Media, the term extensively used for over a decade has become a pilgrim for making or breaking society, bringing revolution, molding state of mind of its viewers, and most importantly considered as a backbone of democracy. Once the media begins to function as an independent entity the following thing happens it strengthens democratic and interlinked processes and institutions. It also serve as an instrument of socialization of people into societal values, norms, political orientations and historical perspectives.
Media, the term extensively used
for over a decade has become a pilgrim for making or breaking society, bringing
revolution, molding state of mind of its viewers, and most importantly
considered as a backbone of democracy. Once the media begins to function as an
independent entity the following thing happens it strengthens democratic and
interlinked processes and institutions. It also serve as an instrument of
socialization of people into societal values, norms, political orientations and
historical perspectives.
So, what is Media? It is a medium
of communication with people, country and the entire globe. The reflection of
democracy can be seen through media which act as a pipeline for socio-political
and cultural ideas and discourses. Now a days the term used “freedom of
speech”, freedom cannot simply means to do anything. The media cannot act as
‘free-for-all’ manner and practice its strategic position and power to
communicate in a manner that it causes discord and conflict in the society,
promote highly biased and negative ideas or becomes a propaganda instrument for
a socio-political perspective and a political or religious group. Let us look
at an outdated mass communication theory “Libertarian theory” introduced in Europe
during the 16th century after the invention of printing press and the press
movement. It states that there is no control of authority and everybody has the
right to voice their opinion. There is also no censorship and government must
not hold any power to control and suppress media. Information flow in all
directions and the people are subjected to interpret and decide which
information they need and the authenticity of the information. It can be seen
clearly from above description that the media is free to operate without any
pressure but the information distributed may not be upright or can cause
distortion in the society without anyone being held accountable. In this age or
time frame it has become crucial to evaluate performance of media and authenticity
of information with reference to the social responsibility since its
influential capacity to the society has increased tremendously over the last
two decades. Modern communication technology has provided a huge viewership and
multiple channels to shape disposition of people as well as their choices. The
hot topics in Pakistan as always have been terrorism, LOC, Kashmir issue,
elections and most recent one is corruption which are under the watchful eye of
the media. Since it deeply affect the mass community, the media should fair and
squarely transmit the information
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