The New Global Media: Effect on India
India's economist Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, recently addressed the nation in a 15 minute speech (first in Hindi and then in English). The speech was an appeal to nation to support him and his party despite some of the unpopular, yet probably necessary, economic decisions taken in the last few days.
Currently, it does not look like as if the government is in danger. Political opportunism and priorities will ensure that some of the groups from the 'Third Front' and some other small parties will end up supporting the government and it will pull through till 2014. But I am not analyzing all those things here. What really struck me was the fact that this time, Manmohan Singh was not just addressing the domestic constituency. He was simultaneously addressing the global media too.
There has been a growing murmur about India's economic under-performance worldwide. As the growth rates, especially the Industrial Production growth rates, kept coming down quarter after quarter people were questioning government's economic wisdom. Simultaneously there were questions about Manmohan Singh's abilities. All of this, was of course, part of the general skepticism about the Indian economic growth story. S&P had even threatened to downgrade India's investment rating.
The government and the Man, were criticized and attacked repeatedly, in the global media. These included Foreign Policy (here, here and here), Economist (main story, here, here, special report and here), TIME (here and here), Washington Post (here, and tragic figure Manmohan) and some other prominent media outlets too. TIME and Washington Post were especially brutal to Manmohan with their cover stories labelling him 'The Underachiever' and 'Tragic Figure'
The power crisis of the early August bought to global attention the myriad economic problems plaguing India. This also received much global attention and hurt India's image.The anti-corruption protests have also received a similar global coverage (although I would not list down all the links, you can find them on FP, NYT, WP, Economist, Reuters, Bloomberg, WSJ, BBC among others). Al Jazeera has covered those protests well too. Similar coverage has been provided by other media outlets with global reach.
Here, I am not just referring to American media outfits but media organizations who have a global audience and hence what they report and write is read globally. It just happens that most of them are American. There are just a few things to take note of
1) Even if the national media is not critical the governments will have to worry about the criticism in the global media, which is something that they cannot control.This is something not limited to just India. Soon China might be doing similar things.
2) As the economies become more inter-dependent, the governments will find themselves increasingly adjusting their policies to attract foreign investors and capital. They will undertake activites to assure foreign investors, shareholders etc in order to ensure that the economy is attractive for investment. Thus in some way they will become economically accountable to foreign citizens.
3) These trends indicate that not only media is gaining upper hand over governments, but now foreign investors can force governments to adopt investment friendly policies (although not in the imperialist or colonialist manner).
The first global reaction to the current economic policy decisions is a mix of skepticism and optimism. If the economic performance improves, we might see Singh being celebrated as economic genius along with P Chidambaram. And yes, they will be compared to bumbling European leaders and probably hailed as gloabl thinkers and what not. FP will place both of them (and some Indian Bureaucrats) in global thinkers list.The Chinese Central Bank Chairman was celebrated for his wisdome in the recent lists.
Finally, it makes possible economic sense to let the global media outfits, if the media within the country is free, to invest in domestic press. Since, global media would report from a global persepective (that is an assumption) and local ones from local perspectives, issues in which there is a conflict between local concerns and global objectives of the nation (like FDI ... localites oppose it but it will bring FDI and investment to nation) will possibly get a fair treatment and coverage.
For every local newspaper frothing about foreign investors intent on neo-colonization of India, there will be a global media outlet reporting about the technological, economic and managerial benefits of such economic decisions.
Again I am assuming that global media outlets would not keep themselves to metros and will make effort to expand into hinterlands. And this coverage need not be restricted to economics only. In an interconnected world, it is necessary that the citizenry also develops an interlinked and global perspective. I can't wait to order my hard copy of WSJ in Hindi. Not online, but in a chai shop in Moradabad or Bareily.
Currently, it does not look like as if the government is in danger. Political opportunism and priorities will ensure that some of the groups from the 'Third Front' and some other small parties will end up supporting the government and it will pull through till 2014. But I am not analyzing all those things here. What really struck me was the fact that this time, Manmohan Singh was not just addressing the domestic constituency. He was simultaneously addressing the global media too.
There has been a growing murmur about India's economic under-performance worldwide. As the growth rates, especially the Industrial Production growth rates, kept coming down quarter after quarter people were questioning government's economic wisdom. Simultaneously there were questions about Manmohan Singh's abilities. All of this, was of course, part of the general skepticism about the Indian economic growth story. S&P had even threatened to downgrade India's investment rating.
The government and the Man, were criticized and attacked repeatedly, in the global media. These included Foreign Policy (here, here and here), Economist (main story, here, here, special report and here), TIME (here and here), Washington Post (here, and tragic figure Manmohan) and some other prominent media outlets too. TIME and Washington Post were especially brutal to Manmohan with their cover stories labelling him 'The Underachiever' and 'Tragic Figure'
The power crisis of the early August bought to global attention the myriad economic problems plaguing India. This also received much global attention and hurt India's image.The anti-corruption protests have also received a similar global coverage (although I would not list down all the links, you can find them on FP, NYT, WP, Economist, Reuters, Bloomberg, WSJ, BBC among others). Al Jazeera has covered those protests well too. Similar coverage has been provided by other media outlets with global reach.
Here, I am not just referring to American media outfits but media organizations who have a global audience and hence what they report and write is read globally. It just happens that most of them are American. There are just a few things to take note of
1) Even if the national media is not critical the governments will have to worry about the criticism in the global media, which is something that they cannot control.This is something not limited to just India. Soon China might be doing similar things.
2) As the economies become more inter-dependent, the governments will find themselves increasingly adjusting their policies to attract foreign investors and capital. They will undertake activites to assure foreign investors, shareholders etc in order to ensure that the economy is attractive for investment. Thus in some way they will become economically accountable to foreign citizens.
3) These trends indicate that not only media is gaining upper hand over governments, but now foreign investors can force governments to adopt investment friendly policies (although not in the imperialist or colonialist manner).
The first global reaction to the current economic policy decisions is a mix of skepticism and optimism. If the economic performance improves, we might see Singh being celebrated as economic genius along with P Chidambaram. And yes, they will be compared to bumbling European leaders and probably hailed as gloabl thinkers and what not. FP will place both of them (and some Indian Bureaucrats) in global thinkers list.The Chinese Central Bank Chairman was celebrated for his wisdome in the recent lists.
Finally, it makes possible economic sense to let the global media outfits, if the media within the country is free, to invest in domestic press. Since, global media would report from a global persepective (that is an assumption) and local ones from local perspectives, issues in which there is a conflict between local concerns and global objectives of the nation (like FDI ... localites oppose it but it will bring FDI and investment to nation) will possibly get a fair treatment and coverage.
For every local newspaper frothing about foreign investors intent on neo-colonization of India, there will be a global media outlet reporting about the technological, economic and managerial benefits of such economic decisions.
Again I am assuming that global media outlets would not keep themselves to metros and will make effort to expand into hinterlands. And this coverage need not be restricted to economics only. In an interconnected world, it is necessary that the citizenry also develops an interlinked and global perspective. I can't wait to order my hard copy of WSJ in Hindi. Not online, but in a chai shop in Moradabad or Bareily.
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