Medium is Message No More

SPOKESPERSON

-anectdotes from recent Indian political history

“Medium is the Message” No More

S.Narendra

2009 Lok Sabha elections are over in India.. The focus inevitably has shifted to post poll politics and agenda for the new government. However, for future elections of both state and parliament elections, the one that has just passed into history holds a notable lesson. It over -turned a 50 year old canon of communication enunciated by Marshal McLuhan..The most quoted and mostly misunderstood insight into the human behaviour conditioning power of the media offered by this American scholar was:’ ‘medium is the message’. Anything that came out of the Television as the dominant media exercised an unmatched power on the audience and mediates human experience of reality in myriad ways. The message acquired a new meaning and influence when delivered through this new presence in people’s lives. Americans spent half of their waking time watching and reliving TV .Marketers and advertising industry fell in love with this insight, and for their own good, persuaded any one with a message to send to spend big moolah on this medium. So called idiot box became the message on its own.

In India, ’ Medium is the message’, took a different meaning when the ruling party at the center monopolized the electronic media and also used its advertising power through the government owned companies and its advertising agency DAVP. Parties in opposition decried this misuse for election purposes but had no qualms in deploying the full array of government media system and its power when in office .In 2004, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by BJP started a 24x7 news channels on the official Doordarshan on election eve to counter independent private news channels and reportedly spent about Rs150 crore on party publicity blitz to drive home its urban oriented “India Shining’ Campaign. Crafted by late Pramod Mahajan, BJP pre-poll campaign embraced every available media, particularly the digital space and the mobile network. It was not unusual for mobile phone subscribers to suddenly receive a recorded message from prime minister Vajpeyee himself.

The media scene had substantially changed in the new millennium with the opening up of the electronic media for private and international business .BJP tried to influence the private air waves as well. The media was consumed by the appeal of the India Shining message of which it was an important beneficiary. Being in opposition, the Congress, according to media reports, lacked the money power and spent less than half the amount spent by BJP. The latter’s staunch ally,Chandrababu naidu of Telugu Desam Party carried on more than a year long publicity avalanche announcing his own programmes to make Andhra Pradesh shine. The Congress party came up with its simple question:” Aam Admi Ko Kya Mila” or what did the common man receive ( out of India Shining) ? This was conscientization message at its political best. It was similar to Indira Gandhi’s “Garibi Hatao’ campaign in 1970-71 elections. The question posed then was” way kahate hai Indira hatao.Indiraji kahati hai garibi hatao.Ab Aap hey Soochiye?’ (They say remove Indira. Indira says: remove poverty. Now you decide).She trumped the opposition. Indira Gandhi lost the 1977 elections, however while dominating the media because the opposition had no media but a overpowering message. This was similar to the way Gandhiji was able to communicate the message of ‘Quit india’, even when the British owned most of the media and tried to gag the others .In fact,Gandhiji was both the medium and the message creating a virtual and unstoppable viral marketing network. In a similar manner in 2004, the ‘Aam Admi’ message of the Congress resonated with the voters and BJP and Naidu, dominating the media, lost power to the Congress party.

2009 elections once again saw BJP wanting to gain a head start. Its campaign was begun with the release of its leader L.K.Advani’s autobiography and announcing him as its priministerial candidate long before the poll announcement. The Mumbai terrorist attack in November last year was another opportunity used to show case its leader in contrast to the serving prime minister. Not only the latter was repeatedly taunted as “weak and ineffective” but also Rahul Gandhi leading the Congress youth brigade was juxtaposed as inexperienced in state -craft , unlike Advani. Once again there was an attempt to occupy prime media space with glitzy spots. BJP’s was also very active on the web, with an impressive site that was always alive and a variety of BJP friendly blogs. The ruling Congress party circles seem to have been rattled initially by BJP’s early start; especially its attack on the prime minister and the government’s handling of terrorist threat. But the Congress had been consistent in communicating its core message of ‘inclusive growth’ and was not apologetic about using its vast official media system including the electronic media for breaking down this message into audience specific messages in India’s hinterland reached mostly by Doordarshan. The ‘inclusive growth’ message also stood in stark contrast to BJP’s ‘Hindutva’ divisive message alienating the minorities. Another scoring point was the Congress party’s clever play on youth vs undying ambition of the old guard. The Congress was also able to mask prime minister’s own old age and health infirmities by keeping the limelight on party president Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka, the real powers behind the throne. The fielding of Rahul’s cousin, Varun Gandhi as a BJP candidate and the latter’s controversial attack on the minorities in his election rally seems to have strengthened the Congress image as a secular party. This certainly appears to have alienated the mainline news media that kept the controversy alive for a long time. It is noteworthy that Advani’s qualified criticism of the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim riots came too late, raised more questions about his own role as the then Home Minister of the country. All in all BJP came up with an elaborate media and PR effort; but a rallying message was missing.

It was astonishing that BJP did not tap from the experience of winning the Gujarat Assembly elections under Narendra Modi. He mastered the medium by plastering it with a powerful message of all round prosperous Gujarat. He had also walked the talk and won. He was unequivocal on ‘Hindutva’ and unapologetic about 2002 riots. In the case of Gujarat polls, the Congress party was ambivalent on 2002 riots and could not come up with an alternative to the ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ message of Modi.Singnificantly, the Delhi based TV news channels and other media were not disposed in favour of Modi and tried to revive 2002 riots controversy. But the media made no difference to the poll outcome.

The Left wing parties which always were associated with the under privileged partnered with the Congress in 2004 and perhaps had burnished the Congress party’s message of ‘inclusive growth’, but lost the power of their message in 2009 by joining with regional parties. The latter had no message of their own except as sectarian gangs or pure power operators. Interestingly, the left, parties and some regional party satraps had acquired media channels as political vehicles.

In this digital age where the definition of media, messenger, and audience are changing daily and the audience has come to exercise enormous power over the message and the medium. The communication is witnessing tectonic shifts, not just paradigm shifts. It is difficult in this new media scene to define where one media ends and another starts and merges with several others. No doubt the morphing media and its proliferation open immense communication opportunities but the medium itself has become less and less important. In the ever evolving Web-based democracy, new players constantly enter and change the communication game. The advent of social networking media, for example, is shaking up established web exchange platforms like Google, Yahoo, MSN, giving greater space for netizens. Kindle by Amazon.com is poised to change the way we read the books. The conventional media are going online, after loosing audiences in the physical world. Is it not time to revisit McLuhan? Are political parties and their media advisers ready?