Diversity and Plurality in Media Consumerism: An Explorative Study

Consumerism as a practice about media acceptance is relatively a new concept for the Indian subcontinent. Before commercialisation and globalisation set in, the target audience of media were termed as honourable readers, listeners or viewers. Soon, due to the dictates of market forces on content and reach of media, the exposed community of media were termed as media consumers. For a multi-lingual, cultural and complex society such as that of India, plurality in media needs measurement in real sense. The Democratic India with its thriving media demands for social re-engineering. Issues of social hierarchy and social ills have to be addressed and media has a crucial role in it. Priority issues of change in social thinking, addressing dignity of labour and providing social justice should be on agenda about the functioning of media which should be the reflection of society. But a conflict of today’s media in India that? ‘Should media give what people want?’ or, ‘Should it also give what is good for the people?’ has to be addressed. Consistent irrational content in every media has often mislead large sections of society members towards digress and futility. The marginalised groups are taken for a ride. In a diverse Indian society, fantasy concepts of cinema are projected as realities on TV among the intimate, home communities. Reaching a dark auditorium with heterogeneous audience is different from reaching a drawing room of a small family. There is no meaning in media sowing blind beliefs by keeping aside scientific temperament. Indian society has not stretched to media for betterment, nor has it been allowing the change-makers to stretch. With such societal limitations to consume media, there is need for its sensitisation and disciplining for positive usage of media. In this background, the study adoptedcritical approach as methodology under theoretical studies aboutthe role of the decision making individuals and sections of society to work in tandem with media communicating for change towards better consumerism. This study checked for penetration of the media messages in a complex societal situation. It examined the aspects of plurality in the diverse functioning of media in terms of its economic priorities, reach, access and utility. The study is significant as it helps understand the fruitfulness of the communication process in the era of information pollution, explosion and globalisation. Here, the methodology adopted is of theoretical type with Critical Studies in its approach.