Role of Media in Promoting Politics

Media is the main source of information about politics. It is considered as the key to the world of politics and keeps everyone updated about the happenings of now and then. Media exists as one of the social institutions for people to give freedom of speech and expression in order to survive in a society. Media has the power to set the agenda, which includes also the power to define what is important in politics. The effect is that political parties and politicians have to act in response to the media that have the power of the agenda. Apart from the other areas, media promotes politics and democracy to a great extent.

Media literacy and education are vital if a true democracy is to take origin in Pakistan. The media has to play a vital role in educating the masses more than it has done to date. Television and radio have always been controlled by the state and have therefore had little credibility and less reliability amongst the public and therefore BBC and CNN are always relied upon for legitimate and correct news. Even the poor classes who have transistor radios listen to BBC Urdu service to find out about the current affairs and the latest happenings. However, now with the public sectors coming in the front, the public has started to follow and rely upon their updates and news.

There were a number of dailies and periodicals that moved from India to Pakistan when Pakistan became an independent state. Some of the print media didn’t survive. Others, such as Dawn, Jang, and Nawa-e-Waqt have transformed during the years into major media groups. The birth of transistors turned radio into a mass communication medium due to its capability to be used in towns and villages that didn’t have electricity. With the surfacing of the latest media, particularly the Internet, the field has changed again. With the widespread use of Internet worldwide, people can easily access information from anywhere and everywhere in the world. Credible websites like BBC, CNN, New York Times, etc. are pretty popular among the Asians and are frequently visited by them especially during times of crisis when the local electronic media has been hushed up. In Pakistan, the most popular local websites that keep the public up to date include ARY, GEO, Indus News, Daily Times, etc. Most political parties have also created and registered their own websites. Some of the sites are primitive while others contain a lot of research material and comments on issues and conflicts that affect the public. The political sectors also put up their websites in order to promote their respective parties to gain media hype and publicity, etc.