MEDIA AND HUMAN RIGHTS

“Journalism in India – which has major strengths and resources, physical and intellectual, at its command – needs an internal accountability to higher intellectual and ethical standards, a more precise and less breathless style of work, and public advocacy of its role as a vital part of the striving for a democratic, just society.”¹  -  Mr. N. Ram.

The media play a significant role in forming and influencing people’s attitudes and behavior.  It has a central role in mediating information and forming public opinion.  It media casts an eye on events that few of us directly experience and renders remote happenings observable and meaningful.  In addition to news stories, feature articles, and investigative journalism, sporadic mass media education and prevention campaigns are launched.  These campaigns usually Endeavour to broaden community knowledge of human abuse and neglect, to influence people’s attitudes towards under privileged children, young people based on community or religion or regional variations. Mass media campaigns reveals many examples of campaigns impacting on public knowledge about issues such as work safety, drug and alcohol use, drink driving, speeding, cigarette smoking, obesity, AIDS, and domestic violence. Attitudinal and behavioural change may occur during campaigns, but it may be short lived, lapsing when campaigns end.

 The two main arms of media are print media and electronic media. Both the media highlighting violence assaulted on that day anywhere else in the world broadcasting all murders, kidnappings, robberies in the form of news, movies, videos, cartoons and video games, serials, which resulting in increasing violence  in the society. To avoid increasing violence in the society, UNESCO and other media agencies formulated guidelines to minimize human rights violation.

Media has its visible and invisible impact on all aspects of modern life.  The newspaper, the radio, the T.V., the advertisement and the film played the major media of modern mass communication and wage a frantic war of ideas, ideologies and opinions every day on the tensile nerves of our social fabric.  The persons who are on the back of all media, carry out their functions in their diverse capacities not only for the performance of their basic duties to inform, instruct and entertain but also quite often to opinionate their audience.²  Mass media has the capacity of reach “simultaneously” many thousands of people who are not related to the sender.  It depends on “technical devices” or “machines” to quickly distribute messages to diverse audiences often unknown to each other.  It is accessible to many people, but may be avoided.  It is “controlled by gatekeepers” who censor the content of messages.  However, mass communication simultaneously presents opportunities and limitations, both of which require consideration when it affects human rights.

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION BY MEDIA

            The mass media have wielded enormous power to their own ends.  The proprietors have propagated their own opinions; sometimes to become subordinated to big business and sometimes have allowed the advertisers to control the editorial policy and content.  The mass media have often paid more attention to the superficial and sensational aspects in their reporting on human events than to the significant aspects and their recreational prices have frequently been unsubstantial,  endangered public morals and have invaded people’s private unjustifiably.  The mass media are controlled by a socio-economic class in general terms, “the entrepreneurial class” and access to the media is difficult for the new comer or underprivileged people.  At the national and international level men’s minds are being subjected to a ceaseless and clever bombardment of messages³.  These messages are calculated to influence and control, which cause for human rights violation. “Kho”   and “Khaththi” are the recent Tamil movies clearly depict the position of media and how it affects the human rights violation in the society and position of media workers.

PREVENTIVE MEASURES TO STOP HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION

Media campaigns required at home and outside home by posters, cinema media should be directed to the general community, parents, children, perpetrators, victims and indirect professionals.  A wide range of media approaches should be used, including advertising, community service announcements, publicity i.e. feature articles and documentaries and edutainment i.e. the  deliberate inclusion of educational messages in entertainment vehicles such as TV soap operas.  Media campaigns can serve a number of roles, but primarily placing the issue on the community’s agenda; framing the issue;  eliciting  reports of abuse; directing individuals to sources of information; changing social norms; modeling appropriate and inappropriate behaviours; and increasing the awareness of the target audience with respect to their own behavior and hence increasing the likelihood of the individual assessing his or her own behavior and their self responsibility for such behaviour.  Mass media helps to solve political agency problems and make governments more accountable.  The intuition of what is driving the results is simple – by making the actions of the politicians more transparent the media is providing information to citizens as to the likelihood that they will protected in the future.  Citizens in turn are using this information in their voting decisions.

WHAT SHOULD BE AVOIDED TO PROMOTE WORLD PEACE?

Most of the media give much more attention to crime, deaths, disasters, wars and strife than to harmonious communities, acts of kindness and win-win conflict resolution. The mass media frequently create unrealistic fears about criminals, foreign peoples and mass protest.  “News” often is more like entertainment than information or education.  News reports, especially on television, are typically given without much overt context.   Consumers of the media consequently don’t understand the “facts” that are often wrong or misleading.  Powerful groups, especially governments and large corporations, shape the news in a range of ways, such as by providing selected information, offering access to stories in exchange for favourable coverage, spreading disinformation, and threatening reprisal.  Advertising is another powerful influence on commercial media.

MEDIA ENSURES HUMAN RIGHTS

Media ensures modernity in approach to create awareness and also ensures radicalism in thought and action, promise and perfection; and to earnestly shoulder social responsibilities of imparting education, making everyone aware of health and hygiene, economy and affluence and , above all, inspiring to be self-supporting and self-esteemed in every sphere of life this is, indeed, a new vision of mass education for social consciousness – a vision that allows humanity to be enriched with the spirit of social  transcendence.⁴

A free press can only flourish in a democratic environment and to strengthen the democratic foundation of the state.  According to the guidelines the Media should avoid exaggeration or distortion of facts or incidents in relation to communal matters or giving currency to unverified  rumors’, suspicions or inferences, as if they were facts and base their comments on them.  Encouraging or condoning violence even in the face of provocation a  means of obtaining redress of grievances, whether the same be genuine or not.  Avoid falsely giving a communal colour to incident in which members of different communities happen to be involved.  Avoid emphasizing matters that are apt to produce communal hatred or ill – will or fostering feelings of distrust between communities.  Not publishing alarming news which is in substance untrue or making provocative comments on such news or views, which embitter relations between different communities or regional or linguistic groups.  Avoid exaggerating actual happenings to achieve sensationalism, and publication of news which adversely affect communal harmony with banner headlines or in distinctive types.  Avoid making disrespectful, derogatory or insulting remarks on, or reference to, the different religions or faiths or founders.

Hence, Media in a democratic country has a primary duty to report events objectively and faithfully, it has also a larger obligation to the nation to defend and preserve the democratic way of life.  Therefore, it is necessary for the press to voluntarily adopt a policy not to play up or give undue publicity or to give ‘celebrity’ treatment to news, which lend to promote authoritarian and dictatorial trends or to aggravate communal or regional tensions.⁵ Media should endeavour at all times to promote the unity of the country and nation, pride in the country, its people, its achievements and its strength in diversity. Journalist should be most circumspect in dealing with movements and ideas which promote regionalism at the cost of national unity.

Responsibility shall be assumed for all information and comments published.  If responsibility is disclaimed, this will be explicitly stated.  Confidences shall always be respected, professional secrecy must be preserved. Any report found to be inaccurate and any comment on inaccurate reports shall be voluntarily rectified.  It shall be obligatory to give fair publicity to a correction of contradiction when a report published is shown to be false or inaccurate in material particulars.  Journalists or reporter shall not allow personal interest to influence professional conduct.  There is nothing so unworthy as the acceptance or demand of a bribe or inducement for the exercise by a journalist of his power to give or deny publicity to news or comments.  Journalists shall be very conscious of their obligation to their fellows in the profession and shall not seek to deprive fellow journalists of their livelihood by unfair means.

INTERNATIONAL CODE OF ETHICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

World Journalist about 400,000 members representing a consultative meeting under the auspices of UNESCO since 1978.  The Second consultative meeting was held at Mexico City in 1980. In this meeting all representatives expressed its support to the UNESCO Declaration on fundamental Principles concerning the contribution of the Mass Media to strengthening Peace and International Understanding, to the promotion of Human Rights and to countering Racialism, apartheid and incitement of War.  It also adopted the “Mexico Declaration” with a set of principles regarding National and regional codes of journalistic ethics and international legal nature. 

The fourth consultative meeting was held at Prague and Paris in 1983, which noted the lasting value of the UNESCO Declaration in which it is stated inter alia that “the exercise of freedom of opinion, expression and information, recognized as an integral part of human rights and fundamental freedoms, is a vital factor in the strengthening of peace and international understanding”.  Further, the meeting recognized the important role which information and communication play in the contemporary world, both in national and international spheres, with a growing social responsibility being placed upon the mass media and journalists.  The VI principle stated about the respect for privacy and Human Dignity.  An integral part of the professional standards of the journalist is respect for the right of the individual to privacy and human dignity, in conformity with provisions of international and national law concerning protection of the rights and the reputation of others and prohibiting libel, calumny, slander and defamation.

Principle VII ensure respect for Public interest.  The journalist gives due respect for the national community, its democratic institutions and public morals. Principle VIII respect for Universal Values and Diversity of Cultures. A true journalist stands for the universal values of humanism, above all peace, democracy, human rights, social progress and national liberation, while respecting the distinctive character, value and dignity of each culture, as well as the right of each people freely to choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems.  Thus the journalist participates actively in the social transformation towards democratic betterment of society and contributes through dialogue to a climate of confidence in international relations conductive to peace and justice everywhere, to détente, disarmament and national development.  It belongs to the ethics of the profession that the journalist be aware of relevant provisions contained in international conventions, declarations and resolutions.

Principle IX mentioned that Elimination of War and other Great Evils Confronting Humanity.  The ethical commitment to the universal values of humanism calls for the journalist to abstain from any justification for, or incitement to, wars of aggression and the arms race, especially in nuclear weapons, and all other forms of violence, hatred or discrimination, especially racialism and apartheid, oppression by tyrannical regimes, colonialism and neo-colonialism, as well as other great evils which afflict humanity, such as poverty, malnutrition and diseases.  By doing so, the journalist can help eliminate ignorance and misunderstanding among peoples, make nationals of a country sensitive to the needs and desires of others, ensure the respect for the rights and dignity of all nations, all  peoples and all  individuals without distinction of race, sex, language, nationality, religion or philosophical conviction.⁶  

A well known Delhi – based NGOs, working in the area of consumer protection, public interest litigation and other important matters concerning improvement in civic life in a recent write up stated that TV is no longer just a means for informing news, disseminating information and building opinion.  It is also for providing entertainment. The unfortunate development is that it has increasingly become the instrument for projecting crime, thrillers, horrors, vulgarity and obscenity.  Scenes of sex, crime and violence capture the imagination of large sections of viewers, especially adult and children and creating disturbing impact on society.

There are 60 types of violence projected on TV, both audio and visual⁷. These include slapping, threats, screaming, shooting, assaulting, abusing, pushing, stabbing, threats, torture, eeric sound tracks and threatening music. In one such serial, as many as 17 acts of violence were found in one episode of 25 minutes.  These included assaulting, slapping, plunging, shooting, strangulations, and supernatural occurrences.  Family dram serials also often depict conflicts which involve violence.  These carry scenes of domestic violence, often involving children, adults and women. These circumstances need to be urgently considered by governmental authorities as well as social activists so that measures can be devised and adopted for mitigating the situation.  These include persuading channels to adopt self-regulating measures, imbibing in producer’s norms and guidelines and dealing with defaulters.  They should avoid repeated these shows at an earlier time, and also put across a written or verbal warning before such a programme begins.  Child – specific progrmmes should be developmed and telecast by all channels.  It is necessary that people should raise voice against the growing tendency of depicting scenes of crime and violence on TV programmes serials, these can prove disastrous to the society and its future build-up.  Ways and means must be devised for avoidance of the slide towards social disaster.  The strength of the mass media lies in helping to put issues on the public agenda, in reinforcing local efforts, in raising consciousness about issues and in conveying simple information and less effective in conveying complex information and promote peace at home, nation and international level.