Anjali Singh

Roll no. – 302

ABM assignment
RECONSTRUCTION IN NEWS PROGRAMMING
IMPACT AND CONSEQUENCES
Abstract
Television has altered the way news is constructed and delivered. Due to competition and
TRP, television news channels are experimenting with different techniques to attract
attention and reach audiences. Reconstruction with the help of graphics and animation
along with docudramas has become quite common in various kinds of television programs.
From hard to soft news storytelling television channels have adopted different patterns of
visual construction to make an emotional appeal to the audience. Media theories have
established the power of visual media in the common man’s life. The present study focuses
on the reconstruction of news programming: impact and consequences (particularly focused
on crime shows).

Introduction
News reporting is an eminent part of journalism in the contemporary scenario. To report
news of an event, journalists often implement news reconstruction techniques to portray a
life-like representation of what actually happened in the scene. Crime
reconstruction or crime scene reconstruction is the forensic science discipline in which one
gains "explicit knowledge of the series of events that surround the commission of a crime
using deductive and inductive reasoning, physical evidence, scientific methods, and their
interrelationships". When a notable event occurs, a journalist can typically be found at the
scene of the crime, vigilantly taking notes and getting interviews with eyewitnesses or
figures of interest.  This is often a detailed process that requires journalists to closely watch
the scene and report the details back to the newsroom where a virtual reconstruction of the
crime scene is carried out at the earliest. 

Objectives of reconstruction
 Reconstruction can help unearth facts and details that previously went unnoticed.
They can help solve cases that have been unsolved for many years. 
 Journalists and newsrooms often employ various visual construction elements to give
add an ‘emotional’ appeal to the audience.
 Reconstruction also helps rebuild cases whose evidence might have been destroyed
by the passage of time. It helps rebuild facts and rebuild the scene of the crime. Fresh
perspectives come to life with the help of reconstruction of a crime scene. 
CRIME RECONSTRUCTION BY MEDIA
The media is considered to be the 4th pillar of a setup. Committed to act as the watchdogs in
a democracy, the media is required to be vigilant, independent, and objective. However, the
media often fails to follow its ethical code of conduct. The news media wield a "double-
edged sword" in their coverage of crime and victimization relevant to the "public's right to
know" versus "the victim's right to privacy." Victim service providers play crucial roles in
protecting victims' privacy rights, and helping victims cope with media coverage
immediately following a crime, during the trial, and following verdicts. Advocates must
possess knowledge of who the media are, how they operate, and victims' needs pertinent to
dealing with the media. In order to justify their goal of delivering ‘news’ to the masses
through the objective lens of journalism, the media often goes around reconstructing crime
scenes to visually aid the news reporting, and add ‘flavor’ to the practice. Still, it is the
responsibility of a journalist to not lose his/her credibility, and be true to the narrative. This
comes by ensuring utmost accuracy and no fabrication or exaggeration of simple details into
complex elements. 

CASE STUDY – Noida Murder Case

Facts of the case:

Aarushi Talwar murder case where a fourteen-year-old girl Aarushi Talwar was murdered on
16 May 2008 whereas the servant Hemraj was found dead on the terrace the next day.
Failure to secure the crime scene brought heavy criticism to the police. The police accused
Rajesh Talwar as the prime suspect because they thought that Rajesh has killed both of
them after seeing them in a “compromising” position.
Rajesh Talwar was contemplated as the sole suspect due to the circumstantial evidence and
the CBI Court declared the parents guilty and they were sentenced to life imprisonment. In
2017, Allahabad High Court acquitted the Talwar couple giving them benefit of doubt.
Role of media:

Afterwards this, the print and electronic media started their outcry by encumbering all the
newspapers and channels with the news of Aarushi Talwar’s murder. It was very unfortunate
to see the insensitivity of media in reporting this case. The dramatizations in several
channels objectified and defamed a dead minor girl and showed simulating objectionable
scenes of Aarushi and Hemraj together and Rajesh coming with a golf club and hitting them.
All such acts of media completely distraught the reputation of the dead girl, her parents and
all those people whose names were mentioned in several shows.[10]

Aggrieved and shocked to see the role played by media here, Dr. Surat Singh, an advocate,
filed a PIL and the Supreme Court took this very seriously. The Court reprimanded both print
and electronic media to be aware of the prejudicial steps they are taking because it was
meddling with the “right to defence of the accused”.
The Supreme Court ordered restraint on “published material which may interfere with the
investigation process in respect of all cases.” 104 And this whole event was strongly
lambasted by many as “trial by media”.

Impact 

Crime Reality Shows, a special genre of reality television format is trending these days by
gripping the audiences across the world with its unique and innovative methods of
providing Information, Entertainment and Awareness on crime, criminals and the role of
law and order in their own geographical circumstances and situations. 

Several research studies have already concluded that constant watching of crime through
the prime medium at some level affects the thought process of people. The effects could be
short run or long run or could be situational. Though evidences don‟t suggest that every
viewer will become or behave like a criminal, the constant exposure to such crime related
violent content may possibly make the viewers desensitized towards the crime or pain of
others, treating it as the most generic issue happening these days. 

On the other, there is a chance of visualizing the problems at higher proportions than the
reality and can treat our surroundings as the most unsafe place on the earth. This
phenomenon is termed as Mean World Syndrome.

Experiencing fear can come in any form and volume depending on how much the content
of crime reality shows is perceived as real – they can’t act normal when they meet
strangers; they don’t trust strangers or even neighbours easily. Whenever they see a van
passing from nearby they fear getting kidnapped.

Consequences 

 The utilization of visual reconstruction in portrayal assists with an assortment of

qualities of media show. It diminishes the risk of watchers being befuddled by
unmistakably giving a lot of just data. By also utilizing visual transformation.

 It reflects and helps watchers in fathoming reality, as television creates and

intervenes reality for its watchers through amusement.

 At the point when visual remaking identifies with the watcher's intellectual level,
messages are seen and the program is naturally followed with extraordinary
interest Link networks keep up with their TRP and keep a strategic advantage
against rival channels by winning the consent of their watchers. Individuals are
observing to fulfil their diversion, data, and edutainment requests.
  When staring at the television meets their necessities, they go to explicit channels.
Watchers presently have more choices for fulfilling their special necessities than
they did already. Thus, television stations utilize the strategy for varying media
rebuilding in story to catch and hold the crowd's eye.

 In addition, the regular news items on these issues that come either in newspapers
or TV or Internet, enables us to cross check for accuracy, intensity and after effects
of the problem. And when such issues are picturized in a more dramatic way with
analytical narration through these crime reality shows the viewer can make an
emotional connection and start visualizing the issue to his / her circumstances and
situations.

 There is a critical argument that crime reality shows give new ideas to commit crime
in innovative methods. This argument cannot be overlooked easily as a noticeable
amount of such criminal cases that are considered to be inspired by crime reality
shows are grabbing eyeballs these days in various places of India. 

 Reconstruction also helps rebuild cases whose evidence might have been destroyed
by the passage of time. It helps rebuild facts and rebuild the scene of the crime.
Fresh perspectives come to life with the help of reconstruction of a crime scene. 

CONCLUSION 

Crime reality shows are becoming very popular among the Indian audience and at the
same time leading to a scope of developing effects or various implications on the
perceptions, thought process and behaviours of general viewers. The effects can be either
positive or negative. 
The producers of the shows say that this kind of crime programs exposes the society‟s
underbelly, help the viewers to stay alert in their daily life so that they can avoid themselves
getting into such trouble. The aim of these shows is to warn and inform people about crimes
and the effectiveness of these shows depends on how it is perceived by the viewers, say the
makers of these shows. But the audience must also keep in mind that the reality presented
on TV is fiction after all. They must learn to differentiate reality from reality TV.

REFERENCES

1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325487736_Reconstruction_and_Present
ation_of_Reality_on_Television_An_Analytical_Study_of_Kannada_Channels
2. Effects of Crime Reality Shows on Indian Viewer - A Study by Dr. Archana Chanuvai
Narahari1 & Ms. Sonali Mukherji
3.  https://www.jstor.org/stable/20627925
4.  https://portal.ct.gov/DESPP/Division-of-ScientificServices/_content /Crime-Scene-
Reconstruction
5. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Reconstruction-and-Presentation-of-
Reality-on-An-of-Nayak/3e0f7ef469b0755aa42ef111d1a85cfc4c7d7087