BUSINESS PRESSURE AND MEDIA

Submitted by Anees Hassan 14scmc36

Pavankanth 14scmc45

Submitted to:
Dr. Kanchan. K. Malik
Dept. of Communication

Without pressure, there is no business happening. The business itself is something running over
profits and targets. When there is a fixed target, obviously there is a pressure factor acting on
the approach which is targeting towards the destination. In reaching thus destination, failure
may result the system or an organization or an institution or an individual what/who so ever
related to it getting may pull/push out of the competition. There the need of existence in
market or competition will come. To withstand and for sustainable existence, an organization
need to take care on profits.
Media the most powerful tool of the world and it maintains strong foundation to the structure
of democracy which comprises of healthy ethical principles to maintain transparency in
dissemination of information so this has a great history. From the early forms of
communication it changed a lot in its way of communication style and technology. Early times it
was merely a tool which is functioned only for bringing news to people. But then its turned to a
system which is trying to make a public opinion on a specific matter. During all this time its
basic aim was public service. But from their earliest days media also served more directly
business function by providing direct market intelligence to their readers. This function has
massively expanded recently with the growth of trade magazine and specialized information
services. Through all changes media grabbed more power influencing capacity through the sale
of information. Business pressure which in inscribes in media market and this is inscribed in a
rotating cycle of society-commercialization-market-globalization-capital investments which are
inter related and inseparable. The sale of information becomes an increasingly important
market in the era of capitalism and globalization. With help of them, media markets begin to
expand in a vigorous way. The traditional boundaries surrounding media markets are being
eroded. In India, media market and media capital investments contribute considerable
percentage in Indian economic growth. National and local markets are being opened for
everyone. The emergence of borderless economy and international competition has naturally
affected media market and firms across the world. Media industry changed to a big business
which gives influencing power. In post independent India, there are only few media
organizations particularly print were there which were operated mostly in the purpose of
people interest on nations welfare. Later, media tends to mass media and having its rapid
growth through its expansion into broadcast i.e., radio, television and the present new media.
1MEDIA EXPENDITURE IN INDIA

year

TV

PRESS

RADIO

CINEMA

OUTDOOR INTERNET TOTAL

1991
1993

3900
4960

10690
15550

680
680

70
90

1584
1632

16924
22912

1995

13450

27350

1340

90

4064

46294

1997
1999

25840
39410

31280
39240

1360
1450

410
620

8800
11200

67690
91920

2001

45640

43250

1760

790

6400

300

96110

2003

50940

46890

2270

820

5488

540

106948

2005

67460

79290

3600

1160

9940

1229

162678

SOURCE : LOADESTAR MEDIA, FROM THE INDIAN MEDIA BUSINESS,KHANDEKAR V K

The rapid increase and enormous emergence of media organizations and institutions taken
place in India is due to, during the cold war, much of the Indian media positioned itself
somewhere between emphasizing liberal forms of journalism and development journalism.
From the early 1990s, as the process of deregulation and economic liberalization started, the
Indian government began welcoming private foreign capital and market friendly policies were
introduced. Due to this, huge investments from corporates were overflown by adopting this
news business and turn this industry into profits gaining industry. This scenario boost up the
profits acquiring by attracting advertisements and by attracting investments through investors
by showing their creative efforts in entertaining people and grabbing of eyeballs through
sensationalism. The size of the organization and the importance of advertising to the economy
of a media organization decide the tone and tenor of its content.
Always there is an dilemma can be observed in media raison detre (existence). i.e., media is
meant to be egalitarian in its commitment to the dissemination of information for the benefit
of the public and the commercial and corporate nature of most media institutions means that
they have also operates with very different motives. The clear opinion in public in present
society is that the interest of stockholders of media organizations is revenue. Like most of the
industries, media industry is also lives on revenues. Much of which comes from advertising,
some of it driven by corporate/private and consumer product sales. In this phase, we as a
public, cant able to expect the media to continue playing the role of a welfare institution. The
argument can also be that to maintain the uneasy balance between information as commerce
and information as a basic human entitlement, the focus should be more on ensuring diversity
of information than on the pursuit of commercial profits.
Modern journalism developed with industrialism. The market pressures which underpin a
media institution lead to what has been called industrial journalism. The early newspaper was
often run by the printer or the owner of the printing house. But now, due to liberalization
policies the entire scenario has been changed and corporates, multi-national companies and big
financial enterprisers began to invest in media sector. The result of this investment was
marketization of media sector. It leads to competition for grabbing more audience and income.
And media sector become a big business. According to Andrew Belsey, to promote the
production of information which the public is interested in, rather than the information that is
in the public interest. In matters that prominently involve the peoples interest, where there is a
risk of social disorder or offence to dignity and good sense, decisions are left to the prudence

and the sense of social responsibility of media practitioners themselves. The investors try to
increase their profit at any cost.
The roots and foundations for having business pressure in media organizations is a kind of
interesting thing to study on. The whole we can observe the whole scenario as that it is crazily
running in a competition of larger number of media institutions/organizations/agencies etc
which are in a process that fighting for dominance by acquiring profits. The creation of huge
media market in India is due to the over flow of huge investments by corporate conglomerates
who created the unnecessary competition among the media organizations. The basic funda
behind this is to sustain in market. For this an organization exerts its pressure on every
individual who ever working or belongs to it. That will make the individual develop his approach
on work relating with bringing profits in order to that they need to keep their personal agenda
of ethics and morals away. This is a kind of individual compromising complex anyway, now a
day by the day end, every person working for money, here, media industry in also not
exceptional. Here, let us go through an interesting linkage terms which are co related and
strongly bonded-Due to business pressure-individual tries to think of new ideas-these ideas
need to grab attention of large number of people- so, it tends to sensationalism- if people are
attracting, then advertisements will flow towards that organization-whenever advertisements
are more, this will also attracts investors for huge investments- if huge investment done, then
their role in market increases rapidly-then their influence on public domain will get increasestanding in a position of influencing governments also-This tends to influence governments to
do things in favour of them-This tends to cross ownership-This tends to business expansionThis tends to grabbing the opportunities of other business people who are actually involved in
that business.
Running This move impose some pressure on media companies and journalists. There arise a
big question of professional ethics in between public service and profit making. Financial
motives are much stronger today in media companies than five to ten years ago, according to
some survey carried out in Sweden shows that the link between journalism and finance
weakening the journalistic motives and values. This is not a uniquely Swedish problem, the
British project shows how financial motives diminish the autonomy of journalists. Likewise,
other research in India shows a similar pattern. Newsroom editors nowadays talk about
eyeballs, target groups, and the portfolio the company offers the advertisers. New investment
seems to follow profits, free newspapers proliferate and everything is done to defend the
position in the advertising market. Journalism is more connected than ever to finance and the
old Great Wall of China disappeared between the newsroom and the advertising and finance
departments. But more the Berlin wall, crumbling and seen as a museum piece. The same is
true for the Swedish public service companies; the finance departments influence is stronger,
more production is done outside the company. This business conditions altogether exert some
pressure on media institution and journalist under different levels at all cadres and all divisions
including and working in those organizations.. In some case we can see the pressure of political

parties and rulers who exert pressure on media to make the media and journalist favor for
them. We can divide the pressure sources according to their position.

1) Internal pressure
a. Owners
b. Editors
c. Stake holders

2) External pressure
a. Advertisers
b. Government
c. Political parties
Internal pressure These pressure agents are part of the media and they can easily exert their
pressure to respective media institution
a. Owners a media always under the control of owner and he can always alter the ways of
the media institution. In any case if the owner has any involvement, interest or bias
reporting of that case may vary from situation to situation. Sometimes the owner may
be a politician and the news against his party may disappeared from that media. In
many cases we can see such bias. Let us consider two case studies
Eg: Case 1) Scandal against Jayalalitha and her arrest didnt report by the Jaya TV at
Tamil Nadu.
Case 2) The arrest of Y.S.Jagan was not covered in sakshi newspaper as his wife is the
managing director of that newspaper which is largely circulated in Andhra Pradesh.
The corporate/politicians who owned the media organizations on their own; they can make
their programmes and policies in favor of them and always tries to influence people in
favor of them. They can even attack on their opponents by using this media as a tool in the
name of their freedom of expression.
In the above two cases they can exert pressure on their employees and make them to work
under their own considerations. Here, there is no scope for journalists to work on their own
ideologies otherwise they can make them to quit from those organizations.
Editors An editor can also exert pressure on media institution and journalists to avoid or
specially interesting report on a issue which the editor have a special involvement

External pressures these pressure exerting agents are not part of media directly. But they can
apply pressure on media by many ways.
a. Advertisers the main source of income of modern media is from advertisements.
Without this income a media institution cant exist in this highly competent market. So
media cant overcome the pressure exerted by the advertising agent who are the
primary sources of media. So they can alter/appear/disappear the news which they
want. We can see many examples for this pressure. Sometimes the government may try
to exert pressure on a media which is frequently questions them through this way
(Eenadu Newspaper v/s AP government case)
b. Government state can exert pressure on media in many ways. It may be in the form of
certain rules and regulation or controlling them (during emergency period). And may
withdraw the license of particular media. Government exerts power by using their
political power. Even they can ban some publishers, books or certain sites. By censoring
the film and so on
c. Political parties: They can also exert pressure in many ways. They do this through the
people those who are inside the media institution and supporters of them

Reference:
1) Tthe Indian media business Vanithakohlikhandekar , response books
2) Journalism: a profession under pressure? - Witschge, Tamara and Nygren, Gunnar,
GOLDSMITHS Research Online Article
3) Media ethics by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.