We Are Surrounded By Media Sociology Essay

We Are Surrounded By Media Sociology leavenIn todays world, we ar surrounded by media. Our lives atomic number 18 saturated by wordpapers, radio, books, television, movies, Internet, and m any(prenominal) opposite aspects of media. These potbelly be broadly classified into newsworthiness media and prevalent media. In India, both these types provide an insight to Indian spiritedness, which is fill with ro mankindce, tradition, and all the separate day-to-day experiences and situations wiz magnate lift across. But, tear down though they might seem the same, they both play real different roles in parliamentary law.Popular media represents and recounts a vast number of real bread and saveter stories, and portrays them in a manner enjoyable for the audience. tidings media on the other hand, provides more than facts and gives raw information for the audience to on a lower floorstand, with or without a theatre opinion of its own on the matter. Popular media r all(pr enominal)es out to a much larger audience, as both literate person and illiterate peck be able to access it, succession news media entirely reaches out to the literate and wealthy people. This difference good deal become a fuss in certain situations. Both these parts of media reflect association constantly, as they ar shaped from and around experiences and stories of the people in the society. Usually, both these types concur with each other in the content and representation of society, entirely there atomic number 18 specific results in which this ceases to be true. An example of this is the portrayal of the prominence and do of the constituent system in India today. For a long time, both democratic and news media reflected the aspects of the fate system in Indian society very vividly and comprehensively, shargond the same view about the topic, and thus were in unity with each other. But overtime, it was noniced that popular media deviated from this pattern and no longer reflected the prominence of the serving system in society, while the news media continued to do so, thus creating an ideological difference between the two. The problem of the lot system is still prominent, and the news media continues to reflect this. But since popular media does not reflect society anymore, a majority of the society comes to a lower place the im bear onion that there is nothing wrong in what they atomic number 18 doing. This can build the parcel system to be persistent in the prevalent lives of Indian families.The dower system is a cultural system in India in which the parents of the bride buy off a large sum of money, and give big-ticket(prenominal) jewelry and other gifts such as cars, to the parents of the groom during spousal. Traditionally, there were many basiss for the establishment of this system. It was a form of inheritance for the bride, since all the family property was catching by men. It was supposed to be the security for the bride in case any misfortune befell her preserves house. It was as well as a system of honoring the groom for his willingness to carry the bride as his wife in spousals, and the gifts given could range from anything significant to withal a small token of good wishes. However, the cupidity of destiny has affect almost all ordinary families in India. Nowadays, in marriages between or amongst all hierarchal levels of society, dower is generally an unspoken requirement. And out-of-pocket to the mental picture to mass media, the gifts given in dowry necessitate transformed into a large transfer of wealth, making it an important factor in marriage.The kind and cultural effects of the dowry system are devastating to the society as a whole. The system reduced women to a commodity and a source of wealth. Even if the dowry is paid, in most cases, the bride is tortured by her in-laws mentally and physically as they demand for more dowry sluice after marriage. This torture general ly leads to suicide or murder of the bride.The reason why dowry is still persistent in India is not besides because it is difficult to enforce the law against it or because the grooms family is very demanding, still also because the brides family continues to bear with it. Despite the widespread awareness of the negative consequences of dowry and the problems cause by it, it is still seen as a way of buying felicitousness for the bride. Many families believe that giving a large dowry would settlement in better treatment of the daughter by the grooms family. This has only when modify the problem as the standard for dowry became high and so marriage was dependent on whether the brides family could reach that standard of dowry or not.A scan was done in 1980 which examined students expectations of dowry for people with various culture backgrounds. Even though majority of the students viewed the dowry system as an sin in society and considered it unimportant for marriage, most of the brothers of the respondents gave or received dowry for their sisters marriages. Also, depending on the social status and affluence of the family, and the education qualifications of the bride and the groom, the amount of dowry needed to be given varies significantly. There is a positive correlation between a mans education and status to the dowry his family demands. As a grooms educational experience growths, the dowry demanded for the marriage also increases.In 1961, the payment of dowry was prohibited under the Indian Civil Law, and also under sections 304B and 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Despite this, this system of dowry has been a continuous and never ending menace in our society. These laws were do in order to make it easier for women to seek redress from the harassment she is under by the mans family. But these laws move over been of little help to brides, who are harassed crimson today by their in-laws. Instances of such situations sport constantly been shown to the public by the media.The power of media in todays world is surprising. The media has the freedom to form opinions, and through this they can change the opinions of people. But, people forget that in the end, all media is doing is reflecting society. The stories the media covers, and the plots of the movies that are made (except fantasy fiction of course), all are based on situations which whitethorn occur in day to day bearing, or real life situations. Same was the case with the dowry system. The media understandably render the agonies and fuss of Indian women as they were suffering from the cruelties of the dowry system. This can be seen from very out-of-the-way(prenominal) back in popular as well as news media.Dowry-inspired murder cases received immense coverage by news media in the late 1970s and 1980s due to the active role vie by womens organizations. The womens organizations played a very important role in increasing awareness and coverage of dowry cerebrate cases. A study done on the coverage of dowry related cases from 1979-1984 concludes that there was a noticeable improvement in the coverage of dowry in the subject papers due to the womens organizations, although the coverage in regional papers remained the same. By 1979, one dowry related conclusion received serious press coverage. A 24 year old bride from New Delhi, Tarvinder Kaur, was set on fire by her mother-in-law and sister-in-law due to the less dowry paid by her. Another significant dowry-related murder case was that of Tripti Sharma, who worked at the Ministry of Defense. She was burned to death by her husband and his family in 1986. A more optimistic and fresh case is that of Nisha Sharma. In May 2003, she handed over her in store(predicate) husband to the police on the day of the wedding itself as he was demanding more dowry from her. This example shows what women need to do in cases of dowry abuse. Nisha refused to come under the pressures of the grooms family, and decided that she is not going to sustain it. These examples from news media are clearly reflective of the state of affairs in India at that time, and case with popular media was similar.In 1992, the movie City of Joy depicted a family which had really high dowry demands. In the movie, the grooms father clearly states, I am firm in requiring for my exceptional son the bicycle, 1000 rupees, and one ounce of gold. The brides father responds by saying, The child of a king might be worth that, and Im not even sure of that Another 2001 movie, Lajja, clearly displayed the consequences of the dowry system, its working, and how it may be a big burden on the brides family. In the movie, Maithili (Mahima Chaudhary) is about to be married to a wealthy man of a family with a high social status. Maithilis parents give away everything they bear in the dowry, including their land and saved money. Upon still falling short, they take loans from their friends, but they are still not able to gather t he full amount. Maithili requests her future husband to convince his dada to let the rest of the money be, but he is too scared to do so. Seeing this, and seeing her dad beg in front of the grooms father to convey the money he has, she rebels, and calls of the wedding. She was not able to bear to see her father being low-toned in such a manner by the grooms father. Both these movies showed depicted that the brides family has to struggle a lot in order to gather the dowry for the grooms family, and thus is a big burden on them.This depiction of the dowry system by popular media was in concurrence with its reflection in the news media, but as we move ahead on the timeline, this concurrence slowly fades away. The movie Lajja was the last movie to clearly depict the pain inflicted due to the dowry system. The 2006 movie Lage Raho Munna Bhai also had the concept of dowry, but it did not demonstrate the consequences of the dowry system, and only showed that the concept of dowry existed . Since then, popular media has not depicted anything related to cases of dowry related abuse or murder. And this would have been perfectly fine if the society had transformed to this effect and there were no more dowry related crimes fetching place. But this was not true, as news media still continued to report about such crimes taking place.Number of dowry cases goes up (The Hindu, January 2008) Dowry death after fuck marriage (The Times of India, April 2008) Harassed for dowry, teacher ends life (The Indian Express, November 2007). These are unspoilt three headlines from three of Indias popular newspapers that show the persistence of the dowry system and its consequences in modern India. Dowry is still prevalent in modern India, in not only the illiterate section of the population, but also the educated elites in Indias major metropolitan cities. Surprisingly in the past decade, the number of dowry related crime cases has actually foregone up, despite dowry being banned since 1961 by Indian law. harmonise to the statistics released by the National Crime Records Bereau, a total of 8391 dowry deaths were account in 2010 itself, which means that a bride was killed every 90 minutes due to dowry related reasons. In 1988, this number was 2209 in 1990 it rose to 4835 in 2000 (a decade earlier), this number was 6995, and in 2007 it climbed up to an astounding 8093.According to other government records, Delhi itself records a few hundred dowry deaths every year, while womens rights groups estimate this number to be at 900 per year. This is a phenomenal increase compared to the number for the 1990s, which is about 300 per year. It is important to note that these are just official records, and are thus immensely under-reported. 90% of the cases in which women are burnt are recorded as accident, 5% as suicides, and only the remaining 5% of the cases are shown as murder. These shockingly high rime clearly reflect the continuous increase in dowry related crimes an d deaths in India.This is due to the continued commercialization of marriages in the modern Indian society. Indias economic liberalization has seen a proportionate rise in the levels of greed as compared to 1990, and a bride is now perceived by her future in-laws as a source of potential cash flow. A famous commendation from former Justice Markandey Katju reads, On one hand, people regard women as goddesses, and on the other hand they burn them alive. This is against the norms of civilized society. Its barbaric. This is in rejoinder to an appeal filed by a husband who had just been sentenced to imprisonment for life by a Sessions court for burning his wife due to dowry related reasons.The effects of the dowry system are so furthest and wide ranging, that they can even be traced back to the womb. This system is the patriarchal cause for female feticide and infanticide as poorer parents get to avoid the long burden of saving up for the dowry for their daughters marriage. The com mercialization of marriage and female infanticide is clearly reflected in the movie Matrubhoomi, in which a reverse dowry system is depicted. The movie shows a society in which there are no women left due to excessive female infanticide, and the men have grown to be so sexually frustrated, that they are ready to pay large amounts of money to get a wife for themselves or their sons. So as soon as the head of the family finds Kalki, they literally buy her from her father, by giving him vanadium lakh rupees and five cows, and marry her to all five of his sons. Kalki simply becomes a source of money for her father, and a sex mark for her husbands.Nowadays, there are famous advertisements which have been put up in many of the rural villages, which read, Spend 500 rupees today, save 5000 rupees later. This is a filename extension to the cost of abortion compared to the cost of the dowry which they might have to give. It essentially encourages the families to come and get an abortion i f their child is a girl, so that they dont have the burden of paying the dowry while getting her married in the future. This is the primary reason why India has a distorted sex ratio of 933 girls for every 1,000 boys.As is evident, the problems due to the dowry system have only been rising over the past decade. Despite this, popular media has failed to reflect these problems. News media has continued to keep up with these updates, and report about them, but popular media has deviated into its own path. Since popular media has a much larger audience compared to news media, this results in the society getting a totally different tie-up of what is happening in their world a wrong viewpoint in which what they are doing is not wrong. Also, since popular media has a much larger international audience as compared to news media, people from other countries get a totally different view of India a world in which the dowry system does not exist and is not causing any problems at all. Thus, an untrue version of the society is shown to the world outside, which is not good, as when these people actually come to India and read about the truth, it is a shocking manifestation for them.A shift is Indias attitude towards the dowry systems is urgently due. In artless words, dowry is equal to a family paying a man to accept their daughter as his wife, while the man along with his family, tries to get the utmost price out of the womans family. This association of economic gain with women in marriage is something which has long been persistent in India, and needs to stop. Simply making anti-dowry laws has be to be inefficient. We need to make the society see their mistakes and realize what they are doing wrong, and this can only be done if popular media continues to reflect society as it did before.India essential come together to end this practice. This could see couples transmission channel their funds to provide education to their daughters, instead of saving money for geezerhood and years for dowry. The days of the persistence of the dowry system in India must be numbered, or Indian societys claim to be progressive is disingenuous.