By Indrani Sen
Mass media in India is omnipresent in our life today through print, cinema, television, radio, and internet. I often wonder what role mass media is playing in India in uplifting and promoting our traditional culture. The relationship between culture and mass media is well-known, well-researched and documented by academics. The sociologists and academics across the world have warned about the effects of media capitalism on developing countries. However, proper study and documentation of how Indians are changing culturally after globalisation and which culture theory these changes conform to is yet to happen. The cultural capital of Indians as a nation has been changing rapidly under the influence of mass media since 1990s and has accelerated in the 21st century after we got access to World Wide Web and internet.
The mission statement of Ministry of Culture includes “Promotion of literary, visual and performing arts†among its other objectives. Performing arts seem to have virtually disappeared from the content of Indian television channels and films. A review of dance, drama and various forms of visual arts still find mentions in our newspapers, but the space devoted to them are shrinking in the most newspapers, where the “page 3’ culture is dominating. FM radio stations rely mostly on filmy music for their content and classical music has no place in their programming. The content of our mass media is making the Government’s cultural policy related to promotion of performing arts virtually redundant.
Folk music is an essential part of our cultural heritage. Traditionally, it served as a medium of communication as the lyrics of the songs often reflected recent events, political and cultural changes as well as religious sentiments uniting people from the same ethnic group. Folk music along with classical music and classical dance forms were present in Indian cinema till 1970s, but the trend started changing from 1980s after commercialization of Doordarshan. Today, they are almost missing from the content of our films. Doordarshan still continues to devote time slots to such performing arts, but they are conspicuously absent from other popular private television channels. The various reality shows across national and regional television channels at times give us glimpses of our rich tradition of performing arts, especially during the initial selection process. Subsequently, when the candidates are tutored for performing in the competitions by the experts appointed by the channels, the original style of the candidates’ performance is often lost, particularly in the dance shows. The growing popularity of various mass media across India is creating a new Indian culture, which is also fanned by live shows and events, but the cultural identity of Indians is becoming vague and our cultural capital is transforming radically.
The Wikipedia definition of cultural capital says “The term cultural capital refers to non-financial social assets that promote social mobility beyond economic meansâ€.  Article 51 A (F) of our Constitution indirectly refers to the concept of cultural capital when it says “It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture”. Sociologists need to conduct series of surveys among youth to understand their perception of about the “heritage of our composite cultureâ€. Parallely, they should interview the leaders of the media and advertising industry to explore their understanding of cultural capital which they are promoting through their media content and advertisements.
The influence of mass media has a lasting impact on various cultural attributes and reshapes and remodels society and nation. Technological advancements make the changes the mass media inevitable and also affect the role of mass media plays on individuals and on society at large. Whether the current collective impact of Indian mass media is helping to develop a ‘culturally’ sustainable India is the crucial issue which needs to be investigated. Whether any corrective action is needed to correct the course of events can only be determined after examining the pros and cons of the issue. It will be extremely sad if academics of future generation write a new culture theory to explain how a rich cultural heritage can die a slow death through onslaught of mass media in a country using India as a case study.
Indrani Sen is a veteran media agency and marketing services professional. She is currently an Independent Consultant and Adjunct Faculty, Media Management at Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication, Pune. This column will appear fortnightly. The views expressed here are her own.