Unethical Media

Practices
“MEDIA IS A MIRROR OF THE SOCIETY”
 Intro
The prime responsibility of media is to reveal the best form of truth but unethical media
practices in India are at zenith point.

According to a survey conducted by Richard Edelman for World Economic Forum, Indian
media is the second most untrusted institution in the world. The meaning of ‘freedom of
speech’ which is given by our constitution stretched to the extent that now anybody can
speak anything despite balderdash, it communicated.

The Indian media is working as if it is an unaccountable authority and as an agent for

political parties and large business corporates. It is a wise to consider news channels and
newspapers as an organizational player. Most of them are corrupt. They publish the news
which would be lucrative for them.
MEDIA SENSITISATION
Sensitisation is the process by which the media can alert the public, and
specific social groups, to the fact that certain social actions are taking place,or to
the possibility that certain social actions might take place.

The first step in process of media coverage is sensitisation and Stanley Cohen,
for example, in ‘Sensitisation: the case of the Mods and Rockers’ in The Manufacture
of New: Deviance, Social Problems and the Mass Media (Constable, 1973) argued
that this step affected the course of real events.

In a democracy, the media holds the key to bring about mass awareness on
issues of political, social and economic importance. However, it is mostly
observed that political and economic news items are given more preference over
social issues in many of the media channels. This is leading to a massive neglect
of social issues. There is a dire need to Increase the sensitivity-levels of the
media in covering such issues.
 Women in
decorative
roles

Broad Themes
Women of Stereotypical Women in
portrayed
equal to Portrayal of traditional
Women in roles
men
Advertisements

Women in
non-
traditional
roles
 Social Evil Example : Violence Against Women
Project Objectives

Increase the sensitivity-levels of the media in covering issues of violence against women
Examine the impact of media coverage about the issue of violence against women on general public awareness and policies of the government

Project Activities

Identify and liaison with effective media channels and study their existing reach and coverage of social issues, especially the issue of violence
against women.
Organize training workshops with media persons to sensitize them about the issue of violence against women.
Undertake a case study documentation of violence against women in the project area to support the media in featuring the news about it.
Carry out media analysis of the coverage of social issues, especially the issue of violence against women and report it back to the media.
Organize a media-government conference on the issue of violence against women

Project Outcomes

Effective partnerships established with various media channels to cover social issues especially the issue of violence against women.
Improved sensitivity levels of media persons in covering news about the issue of violence against women.
Increased news items appearing about cases of violence against women across the media channels
The government is responsive towards considering policies to address the issue of violence against women.
 Women Objectified as Sex Symbols
● On average across magazines, one of two advertisements that featured women portrayed them as
sex objects. The sexual victimization of women use to be only in pornography, but it has now found
expression not only in films and television shows, but in advertising as well. The exposure of women’s
bodies occurred about four times as often compared to the exposure of men's bodies in magazines.
Women who are sexualized are more likely to appear as purely decorative objects in men’s magazines
compared to women’s magazines.

The term “sex sells” has begun to cross the boundaries to where we are seeing sex influence on
every product that we are purchasing from alcohol, beauty supplies, groceries and even
banking services.

● Sexually explicit programming and advertising is devastating to the self-esteem, this creates
unrealistic expectations of gender portrayal, such as being thin, beautiful and having designer clothes,
make-up and accessories. The sexual objectification of women is related to the development of eating
disorders, low self-esteem, depression, and negative feelings regarding sexuality.
Women Objectified
as
Sex Symbols
Stereotypical Advertisements Portraying Gender Inequality
● Gender stereotypes are beliefs related to the sets of psychological traits and behaviors
characterizing men and women, while the term “gender roles” refers to the activities that are
differentially appropriate for men or women.

Women are often stereotyped as weak, nurturing, dependent, indecisive, and emotional
while men have been characterized as strong, independent, competent, and stubborn.

In advertising, women are commonly portrayed as sexual objects, victims, and in stereotypical
gender roles. Advertising has been criticized for presenting a non realistic view of women and their
actual roles in society, as it generally uses stereotypical gender roles. Ever since the Feminist
movement came about in the 1960s women have been trying to change the stereotypes. Although
less traditional portrayals of women are becoming more common nowadays, the use of some
stereotypical women depictions, such as women as sexual objects, may have increased.
Stereotyping Women
 Collusion Media cover-
between up
media and Media
extreme imperialism
political
groups

Commercial
Indecent
exploitation of
education Unethical advertising

Media
Clandestine
propaganda
broadcasting
Practices Media smear
campaigns

Invasion of
Misuse of
privacy by
advertising
media
Deception in
the media
Paid News The mid-2000s saw business schemes that
swapped ad space in newspapers for equity in
companies, and as documented by journalist
Mrinal Pande, many of these went belly up.
During the 2008 assembly elections, Hindi
dailies published stories about candidates
who had no particular news value, even
predicting record victories for them. In 2003
Bennett Coleman and Company Ltd, publisher
of The Times of India, started a paid content
service to send journalists out to cover events
for a fee.
 In October 2008, in the midst of stiff
opposition to the government granting
permission to trial runs of genetically-
modified crops The Times of India ran a
story about how no farmer suicides were

Opaque private treaties reported from two villages that had

switched to GM seeds. The same story was
later republished in August 2011 followed
by a barrage of advertising by GM giant
Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech India. The 2011
reprint was a frantic lobbying response to
the government’s failure to table the GM
bill in parliament, says the report.
 In 2012 senior editors of the
television channel Zee News were
arrested for allegedly demanding Rs
Blatant blackmail 100 crore from Jindal Power and
Steel Ltd. In return for this pay-off
they offered to dilute their
network’s campaign against the
company in the coal scam.
 The EJN report cites the
Flawed measurements of example of the Indian
Readership Survey of 2013,
audience reach and which claims that the
readership of English
readership newspapers fell by a whopping
20% without attributing any
reasons to the fall.

Moreover, the survey found

that the leading English paper in
Nagpur Hitvada didn’t appear to
have a single reader while it had
a certified circulation of more
than 60,000.
Reccomendations & Suggestions :
Ethical Nature of Media
1. Create Policies and Practices: Organizations must research, develop, and
document policies and processes around defining, identifying, and reporting
ethics violations. These policies should be articulated in the employee
handbook and protections should be put in place for those who raise ethical
issu
2. Hire Right: Selecting quality people from day one can make a huge difference
in the ethics of your organization. Some organizations scour background
checks, purchase screening tools, or use behavior-based interview questions,
which may ask candidates to describe a situation when they acted ethically
even when it was against social or cultural norms.
3. Build a Culture of Transparency, Openness, and Communication: Cultural
management work is difficult. To ensure true success when it comes to
organization ethics, people must see and hear what is going on as well as feel
comfortable to stand up and speak out if they see something occur that is not
right.
4. Leadership Must Walk the Talk: Leaders can talk about the importance of
policies and processes, incentives, communication, and openness all day, but
if they turn around and act unethically, it can be like throwing a large stone
into the pond of ethics tranquility.

5. Put Controls in Place: Risk management professionals will tell you that
even with all the proper policies and processes in place and a staff that
understands them, it is also wise to perform regular audits to help reduce
opportunities to act unethically, incent individuals who may act unethically to
reconsider, help catch issues that have occurred by accident, and mitigate risk
all around.
 Conclusion
But, if some of the powerful players in the media
industry are not willing to listen, then India’s media
boom will be worthless to journalism and the pursuit of
truth.

Even worse, it will be of no value to India’s more than

1.2 billion people who may have more infotainment,
sensationalism and political spin at their disposal but
who will remain ignorant of the facts and analysis of
events around them. When that happens the world’s
largest democracy will be seriously weakened.
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