The media industry across the globe has witnessed spectacular changes in the recent years. There has been a considerable change in the perception of media in the olden times, as revolutionary instruments and powerful political players. Today, the media is perceived more as businesses with a motto of `remaining profitable'. The growing competition along with the trend of confinement of media ownership to a few major transnational conglomerates has further intensified the commercial pressure in the terrain. This has also resulted in media proliferation, wherein numerous emerging media products embark on catering to the needs of a more fragmented market.
Commodification2 of news has become a serious issue today. "The news has become a product, packaged and sold to the economic elite, designed to satisfy the needs of the advertiser first, and audience second."3 The mounting competition adds on to this connotation which stimulates the media genre to adopt strategies which may even disfigure and deface the relationship between editorial content and advertising.
As
the media dome becomes commercial, it relies more
on advertising revenue for its survival, which, in
turn increases pressure to develop media content that
appeals to the advertisers. This, in fact, results
in an elevated amount of conflicts with the media's
accountability towards public in terms of supplying
information, in public interest. In fact, the very
purpose of the existence of the media, i.e., informing
the public is overshadowed by such commercial concerns.
The increasing pressure also leads the media houses
to be choosy about their audiences with regard to
the advertiser appeal, and hence the focus is shifted
to wealthy, elite audience. |
