Module 10: An argument for modernization and development
  Lecture 28: Sources of Hope or Hopelessness

B) Mass media :- Media holds a position of eminence in contemporary society. Media informs. Media keeps a watch on the working of power elite. Media does investigative work. Media reveals what the power structure hides. Media guides. Media can warn against various collusions between power elite, science elite and bureaucracy, and predict various risks to people. In a developing country like India what is mass media’s contribution to creation of a just society is a big question mark. Mass media cannot define social values. It adopts the normative framework of society and depicts the cases of shocking deviations from them. Yet, in a plural society with different norms it often projects the practices of minority groups as deviations or sends a message to reform them in accordance with the norms of the dominant groups (seen as the universal norms). Further, to create an impact media floods information on deviance, corruption, cruelty, and injustice but fails to present a serious analysis of them or carry them forward. In a large country like India some or other shocking incidence is always happening. Media presents it in the most sensitizing manner possible and forgets. No social groups or society seems to have perfected itself by watching TV. No man has ever become happy by watching TV either.