BMM: Being Mass Media Part 1

3 years has gone by. 3 years of learning about the functioning of the mass media to an extent. 3 years that will never come back in a lifetime. While for some it might have been 3 years of education, but for me it was 3 years of actually knowing how the mass media functions. I will draw similarities & relations between the two for I feel that it is true!

FYBMM

Identity:

So we have entered a new college filled consisting of people from different backgrounds & ideological upbringing. No one knows each other unless they have met each other before in school or junior college. But each individual has one thing to talk about themselves first – their identity! They have their own agenda, thoughts, ideas, skills & talents. Every action that they take, every decision that they make & every word they utter from their mouth is what forms their identity for the people. Whether they do it intentionally or unintentionally, their identity is formed. Nicknames, mimicking one’s common behaviour, complementing or criticizing also form their identity.

It is similar to what’s happening in the media. A new recruit has entered a new place filled with different people. The recruit has to prove how his/her skills & talent is going to help the organization. That is also the identity he/she forms in the organization!

Observation:

Each & every individual is also observing others. Everyone is watching everyone. It is part of the identity formation as each individual has their own agenda too for example, who is the person that is going to keep a record of all the notes in the class, which professors lecture one can come late for or bunk, who are the people that one can talk to, whose ideas matches theirs, etc. It is also a natural practise in the media industry. Superiors watch what their juniors are doing, how they are working, can they influence them to propagate their own agenda & ideas, can they help them improve, etc.

Groups:

This is an inevitable formation. Some would prefer this not happen as it leads to lack of unity of the class but then it cannot be stopped. Each individual propagates his/her identity & observes others to form a group or be a part of one. Directly or indirectly! Knowingly or unknowingly! Obviously the most common reason for forming a group or being part of a group is to reach one common goal, but some form a group just because their ideologies match & want to stick with their own kind! Those who don’t find a group are left out during project assignments or events participation. The ones who are left out then lose their visibility in class as people stop the observation process by this time & thereby are huddled among their members & friends.

Similarly in the media, every recruit tries to be a part of an already formed group or is assigned to ne group to meet his/her needs & requirements. There are different departments in each organization, all having one goal & many groups within a group to meet these goals. It can either lead to a healthy competition within an organisation or the domination of a single strong group! But here the observation process does not stop as one’s talent & skills are observed at all times as no one would know how beneficial an individual is.

Expectations:

Everyone has their own expectations. Either it can be from others or they might expect themselves to fulfil their wishes. This happens as everyone has ample of time to dwell into their thoughts, needs, desires & requirements. It can be a simple reaction being expected from an individual when they are provoked in a particular manner to expecting a group to complete a project or participate in events that one wants to. If these expectations are not met, criticism goes galore, verbal fights takes place, one can even change their association & behaviour towards another or propagate false rumors about individual or group. This happens usually at a time when groups participate in projects or events & some expect others to follow suite. For example, an individual will expect his friends to participate in a BMM festival or participate in particular events. If the group doesn’t meet this expectation, the individual will criticise his friends or even leave the group to join others who had participated in the festival/event.

Similarly, each media organisation has their own expectations which they want to be fulfilled by their employees. If these expectations are not met, the organisation criticises, punishes or even suspends the employee. Similarly, employees have their own expectations from the organisation such as high salary, quality work, less load of work, no work, etc. If these expectations are not met, then the employee will complain or quit the organisation.

Bias:

People start forming their own bias towards one another. This is because when groups are formed, they are bound to form bias about other groups as they would normally believe that their group’s ideology is superior to the other. They will also form bias about particular individuals based on their ideas, talents, skills, behaviour & representation. Even teachers form bias & become lenient towards one individual or group & are strict with others. Sometimes this bias is also felt when certain individuals are selected for a particular event as some would feel that the selector wanted his/her friend to be a part of the event & didn’t want to see how talented the other is.

This bias formation can also be seen in the media as every organisation will have their own leniency towards an individual, group, political party, class, etc. This bias is usually a result of one’s upbringing, environment, office environment, etc. This bias at times blurs the objectivity of representation of an individual, group, event, etc.

Personality & Work Ethics:

In the later part of the year, people know about every individual’s personality & work ethics. One can either be the scapegoat of the class or the one that people look upto, one can either be the one that is ignored or the one that people admire and one can either be the joker of the class or the one who has all the notes! Different personalities exist in the class with different work ethics. One can be the person who does all the work in a group assignment or one can be the person who does nothing than just being a mere spectator. A group that is capable to give an informed & understandable presentation or a group that doesn’t know much about their own presentation.

Similarly in the media, you see many personalities of different organisations such as Arnab Goswami, Rajdeep Sardesai, Alyque Padamsee, Sharukh Khan, Anurag Kashyap, etc. Each has a different personality & work ethics. Similarly there are famous brands such as The Times of India, Ogilvy, Yash Raj Films, Dharma Productions, etc. Each brand has its own personality that they represent to its audience & work ethics for its members. In every organisation, there are certain standards & requirements by which you can become a member of the organisation. Sometimes you need influence or contacts within the organisation to enter it. Personalities shine out from their counterparts as they might excel in certain skills & talents in comparison to others or some employees are lazy while others work hard to get ahead.

Unity:

Even after all these differences that is existent, a certain level of unity does exist among all the people. When it comes to festival participation, people show unity & cheer for their college mates even f they don’t know them or have some personal issues with them. When teachers give an assignment, the whole class might rise up in unison to delay the date of submission of the assignment! This unity exists as none have any real enmity towards each other. It’s just minor differences that keep people divided. This unity is also seen between different colleges as most of the people want to have fun during festival activities & want to get notes for the exams.

Similarly in the media, there is unity among organisations as most of them are only competing against each other. These organisations together decide which days should be kept as a holiday & that none will conduct any sort of work or publish their work on these days. They are also united when they face criticism from known individuals & put a united front when faced with issues such as strike, crisis management, etc.

This is what I experienced during my first year in BMM. Did you have a different experience? Comment about it as I will share my experience in my second year of BMM in the next post!