Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard was published in 1751. Thomas Gray began writing this poem in 1742 shortly after the death of his close friend Richard West. This Elegy is noteworthy that it mourns the death not of great or famous people but of common men. It’s Gray’s masterpiece and it’s emotional and philosophical at the same time. The beauty of the poem lies in simplicity. Poet brings out the ultimate truth about life and death.
THEMES OF ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD
UNIVERSALITY OF DEATH: The central focus of Gray’s elegy is the inevitability of death and how people from different social class are remembered. In this elegy Gray meditates on death as it relates to the rustic commoners who populate the village and the country churchyard. Gray’s opening salvo in this contrast between two vast social classes emphasizes death’s universality; just as the poor and the common people are subjected to death, the paths of the rich and glory lead to grave as well. Death is the ultimate which is blind to mankind’s social class and destruction.
SOCIAL CLASS AND VALUE: Gray’s meditation on how the wealth and the poor are remembered allows him to explore social class and value. The poem suggests that an individual’s value should not be tied to social class. The poem asks whether the rich and the powerful can be brought back to life by “storied urn” or “animated bust” any more effectively than the poor whose graves are marked by “no trophies”.
IMPORTANCE OF LOVE: Despite their humble lives the dead enjoyed simple pleasures in life. One of these is the love of their families and friends. A clear image of children greeting his father when he came home from the fields is shown. The lively picture of family is full of joy. Gray identifies family and friends both simple pleasures as the greatest joy in life
THE QUALITY OF MORTALITY: Within the odes and elegies of gray we find him questioning towards the very concept of morality and what it really means to say when one exists.
Category Archives: Seminar
A seminar is a form of academic instruction, either at an academic institution or offered by a commercial or professional organization. It has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some particular subject, in which everyone present is requested to participate.
Thyroid Awareness Month
January is the Thyroid Awareness Month of the year. But do we know what thyroid is and how it affects our body?
According to research by the American Thyroid Association, 1 in 10 people suffer from a thyroid disorder. As many as 20 million Americans suffer from a thyroid disorder. More than half of the cases are undiagnosed.
What causes a thyroid is still unknown but if left undiagnosed, can cause various problems. Like an increased risk of osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and infertility.
The thyroid plays a major role in our body. It regulates metabolism, body temperature and other physical functions. The thyroid produces hormones to keep our body functioning at a certain rate.
What is the thyroid?
It is a small butterfly-shaped gland found in the lower neck. The gland produces the hormones T3 and T4. It is located above the collarbone and in front of the windpipe. The role of these hormones is to help regulate metabolism, manage body temperature and control heart rate.
If these hormones are overproduced or underproduced, they can cause serious health issues.
The two most common diseases related to the thyroid are:
Hyperthyroidism
Hypothyroidism
What is hyperthyroidism?
When the T4 (thyroxine) hormone is overproduced in the body, it causes hyperthyroidism. It is also known as an overactive thyroid. This disease causes an increase in metabolism which leads to weight loss and an irregular heartbeat. It affects about 1% of the population. It is five times more common in women than in men. It usually affects people under the age of 50 years and results in enlargement of the thyroid gland.
It also causes insomnia, increased appetite, excessive perspiration and diarrhea.
Even though it is associated with more energy, it can sometimes lead to a body break down and make one feel more tired.
Other symptoms of hyperthyroidism are:
Anxiety
Oversensitive to heat
Increased sweating
Palpitations
Dry, thin skin
Hair loss
Trembling
What is hypothyroidism?
It is more common than hyperthyroidism. It happens when the body cannot produce enough of the thyroid hormone. It results in a slow down of the body functions. It is also known as under-active thyroid. It affects heart rate, body temperature, and metabolism.
It mostly affects people over the age of 60 years and increases with age. In older people, it can cause memory impairment, weight loss and loss of appetite. These happen because of old age as well, therefore, hypothyroidism is relatively difficult to diagnose in older people and remains under-diagnosed.
The possible causes of hypothyroidism are autoimmune disease, certain medicines or surgical removal of a part of the thyroid gland.
Symptoms of hypothyroidism include:
Fatigue
Sensitive to cold/heat
Weight gain and inability to lose weight
Depression
Anxiety
Constipation
Numbness in limbs
Other diseases that can happen because of improper functioning of the thyroid gland are Hashimoto’s disease and thyroid cancer.
Thyroid cancer is of four types:
Papillary thyroid cancer is the most commonly differentiated thyroid cancer. It may spread to the lymph nodes of the neck even though it grows slowly.
Follicular thyroid cancer is the second most common thyroid cancer. It grows near areas where there is a high iodine deficiency in the body. It is easiest to cure.
Medullary thyroid cancer is rare and mostly hereditary. It has higher chances of spreading to the lymph nodes of the neck than other types.
Anaplastic thyroid cancer is the most aggressive form of thyroid cancer and is the rarest of all. It grows rapidly and spreads easily, therefore it is the most dangerous one.
How to diagnose thyroid disorders?
They can either be self-diagnosed at home first and later consulting the doctor is the best way to be sure.
For self-diagnoses, one can perform the following:
Stand in front of the mirror or take a hand mirror above the collarbones where the area below you Adam’s Apple is visible.
- Tilt your head back and take a sip of water.
- Swallow the water and watch your neck for signs of bulging.
- Repeat a few times to make sure you don’t see obvious signs of bulging.
- If you see a huge bulge, nodule or an enlarged gland, contact a physician.
The only way to confirm you have a thyroid disease and which one is it, it by going through a blood test.
Treatment:
The treatment usually includes medication to regulate hormone production. Doctors usually treat it with medications, iodine or hormones. In some cases, one may also need to undergo therapy or surgery.
Thyroid awareness month is recognised to increase awareness about the disorders related to thyroid and their possible symptoms. The symptoms of a thyroid disorder are common in other disorders as well. Therefore it can become difficult to diagnose it and remain ignored. Thyroid disorders are not curable or preventable but are treatable. Consulting your doctor and getting regular health checkups can improve the quality of living to a great extent.
Binge watching and Mankind
We humans are the masters of our domain. At times, us, the masters go berserk by certain pursuits. We do go overboard with things, from petty tasks to pursuits complex.
I believe the quote, “Nothing to extremes, everything in moderations”, from the remarkable book ‘The monk who sold his Ferrari’, by writer Robin Sharma is something we all should adhere to. In all aspects of life.
We humans are masters of passing time.
It doesn’t matter where we’re, or what we have, we’ll inevitably find ways to destress or to chill.
We’re the lords who have mastered the art of passing time. Everyone’s a Picasso or your own ‘unique being’ for this matter.
But when the phenomenon of ‘fomo’ (fear of missing out) kicks in, beings scramble to ‘fit in’. To find a firm ground to socialise with fellow beings. Gradually paving the way for losing bits and pieces of oneself.
The recent trends of passing time – Binge watching has proven the point well.
It has united the world, that was once divided. Surveys have shown that almost all the generations; especially ‘generation z’ and ‘millennials’, have been ‘swept off their feet’ by a plethora of content to stream and chill.
For the ones that were living under a rock, the ones unaware, binge-watching refers watching far too many episodes of a tv series at one go. It’s funny I guess tv series’ are a thing of the past now. Web series’ being the new black.
Netflix was the catalyst for such a mammoth change in the lives of many. By releasing the entire season of a series to watch all at once. Doing away with the process of having to wait out a new episode every week.
This fast paced life has made such anticipation seem surreal or nerve wrecking to be aptly put. Killing the beauty of waiting.
I guess sometimes you do have to give it time. If not, you lose sight of the whatever’s beautiful in this world in the process.
A true testament that change is part of nature’s way. Embrace the change and go with the flow, or get drowned in the process.
The struggle was real earlier. A few years back, privileged were the ones that had umpteen storage facilities and a high speed internet connection. But the transmission of life into digital has made the struggles fade.
The struggle now is settling on what to watch and finish it before any spoilers. With traditional cable tvs’, cinemas and movies taking the hit in the process. Transforming the entertainment world by a few hundred steps stcsdym a time. The changes are abysmal.
The ‘work from home’ culture just fuelling the way for major streaming platforms to sow millions in this times of crisis. With too much time in hand, people going frenzy to fit in something or the other into their lives to pass time.
Like I mentioned earlier, not adhering to moderations has its own antagonising effects. The binge watching culture has made several beings vulnerable to numerous health conditions.
Having a toll on the body and the mind. Two spectrums of well-being, taking severe hits by the 4G and 5G spectrums, causing many a imbalances in the lives of mankind, as a whole.
Experts have commented that the new culture of bingeing has adverse impacts on health, as the excessive indulgence has thrown the dopamine levels of the body off the charts.
Dopamine being a chemical produced naturally in the body, is a neurotransmitter, which regulates many a actions of our bodies.
The health problems involving both physical and mental. Ranging from severe medical conditions like insomnia, chronic boredom, apathy to depression. The physical effects ranging from cardiovascular diseases, thrombosis and other vision related diseases.
The excessive snacking whilst bingeing also affecting the tummy areas too. Transforming generously the packs into a vast ‘single pack’ in the process.
All this rambling might make me sound like a boomer trying to bully the younger generations. But in all honesty, if you don’t care to stop and analyse what’s happening, then whole of life will slip away before you take notice.
Periodic reality checks should be squeezed into the equation of life. For a better and beautiful tomorrow.
For “Tomorrow has no reality, since every day is experienced as today”, excessive indulgence today might fade out all our realities amidst a global pandemic.
Does Tech complicate or simplify life?
Tech frenzy. Would be an apt way of putting the world we live in as of now. From toddlers to the elderly.
The folks down at the Research and Development departments of most leading consumer gadgets are so good at their craft, that we’d have often fallen short to realise about the latest tech advancements this week.
In the act of them pursuing the craft of their desire, we have found ourselves addicted to one thing or the other. People infected with consumerism ever greater than before. Some buy to impress, some buy to get more efficient, to get more work done; but with the corporates taking the win in the end.
A quote in a birthday card I got some time back, went like, “ Today is the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be again.” A subtle way of saying you’ve grown older and perhaps closer to the grave. Softening the blow couldn’t get easier than this.
As much as it is relevant to ageing, it’s relevant to the tech we consume too.
That made me wonder when was the last time I received a card for my birthday, not anytime recently, obviously.
With the outbreak of everything turning digital, I believe the jobs of cards were taken over by a simple text, via whatsapp.
Which intrigued me of how seldom we text people these days, the days of texting close acquaintances has long passed, spending almost a rupee for a text made us value texts more. It meant something. The rules of the nature are indeed best relevant to tech now, “survival of the fittest.”
With everything turning cheaper, smaller, quicker; we’ve seem to have lost the joy of the little things. Making every single thing less significant but yet complex.
Time does really fly, we went from a time where logging onto the internet was an escape from reality, but now the tables have turned. Being able to shut out everything and taking our eyes off them, screens has become an escape from our realities. As much as I would love to not sound Cliche, the truth cannot be set aside.
Social media platforms went from simple socialising mediums to tools for marketing and making political stands. With people getting unbelievable power to express and do things like never before. Which yet again drags us back to the question, ‘has it made our lives complicated than easier?’
James Franco, the brilliant Hollywood actor once joked , “My wife asked me why I spoke ever so softly in the house. I said I was afraid Mark Zuckerberg was listening! She laughed. I laughed. Alexa laughed. Siri laughed.”
If this doesn’t make you break a sweat, I don’t know what will. Our quest to socialise has cost us our privacy. A grave price to pay.
There was a time, when we could’ve bored ourselves to death while being confined to our homes this long due to the pandemic . But times have changed, we no longer have the liberty or need to get bored. Unless we get bored of not getting bored that often.
The movies from the past, portraying the future have undeniably done a great job in predicting the backdrops magnificently. Setting aside a few cliche depictions like ‘flying cars’, ‘teleporting’, which are not here yet, but does seem just around the corner.
Our cars can now self-drive, earphones are wireless, we make calls from our watches, everyone’s a photographer these days, and we can get answers for everything just with a few clicks now, these are all just from the top of my head.
Lives have been made simpler, but the question that springs to my head is whether, ‘we’ll all forget how to live, in our pursuit to live better?’.
EIA 2020
The EIA draft 2020 have been doing the rounds on various online and social media platforms for a while now. People are doing everything in their hands to educate the rest and to put a stop to this draft from being implemented, which the national and most local medias have shut a blind eye towards.
This clearly depicts where their priorities are at, more on mainstream politics and other topics, putting the people who depend on such mediums in the dark. Unaware.
The very idea of people having to take to social media to get the word about such a devious plan is a clear depiction that we’re in the endgame now. It’s going to be every man for himself from now.
The EIA draft of 2020 is something we as the citizens of this great nation can’t afford to be a part in. It’s for a greater cause, for a better future. If neglected, the consequences coming generations will have to face will be a plenty. It’s now or never.
From elementary schools we are taught about the importance of conservation of mother nature and the dangers of pollution. We’re taught that the earth is our only home, yet and that we should do everything in our hands to protect it from such acts of fellow less concerned beings.
Several movies and campaigns instituted by conservative environmentalists are more often that not given the spotlight to inform the masses of what we’re in store for. I for one, believe that an educated nation will be a better functioning nation.
The destructions of the Bhopal Gas tragedy needs no introduction. A grave tragedy. Post the Gas tragedy of ‘86, the Government of India brought into action the Environment Protection Act with a concern for the safety of the Public and the Nature.
The EIA under the aforementioned Act of 1986, constitutes a process which prevents the industrial and Infrastructural projects by Individuals and body corporates from being approved without proper oversight. It basically consists of a tool of environmental management forming a part of project approval and decision making.
It ensured that every project would go through the process for obtaining proper environmental clearance certificates , for a better, safer tomorrow.
The point of contention in the draft of Environment Impact Assessment is post-facto clearance and less public participation of the affected communities. Making the voices of the already barely heard voices, totally mute.
The EIA (Environment Impact Assessment) draft 2020 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change under the Government of India has a counter regressive approach towards protecting the nature of the Largest democracy in the World.
The EIA covers numerous projects like mining of various minerals, infrastructure development, industrial projects, thermal nuclear and hydropower projects. The projects for which clearance was sought was allotted clearance by a panel of experts based on its potential impact on the environment.
It involves prospective changes suggested against the EIA notification of 2006. By embodying norms to weaken environmental norms and outright silencing the affected communities.
This draft basically allows the various Infrastructural and Industrial bodies to go ahead with various projects and seek the approval later ( post facto clearance), which would certify the starting of various projects without proper clearance certificates, afterwards when the destruction would’ve been already done.
The point of emphasis is that the principles embodied in the draft is against the various principles that shouldn’t exist in such a democratic nation. It not only possess a grave threat to the environment but also takes away the fundamental rights of citizens to raise their voices and deliver criticism regarding such concerns.
Rather than strengthening the norms under the Act and allowing the people to participate and raise their concerns, this draft focuses on restricting the Public’s voice over such environmentally degrading projects.
It also curtails the right of the communities by legalising projects that has already caused a great deal of harm and the ones which are already existing without proper approvals under the EIA. Making potential threats of mass destruction legal.
However, the Government has commented that the proposed draft would further bring transparency and expedite the process of development. Experts in the field have commented that the only process expedited by such a drastic change would be dragging the country to the ground and crippling the powers of the common man versus huge industrial organisations.
Foreseeable accidents of Vizag Gas leak and the Baghjan Oil fire are grave examples of the gravity of destruction that can be caused by projects that are not run under proper EIA guidelines.
Sighting the present troubles already upon the citizens, the drafts brought to life should be of those which corporates building a greener and more sustainable future where the nature would be the heart of all operations.
Crisis Strikes Gold
2020 was supposed to be the year. The much-awaited, the one which promised triumph in all spectrum of life, which were deemed to be grave in a wonderful pre-covid world.
For the first time in human history, the strategy of waiting out the clock is ideal; taking a step backward to pounce back forth ever glorious, someday! What we had in store for us was far from apparent.
This pandemic and the repercussions have been hard on everyone and everything. Rather than frowning upon it as a mishap, it can be looked at as an incredible opportunity to introspect and to retrospect.
To get it all right, to make amendments; tread down a more human path. To put a leg forth in the right direction after a long period of wicked sensations. A perfect time to sew back severed relationships, for people’s shoulders were finally tapped on by solidarity, reminding them what do humans need the most.
The infamous game of ‘what will you want to get stuck with on an island’ was changed to ‘who’d you want to get stuck there with’. The options were quite tweaked; getting rid of the cliches of what movies, books, or films to with whom would they want to get stuck on an island.
A grave moment of epiphany, finally making the dumb fools understand that people’s relationships are what’s worth the most. For humans are returning to their roots, spending more valuable time with their dear ones, just like how infants do, putting the itch to get busy living on the back seat.
Rather than doing more things that set one’s soul on fire, people have more often than not put themselves on fire amidst frivolous struggles in the past. The pre covid chapters of mankind indeed seem delusional. However, the gist of the moment would be to emerge ever-victorious and glamorous.
Making this inevitable ailment seem more like a good chapter rather than a boon to mankind. In an ideal world, there’d be wrongs, but the contradiction would be regarding how many would yield to make a difference; to amend themselves for the sake of humanity.
In the final walk of life, it is indeed an awful sight that the ones who were devoted to gathering and plundering wealth walking out empty-handed and rather dejected. For all those little moments that were traded off for far less, were indeed what life was all about.
However, the ones who walked without a dime in hand but rich with memories had a zest like none other. Making their lives seem like a far more admirable affair.
If such thoughts spring to the mundane mind of a commoner, maybe it’s mother earth’s way of making us set off in the right direction or moreover an amusing way of telling us to take it slow. It’d be foolish to wake up to all these calls and not act aptly.
The late realizations and amendments would deem to nothing if we fail to strive to bring about a change much needed; “for events are the greatest teachers of fools”. After all life’s simple; you come in, you do what you got to do, you get out alone but contend.
BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS
A world that nurtures minds rather than butchers them still seems like a distant dream. A world which nurtures minds and teaches them how to dream seems like a wicked fantasy compared to the reality!
Growing up, people have this very false apprehension that kids have it easy, maybe they do know how it’s like, for they’ve also been young! Maybe they’ve been amended by the harsh reality; which our soul more often than not tries to run away from. Seeking refuge in some surreal vision.
Rather than striving to bring about a change, we the people often approach ripe minds with queries which should be not more than questions of sheer enlightenment but rather we do the complete opposite, a far more severe manifestation of the same, which is more or less like a violent blow to the gut.
The promises of tomorrow are often bombarded by bizarre questions like, “ what will you do in some years down the line?”, “what are your dreams?”, “Don’t you have any dreams boy?” and many more such obscene verbal inquires, without paying much heed into the aftermath.
The careless wandering souls would care less about the whole essence of such moments and will carry on with their endeavor, but the poor innocent ones are the ones that often fall prey to such thoughtless stunts, crippling their innocent little minds till they get redemption on their own. Setting their tiny minds into a frenzy, making them hesitant to settle about and making them flying into the unknown like a broken kite without direction.
What people often fail to realise is the simplicity of the reality, that a nudge or two by such people to young minds could do wonders, unaware and unwilling to accept the bitter truth and shying away from doing the needful.
“To err is to human but to forgive is divine” , but yet people have been consistently failing to bring about changes in this aspect of life. Frowning upon the ones learning from their mishaps and setting forth doing the same errors over and again.
We are who we are, our actions speaks for itself, we are the end-stories of our endeavors. We as a people, rather than setting forth to blame the rest have to realize that blaming one or the other ain’t the need of the hour. We indubitably own it to ourselves to seize the day and bring about the change much needed.
We owe it to them, then ones who have brought upon a change. The ones who have paved the way for generations and more untiringly erecting a different world. A world that brings hope and one which promises us a better dawn to look forward to. These alleged misfits who trembled upon the road less taken to pave the way for the rest, clearly depicts a key lesson, that Change is inevitable and that change is necessary. For Revolution is impersonal!
A world which nurtures minds rather than butchers them may seem like a distant dream. A world which nurtures minds and teaches them how to dream can be our wicked reality!
Sentimental Analysis
Sentiment analysis is the interpretation and classification of emotions within text data using text analysis techniques. It bifurcates the data into positive, negative and neutral. Sometimes, there are more emotions that also can be detected using sentimental analysis.
This analysis tools allow businesses and other decision makers to identify customer sentiment toward products, brands, campaigns or services in online feedback. It is highly used to check online users attitude using their tweet, texts, reviews and comments. According to Wikipedia, Sentiment analysis refers to the use of natural language processing, text analysis, computational linguistics, and bio-metrics to systematically identify, extract, quantify, and study effective states and subjective information. It is a Natural Language Processing and Information Extraction task that aims to obtain writer’s feelings expressed in positive or negative comments, questions and requests, by analyzing a large numbers of documents.
Uses:
- Finance field for stock trading companies as sentiment algorithms can detect particular companies who show a positive sentiment in news articles. This can mean a significant financial opportunity, as this may trigger people to buy more of the company’s stock. Having access to this type of data, may give traders the opportunity to make decisions before the market has time to react. (getthematic)
- Social media posts to know how are customer reacting to a particular topic, concept, reviews and what are their sentiments for the same.
- Increase customer retention.
- New product perception.
- Businesses gain valuable insights using sentimental analysis and can strategize their objectives according to the output of this technique.
- Also provides company’s to gain competitive advantage.
Approach:
- Using NLP (Natural Language Processing) that allows computers to analyze and understand human language.
- Using Machine learning concept that uses classifiers such as Naive Baiyes, SVM etc.
Working:
- Collection/ Fetching of data: A large chunk of data is collected for further analysis.
- Cleaning the data: Since the data collected is unstructured or semi-structured in nature, it has to be cleaned before going for analysis. It is done by removing stop-words, removing punctuation, whitespaces etc.
- Data Analysis: The inbuilt algorithm process the data and perform sentence splitting.
- Indexing: Algorithm tags sentences based on their polarity such as positive, negative or neutral.
- Output: Finally, it provides an output that tells the actual results. It can be in the form of table, graphs, text, word-cloud or figures.
Limitations:
- Latest emerging terms cannot be analysed properly.
- Sarcasm detection.
- Term frequency.
- Sentence completeness.
- Small sentences or phrases cannot give much insights.
Arctic Circle and Climate Change
Remember the times when we used to get ” Global Warming” as a topic for writing an essay or in multiple debates? Well, seems like climate change was always real and is now becoming more visible. With the smartphone users rising exponentially due to advancement of Technology, issues like climate change have become the topic of discussion and people are now talking about it openly and become more conscious towards such sensitive issues.
Though some of the prominent world leaders have said that climate change is not an issue to be discussed but news about Arctic Ocean to be warming twice as fast as the global average is something that cannot be neglected. Yesterday, it was observed that the temperatures in the Arctic Circle are likely to have hit an all-time record on Saturday, reaching a scorching 38C (100F) in Verkhoyansk, a Siberian town. The rising and Hot summer weather is not uncommon in the Arctic Circle, but recent months have seen abnormally high temperatures.
Every year, Earth is experiencing change in weather and rise in temperature but the intensity is quite more when it comes to Arctic Circle. It is an alarming situation as Arctic is warming faster than anywhere on this Earth. In fact, most scientists agree on the fact that over the past 30 years, the Arctic has warmed at a rate of twice the global average.
Changes observed in Earth’s climate since the early 20th century are primarily driven by human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning, which increases heat-trapping greenhouse gas levels in Earth’s atmosphere, raising Earth’s average surface temperature. These human-produced temperature increases are commonly referred to as global warming. Natural processes can also contribute to climate change, including internal variability (e.g., cyclical ocean patterns like El Niño, La Niña and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation) and external forcings (e.g., volcanic activity, changes in the Sun’s energy output, variations in Earth’s orbit). (NASA Article)
Global warming is a part of climate change. According to a report by BBC, warming in the Arctic is leading to the thawing of once permanently frozen permafrost below ground. This is alarming scientists because as permafrost thaws, carbon dioxide and methane previously locked up below ground is released. These greenhouse gases can cause further warming, and further thawing of the permafrost, in a vicious cycle known as positive feedback. The higher temperatures also cause land ice in the Arctic to melt at a faster rate, leading to greater run-off into the ocean where it contributes to sea-level rise.
Though climate change deniers have argued that there has been a “pause” or a “slowdown” in rising global temperatures, but several recent studies shows that is the not the case. The situation in Arctic clearly indicates that the steps have to be taken on a global stage with strict actions. Countries have come together and have discussed about the same in G-20 and other summits but there is still a long way to go. Measures must be defined and followed by the masses to change some aspects of climate change.
The New Watchdog
Mainstream media to new media- how has the shift affected political reporting
Politics is undoubtedly a game for supremacy solely played in the name of the people for evoking national interest. Fred Fedler was right then he said “journalism is built on reporting government”. The idea of ‘the watchdog’ means that the journalist, as an independent observer without any vested interest in any side of the controversy, can inform the public about what is going on, particularly if the government is corrupt or even incompetent. However, the political journalists do not play this role flawlessly.
There is a paucity of good political reporting in India- reporting with an insight, reporting that captures in action the trouper of the political field, reporting that exposes the petty politics and the never ending hypocrisies of political parties and the conspiracies of those in power.
The grave situation that the Indian democracy is in, is that it is they who guide and shape the destiny of some 135 crore people. Lacking ideas, bereft of intelligence and character, they exploit religion and caste to stay in power.
Most political commentators and reporters on traditional medias like mainstream news channels and newspapers have glorified politicians and never truthfully presented their failures as much as their achievements. Programmes of political parties are rarely critically evaluated by reporters of most traditional media and their flaws are never commented upon so that the people are carried away by their rhetoric or patriotic postures. The Inadequate political coverage, not judged by the quantity of the news brought in or reported but by the quality of it, brings down the credibility of the traditional media.
The mediatization of the political news necessitates that media content is governed by media logic rather than political logic, and can be indicated by media interventionism where the journalists are in control of news making. (Esser, 2008, Strömbäck and Dimitrova, 2011, Zeh and Hopmann, 2013).
The way we use social media today impacts what we read and how we read or listen to news. Consider politics for that matter- Political parties bank on news channels, such as ZEE News or NDTV to get their updates on how the election campaign is going. Unbeknownst to many, both of these news outlets are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. If you tune into Zee News, you will get a completely different view of any candidate than you would on NDTV and viseversa. This type of controlling what people read and hear causes a lot of misinterpretation. This is where political reporting in new media comes into, where you not just read what the journalist has to say but also what others think about it and more importantly why they think the way they do. Unlike the traditional media, you don’t hear one side of the story, on new media platforms you can view multitude versions of the same story. With the advent of political reporting via social media and news portals, journalists who act like the watchdogs are now backed up, not only by their organisation, but also by their viewers, readers and followers who make an informed choice.
At the same time, the new media has initiated trends time and again. exposed how the traditional political reporters undercut the ideal aims of a free democratic press. The watchdog role is now played by the new media which had previously only been performed by trained political journalists who even under the worst of circumstances focused on uncovering the facts surrounding serious political wrongdoings.
