitude of causing a change through substantial activity and not only through agitated reporting. The content needs to have the participation of lot of varied voices in it. As in folk media, the community members, the NGO’s, and the performers sit together and form the content as well as the performance that is targeted towards a cause and a particular audience of the community.

Television needs to lose its elusiveness. The awe factor has to be lost. And it can be lost only if the people from all sections are included in the active content development process. The “objective” reporting is distancing the people and making them see the reality only through a monitor’s glass. It will be argued that television needs to be unbiased and cannot entertain the voices of every person .Agreed, but it can have a representative of the marginalized section to make the programming and content strong and effectual for the people it is meant to be. Such attempt will help television from being mere a “visual chewing gum.”

Television aesthetically, as well as technically has come of age by imbibing elements of films, print media, and also integrating the today’s internet and new media. All these mediums have contributed towards making television what it is today. It will not be a mistake for television to try and adopt some of the forms of the past –the folk media to make it wider, deeper, democratic, and truly effectual in its intended messages.


References:

1. FOLK MEDIA AS MEANS OF ENTERTAINMENT EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY...

http://www.ee4.org/Papers/EE4_Theuri.pdf

2. Opening Media in Transition: Connections between Folk and Digital Cultures
www.snurb.info/node/654

3. www.aico.org/v2020resource/files/folk_media.htm

4. “Deep Democracy: Urban Governmentality and the Horizon of Politics”—Arjun Appadurai