Since the last few months there have been intense debates on whether the electronic media is becoming a monster or not. Certain people are propogating the opinion that the media is playing a destructive role for the society. They claim that in the days of dictatorship it calls for democracy and later tries to destabilise democratically elected governments. These people are following their own agenda and a free media is the only obstacle in their way, because it is the media only which can change people’s perspectives on certain things. They are trying to silence the media through their propoganda.
One good thing Musharraf did was that he liberalised the electronic media. Many news and entertainment channels came up during his era. Later he himself looked for ways to curb the media when it started pointing his wrong doings and ill planned actions. It was the media which helped CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry in mobilising people in his favour. The final result was February 18th elections which was the last blow to Musharraf.
While people talk about the media becoming a monster they tend to ignore another aspect of the electronic media’s growth. They conveniently forget the fact that private entertainment channels are slowly killing our culture. They copy Indian soap operas to increase viewership. Girls have stopped wearing full clothes. Exposing arms, bare skin is no more a no go area, infact they try to expose themselves as much as they can. Girls have forgotten modesty. Isn’t this the biggest crime the media has committed? Valentines day, basant etc are being imposed on us as a part of our culture as if we would be lost without them. Dramas are promoting infidelity, treachery. The concept of family entertainment has totally vanished. There was a time when we saw dramas like dasht, dhuwan, alpha bravo charlie tc. on PTV. Watching such fine productions now seems to be a dream. In the name of entertainment private channels are promoting a westernised society thus killing our own identity. People are becoming more materialistic and family values are being forgotten.
Looking at the above perspective of media, I believe that it definitely needs to be controlled but not because it exposes the wrong doings of our democratically elected leaders.
