MEDIA AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO TELEVISION

For healthy, meaningful, harmless, non-interfering and contributive functioning with maximized benefits, every media theory has reiterated that the intricacies of media practices should essentially be compatible with the social structure, cultural ethos and psycho-social ramifications of the land and the region. However, the practices currently adopted are more often borrowed or imitative of the extraneous, foreign and strange to be deciphered and accepted, especially in a nation like India. In such a context, mass media has constantly been lured into overstepping the fire line of informing, educating or entertaining the public. The habits and practices of media have time and again often resulted in sensationalizing, misleading, instigating or giving ulterior ideas leading to mistakes, triggering catastrophe or toppling governance established by law. The trend is also trickling down to the domestic media. The study looks into many such deviations in compatible practices, instances and case studies and their repercussions on society as well as on media itself. The study analyses and tries to provide for alternative healthy practices, at least put them into theory to begin with, with a hope that the stakeholders will introspect and imbibe the essence of a disciplined approach to the functioning of media. This study has its significance as more and more types of media are joining the train of existing media while the relationship between them and the people has got entangled and often conflicting to each other as the fundamentals of media functioning seems to have got blurred in this convergence era. The methodology is of theoretical type with Critical Study along with case studies and observations. The findings of the study reveal the relationship between the commercial aspects of media, theoretical model, ethical lines and the psycho-social aberrations resulting out of wrongly treaded paths by the media. The inferences concentrate on treating the culture of mass media with innovative penicillin. The conclusions of the study are derived purely for the intentions of bridging the gap of understanding between the common masses and the specialized sector called mass communication