Write a brief note on local media'.
Local media covers small Issues that involve prdinary people, and their daily lives. It is usually started by local groups. Several people use community radio to tell farmers about the prices of different crops and advise them on the use of seeds ‘ and fertilisers. Others make documentary films with fairly cheap and easily
available video cameras on real life conditions faced by different poor communities and, at times, have even given the poor these video cameras to make films on their own lives.
Khabar Lahriya is also a local newspaper. It is a fortnightly that is run by eight Dalit women in Chitrakoot district in Uttar Pradesh. It is written in the local j language, Bundeli. This eight page newspaper covers the Dalit issues and cases of violence against women and political corruption. This newspaper is popular among farmers, shopkeepers, panchayat members, school teachers and women who have recently become literate.
How can you say that media is far from freedom? Or why do most newspapers still fail to provide a balanced story? [V. Imp.]
Can you give this diagram a title? What do you understand about the link between media and big business from this diagram?
You have read about the ways in which the media sets the agenda'. What kind of effect does this have in a democracy? Provide two examples to support your point of view.
What are the various ways through which people express their dissatisfaction to any of the government's decision which does not go in their favour?
What do you mean by an independent media? Why is it important for the media to be independent? [V. Imp.]
As a class project, decide to focus on a particular news topic and cut out stories from different newspapers on this. Also watch the coverage of this topic on TV news, compare two newspapers and write down the similarity and differences in their reports. It might help to ask the following questions:
(a) What information is this article providing?
(b) What information is it leaving out?
(c) From whose point of view is the article being written?
(d) Whose point of view is being left out and why?