Understanding Indian Media

Rousseau along with Voltaire, in their strife against feudalism and despotism, effectively used the media to help transform a feudal society into a modern one. In underdeveloped countries like India the media has a great responsibility to fight backward ideas such as communalism and support the population in their struggle against poverty and other social evils. With market forces at play and public investment in private companies, journalists found it sometimes lucrative to write only partially absolute stories of companies waiting to list on the stock exchanges. The need of ethical practices is important and of utmost urgency since the ever growing, ever evolving media of India will of no value to India.s 1.2 billion people who may have more infotainment, sensationalism and political spin at their disposal but who will remain ignorant of the facts and analysis of events around them. In this paper, in the first section we will discuss the present state of affairs of Indian media, and in second section we will examine three inter-related aspects: freedom of speech and censorship, the press as a part of free trade and the role of press in a bourgeoisie democratic society, which Karl Marx, during his stint as a journalist dealt with in his writing, and which have a contemporary resonance in post-colonial India.