Tuesday, November 2, 2021

"Media will only show news about filmstar's son, not about these martyrs..."

 "Media will only show news about filmstar's son, not about these martyrs..."


...said a friend a while back... while it might be true, we need to understand why this (and such similar media episodes) is true.

If a news app were to push 2 notifications at the same time, one about a filmstar's son getting a bail and another about a soldier being martyred, what percentage of people do we think will click the one about filmstar's son before (if at all) clicking on the other?

Now to tell the media, don't push the other notification, just push the one wouldn't be right. While media has a big role to play in any state, they are after all a business and the consumption ( clicks and other revenue ) metrics will be a considerable factor in determining what gets more print/air time.

It is like a smoker laying blame on a cigarette manufacturer for their smoking habit or I blaming an OTT for making me binge on shows and costing me my health at times. If we stop clicking on / reading about content which we feel should not get as much attention then that is as good as you reducing the purchase of cigarettes or reducing the consumption of any product. The business will be forced to adapt to your behavior and reduce what is not being lapped up.

While the change is humongous in terms of societal behavior, at least at an individual level (before we blame the external party) do we question our behavior towards consumption of any and all products?

Not saying the media should not cover such news - they must, but if you sense they are overdoing it, nothing stops us from not smoking all the cigarettes that come our way. The sticks being manufactured will automatically reduce as a result. Its also about our accountability - and the best thing is that we can control that 100%.

In fact this applies to every choice that we make in our day to day life... the choice is ours to make, till the time we are aware of any influencing factors that lead us towards the choice....

Click Here to read this on Linkedin.

No comments:

Post a Comment