TECHNO-LINGUAL AMBIGUITIES OF INDIAN MEDIA: A CRITICAL STUDY

Usage of languages in media plays a significant role in making people to initiate and set agenda for the generation next. The positive aspects of media in producing cultural enrichment more often than not overshadow the pitfalls accompanying it. As communication expert, Wilbur Schramm says, ‘no mass media can exist in a cultural vacuum’. After language based unification of states in India, in the absence of clear-cut Communication Policy, unilingual influences dominated in the country. Limitations of media practitioners and technology contributed to the linguistic divide. The rural dialects and art forms were started to decline due to the presence of urban professionals inside media houses. The entry of global media houses also led to the better technological advancement in media and entertainment business. Commercial media houses also started dictating the language component; as a result writing and reading habits of younger generation is fast disappearing. Since the media has the capability to make people imitate, whatever language practices are on the media, the media consumers quickly pick them up. Researchers have often overlooked the potential to study language usages in media. In the convergence era with dominating mobile phones and SMS usages, the situation has still worsened. Transnational media has subtly started imposing English on a conventional society, negatively affecting the youth. In view of the situation, there is an urgent need to save many of the endangered languages. In this background, this article critically evaluates the pitfalls of non-judicious adaptations of language usages over electronic media. The inferences drawn calls for major changes in media language practices.