Mass – Media and its Impact on Human Right of The Marginal – Senior Citizen’s, Children & The under privileged :-

The totalitarian regime established in the 1920’s and 1930’s grossly violated human rights in their own territories. The Second World War brought about massive abuse of human life and dignity and attempts to eliminate entire groups of people because of their race religion or nationality. Therefore international instruments were needed to codify and protect human rights, because respect for them was one of the essential conditions for world peace and prosperity. This conviction was reflected in and reinforce by the charter of United Nations signed on 26^th June 1945. the charter states the fundamental objective of the universal organization namely “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war and to reaffirm faith in fundamental Human Rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal right’s of men and women. Article of the charter state that one of the aims of United Nations is to achieve international co-operation in promoting and encouraging respect for fundamental freedoms for all without destination as to race, sex, language or religion thus enshrining the principal of non-discrimination. All United Nation member states must fulfill in good faith the obligation they have assumed under the charter of the United Nation, including the obligations to promote observance of human rights and to co-operate with the United Nation and other nation to attain this aim. A major step in drafting the International Bill of Human Right was realized on 10^th Dec 1948, when the general assembly adopted the Universal declaration of Human Right’s as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and nations. Govt. of India also enshrined in its constitution many articles that promotes equality before law: Social, Economic and ideological freedom to its citizen’s.

                                                  The preamble of our constitution which as amended in 1976 emphasizes to secure all its citizen’s Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in his concluding speech in the constitution Assembly: said “ Political democracy can’t last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognized liberty, equality and fraternity which are not to be treated as separate items in a trinity. They form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce one form the other is to detected the very purpose of democracy. Liberty can’t divorced from equality, equality can’t divorced from liberty. Nor can liberty and equality be divorced from fraternity.”

                                                       Guaranteeing of certain rights to each individual world is meaningless unless all inequality is removed from our social and cultural structure and each individual is assured of equality of status and opportunity for their best potential development.  Dr. Radha Krishnan once said “ Poor people who wonder about find no work, no wages and starve, whose lives are a continual round of sore affliction and pinching poverty, can not be proud of the constitution or its law.” Article 19(1) of our constitution provides all citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression. But the impact of Mass – media in highlighting issues of various walks of our life is of immense importance. Despite of 60^th years of our Republic Day celebration inequalities have not been bridged instead it has increased in respect of our women talk the plight of the Aged, children and Dlits have not yet seen the light of the day. The majority member of such groups are still grouping in a dark era of malnutrition, mal- treatment discriminations of gender cast and community is still a real aspect of our social reality.

                                                 Question of why and how Mass –media influence the individual and its impact on society and policy needs a careful analysis of the subject. Mass – media is a powerful medium, and the symbols and messages it disseminates becomes point of focus and discussion among the population and policy makers. Media is not only a source of information dissemination but it is also a principal source of social and cultural transformation. The social change in a positive direction can take place it majority of its people ar5e satisfied involved, committed and identifies themselves with the nation building processes. Meaning is create4d in society with interaction and focal issue. People of disadvantaged groups do not have any major participation in mass – media message transmission hence they become passive recipient of media message. The vast majority of people constituting rural women folk, senior citizens and Dalits and the other disadvantaged groups have very less control over production of media message. In this age of globalization and capitalistic advancement majority of media houses are controlled by a selective  few capitalists all over the world and their master motive is to earn profit. Social emancipation can’t be achieved through selective representation of ideas and the people. The new capitalist class owns media to serve business interests as it surround the power system more closely than any other institutions. Fundamental Human Right of right speech and expression is catered through Mass – media agencies are in a better position to overpower the needs of disadvantaged group by voice  from becoming major points of discussion in the society. Media images play a big role in altering ideas of what is normative or ideal and disadvantaged group start to their real need. There is a convergence of fairly substantial evidence on causation of aggression among children by viewing violence.

                                              Symbolic interaction was one of the first social science theories to address questions of how we use culture to learn. This theory further describes that people give meaning to symbols and those meaning come to control those people. George Herbert Mead (1934) a university of Chicago philosopher and social activist argues that we use symbols to create our experience of consciousness (mind) our understanding of ourselves (self) and our knowledge of the lager social order (society). People’s interpretation and perception of the environment depends on communication Mass – media generated communication allows for the reduction of uncertainty without direct sensory experience. The media having a prime source of indirect experience and because of this reason have impact on construction of social reality. Different values that is more urban – elite capitalistic centric is presented as essential reality to the disadvantaged groups. The realities and need preferences are actually different for the disadvantaged groups but they have to become passive receivers of such messages further marginalized from the mainstream. Majority of disadvantaged group members are illiterate, unemployed and lacking basic amenities of life. They are caught in a dilemma of fulfilling technocratic needs of satisfying their basic needs of food, shelter and dignity. Useful social change is resisted by the elite media domination of capitalists, advertisers and political masters who cynically manipulate media content is their own interest.  

                                                     If you go to villages of India most of them are not connected to electricity but media reality projects on image that Indians have truly reached internet age. Our opinion leaders always try to project an image of India which is lopsided in reality. Our news papers and television channels devote significant energy and effort to highlight issues that concern the upper class and middle class over dramatized depiction not to the issue of serious social concern. Cast prejudice, gender discriminations, child labors bonded- labors, crime against rural women and other controversial issue that may demand corrective action on the part of government is selectively ignored by majority of our media. Does this explosion  of mobiles, E-mail, internet, electronic and print media enabling in terms of ability building measures in such disadvantaged groups.

                                           Our traditions are at a loss and effective interpersonal sharing for the elderly persons is being sacrificed in the name of style, fashion and other media created needs that have made their lives more miserable. The most important of the violence research offered increasingly useful insight into the Medias role in the studies carried out clearly demonstrate a correlation between viewing evidence  and aggressive behavior that is heavy viewers behave more aggressively than light viewers. Huston’s field experiments with preschool children and adolescents founds heightened aggression among viewers assigned to watch violent television or film under some conditions. Imitation is the direct mechanical reproduction of behavior.

                                         Identification on the other hand is “a particular form of imitation in which copying a model, generalized beyond specific acts, springs from wanting to be and trying to be like the model with respect to some broader quality (White 1572) the first serious look at leading through observation was offered by psychologist Neal Miller and Jhon Donal (1941). They described, people could imitate behaviors that they saw, and these behaviors would be reinforced and therefore learned.

                                           The social cognition through the use of media representations operates in one or all three ways (Bandura, 1994)

1)   Observational learning: -

                                   Consumers of representations can acquire news patterns of behavior by simply watching these representations.

2)   Inhibitory effects:-

                             Seening a model in a representation punished for exhibiting a certain behavior decreases the likelihood that the observers will make that response. It is as if viewers themselves are actually punished. Experimental studies using film and video of people being punished for various behaviors have shown that these representations can inhibit in observers such things as aggression exploratory behavior and antisocial interaction with peers.

3)   Disinhibitory Effect :-

                                          A media representation that depicts rewards for a threatening or prohibited behavior is often sufficient to increase the likelihood that the consumer of the representation will make that response.

            

Writing in 1994, Bandura summed the accumulated knowledge of social cognitive theory to conclude that television viewers “acquire lasting attitudes, emotional reactions and behavioral proclivities towards persons, places or things that have been associated with modeled emotional experiences.” (p. 75). What is it about specific presentations of media violence that encourage this acquisition through modeling? W. James Potter identified seven important contextual variables

Reward/ Punishment:- 

Rewards aggression is more frequently modeled. We know these to be disinhibitory and inhibitory effects respectively

Consequences:-

Mediated violence that is accompanied by portrayals of negative or harmful consequences produces less modeling.

Motive:-

Motivated media aggression produces greater levels of modeling and unjustified media violence results in less viewer aggression.

Realism:- 

Especially with boys, realistic media violence tends to produce more real world aggression.

Humor:-                  

Because it reduces the seriousness of the behavior humorously presented media violence leads to the greater probability that viewers will behave aggressively in real life.

Identification with Media Characters:-                                 

The more a viewer identifies with media characters the more likely it is that he or she will model the behaviors demonstrated by those characters.

Arsenal:-

Potter explained “ Emotional appeals can serve to increase the dramatic nature of the narrative and this can increase attentions positive dispositions towards the character using violence and higher level of arsenal.

It will not be appropriate to find the causal link of these children just to one source that is media rather other factors of parental behavior, their educational background and many other factors also play an impotent role. Value system, socio – cultural factors of discrimination and continued discrimination on nutritional and livelihood factors are also important contributors of negative behavior patterns among the children. The people of old age often called senior citizens are at a very difficulty juncture of their lives. Our social and traditional habits are decreasing with a rapid pace. Nuclear family system is on the verge of decay. Our respect for older people and the wisdom they hold have flatten prey to modern technological innovations of Mass – media. The informal social cultural time and interpersonal space has shrunk and its being replaced by easy entertainment and excitement presented by Mass – media. Mass – media are not an originator of the problems but they have certainly a big role to play preventing a problem being identified or being addressed in the public form. Social, political and economic elites maintain themselves in power through their control over media and cultural. It is often used to mislead the average and disadvantaged Common – Mass and encourage them to act against their own interests. The cultural and social interests of the under privileged in its true existence. One can always notice different and discriminating social realistic of the under privileged and the privileged or elites. The stories that dominate the prime time of our television networks or news papers headlines rarely provide space to these under or unprivileged citizen’s issue. Ritualistic tokenism is certainly followed in which some of the isolated issues concerning these groups are given same representation that their will being is also being taken care of properly.

                                               Social situations can create an awareness of problems that demand attention and such attention can be provided not by media alone but by the academia,  policy- makers and other powerful agent of our society. Real life opportunities to satisfy the needs of such disadvantaged groups must be given due importance if we want to achieve a goal of inclusive sustainable development. It is the duty of media to give more attention to vulnerable and marginal section of our society so that their concerns are handled in more effective ways. Better news coverage of conflict and problems of such marginal groups will be useful in reaching genuine solution to their problems. Difficulties encountered by such marginal groups need considerable highlight so that there Human Right are better protected. Lead stories have a greater agenda setting effect. Even people at large will become more sensitive and concerned about their plight.