Reinventing the Contours of Media Ethics in the Neo-liberal Culturescape

Infotainment, videos, audios, ideas, news aggregating sites etc. saturate the new mediascape. Today
more choice, less diversity, more information, less knowledge and more gratification with less
satisfaction rule the roost in media. Truly, mass media create big hullabaloo and saturate our
mornings and evenings with its sights and sounds. This brings forth negative repercussions on
audience behaviour. True ideals of journalism have been in shambles. Sensationalism and crass
commercialization have become the order of the day. Augmented Reality with its underpinnings has
revolutionized the media industry. The system has become a whole caboodle of conundrum with the
arrival of social media. People on the other hand have become more and more dependent on all types
of media. This dependency hinges on the division of labour and increasing role specialization.
People’s affinity towards media is more during social upheavals and turns of fortune. But press as the
Fourth Estate would help the nation builders to make India a modern, powerful, industrial state. Only
then can India garner support and respect from the world community. It is high time India waged a war
in the cultural realm of the country. A value-oriented media fraternity is the need of the hour rather
than a market-oriented media culture. The whole media edifice has to be fortified by framing a
concrete code of ethics for media practitioners. My paper unravels the ethical dilemma faced by
media personnel and suggests an ideal modus operandi for journalists in a highly neo-liberalised
culturescape.