Current Affair Show: Impact on Public's Political Efficacy

Introduction:

In today’s world, Mass Media is considered as a tool to educate, inform and also to change the perspective and thought pattern behaviour of the society. Media effects actually change the knowledge, attitude and/or behaviour of an individual, because of exposure to mass media. In modern societies, media can change the thoughts, behaviours, attitudes and social integrations. Mass media includes Newspapers, Magazines, Radio, Television and internet. TV is becoming an essential part of our lives, it affects our mind and also built a public opinion. Television is disseminating the information just like “fire in a jungle”. Television occupied the baggiest area in our lives. That may include residence areas, workplaces, eating places as well (Spingel, 1992).

“The role of television in Pakistan is extremely important as illiteracy is a major obstacle to information and awareness. Recent studies show that TV is watched by almost 50 million people. An increasing number of women, urban and rural, now have access to television. Due to the limited scope of the print media to the audio-visual media becomes the most influential agent in the country (UNDP: 1996). ”

Television plays an important role to change the ideology of the public. Television helps to protect democracy and develops political awareness in the public. Since television is an audio and video tool of mass communication, so, it performs this duty perfectly.

The Rationale to Study:

Current Affair shows are broadcast in primetime on every news channel. There are some news programs which are broadcast at other times too. The general viewers get a remarkable awareness by the current affairs programs, political discussion and live coverage about different issues on the television. In the past, the sources of information and coverage were limited so the people were unaware of their surroundings. Even the masses were unaware of the killings, violation of human rights and their exploitation by the ruling class. Current Affair Programs have an incredible effect on governmental issues, social qualities, ways of life of individuals, the relationship of masses and remote strategy.

In the news and Current Affair programs, the media provides an effectual coverage about the issues that enable the media user to understand the issues and demand their rights from the governments.

Some specific approaches used in the political shows which are:-

• Providing Information: Introduction, History, Past Incidents, etc. • Creating hypes on different issues • Creating controversy on different topics

In Pakistan, there are dozens of private news channels running since TV is a dominant medium. PTV is the public sector and it remains the only free terrestrial TV network in the country, with channels offering news, entertainment, regional language programming, programming for Pakistanis abroad and the AJK-TV channel that broadcasts in the Kashmiri language for the people of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

But here I discuss that How private news channel’s current affair shows such as; Naya Pakistan, Aaj Shahzaib Khanzada ky Sath, Bolta Pakistan, Off the Record, 11th hour with Waseem Badami etc are affecting public perceptions or views about different issues or topics. Do these political shows illustrate any answers/solutions at the end of the shows about any issue/topic?

Methodology: The methodology I used is to find out answers through Qualitative research.

"Qualitative Research; collecting data from words or pictures, and connect the data to new ideas and concepts."

In order to collect data, I studied different research journals and Articles. I also conducted semi-structured interviews (interviews by Email) with different off-screen Journalists, along with obtaining public opinions as well.

Findings:

According to the different articles and research journals, Media is a key to educate, to inform and to entertain the public. TV is the most useful medium to change the mindset of the viewers, along with the Radio. On TV, news and current affair programs are changing perceptions, viewpoints and behaviours of the public. Current affair shows are varying public’s political thinking. According to a research journal (Ali, Aleena, Hassan 2013),

Electronic media outlets are informing educated Youth and are serving as a family arm in Pakistani society because people consume entertainment, education and information. The role of media is gaining importance every day. It is quickly transforming itself, and in turn, becoming an agent of transforming the world. Now Media is helping democracies and promoting globalization, according to research by Rameez Ahmed.

Media is a major source of information about politics. Finally, it is concluded that there is a major role of talk shows upon the youth in creating awareness about politics, (Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 2014).

When I talked to off-screen journalists, some of them said that these shows (up to some extent) change our thinking. We know that media has the power to change and completely divert viewers mindset, but we also find examples where current affairs shows do not change viewers thinking, example; During Local body Elections, media was giving hype to Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Jammat-e-Islami (JI) alliance and Karachi Operation, but results were totally different. Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) won the elections with a considerable margin. Another example; from 2013 till present, current affairs shows present PTI as the largest street power. However, they have been failing to transform this into tangible votes.

According to Muhammad Bilal Siddique, an Assistant Producer at Capital TV, now current affair shows are helping the viewer to make an opinion that which political party is on the right path and which is on a wrong way. E.g. Nandipur Power Scam, Model town incident, Orange line train etc. If these issues were not discussed in current affair programs then people will not know about the actual scenario, it will never change public perspective.

Former News Producer at Saach.tv (Pakistan’s first web TV) said that Current Affairs shows are definitely changing or affecting the public’s political efficacy. E.g. from 2009 to 2013, the majority of the current affairs shows have made the public believe that PPP is a bunch of corrupt crooks. They lost the general elections of 2013.

According to a Research student of Lahore, Political shows have turned into a circus, so media is not affecting the public’s political efficacy.

While talking to an overseas Pakistani, he responded that the current affair shows in Pakistan do change the political efficacy of Pakistani viewers. In fact, not only Pakistanis but also people around the globe who take a keen interest in political and social affairs of Pakistan.

However, sometimes, Pakistani media fails to maintain certain standards of their current affair programs, because of the factors like inexperienced hosts, lack of research (on current issues), sometimes calling the guests who don't hold a vision while discussing their point of views on current affairs. Hence, as a result, people do get confused or misguided.

But still, irrespective of all the odds, these programs definitely play a key role in changing the mindset, thoughts, and way of thinking of their viewers with respect to political sciences, political ethics, political parties and about different politicians of Pakistan.

Discussion and Conclusion:

After studying the collected data, Pakistani media especially news and political shows credibility has become a question mark among society. Media is said to be free when the media organizations enjoy the freedom to broadcast information without facing any barriers from the government or any other powerful actors of the society. But the unprecedented freedom of media has, as well, harmed the society. First of all; Media has the power to change and completely divert audience mindset and to some extent, changes public perspective too.

Secondly, there are some instances where media outlets spread disinformation and create confusion among the masses through news and current affairs shows. The 'informing people' function of media is not complete until it guarantees true and unbiased information. Absence of a consolidated accountability system has let certain elements in media to exploit feelings of the audiences just to get some 'rating'. Nevertheless, this disinformation damages significant elements of society. For example, some segments in Pakistani media often resorted to creating a false impression about the government, even they started predicting its departure. These rumours forced the investors to keep at bay which harmed the country's economy. But still, some shows are providing information about different topics to their viewers and helping them to understand the difference between right and wrong. Pakistani media, whether electronic or print media, should play their role to change the public’s perceptions and behaviours towards different issues/topics.