Understanding Media

This is Chapter 6 of NCERT's Class 7 Social and Political Life – II (2024–25 reprint) and the only chapter of Unit Four, ‘Media’, after gess305 (‘Women Change the World’). The chapter fills book pp. 64–73; its 12-page PDF also carries the Unit Five opener and Teacher's Note on Markets (pp. 74–75), which belong to the next chapter (PDF page n = book page n − 63). The Unit Four opener and Teacher's Note on Media (pp. 62–63) sit at the end of gess305.pdf and are read here. Its parts: an opener collage; Media and technology; Media and money; Media and democracy, with two invented news reports and a box on what TV does to us; independence and censorship; Setting agendas, with a box on local media; a social advertising box; five exercises and a four-term glossary. We use seven concept sections. The book's numbers are checked with asserts and dated points flagged. Laws, bodies and cases beyond the book are marked Beyond NCERT (†) with year and source. Debates — who should own the media, how far advertising shapes news, how far the media shape what we think — are attributed positions side by side, with no verdict; no current outlet is named as good or bad.

• How this chapter relates to UPSC, honestly: GS2 lists the role of media in a democracy, and the Essay paper has asked about media bias directly. The book gives the ideas — balance, independence, censorship, business, agenda-setting — in plain words; the law (Article 19(1)(a)), the bodies (Press Council, Prasar Bharati) and the rules (IT Rules, 2021) come from Beyond NCERT notes and senior chapters.
• Senior chapters: lesy207 (Mass Media and Communications — history of print, radio and TV in India, ownership and globalisation, with the same Essay and FDI questions); keps202 (Rights in the Constitution — freedom of expression); leps206 (The Crisis of Democratic Order — the Emergency and press censorship); jess405 (Outcomes of Democracy — transparency and citizens' right to information).
• Before and next: gess301 (On Equality — the book's frame of democracy and dignity); gess305 (the women's movement's campaigns, which used the media). The next chapter, gess307 ‘Markets Around Us’, opens Unit Five; buying and selling continue there and in gess308 (‘A Shirt in the Market’).
• UPSC from this chapter: four questions — Prelims 1980 (‘Fourth Estate’ refers to the press), Prelims 1981 (order in which printing, films, radio and TV came to India), Mains GS2 2014 (FDI in news media — pros and cons) and Essay 2019 (‘Biased media is a real threat to Indian democracy’). List at the end.

• Media = plural of ‘medium’: all means of communication. Mass media reach millions; print (newspapers, magazines) v electronic (TV, radio) — named after their technology.
• Technology keeps changing (Gutenberg's press; the typewriter; Baird's ‘televisor’; satellites and cable) — it improves reach and quality and makes us feel part of a global world.
• Money: studios, satellites, staff and new technology cost a lot → most media belong to big business houses and live on advertising (₹1,000–₹1,00,000 per 10 seconds, book's caption).
• Democracy: citizens learn how government works and act (letters, public protest, signature campaigns) — so reports must be balanced; the two factory-closure reports each tell one side.
• Independence is limited by censorship (worst: Emergency, 1975–77; films still censored) and, today, by business and advertisers; media also set the agenda (colas in; drinking water, slum demolitions out).
• Local media: community radio, cheap documentaries, Khabar Lahariya (8 Dalit women, Chitrakoot, Bundeli). Social advertising carries a message for society. Ask: what is left out, whose view, why?

Everything from a stall at the local fair to the programme you watch on TV can be called media. Media is the plural of ‘medium’ and describes the various ways through which we communicate in society — so everything from a phone call to the evening news is media. TV, radio and newspapers reach millions of people — the masses — across the country and the world, and so are called mass media. We usually call newspapers and magazines the print media and TV and radio the electronic media; the book asks why, and answers that the names come from the different technologies these media use.

It is hard to imagine life without the media, yet cable television and widespread use of the Internet are recent — ‘less than twenty years’, the book says. The technology of mass media keeps changing; newspapers, TV and radio reach millions because of it. Photographs trace the change: an artist's impression of Gutenberg printing the first sheet of the Bible; a typewriter (journalism ‘underwent a sea-change in the 1940s’); John L. Baird beside his ‘televisor’, an early television. Changing and modernising technology helps media reach more people and improves the quality of sound and images. But it does more: it changes how we think about our lives. Television makes us feel members of a larger global world: images travel huge distances through satellites and cables, so we see news and entertainment from other parts of the world — most cartoons on TV come from Japan or the United States, and someone in Chennai or Jammu can watch a storm hitting the coast of Florida. ‘Television has brought the world closer to us.’

The technologies of mass media are expensive. A TV news studio has lights, cameras, sound recorders and transmission satellites; besides the newsreader, many others — those who handle cameras and lights — must be paid; and since technology keeps changing, a lot is spent on the latest equipment. So the mass media need a great deal of money, and ‘most television channels and newspapers are part of big business houses’. Mass media constantly look for ways to earn; one is advertising — cars, chocolates, clothes, mobile phones. You see many ads during a favourite show; in a cricket match the same ads repeat between overs. A caption under a newsroom photograph gives the price: a TV ad costs ₹1,000 to ₹1,00,000 per 10 seconds, depending on the channel's popularity and the time. The book adds that ads are repeated ‘in the hope that you will go out and buy what is advertised’.

In a democracy the media provide news and discuss events in the country and the world. On this basis citizens learn how government works and, if they wish, act — by writing letters to the minister concerned, organising a public protest, starting a signature campaign, or asking the government to rethink its programme. So the information must be balanced. The book prints two versions of one event. The News of India report (‘Crackdown on polluting factories’) describes violent protests, traffic jams and units known to be illegal, notes that pollution will fall, and quotes a well-known figure who wants a clean, green business hub and tells protestors to accept relocation. The India Daily report (‘Closure of factories causes unrest’) describes the closure of one lakh factories in residential areas, thousands of owners and workers protesting the loss of livelihoods, blames the municipal corporation for continuing to license new factories there, calls relocation inadequate and quotes a factory owner that the new sites lack facilities. Reading either, you would know only one side: the first makes protestors look a nuisance; the second explains their case. Neither is balanced. A balanced report discusses all points of view and leaves readers to make up their minds.

Writing a balanced report depends on the media being independent: no one should control or influence its coverage or tell it what to include. Citizens act on media information, so it must be reliable and unbiased. ‘However, the reality is that media is far from independent’, for two main reasons. First, government control: when the government prevents a news item, scenes from a movie or the lyrics of a song from reaching the public, this is censorship; there have been such periods in Indian history, the worst being the Emergency, 1975–1977. Today the government continues to censor films but does not really censor the media's coverage of news. Second, business: even without censorship most newspapers fail to give a balanced story; researchers of the media say this is because business houses control the media and at times it suits them to focus on one side; the continual need for money and links to advertising make it hard to report against advertisers. Media is ‘no longer considered independent because of its close links to business’. Besides, media focus on one aspect to make a story interesting, or on one side to build public support for an issue.

The media decide what stories to focus on and so what is newsworthy. Your school's annual function is unlikely to make the news — unless a famous actor is chief guest. By focusing on particular issues the media influence our thoughts, feelings and actions and bring those issues to our attention; so it is commonly said that the media ‘sets the agenda’. A positive case: ‘very recently’ the media drew attention to alarming levels of pesticides in cola drinks, publishing reports on the high levels and making people aware of the need to monitor colas against international quality and safety standards — despite the government's resistance, declaring colas unsafe. Failures: drinking water is a major problem and thousands suffer and die every year without safe water, yet the media seldom discuss it; a well-known Indian journalist wrote how Fashion Week made front-page headlines in all the newspapers while several slums were being demolished in Mumbai the same week, unnoticed. Through the media we hear about issues related to the working of the government; the media decide what to focus on and so set the agenda; the government can at times stop a story (censorship); and media's close relationship with business often makes a balanced report hard to find. So the ‘factual information’ in a report is often incomplete and one-sided, and we must ask four questions: what information am I learning; what is not being provided; from whose point of view is the article written; whose point of view is left out and why?

A box, ‘Local media’, notes that mainstream media will not cover ‘small’ issues of ordinary people and their daily lives, so several local groups have started their own media. Some use community radio to tell farmers crop prices and advise on seeds and fertilisers. Others make documentary films with fairly cheap, easily available video cameras on real-life conditions of poor communities — at times giving the poor the cameras to film their own lives. Another example is Khabar Lahariya (spelled Lahriya in the book), a fortnightly run by eight Dalit women in Chitrakoot district, Uttar Pradesh: written in the local language, Bundeli, this eight-page paper reports Dalit issues, violence against women and political corruption, and reaches farmers, shopkeepers, panchayat members, school teachers and newly literate women. A second box, ‘Social advertising’, explains that social advertisements are made by the government or private agencies and carry ‘a larger message for society’; its example is a railway poster on safety at manned and unmanned level crossings.

Every margin question, activity and box question, in page order.

Five exercises and a four-term glossary. Try first, then open.

Numbers

One-liners

• Media is the plural of medium — all the ways we communicate.
• Mass media reach millions; print and electronic media are named after their technologies.
• Changing technology widens reach and makes us feel part of a global world.
• Mass media are costly, so most belong to big business houses and depend on advertising.
• In a democracy citizens act on what the media report, so reports must be balanced.
• A balanced report gives all points of view and leaves readers to decide.
• Government censorship and links to business both limit media independence.
• The worst period of censorship in India was the Emergency, 1975–77.
• By choosing what to cover, the media set the agenda.
• Local media and social advertising show the media used for ordinary people and the public good.

Traps to avoid

• The book's two news reports are invented, and neither is balanced.
• Today the government censors films, but, the book says, does not really censor news.
• Most — not all — channels and newspapers are part of big business houses.
• Khabar Lahariya is a fortnightly run by eight Dalit women in Chitrakoot, written in Bundeli.
• Social advertisements can be made by government or private agencies.
• The advertising-cost caption (₹1,000–₹1,00,000 per 10 seconds) is undated — not current data.
• ‘The following chapter’ on advertising is a left-over reference; the next chapter is Markets Around Us.
• Baird demonstrated to the Royal Institution in 1926, not a ‘Royal Institute’.
• Press freedom is read into Article 19(1)(a); the press is not named in the Constitution.
• The Press Council covers only the print media and cannot punish.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• From this chapter: 1980 (‘Fourth Estate’ refers to the press) and 1981 (the order in which printing, films, radio and television came to India). Expect statement questions on press freedom under Article 19(1)(a), the Press Council (statutory, quasi-judicial, print only), Prasar Bharati and the IT Rules, 2021.
• Elsewhere: Press Council and press-information bodies (2003) belong with statutory bodies; the Vernacular Press Act and Shome Prakash (1992, 2004, 2005, 2007) on the modern-history chapters and lesy207; newspapers under GST and the equalisation levy on online ads (2018) belong with economy.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• From this chapter: Essay 2019 (‘Biased media is a real threat to Indian democracy’) — the book's balanced report, independence, censorship, business links and agenda-setting are the essay's skeleton, with positions attributed; GS2 2014 (more FDI in news media — pros and cons) — the book's ‘media and money’ and ownership, with the FDI caps and TRAI's 2014 recommendations as Beyond NCERT facts.
• Elsewhere: social media and internal security (GS3 2016, 2024), fake news and the IT Rules amendments (GS3 2026) and the ethics of social media (GS4 2025) need security and ethics material beyond this chapter; the media's role in transparency (GS4 2015) sits with ethics and governance.
• Keep answers neutral: laws, cases and years exact; views on ownership, advertising and regulation attributed to named scholars, bodies or courts; never name a present-day outlet, party or government as good or bad.

Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.

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