What is known as 'corporate media' today is not the same that media was in the past. At birth, infancy and when it came of age, it was not an outgrowth of the business model of the corporate world and did not have the sobriquet of 'media' attached to it. Philanthropists, social workers, cultural activists and believers in a political ideology brought out papers in various formats, individually or in a group. For the first group, it was a medium of a hobby, for the rest a paper or magazine facilitated communication of ideas - creative or propaganda oriented or both. In its original incarnation, a paper was self-sufficient, equipped with its own resources and home-grown writers. The readers' too, were loyal patrons, even 'captives', with their allegiance taken for granted. Being independent, media in the past could exercise freedom in what it conveyed by way of news and expressed whatever views suited its temperament and belief. Not surprisingly, media in its original persona was known as newspaper, magazine and journal. The sobriquet 'media' differentiated the old and the new, mediated by the corporate world. Not only corporate ownership and seed capital gave birth to modern day media, revenues from advertisements of corporate entities sustained its circulation. Media became embedded in the corporate world on both ends. In this Mephistophelean bargain, media lost its innocence - its independence. It ceased to enjoy the power of freedom of expression and the privilege of sitting in judgement in matters of public concern. After losing its 'virginity', media could not afford to maintain its independence to take stand on the merit of each case (events, policies, remarks by politicians and business titans) and laboured under the double burden of looking after the interests of the financier (owner) and sustainers (advertiser).
Social media, a latecomer in the world of communication, took the world of media by storm, simply by virtue of its freedom of expression and independence of judgement. With its office in the hand of the owners of a smart device (mobile phone, tablet, smart watch) and a one-person staff, it excelled titans in the world of media in being the first to break news on the events of the moment, domestic and international. Apart from firsthand knowledge, it used the bush-fire like network of contacts to disseminate news worldwide. Not being trained in the niceties of journalism, the purveyors of news in social media presented news in the raw to the news hungry audience, without going through the metric of editing. The news from ground zero conveyed lacked details, presenting it in bare bones. The no-frill news was lapped up by those who had little time for lengthy presentation.
Sometimes, the news was not accurate, sometimes absolutely baseless. Because of the large numbers of peddlers conveying the news, social media is self-correcting. The stigma of telling fake news does not stick to it for long by virtue of this built-in confessional overture, the errant newsmakers notwithstanding.
Having said that, it must be conceded that social media is no match for corporate media when it comes to detailed news and analysis. This is because social media does not have the back-up of a posse of news gatherers and reporters. In the field of investigative reporting also, social media is at a great disadvantage and for the same reason. But its deficiencies in news presentation are more than compensated when news is conveyed audio-visually. In fact, social media can be more daring in making video of an event like a killing and arson. But for this exceptional capability of 'stealth' news coverage, many acts of crime would have gone unreported and unpunished. From police atrocities to war crimes in recent years, the record of social media in exposing them and holding offenders to account is unparalleled. Corporate media can hardly come anywhere near this power and capacity in respect of crime reporting with visual evidence. This superiority is because of the built-in camera in the smart device that can take quick snaps of any event, day and night, surreptitiously.
Social media like Facebook, WhatsApp etc also allows users to talk online free of charge for unlimited time, both in audio and video formats. Apart from serving social purpose, this audio-visual facility facilitates exchange of views on any issue. Social media also provides a forum for online group activity among members on issues of common interests.
The disadvantage of social media in respect of investigative reporting mentioned above is somewhat mitigated by views expressed on any issue in writing that inevitably invites comments from virtual friends which has the potential of developing into an intellectual discourse in a short form. For those with a serious bent of mind, this brief interaction may encourage a full-fledged writing exercise. This kind of intellectual forum is not available in print or other corporate media. In the past newspapers used to have a 'Letters to the Editor' column where readers wrote letters on various topics, particularly those relating to civic matters. Sometimes, others joined, giving their own views on the matter. Unfortunately, this column has been closed by most of the newspapers for reasons best known to them.
Every corporate media, print or electronic has its editorial policy that is determined by the business interests of the corporate owner. Not only news coverage, highlighting of news and editorials reflect this bias, the op-ed columns and other articles published in the paper reflect this hidden agenda. After sometime, intelligent and regular readers, of course, can easily detect this institutional predilection of the paper.
The final distinction between social media and corporate media is the scope and extent of participation by users of these two. In terms of number of users, social media under different names has a far larger membership than readers of newspapers and viewers of televisions. Not only that, or perhaps because of that, social media is more democratic than corporate media. Though he did not make any comparison between social and corporate media, Noam Chomsky criticised modern media, pointing out disapprovingly that it is 'controlled by elite for the use of elite'. Perhaps, because of the disconnect between the majority of population and corporate media, advertisers are spending more for online advertisements than for the same in corporate media. Social media users, of course, do not need this patronage but their parent platforms are benefiting from this shift by advertisers.
The popularity of social media has come with a price tag. It is taking up more and more time of its users, making some of them addicts. With the addition of AI, the attraction of social media is likely to balloon, claiming more time from users. Unless judicious use is inculcated at a young age, it may be difficult to rein in the mind when one is grown up.
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