http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=3302
21st century media: No culture, less humour and alienated from society New Delhi, Mar 11: The digital-driven speed of the media has converted what used to be a seamless flow of information into what has become a torrent, the sheer pace of which is self-defeating because there is less and less time and space even to pay attention to it. With attention spans dwindling to ridiculous lows, the future that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes may well be there, says a new book. The fatal attraction of the market and the consequent alienation from the civil society has serious implications for the future of the media, say writers in the book 21st Century Journalism in India. Journalists and non-journalist writers in the book feel that should the media place itself purely at the mercy or bidding of the market, it would forfeit its right to the moral and statutory high ground it has enjoyed all along as a fourth pillar of democracy, The print media seems to be in a tailspin from which there is no escape in sight. With the price wars having reduced cover prices of most newspapers to token amounts, the reliance on advertisement revenues is fostering a dependency syndrome which may be difficult to break from, the book says. Writers in the book feel communication in the public realm oscillates between struggle and submission, as the media witnesses the encounters between the government and the community or their representatives. The media constitutes a third voice and does not always substitute for the people, they say. --- PTI
