Role & Ethics Of Mass Media In India

Mass media has a prominent role to play in modern society. It can bring about radical changes and improve social situation as it influences our social, civil, cultural, political, economic and aesthetic outlook. Modernization has converted media into an indispensable feature of human activity. However, factors like age, education, economic condition, personal needs and availability of proper components decide the quantum and frequency of media use. This is evident from the fact that most media centres are located in urban areas. The majority of consumers of media products are also concentrated in and around cities and towns.

It is rightly said that media use is an index of development. The greater the use, the higher will be the level of education. As social beings, humans are sustained by mutual interactions, exchange of ideas, information and views with the fellow beings. Illiteracy, which is nothing but absence of education and information is a stumbling block for any aspect of development-social, economic, political, cultural and even spiritual. Media has become the harbinger of development through the removal of these roadblocks and the provision of information and knowledge.

In a democratic country like India, the ultimate power lies with the people. But a democratic society needs vigilant and informed people who are able to see through the gimmicks of political parties and politicians. Media creates such valuable citizens.Besides, media has done much good to society by exposing various scams, scandals, frauds, embezzlements and many other cases of corruption leading to initiation of enquiries and other processes of prosecution against the perpetrators of these crimes. History is witness that press has been instrumental in putting an end to atrocities and bringing the downfall of ruthless dictators. In India, vernacular press did the job of uniting people against the oppressive British rule and triggered its end in the country.

However, media too suffers from some pitfalls, growing consumerism and materialism have adversely impacted our media. The partisan attitude, sectarian outlook and biased individualism in some sections of media are a testimony that media too is susceptible to harmful influences. Often, in fierce rivalries, ethics of journalism are thrown out of the window to settle old scores. Running after opportunistic gains is another malady our media suffers from. The incidents of throwing are against the ethics of media. Deliberately creating sensational stuff to attract with reality- is another tactic that media must avoid.

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Scope Of Mass Communication In India

Undeniably, the mass communication industry holds a prominent position in the society today. In a democratic country like India, the power to discuss and disseminate can be executed only if there is a medium which enables the citizens, and encourages them to do so, due to which the importance of mass communication and media is this country is self-explanatory.

The scope of mass communication in India is vast, as the industry has witnessed a staggering growth and a steep rise over the past decades. Media is a part and parcel of daily life. Be it for headlines, updates on sports, cinema, fashion, lifestyle, or any issue of importance in the city you live in or in some part of the world, we look up to the media to gain an insight of what really is happening. Mass communication keeps us informed, and educates us on the news that holds significance in some way or the other. Without media, we would definitely have no scope to grow or evolve.

Why Media? Mass communication has developed to be an integral aspect of all our lives, without which, we could cease to exist as a well-informed, developed, civilized nation. One of the booming sectors across the globe, the mass communication industry provides immense scope and opportunities to youngsters out there, especially India.

 The future is here! :The mass communication industry provides exciting and well-paying job opportunities in ad agencies, print media (newspapers, magazines, and journals), broadcasting media (radio), visual media (television) and the internet of late.  The mass communication and the media industry are always on the lookout of hardworking and skilled professionals. As a graduate of mass communication, you are open to an exhausting range of career options, and the future of the mass communication and media industry seems bright. The biggest advantage which is associated with the mass communication industry is that it gives creatively inclined people a lot of opportunities to explore, and experiment. From working as an independent film maker, to copywriter, there is indeed an exhausting range of opportunities as far as the career growth in the field of mass communication in India is concerned.

Experts state that the Indian electronic media is going to witness an enviable growth in the coming years, making it one of the best times to opt for a mass communication course in India.  Certainly an interesting field to pursue a career in, the field of mass communication is definitely one of the leading industries in India which comes in with tremendous scope for mass communication students  in the country, out there.

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15 tips for a successful PR career

1. Be a sponge.

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it made the PR pro. Whether you're just starting out or if you've been in the business for years, it's incumbent upon you to constantly learn in order to stay on top of our industry. Never stop being curious.

[RELATED: Hear powerful case studies from Coca-Cola Co., Walmart, and Whole Foods Market in October at Microsoft's HQ.]

2. Stay on top of the news.

Make time to stay on top of current events. Read a newspaper (online or offline). Set up news alerts for your company and/or your clients. Listen to the radio or to podcasts about industry news. Watch the news in the morning. Whatever approach you choose, it will make you more interesting and it will make you better at your job. Consider it an investment.

3. Focus on details.

Nothing hurts the credibility of a pitch, a proposal, or a program like sloppy mistakes. Meanwhile, people who become known for outrageous attention to detail become go-to people in a team. Be that person. Read and re-read your work. Be your own devil's advocate in order to think things through and make sure you've covered all the angles. Double-check your calculations. Question your assumptions.

4. Learn to juggle.

This one applies especially to agency folks, but it goes across the board. Learn how to prioritize, how to focus when you need to, and how to manage your time. Life in PR is a juggling act, and you need to know how to manage your workload and the expectations of your clients—however you define them.

5. Learn to write.

Take the time to learn how to write well. Practice. Learn from others. Take a course if you need to. (I recommend the eight-step editing course by the Editors' Association of Canada, but there are many others.)

Crucial for many new graduates, you may need to unlearn what your professors taught you in university. Short paragraphs, short sentences, and clear language help you to convey your point much more easily than the opposite.

Oh, and if you could put "by zombies" at the end of a phrase, it's passive. Keep your voice active.

6. Embrace numbers.

Measurement has been a weak point in the PR profession for a long time. Nowadays, companies demand more. This is especially the case for social media and paid media programs. The days of output-focused measurement are numbered, and outcome-focused measurement is on the rise. You don't need to be an expert in dissecting website traffic (especially if you have a measurement team supporting you), but you should know the basics and know how to coach clients and people within your organization on how to approach measurement effectively.

7. Measure through the life cycle.

Measurement is so much more than reporting, and companies are demanding more from PR measurement nowadays. Know how to take full advantage of the potential that measurement holds throughout a program:

• Inform your objectives (setting realistic goals, fueled by insights from past programs);
• Fuel your planning (again, with insights from past work);
• Identify and help to address issues mid-flight;
• Measure results and generate new insights to fuel future work.

[Check out more on this in my recent presentation on Social Media at Scale that I gave at PodCamp Toronto.]

8. Provide solutions.

Tough challenges are a fact of life in the PR industry, where the role of communications is often to help to change behavior or perception. That's difficult. Few things will endear you to your boss more than this: Become the person who comes forward with solutions alongside their problems. It doesn't have to be the solution they choose (that helps, though), but the fact that you're thinking it through and considering solutions demonstrates the kind of mindset that managers adore.

9. Learn to stay level-headed.

PR pros frequently have to deal with difficult situations, many of which can't be predicted. These are moments where you can distinguish yourself and improve your reputation, or the reverse. Be one of those people who keep a cool head. Stay calm, and focus on solutions (per the earlier point). Remember: frantic doesn't mean effective.

10. Know what you don't know.

Self-awareness is a valuable trait, regardless of where you are in your career. Be humble enough to know when you're out of your depth, and to learn from those who have experience in areas you don't. Make sure that when you find yourself in that situation you don't sit paralyzed until it's too late for anyone to help you.

Bonus points for thinking things through ahead of time and coming prepared with a suggestion: "I'm not sure of the best approach here… here's what I'm thinking… what do you think?"

11. Learn the difference between objectives, strategy, and tactics.

Nothing makes me cringe more than seeing people confuse objectives, strategy, and tactics with each other.

Simply put:

• Objectives are what you need to accomplish. They should relate to business goals.
• Strategies are how you plan to accomplish them. They should drive toward the objectives.
• Tactics are the actions you take. They should funnel up to the strategy.

Learn it. Preach it.

[Read more on how to set better objectives or download my ebook on communications planning for more pointers.]

12. Become a trusted advisor.

Whether you're dealing with executives in your company, or with clients at other firms, strive to become a trusted advisor to them. Go beyond what you "have" to do and become a partner. Flag opportunities and threats. Offer strategic opinions. Learn to empathize with them. Have difficult conversations when you need to. Push them to take the right approach (but know when to accept their decision).

Don't just take orders.

13. Learn from your mistakes.

Accept that you'll make mistakes. We all make them, and they're a key piece of how we learn and improve. If you don't make mistakes, then you're not trying hard enough or not trying enough things. The key is to make them at the right time, in the right setting, and to learn from them. Conversely, people who constantly shirk responsibility for mistakes, or make excuses, will never learn.

Some of my most valuable lessons, and most beneficial experiences, have come from making mistakes. They weren't pleasant at the time, but I learned from them and I'm better for it. What's important is owning them and figuring out what to do differently next time.

14. Think outside your bubble.

It's easy to get caught up in your day-to-day routine. Instead, look around and proactively identify ways to expand your expertise. That could be by finding new ways to get better at tasks, or by getting involved in a project that stretches you, or by learning more about a relevant field.

15. Understand converged media.

This point began life as "understand social media," but nowadays it's broader than that. Start with understanding social media-monitor and participate in relevant conversations; think about how your programs might play out in social channels, and so on. Social media is just the beginning now, though. The key nowadays is understanding how earned, owned, and paid media play together. You don't need to be an expert in all of them, but you do need to understand how to leverage them.

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Mass Media Influence

In the last 50 years the media influence has grown exponentially with the advance of technology, first there was the telegraph, then the radio, the newspaper, magazines, television and now the internet.

We live in a society that depends on information and communication to keep moving in the right direction and do our daily activities like work, entertainment, health care, education, personal relationships, traveling and anything else that we have to do.

A common person in the city usually wakes up checks the tv news or newspaper, goes to work, makes a few phone calls, eats with their family when possible and makes his decisions based on the information that he has either from their co workers, news, tv, friends, family, financial reports, etc.

What we need to be aware is that most of our decisions, beliefs and values are based on what we know for a fact, our assumptions and our own experience. In our work we usually know what we have to do based on our experience and studies, however on our daily lives we rely on the media to get the current news and facts about what is important and what we should be aware of.

We have put our trust on the media as an authority to give us news, entertainment and education. However, the influence of mass media on our kids, teenagers and society is so big that we should know how it really works.

How does mass media influence young people?

The media makes billions of dollars with the advertising they sell and that we are exposed to. We buy what we are told to be good, after seeing thousands of advertisings we make our buying decisions based on what we saw on Tv, newspapers or magazines to be a product we can trust and also based on what everyone else that we know is buying and their decision are also base don the media.

These are the effects of mass media in teenagers, they buy what they see on Tv, what their favorite celebrity advertise and what is acceptable by society based on the fashion that the media has imposed them.

There are some positive and negative influences in young people.

Here is a positive influence example, if there is a sport that is getting a lot of attention by the media and gains popularity among your friends and society, you will more likely want to practice the sport and be cool with all your friends. The result is that you will have fun with your friends and be more healthy because of the exercise your are doing.

However a negative influence in teenagers is the use of cigars by celebrity movie stars, the constant exposure of sex images, the excessive images of violence and exposure to thousands of junk food ads.

Young people are in a stage of life where they want to be accepted by their peers, they want to be loved and be successful. The media creates the ideal image of a beautiful men and women and tells you what are the characteristics of a successful person, you can see it in movies and tv. Its a subliminal way to tell you that if you are not like them you are not cool yet so its time to buy the stuff they buy and look like they look.

Another negative influence in teenagers that has grown over the last years are anorexia and obesity. There are millions of adolescents fighting obesity, but at the same time they are exposed to thousands of advertisements of junk food, while the ideas image of a successful person is told to be thin and wealthy.

Also more women are obsessive with losing weight even when they are not obese, there are many thin women that want to look like the super models and thin celebrities so they engage in eating disorders which leads to severe health issues and even death.

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Rules and Tips on Being a Good Reporter

1. Do not use CAPITAL letters when writing a report. 
2. Do not use slang language or inappropriate language in your report. 
3. Write in complete sentences. 
4. Put 2 spaces after ending punctuation marks. 
5. Capitalize ONLY at the beginning of sentences or proper nouns. 
6. You should say what you need to say. 
7. The information in your article should be found in a reliable source such as: magazine, newspaper, web site, TV news, and interview. 
8. All of your spelling should be correct. 
9. Your topic should be interesting to children. 
10. Your information should be recent and current. 
11. We reserve the right to decline and not post articles that are obscene or judged inappropriate by the editors. 
12. All articles should have a email address so we could contact you if necessary

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General Techniques for Media Interviews

Before the interview:

• Know your purpose. Prepare two or three essential points that you want to get across during the

interview.

• Support your points with facts or anecdotes from your experience.

• There is no substitute for preparation. Study your subject and ask your friends, family, and colleagues

to conduct mock interviews as practice.

• Consider your interview an "enlarged conversation" and speak as naturally as you would to another

person.

During the Interview:

• Before you begin to speak, smile at the interviewer to establish a rapport.

• Use vocal variety. Let your voice and your delivery reflect the full spectrum of emotions and points of

emphasis.

• Use gestures that complement the expression of your ideas. Avoid distracting, meaningless

movements.

• Maintain eye contact throughout the interview and keep and "open," friendly face.

• Communicate total enthusiasm and involvement in your subject.

Getting Your Point Across:

• Be assertive - in a pleasant way - so that the conversation centers on subjects you want to talk about.

One way to do this is to respond to a narrow question with a very broad answer that encompasses the

facts or opinions you need to get across.

• Listen carefully to the question. If you consider it difficult, pause before you answer to give yourself time

to formulate a response. If you don't understand a question, ask that it be repeated.

• Be careful not to repeat an interviewer's words, unless they reinforce what you wish to say. If an

interviewer poses false premises in asking a question, correct him/her firmly but politely.

• Don't feel obligated to accept unfamiliar facts or figures.

• Use your time to set the record straight or present facts. You might say, "This is a common

misperception. Here's why..."

• Deflect questions you do not wish to answer by introducing something else of interest. In this way, you

may redirect the interview to the subject you wish to convey.

• Don't try to answer hypothetical questions; they tend to obscure your true position. Turn the tables by

clearly stating your general position and then offering your own example.

• Use short words and simple, declarative sentences. Avoid scientific terminology. Be descriptive, using

images that the listener can picture

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