Media Wars and Diminishing Humanistic Values

Rahimia Magazine (June,2015)

With the ever-increasing transformation of our planet into a global village, hardly anyone can negate the fact that media is emerging as a central and most powerful entity around the globe. Apart from influencing religion, ethics, state policies and politics, media groups are now fighting with each other in order to attain dominance and increase their TRP ratings. Instead of improving literacy standards and awareness in under-developed countries like Pakistan, advancement in modes of communication and media technologies has actually threatened our ethical values and morals. Technological resources and human talent are being mercilessly abused for profit maximization of business corporations and dominance of a particular lobby or interest group over others. Religious occasions and other esteemed occasions including those of holy month of Ramadan are presented solely on commercial and profit-orientated basis thereby attenuating any positive results of these events on human consciousness and character. In these programs, people of mediocre minds and extravagant appearances are preferred over educated and sophisticated personalities.

These hosts are devoid of true spirit of religious and social knowledge and exploit emotions of their viewers with their acting, flattery and hype-creating abilities. Same is the case with talk shows which are being aired daily on different channels. Political parties are always looking for such representatives that can cunningly hide the historic background of these parties and have the ability to justify party’s point of view through their convincing power and exaggeration. Influencing the opinion of different TV hosts through relationship building and financial temptations has become a routine part of our political culture. Heinous crimes and scandals of large business corporations are used as bargaining chips by anchors, reporters and journalists in order to safeguard their personal and organizational interests. This attitude of blackmailing has been now considered as an essential ingredient for so-called “successful” journalism. Lately, some influential groups and personalities tend to gain popularity and achieve their objectives by deliberately encouraging a campaign against them. It is no more a secret that all media groups of Pakistan are subsidiaries of capitalist giants and large financial organizations. They use their respective media platforms for their economic, political and social wars. In these wars, all social values and morals are bypassed. Different techniques and mal-practices are exercised in order to defame and weaken their opponents. In short, technological advancement in media industry has failed to meet public expectations in producing any positive results in the society. On the contrary,it has played a substantial role in diminishing the existing humanistic values of our society. Thus, we must be aware of the social evils media is propagating in our society. Moreover, habits of book-reading and participation in analytical and objective mutual discussions should be encouraged to raise our collective consciousness.