Questionable priorities

Early this year, while the world was watching the events in Paris unfold, as Islamist terrorists, part of the Yemani al Qaeda, murdered 12 people in cold blood, the extreme Salafist terror organisation Boko Haram attacked and killed 2,000 people in the fishing town of Baga, Nigeria. While the former received acres of newspaper coverage, hours of air time, and terabytes of Internet outrage, the latter passed without even a blip in popular consciousness. Key world leaders turned up in Paris to mourn the deaths and make a show of strength against terror, but when it came to Nigeria and Boko Haram there was nary a show of strength nor unity nor even compassion nor empathy. 

Last month, two states went to the polls. Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir. Both states are troubled by militancy. Both populations are impacted by lack of development. Yet, J&K looms large in our collective consciousness, while Jharkhand does not. If this is being cruel, then ask yourselves, how many of you, without using Google, can off the top of your head, remember who were the main parties (apart from the BJP and the Congress) contesting from Jharkhand, what was the margin of victory, and who is the Chief Minister and whether the government was formed with support? If you do, wonderful — but you are in a minority. For both the media and the population at large, Jharkhand lies in the periphery of their universe — if it exists at all — while Jammu and Kashmir looms large.

Similarly, last year there were floods in many states. If you do a Google search for “floods in India 2014”, you will see a list of articles and sites that look at the human devastation caused by nature’s fury. Assam, Bihar, Odisha and J&K were all impacted by floods — hundreds of villages were submerged, thousands of people were displaced, and scores died. Yet, when it comes to both media attention and public consciousness, the one we would remember is the floods in J&K.

A riot in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, between two religious communities (who cannot be named because reading those names would get people to riot more) gets more air time than violence perpetuated by the National Democratic Front of Bodoland against migrant workers. As one famous TV news anchor put it, in the context of an earlier outbreak of violence perpetuated by Bodo militants,  the ‘tyranny of distance’, prevents coverage.

It is very clear from the way that the media covers national, or even international, events that there is a distinct media centre and a very distant media periphery. The media centre tends to be aspirational, and aspirational is defined in terms of success, wealth, power, colour, caste and religion — and other things that we all like to believe are no longer relevant. The world is more concerned about people dying in European countries than it is about death in Africa; India is more interested in the states that are close to Delhi and the further away a state is from the national capital, the less important it becomes. Also important is the social class, caste and colour.

The rape and a murder of a poor Dalit girl in a small town will attract less attention than the rape of a middle-class girl in a metro. Similarly, in Europe or in the US, the disappearance of a white child will attract more attention than a missing black child. There is a clear divide in the world in terms of what is attractive and will catch attention in the media, and what will not.

It is apparent in the way the Boko Haram and the violence in Nigeria are treated; it is evident in the way Jharkhand elections take a distant 9th place; and it is clear in the way violence or floods are treated in the North-East of India; or the way inter caste/tribe violence is treated as compared to communal flare-ups. There are things that the media picks up and runs with, and there are issues that we tend to leave out.

There are multiple reasons for this, one is that the media picks up stories that are convenient — where there is no tyranny of distance involved. So the metros or urban agglomerations are far more in focus than the hinterland. The second is whatever happens in the developed nations, nations that we wish to emulate, are in greater focus than what happens in our own backyard. And, often this is exacerbated by the fact that there are greater sources of content available from developed economies than poorer ones. The third is personal bias — we talk about those things that we know, we don’t have time to find out about things that we do not. And given that many of the media personnel who influence are from urban locales, products of top schools and colleges, well-heeled and travelled — the reality of the situation is that — things do not get covered simply because these issues and events don’t even form part of our consciousness. Next, there are only so many things that the reader can feel for, and outrage about. The world is a big place, and there are many atrocities and injustices that are perpetuated here. It is impossible for any of you to be concerned about all things that happen in the world. And lastly, and this is the excuse that most of us in the media use, what is the point of running content on Boko Haram massacres, when the audience prefers reading about the latest antics in the Bigg Boss House?

The rapid penetration of the Internet, especially via mobile, is possibly a solution to the whole situation. The ability of people in the ‘media periphery’ to put out their story, using simple tools, has been instrumental in highlighting issues that hitherto would remain unnoticed. And, finally the ability of social media to amplify these stories means that a fraction of stories that would otherwise remain buried, come into the public eye. We still have a long way to go before people’s stories from all over get resonance, but the process has begun. Hopefully, in the decades to come the distance between the centre and the periphery would reduce.

The author is Head, Digital Content at Zee Media Corporation @calamur