Media and Literature

By Murthy, BS

Book Id: WPLBN0100750883
Format Type: PDF (eBook)
File Size: 3.49 MB.
Reproduction Date: 10/28/2025

Title:	Media and Literature
Author:	Murthy, BS
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Non Fiction, Education, Media and literature
Collections:	Authors Community, Literature
Historic Publication Date:	2025
Publisher:	Self Imprint

Member Page:	BS Murthy
Citation APA MLA Chicago Murthy, B. (2025). Media and Literature. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Description
With a right intent the media could play a sterling role in promoting quality literature. If only the extra half-page that was talked about is earmarked for excerpts from the author published books, then the book lovers would have opportunities to make their literary choices. Likewise, instead of parroting the same news 24x7, the cable networks could air the book readings of the budding authors, who would spare no effort to send in the videos of their reading for the screening.

Summary
Being a land of many languages, India’s media is no monolithic phenomenon. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the regional differences, the vernacular media has a uniformity of character. Thus we can broadly categorize the Indian media into the English version and the vernacular variety. The difference between these is more pronounced in the ‘space value’ of the print media than in the ‘airtime quality’ of the electronic variant.

Excerpt
One only needs to scan the newspapers of the day to note that much of the precious space is mindlessly wasted. Understandably, politics, business and sports besides crime, cinema and trivia take the bulk of the media space for these are the topics that make the average readers buy newspapers in the main. And in what could be seen as tokenism, some, if not all, newspapers concede moderate space for literary subjects; mainly in the form of book reviews that is whatever is left after hyping the selected works. Nonetheless, the space for the ‘news that sells’ itself could be better structured so as to make enormous room for the less glamorous literary cause. It is not unusual that the news on one page figures on another, wasting the precious media space, and if only properly drafted and edited, the space so saved could be used to accommodate literature and its poor cousins of fine arts. If and when that happens there would be media space enough for the promotion of literature and arts as well. Besides, road accidents, murders, rapes, dowry deaths, and such mishaps are accorded the status of dispatches with headlines, and all that occupy so many columns. If all of them were grouped together under the relevant headings, the space so released would be no mean a space. Another wasteful practice with the English media is its penchant for the ‘carpet coverage’ of the cricket news. What the special correspondent elaborates in the main story is as well carried in the guest column of an eminent past master of the game. It is a different story with other sports though. Well, it seems we have come to have media haves and media have-nots. Same is the case with the trivia that is given so much space in today’s media along with cinema. The way trivia is highlighted makes one suspect that the media is starved of newsworthy material. However, if all the trivia could be clubbed in a corner, wouldn’t that suffice to satiate the appetite of the curious? Besides, that would save the bother for the interested readers to scan through the entire paper and miss some of it some time. Thus, if imaginatively structured, half a page or more a day could be made available for literature and the fine arts in all English dailies.