A Solitary Footstep Resolved… …Makes The Whole World Involved

जागरण संपादकीय ब्लॉग

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‘Man can not grow in isolation, only Beast or God can live alone.’ This famous quote is of Great Greek Social Scientist Aristotle. Today or tomorrow he has to bow down before the surroundings and environment.  This is a bare fact which is applied even to institutions. The success or failure of any organization depends on the society. If you talk about developing or underdeveloped countries it is more important to develop the society instead of developing product or services.  Changing situation, changing environment causes social change. Modernization, urbanization, industrialization, inventions are both  boon and curse for the society. With the growing complexities of age, world is inching towards progress but it has also given birth to social rivalries and problems. This is a an universal phenomenon where world is beset with social problems.   So much so, that they have attracted the attention of policy makers and planners. Governmental and non governmental organizations are making relentless effort to grapple these problems. Be it development of women or child care, or pandemic like Aids or gigantic problem of environment pollution. Fighting against these sensitive issues have almost taken a form of a movement.

National, international organizations and civil societies have pulled up their sleeves to fight this battle. It’s a matter of concern for all and each and every strata of society are ready to contain social dissensions causing disintegration in the society. Government of India and international organizations are flowing money for this noble cause.

Despite these collective efforts, social harmony and equilibrium is being threatened. There are few burning questions bothering every man and the question is how to eradicate illiteracy, unemployment, disease, pollution, poverty and miseries. Corollary to it, I pose another question are organizations working in this field incapable? Perhaps, no. Then what is the reason? It is imperative to know, understand and analyze.  Apparently it seems that there is lacuna in the implementation policy. Most of the relevant government projects are either implemented only on papers but not completed successfully and the funds remain mostly unutilized. The irony lies in the fact that the illiterate and poor are completely unaware and lack confidence. Policies fail to reach at the grass roots level. In other words, lack of commitment and conviction is revealed. But then friends, we can not generalize it. There are many more hidden or inherent responsible factors for the failure in bringing about coveted change in the society.

Here comes the role of media, because no policy can be successful until and unless there is a mass participation. It is time for the media to come to the forefront and take up the cudgel on behalf of the mass. No goal can be attained without mass mobilization and definitely mobilization emanates from awareness and cognition. Participation is the logical outcome of awareness and attitude. And this awareness can be created by mass media, be it print or electronic. Media is the true representation of the mass. The glaring example of the role of media in creating awareness is our freedom struggle. It was the press creating news which aroused patriotic sentiment among masses, which integrated India and intensified the freedom movement; otherwise the independence would have been further delayed. The credit of making Gandhi as the father of the nation goes to a great extent to media. No body can deny this fact.

Media not only creates awareness, it plays a more responsible role. It controls the thinking process and the behaviour of human beings and converts them into action and deeds. One can say media plays a pragmatic role, media present facts at the same time evolves freedom of choice and preference for public virtually creates an individual orientation, moulding the personality of the man in consonance with the norms of the society. Media spearheads any movement. In fact media shapes public opinion, media influences social image and media is therefore people not technology.

Today is the age of media, more so with the globalization process the world has become a global village, closely knitted with each other. Any small incident in any part of the world makes head lines in a newspaper and spreads like wild fire in no time. This is an established fact. Media is also aware of this fact. All the social problems have to be addressed by the media and newspaper in particular, from a different perspective. They have to treat these problems as products and market them. Print marketing can make any social issue prime concern of the society.  Let me make it clear that media have highlighted social issues off and on.  Again here, I am making special reference to newspapers. Yes, newspapers have picked up socially relevant debatable issues. But, there are certain limitations like:

Paucity of time

Space crunch

Primacy to National –international news along with local news

and above all reader’s choice

Due to these reasons at times newspapers fail to do justice with social problems. In this market world competition is inevitable and for its survival media at times fails to give priority to social and developmental issues.

Eradication of any social problem requires continuity, before that the concept must be properly coined so that the people may not afford to ignore or forget it despite their forgetful nature. And for this is required intimate bond between civil societies and newspapers. They come forward with a firm conviction and commitment to create peace and harmony in the society. Can a newspaper be a part and parcel of any social project? Can it go for joint venture, can newspaper be a part of it’s IEC for the dissemination of information. Newspaper can project any social problem creating ripples in human hearts which may compel them to deliberate. Newspaper world along with social organization need to innovate strategies to highlight social problems and to find an amicable solution to it. It can take the form of interactive cell, grievance redressal cell; issue based regular columns, interactive columns or innovative advertisements.

Pehel, social initiative arm of Dainik Jagran believes in pioneering the cause and desires to fight till it wins. Commendable works have been done by Pehel in last couple of years. Media power is the biggest power. A social issue requires its proper attention. Now it depends how the media incorporates it and how the activists and civil societies working with the social issues manages media or involves media in its area of operation and activities. One can not claim to achieve 100% eradication of social problems, but with the use of media it can be minimized to a greater extent. Newspaper is one of the most effective branches of media, which helps in forming free fair public opinion. Only 3-4 years back it was very difficult to fight against HIV/Aids, but today the ‘leviathan’ is within its chains. Mainly because of the awareness level of the people have drastically improved. Still the work in this direction is on and newspapers are playing a vital role in arousing mass concern. Apart from carrying the news and views it is featuring regular advertisements, running FAQ columns.

The success rate of pulse polio immunization is ranging from 98 to 99%. The credit of resounding success to a great extent goes to media for their thought provoking commercials and advertisements which left an abiding impression on the mind of masses. HelpageIndia, CRY, and other civil societies of repute after assessing the success rate have also started audiovisual and newspaper campaigns. Time has gone when, one should calculate the level of its morality and ethics, it is the time of action, and even civil societies are in accord.

International agencies are directly in contract with government. They act according to the direction of the government .But the government is not decisive, how to promote the international agencies to go ahead with media for creating awareness. Some times the international agencies come forward and try to convince the government, which has happened in the case of PPI, Aids awareness campaign etc and impact is all pervasive. International organization should also think to link directly with media for its cause.

Media must continue to be a critical and key partner in the process of change and evolution towards a more inclusive and right-based social programmes. Media should be part of the international movement to:

• Learn and understand what social issues mean in a global context of development issues; what is meant when we say social issues are central to development;
• Learn what the priority of different social issues;
• Responsible reporting on sensitive social issues ;
• Understand use and limitation of numbers and statistics when reporting on social issues; and
• Work together to get support of political, religious and community leaders on different social programs.

Public education, political debate, advocacy and investigative journalism are among the functions of mass media without which these goals are unlikely to be achieved.

Mass media should channel public understanding and stimulate debate about these policies

Mass media are still the most effective and cost-effective means of achieving these objectives

Civil societies/ international agencies should also learn:

• How to get across difficult and sensitive topics to influential audiences – political leaders, etc; and
• How to minimize the use of professional jargon in conveying different social messages?