Understanding media

What this heading covers

Where people get their picture of the world, and what happens to that picture on the way. The chapter is not about technology; it is about whose account reaches you, and what it left out.

Diversity, prejudice and gender share this unit's method — separating a thing from the social arrangement built on it — and have a lesson of their own.

What mass media is

Mass media reaches large numbers of people at once. The usual division:

Kind	Examples
Print	Newspapers, magazines, books, posters
Electronic or broadcast	Radio, television, cinema
New or digital	The internet, websites, social media, messaging

Its democratic role is to inform citizens, enable debate, and hold power to account. That is why an independent press is counted among the conditions of a working democracy rather than as a convenience — a citizen who cannot find out what the government is doing cannot judge it at an election.

In one line — media is not a window on the world but somebody's account of it, and in a democracy the right to give that account independently is part of the machinery, not a luxury.

The three things the syllabus asks you to notice

1. Agenda-setting

Media shapes what is discussed by choosing what to report. A story that is not reported is not debated, and a story repeated for a week becomes the issue of the week whatever else is happening.

So the choice of what to cover is itself an exercise of power — and it is exercised by leaving things out as much as by putting things in. A question asking how media influences public opinion without telling anyone what to think is asking for this.

2. Ownership and revenue

Media costs a great deal to produce and is paid for largely by advertising, not by what a reader pays. Two consequences the syllabus draws:

• What can safely be reported is shaped by who owns the outlet and who buys the advertising. A story that damages a large advertiser is harder to run.
• Media tends to cover what attracts the audience advertisers want, which is not the same as what most people need to know.

Concentration of ownership — many outlets held by few owners — narrows the range of accounts available, even when the number of channels grows. More outlets is not the same as more points of view.

3. A report is a selection, not a mirror

Every account leaves things out, puts one thing first, and uses words that carry a judgement. Two honest reporters at the same event produce two different reports.

What to look for in any report, and this is the examinable list:

• What was included and what was left out.
• What was put first, since the opening decides what the piece is about.
• Whose voices were quoted — and whose were not.
• The words chosen: a crowd or a mob, a protest or an agitation, demanded or appealed.
• The picture, which frames the event before a word is read.

The standard classroom activity — comparing two newspapers' accounts of the same event — exists to make this visible rather than merely stated, and a question describing that activity is asking what it demonstrates.

In one line — agenda-setting decides what you think about, ownership and advertising decide what can safely be said, and selection decides what the event looks like by the time it reaches you.

Censorship, and the freedom to report

Censorship is a government controlling what may be published or broadcast — by preventing publication, requiring approval beforehand, or punishing afterwards.

The Indian case the books use is the Emergency of 1975 to 1977, when press censorship was imposed and newspapers had to submit material for approval before printing. It is the standard example because it shows the arrangement failing in exactly the way the chapter predicts: the body that was meant to report on power was brought under it.

Freedom of the press in India is not a separate right in the Constitution; it is read into the freedom of speech and expression, and like that freedom it is subject to reasonable restrictions.

Two companions worth knowing:

• Prasar Bharati, the public broadcaster that runs Doordarshan and All India Radio, is meant to be independent of the government of the day rather than a department of it.
• The Right to Information Act, 2005 gives a citizen the right to ask for information held by a public authority — which puts a little of the media's work in the hands of anybody prepared to file an application.

Local media, and who gets left out

National coverage tends to follow the cities and the large story, so what is happening to most people can go unreported. The syllabus notes this directly, and it is the hinge connecting this chapter to marginalisation.

• Local newspapers and district editions cover what the national edition has no room for.
• Community radio, run by colleges, farmers' groups and voluntary organisations, broadcasts in the local language about local matters — weather, prices, health, schools.
• Street plays, wall newspapers and local theatre are media too, and reach people print does not.

In one line — the stories that do not reach a national newsroom are not small stories; they are the stories of the people a national newsroom is not organised to hear.

Social media and the new problems

The newest part of the chapter, and the part a current paper is likeliest to set.

What changed	What follows
Anyone can publish	No editor checks it first — the gatekeeper is gone
It spreads in minutes	A correction never travels as far as the thing it corrects
It is free to the user	It is paid for by advertising and by attention, so what provokes travels furthest
It shows you more of what you already like	People meet fewer accounts that disagree with them

Misinformation is false information spread without intending harm; disinformation is false information spread deliberately. The distinction is asked, and the difference is the intention.

Media literacy, which is the teaching point

A citizen — and a class — can be taught to ask:

• Who made this, and what do they want?
• Is it a report, an opinion or an advertisement? Paid content that looks like news is the hardest case.
• Where else is it reported? One source is not confirmation.
• Is there a date, a place and a name? Old pictures from elsewhere are the commonest kind of false claim.
• Does it want me angry? Strong feeling is how material travels, and is worth noticing in oneself.

In one line — when anyone can publish and nothing is checked first, the checking becomes the reader's job, and teaching that checking is what this chapter is for.

Advertising

Not a side topic: it pays for most media, and the books treat it as something to read critically.

• An advertisement sells an idea of the buyer, not only a product — who you would be if you owned it.
• Children are a deliberate audience, and the syllabus treats advertising aimed at them as needing particular care.
• Advertisement and news can look alike on a page or a feed, which is why the distinction is worth teaching explicitly.

Questions of the kind the paper sets

By choosing which stories to report, the media chiefly influences — (a) what people think (b) what people think about (c) who wins elections (d) how newspapers are priced

The distinction is the whole of agenda-setting, and the wording of the options is how it is set.

Most of the money that pays for a newspaper comes from — (a) its cover price (b) advertising (c) the government (d) its journalists

"A report is a selection, not a mirror" means that — (a) reporters are usually dishonest (b) every account includes some things, leaves out others, and orders them (c) photographs should not be used (d) only television can show an event truly

During which period was press censorship imposed in India, with newspapers required to submit material for approval before printing? (a) 1947–48 (b) 1962 (c) 1975–77 (d) 1991

Prasar Bharati is — (a) a private news channel (b) the public broadcaster, running Doordarshan and All India Radio (c) a government department of information (d) a press regulator

False information spread deliberately is called — (a) misinformation (b) disinformation (c) censorship (d) agenda-setting

A teacher asks two groups to compare how two newspapers reported the same event. The activity best demonstrates — (a) that one newspaper is better than the other (b) that a report is a selection, and selections differ (c) the cost of newsprint (d) the history of printing

Community radio is valuable chiefly because it — (a) is cheaper than television (b) carries local matters in the local language, which national coverage leaves out (c) reaches other countries (d) carries no advertising

Which question is the most useful first check on something forwarded to you? (a) Does it agree with what I believe? (b) Who made it, and where else is it reported? (c) How many people have shared it? (d) Is it written in my language?

Mistakes that cost marks here

• Reading agenda-setting as media telling people what to think. It decides what they think about.
• Thinking a newspaper is paid for by its cover price.
• Treating more channels as more points of view, when ownership may be concentrated.
• Taking a report to be a mirror of an event.
• Confusing misinformation with disinformation — the difference is the intention.
• Treating freedom of the press as a separate right in the Constitution; it is read into freedom of speech and expression.
• Calling Prasar Bharati a government department. It is the public broadcaster, meant to be independent.
• Treating social media as merely a faster newspaper, when the difference is that nobody checks it first.

In one line

Media decides what a country talks about, is paid for by somebody with interests of their own, and reaches you as a selection rather than a reflection — so the skill this chapter teaches is not consuming it but questioning it.

In the classroom

Bring in two newspapers from the same morning and give the class one event to compare — the headline, the first sentence, the photograph, who is quoted. They will find the differences themselves in ten minutes, and no amount of explaining would have taught it as well.

Then take one message that has been forwarded around the school and go through it together: who made it, when, where else it appears. That is media literacy, and it is the piece of this chapter the children will use the same evening.