 All right, a very good afternoon to everyone present here and welcome to this edition of the Dotalk webinar series. Dotalk is a platform organized by Denso College, which allows intellectuals, intellectual academicians that knows, very specialists from around the globe to come and give us and express their opinions and viewpoints about the various issues which concern our world a bit today. And as we sit for this talk, I'll just quickly remind all of you that kind of keep your microphones at on mute. This is just to ensure that there is not much of sound disturbance as the talk goes on. At the same time, I'd also like to remind each and every one of you that there will be a question and answer round at the end of the talk. So you can please feel free to type in your questions in the chat window. And these questions will be picked up as the talk ends. All right, and before I start the talk, I thought I'll just introduce the topic that we're here for today. Okay, media is a very integral part of our life and the abundance of new stories that are present in today's work can be quite confusing. Now, many theorists and analysts have described our present situation as the World War C. COVID-19 basically has been described as World War C. Now, what is the difference between the World War II and World War C is that during World War II, there was a shortage of information. We had to wait for a number of days to hear about how the war had gone on progress, whether these soldiers were safe or not. The world has developed a lot, but along with that has come a problem of an infodemic of misinformation, especially during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. There seems to be information coming at our ends from all corners. And we're not just talking about the particular forwards that we get on WhatsApp home remedies that one can do to get well. We're also talking about the various news channels and the bias which they contain as they present the news to us during this time. Talking about the state in Nagaland, that is from where this talk is being organized, our state over here does not have any news channels. So for instant coverage of the news, people in the state depend on social media outlets, Instagram, WhatsApp, and through these channels often what happens is that news which is not accurate gets spread causing panic, causing chaos and pandemonium. An example of this was just a few days ago, there was an incident of the COVID-19, our state had only one COVID-19 case and this person had traveled by an air India flight. Subsequently on WhatsApp, the entire passenger manifest was leaked out and all the people who had traveled in the flight, their phone numbers were leaked out on WhatsApp as well, which led to several of these passengers receiving phone calls which harassed them and gave them quite a tough time. So we're also talking about information which is getting misused in today's world. It's not just misrepresentation of facts, it's also about information which is getting misused. And so today's talk takes a look at all of these issues, this current issue that is affecting the globe, that is an infotemic of misinformation, all right? And I'll quickly introduce our speaker for today. Okay, Mr. Patma Kumar is the head of the media studies, studies department at Christ to the University of Bangalore. He is a Seafol former student of Seafol and prior to him joining Christ University, he had also worked with Deccan Chronicle and he has also presented in moderated various workshops and seminars. At the same time, he has also been published in newspapers like the Deccan Herald and the Hindu. His interest include culture studies, ecological discourses, sports studies, as well as peace studies. So without much further ado, I would now like to hand over the time to our speaker. Okay, Mr. Patma Kumar, so you can please take your time. Yeah, thank you very much Anjan. It's such a pleasure listening to you and thank you so much for inviting me and asking you to address Debser College on the infotemic in the time of pandemic. Let me also tell you my delight in getting to know that Erika and Hewasa are over there and these are classmates of mine now whom I had met 15 years ago and it's a delight to know that Anjan is working with them. By the way, Anjan had studied at Christ and he was such an enterprise and student and he continues to be one and thank you for arranging such talks and to ensure that academics continues despite the kind of challenges that we are facing. Thank you very much Anjan. So let me step into the context. I hope you're presenting as well, Anjan, am I right? Is the presentation on? Yeah, you could start the presentation, yes. So we are gonna look at infotemic in the time of a pandemic, slide two please. The context in which this pandemic has unfolded and how infodemic challenge also has cropped up needs to be studied. What do we mean by the neoliberal edifice? One of the theorists claims that this is the ideology that dominates our lives in the present time and yet functions as though it has no name. We were able to name many other ideologies. We could name communism, we could name Nazism, we could name fascism when it was unfolding and there was clarity that this is what is happening. But this neoliberal edifice is something that's so huge. It's a elephant in the room, but people may not be able to identify because the ways in which it is set up, it promises freedom, it promises choice, it reveals merit, it insists on competition but it will not talk about inequality. It will not reveal the political economy that it subscribes to and it sponsors and it ensures that sustains the media complex. So it is obviously capitalist, it is market driven and designs the way in which our politics to our media practices unfold. So that's something that we'll have to hold in the background. Let me move on to the next slide. Here I would like to throw light on how our information ecosystem is set up. This is something that must be familiar for most of those people in the communication media domain. Of course, it's known for the four ways, there are many ways as well, but these are the ones that most of the people tried to highlight quite often. I just thought this could set the background in a more concrete form. Well, there is a huge volume of information that we get access to. In fact, it's an avalanche of information. Take for instance, a number of Google searches per minute that are done on a minute's basis. It's more than 50,000. Every minute there are more than 50,000 Google searches that are done across the world. Imagine what would be in the context of half an hour, one hour, one day and the amount of data that would be fetched through these searches. And by the way, let's remember and remind ourselves that Google is not the only platform, search platform. There are many other ones as well. Google could be probably the dominant one. Then think about Facebook. It is almost one fourth of the world's population and at least 100 million people visit Facebook on a day-to-day basis. And then there are more than 500 hours of videos uploaded on YouTube every minute. Now this is huge. In fact, there are communication media and technology experts who proclaim that the amount of data that we possess today from 2018 onwards is more than the amount of data that was produced from the time of human origin till 2018. So that would probably give us a sense of how much of data that is being produced. You might wonder, why is that? As a people who are not living, as a people who are not docking the thing, you could ask questions about what has happened in the pre-2018 phase, let's say. Well, we are all part of the media today. It's not as though we are outside the media. We are media in a way. We are producing content for the media. So you could probably have a smoked fish in a bamboo tube and you might click a photo of that and you might post it on your Instagram page. And now this is going to be liked by many people. Other people could start responding to it and that's how data is generated. And so there is a huge volume of data and it's stored forever almost. Earlier there was data production, but there was no force to ensure that it was retained, it was studied, it was followed up. So this is one part of it. They come into the velocity part of it. The amount of information that we have travels at a high octane speed. I'm guessing all of you are pretty aware of it. So right now I am sitting here in Salem, a city in Tamil Nadu and I'm addressing and I'm reaching out to people in Nagaland and it doesn't take much time. Probably the lip syncing and the video might not gel well. That's there, but then it's almost instantaneous. So that's the speed at which we are engaging. And this can happen between people in different corners of the world. So that's there. But let's also get to know that people are no more concerned about just producing content and uploading it at a fast speed. They also are concerned about deciding at the same speed at which the data is generated. Jeff Bezos, the chief of Amazon was telling this in a meeting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure. So he was asking them that even if you have 70% of data, just go ahead and take your decisions. You don't need to wait it out till you have 100% data for taking a call. So people are acting fast based on the data that is produced. So that's something that we have to consider in terms of velocity. There's a variety of information that is there. There is plenty of variety and when you check any media, see think about it, think about your fathers or mothers generation or your grandparents generation. The amount of information that we have access to and the amount of variety that we have is astounding. So I remember when I was growing up in the 80s, all we used to have in the form of television programs was Chitrahar, which used to be on Wednesdays or Fridays at eight o'clock. So some songs would be played over there and then cricket commentary might be played on radio. So those are the ways in which we are engaging. But today there's a huge influx. You have all the celebrities coming and telling you what they do almost by the minute. You have their own Twitter pages. You have their own Instagram pages. So it's not just about celebrity. It's about almost anything and everything. There is so much of variety that is there that they produce it in different platforms and they produce it in different ways as well. So variety is something that's very much there. But there is a problem when we come to the fourth one, veracity. While there is so much of a data, the authenticity of the data that is being shared is something that becomes very, very questionable. It's not a concern just for the corporate. It's a concern for any nation. It's a concern for any citizen. It's a concern for anybody who's living because there is so much of data that is produced and not all of them are verified before being posted or for the matter of being shared with the others. So these are things that we'll have to hold in mind. And by the way, this does not unfold in the same way for everybody across the world. The volume of data that I might be getting, say in Bangalore is not the volume of data that you would be getting in, say, Nagaland. You know that there is no regular television platform coming from Nagaland. I am told that your audio visual mediums, I mean, content about Nagaland has to probably come from the Northeast television channel, which is from Assam. So that itself is an indication of how, while the others in different parts of the world could be splurging with the amount of information that they have access to, some parts of the world do not have ready access to information. And I'm told that you have probably four newspapers in the entire state, whereas a city like Bombay probably would have around 20-plus newspapers. So you can see the way in which the flow of information, the processing of information or the interpretation of the information is all dependent on where we come from, what are all the powers that operate over there. So these are things that let's hold in the backdrop. So moving on. Now all information does not qualify to be considered as news. That's something that I'm sure all of us are aware of, but then some of the others, there is a mixing up. There is a strange interrelation that is set up by the news industry, by the entertainment industry in a way where it's not so easy to differentiate. For instance, in the newspaper, the main, they had introduced sometime in the post-2003 scenario something called the advertorials. What is an advertorial? Earlier you used to have editorials and advertisements. So advertorial is a mixing of advertising and editorials. Students of journalism would know that an editorial is a space in which any newspaper speaks out to its citizens and shares its opinions, its informed reflections. So those are things that unfold in the editorial page. I'm sure if you check the Hindu or the statesman or the Hindustan Times or the Indian Express, when you open the edit page, you will see an article stating the newspapers stands on some of the pertinent issues of our time. On a day-to-day basis, it will be there. Now, by coming up with something called as an advertorial, they speak on behalf of a particular company as though it is news. And there is a small font in which the title advertorial might be there. And quite likewise, they also have sponsored news, which was not there in the past. So there are ways in which the idea of news itself has been deliberately corrupted up. And this is another thing that I would like you people to keep in the background. Okay. So those of you who have studied Chomsky, Herman, the seminal text that is manufactured in consent, consent would know that there are five filters of the media that they refer to. One is, of course, media ownership and the funding, then the sourcing, the flag and the common. Quickly, let me explain these things. So the media content is not something that is decided by the reporters, by the editors, and sub editors who are working in the organization alone. They do have a say, but then who is running the organization has a huge say with regard to what is unfolding there. See, for instance, Reliance is owning plenty of media corporations today. And if they are owning it, how much of a liberty would those media organizations have with regard to questioning the ethics of Reliance and its own set of organizations? These are questions to be asked. So by owning a company, media owners get this liberty of not being studied, not being investigated by the newsmen. So this is one of the challenges that we have to hold in mind. In the funding, where do news organizations get their funding from? Most of it is from advertising. That's a model that most of the organizations run with. And that's really a problematic model. Fundamentally, it is a flawed model. If you look at from a democratic principle, it is a flawed model. Why? See, any newspaper which has around, let's say, 20 to, they're around 24 pages has to spend almost around 30 to 40 rupees for just the printing alone. Forget about the amount of money that they'll have to pay, their reporters, their editors, their photographers, their designers, then the people who work in the printing sector, people who are taking care of it for transportation and all of them, the transport, I mean, the travel that is involved in going and fetching news, processing it. So even if you leave it out just for the printing of a newspaper, a single edition of a newspaper, you would have to spend around 30 to 40 rupees, minimum, okay? So you get the newspaper for probably five rupees or six rupees, seven rupees, eight rupees, 10 rupees. So it's not even one third or one fourth of the money that we are spending for it. So where does the organization get the money to run a newspaper? Obviously, it is from the advertisers. So advertisers do have a huge say with regard to how news content is prepared. So anything about the advertiser is not going to become news. So there you see that the corporates are given a kind of a leeway in terms of either media ownership or in the form of the funding that they work out for the news organizations. It's not just the newspapers. It's the same with regard to digital platforms at some level or the other. It's the same with regard to television platforms and many, many other news platforms, okay? Then the sourcing part of it, news organizations have their own beads. So they get news from those bases and suppose that that's authentic. Supposing if somebody is wanting to get information from the prime minister's office, there is a regular channel established and only through that they can fetch news from the prime minister's office. There are no other means. Most of it is shut. So it's not easy for, it's not a transparent and it's not an easy entry for any journalist today. It's not just with regard to the PM's office. It's the same with the police station. It's the same with the court. So there are designated people through channels through which the news flows. Other sources are not considered to be worthy. And some of the other over a period of time, journalists are trained to think that those are the source from where we can collect news. But that need not be the mechanism. That's the third part, the third filter that Herman and Chomsky talk about, FLAC. FLAC is a way of deviating attention. You might have heard about Greta Thunberg. Many of you might have followed her as well. Her school strike for climate strike initiatives and all that, right? So quite a few months, there was another person who was anti Greta and she became equally almost. I wouldn't say equally, but then she was in the news and she was stating that all that Greta Thunberg is speaking for is just a fallacy and that she is propagating fake news. So they set up somebody else as a counter to ensure that what is true, what is coming across as important for people is now deflated. And that's another trick that is played to ensure that the core authentic and significant news is diluted when it reaches the audience. So people are confused. Then there is this common enemy trick that could be played out. So by talking about terrorism, for instance, we could avoid engaging with some of the core issues of our time. It's not to say that terrorism has to be encouraged and it's not to say that terrorism should not be followed by the news media, they ought to be. But then think about this. The number of people who died because of terrorism in our country in a year is rarely something that goes beyond say 200 or 300 or 400 max. But think about this. At least one and a half lakh of people died because of air pollution every year in our very own country. And that's something that has been poorly studied and it does not become part of a political, I mean, when the political parties say that these are things that we'd like to work on. This is something that does not figure in that agenda. So quite likewise, there are many, many other things that are so fundamental for our own existence, but they are not considered to be news because you create common enemies who would keep the audience engaged and thereby core issues can be avoided. So that's another problem. Now moving on. I think now we are stepping into a core terrain, information disorder. So there is information, of course, as I mentioned that there is huge volume, velocity, then there is also variety. Those things are there, but there is a disorder in the whole information ecosystem that is set up. And that is something that has to be studied. And it is in this context, that we'll have to look at fake news and other such challenges. One is disinformation. Disinformation is nothing but false news. Conspiracy theories, for instance, disinformation is a kind of a disinformation. I'm sure you've heard of this old guy called Donald Trump, someone who frequently indulges in a lot of disinformation. So there was this theory that was circulating before the American election, the last one. So it was supposed that there is this particular pizza house and in the underground, there was, it became a pedophile center and it was claimed that it was a pedophile center. And actually they were, and it was also tied up with Hillary Clinton as though she and her country of people were involved in continuing this pedophile business. So this is how the story was flagged and it was spread across in the media. And in fact, there was this guy who almost came almost 300 miles from a far off distance and he tried to shoot the people in that pizza house and only when he went over there and once the police arrested, investigation started and they found out that there is no underground for that building but the damage was done. Most of the people started buying into that idea. And one of the recent ones that most of you would be aware of, Trump had come up with this brilliant bizarre idea that if disinfectants could be injected into the lungs of those who are having a coronavirus, they could be cured and he was proposing it in a press media and automatically there was a rise of disinfectant sales and some people were assuming that that was true. So you can see the way in which people can create confusion by planting such ideas in the minds of the general public through the media. That's one sort of the problem. What is misinformation? Misinformation is as well false information but the only thing is here, it may not be deliberate by mistake people could post such an issue. For instance, a lot of reporters today pick up information from Twitter. But if something is trending in Twitter, they assume that it could be true and if many people have retweeted it, they start writing a story about it and they start looking at other opinions about it and frame a story and put it in the news platforms. This has happened in the past and that's a form of a misinformation. That's bad journalistic practice, but that should not happen. But the key thing is misinformation is false information but it's not intended to harm people. It's done by mistake. What is malinformation? Malinformation is right information but it is shared with intent to hurt people. So malinformation could also be deliberately used for divisive purposes. I'm sure some of you would have come across many stories about the migrant issue. Let's go back to Trump land. The Mexicans are people, many Mexicans would love to come into America because of the economic prospects that they could have but they were painted up as problematic people. So it is true that a lot of Mexicans aspire to come to America but on the other hand, the interpretation of that is done with a sense of villainizing them. So that's the problem with malinformation. So this is how the information this order could be created and some of them are mastering such a practice. Okay, so now that the context is set, let me go to the pandemic and the infodemic. Of course, here we gotta be careful about the word choice. It's a pandemic and not an epidemic. Epidemic is something that unfolds and explodes almost in a particular region but a pandemic is something that's across a larger entity. It's something that happens across a country or across a continent or the world and that's why COVID-19 has been marked by the World Health Organization as a pandemic. It has spread to more than 190 countries at least and that's why it's called as a pandemic. Now the infodemic is also of a similar kind. Information that has viral content and spreads to a larger sector of the society. And you know the ways in which many, many false information has started spreading. I'm sure many of you would have read about the Nizamuddin case. Of course, yes, the religious meet did happen in Delhi and it happened prior to the lockdown and there were people from abroad and there were also people from different parts of the state and by marking that as a super spreader and studying almost every one of those who attended that particular event, the discourse was set that many Muslims are posing this danger to the rest of the country. Now this is problematic, right? Did they go to the function? Yes, I mean religious meet, yes, they did attend that. And did they carry the virus? Yes, and as tested, many of them were found to carry the coronavirus, I mean the COVID-19 virus and that has been proven right. But there was a statistical bias which was something that most people did not know about. So everybody, there were so many people who had gone to Delhi and come back. Not everyone was studied the way in which the Muslims attended the Nizamuddin meet were studied. So this is one kind of a problem. So there were also other religious meets that had happened in different parts of the country but the same rigor of investigating the people who went to those tests was not carried out. So you can see the ways in which this laid the foundation for many fake news to spread. I'm sure some of you would have come across this particular video of Muslims in a particular mosque, licking plates and spoons, yeah? Was that true? Yes, they did eat the food, lick the plates and lick the spoons and they were depositing in one particular corner of the mosque. This is indeed true. But the interpretation was that these people were deliberately doing it to spread and the interpretation was that these people already were carriers of the coronavirus and they were wanting to spread it to other people through this mechanism. So this was the interpretation that was given and by giving this kind of an interpretation the general public with the Nizamuddin background started assuming that well, there is a hidden agenda with regard to why these Muslims are indulging in such a thing. But later fact checkers, as in the case of alt news, found out that this was blatantly false. So how was it false? So this was a video that was shot up sometime in 2016 or 17 and this was now re-invoked in the COVID-19 context and it was presented as though they were deliberately trying to spread. So what were those people doing in 2016, 17 up? They were part of a Muslim sect called the Bora community and these people wanted to propagate the idea of zero food wastage and that is a principle and a value that they have been cherishing for a very long time. So with that kind of an intent they did clear off even the minuscule food particle that was sticking to the spoon and then laying it for the cleaning purpose. So that was their intention. But reinterpretation, misinterpretation, those things started happening in this COVID-19 context. So I hope you get a sense of how infodemic can take shape. So infodemic, I mean the infodemic does not unfold naturally. It picks up on social ills that are already there in a society and starts exhibiting them. So it could be in the form of religious fundamentalism that is there. It could be in terms of the economic inequalities that are there. It could be in the form of the caste hierarchy that we have in the country. So it could pick up those things and play to the gallery of the majoritarian community. So that's the way in which the infodemic tends to operate. Why is this now becoming important in the pandemic context? That's another question that we'll have to dwell a little on. Now, the pandemic is a context where people are locked in their households. I'm sure most of you are still having the lockdown context. So this is something to be held in mind. And then there is a lot of confusion and there is no surety about why this virus spreading. How is it spreading and what is the cure? So even the best of the scientists, epidemiologists across the world are unsure about why is it happening or how is it happening and how could it be resolved? So these are things that are very fuzzy at the moment even for the best of epidemiologists who are there. So I would like to invoke one of the codes of Arunathi Roy who had written a few, I mean probably in the month of March, I guess. This was what she stated. Who amongst us is not a quack epidemiologist, biologist, statistician and prophet? Let me repeat, who amongst us is not a quack epidemiologist, biologist, statistician and prophet? I think this is very illustrative. So people have half-baked ideas or have some amount of information or a lot of confusing information. And when they have this, they try to process it in their own limited ways and start playing the role of an epidemiologist. They start suggesting cures. I'm sure many of you would have heard some mechanisms, I mean some way of curing this illness in your own neighborhood. I'm sure your neighbors or probably somebody in your family would have told you that do this, you will avoid this. Probably gargle hot salt water. This could cure, I mean this could be a good preventive mechanism. So I'm sure many of them are stating this. Now when this is shared in the social media space, it becomes even more dangerous. Why is it more dangerous when it moves through the social media space? See if it is the legacy media, when I say legacy media, the news media that has had an established career and usually has very stringent fact-checking mechanisms. So the legacy media tends to verify content before circulating it. And when it comes to social media, anybody can share anything without much of a verification process involved. And that's why they call us to be prosumers. So we are no more consumers of information, we are also producers and consumers of information. And that's why the term prosumers. So as prosumers, we tend to just quickly share the thinking that this is something that's interesting or probably shocking. And so you share it. So one of the key things that needs to be done in this challenging context is to resist that urge to share and choose to verify. And that's a very fundamental thing to do, especially when it comes to sensational content. The sensational content operates in a very interesting form. It picks on truths that are already very firmly established in the minds and the hearts of the people and tries to tweak that and tries to build on that. So half truth and half lies come together to give a viral potent and circulate in the form of fake news. I hope you see the ways in which these things operate. So the COVID-19 context has plenty of confusion. There is a lot of doubt and there is a lot of fear exploiting these things. Some mischief mongers, big odds start sharing very problematic content. And some of us who are naive or vulnerable might be circulating these things. And in fact, sometimes I do have taken certain things to be true, but I resisted the urge to share because I wanted to verify. So I'm sure all of you are capable of resisting this urge to share before posting any content that is sensationalist in nature. So that's where I would like to stop and I would like to field questions. Could we have the, yes, yeah. Thank you so much. And I hope I was able to add some value to your time. Thank you. All right, thank you so much, Sir. It was so nice to listen to you. For those of you who are joining in from my college over here, that's a college, eight years back, Sir used to teach me for five years that is for my BA and my master's. He had taught me and it was always fun to sit in his class and today I got a preview of that flashback sort of a thing as in I was so good to listen to you once again. And amidst the points that you had stated, I think one thing that I'd like to stress on is this that currently the threat which we are facing right now in the form of this particular event, the pandemic, I think it is something which of this magnitude, I don't think the human society has faced such an event in the recent times. And so this is a completely new kind of a scenario which has built up. And so it's natural in a way that's what people are saying and even I would want to see this with it. People are panicking and amidst that panic, they're wish they are willing to hold on to any piece of news item that comes to them. You know, if it's drinking hot water, we should save them. They want to do that. If it's having some kind of leaves, which will keep them safe, they want to do that. Basically they want to try, trust and believe everything that's being thrown their way. And that is why it's a problem because they're not able to differentiate between what is genuine and what is not genuine. So that is one thing. Another thing is which you pointed out in your talk is that the press, it depends on who owns that media channel or who owns the newspaper, where they get the funding from. I think that is, this is more clear in the case of the US, the press in the US right now, because half the press as we see are in support of Trump and the other half are against Trump or they're pointing out the flaws in the way that Trump has been handling this whole time of creation in the US. But again, there is half of the newspapers which are in support of the news channels which are in support of the way that he is running things over there. It's quite less, but it's definitely still there. So I think that's what I want to take away from your talk over here. As we wait for questions to come in, please feel free to type in your questions over there. As we wait for questions to come in, I would also like to ask a question of mine. That is in the case of, if you talked about the ideal world, in the ideal world, we would want the press of the media to give us the absolute truth. Now, according to you, is this possible? Or is it just an ideal that cannot be achieved? Okay, so I didn't mention that the media is not free. It is changed by the idea of profit. It's run by kind of a corporate and political nexus. That's something that I did hint about. But it's not to say that there are no journalists who are doing a very sincere and rigorous work. There are journalists who are doing a stupendous work and hats off to them. That is there. And it is possible to run the media in a different way. I think there is a great, see this COVID-19, by the way, context also has brought the news media to its knees. Even Times of India, which is easily and the largest English newspaper organization in the world, in terms of circulation, is desperate for some kind of support. So that's the, in fact, they had written to the Indian newspaper survey, along with many other top newspapers, asking for the taxes to be slashed when they buy news print from foreign countries. And apart from that, they've also asked for other support mechanisms so that the news industry can function with some amount of strength. So this is there. It ought to be, I mean, the news industry, in a way ought to be in the ICU. It is the context, but then they are putting up a gallant fight. Some of them are putting up a very gallant fight. That's there. Is it possible for us to realize an ideal kind of a press? Well, utopias do matter. We cannot take decisions based on our reality always. What we aspire for has to dictate how we function today. So I think I would leave it there. It's not a convincing answer. I get that. But then we'll have to keep our aspirations, especially when we are most challenged. And that's the way in which journalism industry ought to function. Journalists ought to be go-getters. And we ought to do it not just with regard to the search for news, but also for survival, yeah. All right. OK, Ms. Nisha has posted a question. She is pointing out to the fact you can check in the chat window itself. So her question points out to the fact that various media channels and news channels were controlled by the government. There was a claim that many media channels were controlled by the government. And they had even, they at times would even receive threats. They had claimed that they were receiving threats from the government for having gone against or trying to speak against the government. So this kind of information, OK, this kind of a disorder, what should it be taken as? OK, thank you very much, Nisha. That's a very important question to reflect on. And let me try to address in my own limited way. Yes, the media has been going through a plenty of credibility crisis. In fact, people, I mean, by and large, the mainstream, the public was not so concerned about news because there was entertainment that made so much more sense. I mean, when I say sense, they were able to, they were trained to relate more to entertainment. And they were happy watching films and cricket matches and so on and so forth. So news was not something that made good sense for them. They didn't realize that for any good democracy, the news media is fundamental. So that was there. So already there was a sidelining of media context. And then, as you rightly point out, the media was also presented as something that cannot be trusted. Take, for instance, the way in which Trump almost lambasted all the top news agencies in Europe and also in the case of America, particularly CNN, for instance, BBC, for instance. He always used to say that they have the fake news factories. And so the kind of rigor that they had, the kind of factor thing that they had would so easily be dismissed by the general public based on what this person sitting in the hottest seat in the world was claiming. So this was the way in which the credibility crisis was set up. Coming to the Indian context, the problem has manifested in a different way. Terms like prostitutes, libtards, secular, I mean, the people who are secular, and then the Luteans media, those kind of things was floated. And there was also this gaudy media kind of term that was used. And thereby, when people start looking at the media, they assume that these are all a bunch of journalists who cannot be trusted. So the trust factor with regard to the news media was indeed shaken. And you're right that even before COVID-19 happened, this problem was existing. But during the COVID-19 context, there is an interesting shift. During the COVID-19 context, people are in search of authentic news. In fact, we now get to see that news leading has gone up almost by 40%. This paper sales this down. But the way in which people are accessing news has changed. I mean, through the e-platforms and other ones. And so people are looking for authentic, credible, reliable news. So the credibility of certain platforms is now getting boosted, though their survival is a challenge. So that is the kind of context that we are facing. And do governments pose challenges to news organizations? Yes, some of them are owned by parties. And as you would know, some of the news platforms are owned by corporates. Some are owned by political parties. And some are independent. Very few are independent. And for them, existence is a challenge. You would know that the way in which Siddharth Vardarajan, the editor of the wire, was there was a case filed against him by the Uttar Pradesh government pretty recently. And down south in Tamil Nadu, there is this person who I'm sorry, I'm not able to name the news audience. I think it's Simplicity. So this is from Coimbatore. There was a person running a news platform called Simplicity. And he had posed some information about the present government, which is not so problematic. But then he was targeted and he was put behind bars. So threats that the press face are real. And I'm sure some of you would have checked. Just two, three days ago, we had the World Press Freedom Index released. And India's rank is very worrying 142. So we are not doing great with regard to our own credentials when it comes to world press, I mean the press freedom. It's a matter of serious concern. So I don't know whether I answered, but I guess, standardly, I did try to respond. Thank you for the question. All right, we'll quickly go on to the next question. Ishaan has an interesting question, sensationalism. In the broadcast media of India, that is the TV news channels, heavily involved this method recently. In the case of the Bangar lynching case, it's very obvious that the broadcast is run on the TRP principle. So is this very system flawed, or can there be a different mechanism to go about it? OK, now it's very, very obvious. Many people would be aware of it, but let me try to reiterate some of the key insights that we can draw from the broadcast media's practices. The broadcast media, by and large, unfortunately, is dominated by a few news makers. So one of the fundamental principles in journalism is that we journalists should never become news. We should only be carrying news and interpreting it and present with the public. But unfortunately, there are people who are desperate to become the news, and they take a celebrity kind of position almost. And in fact, some of them tend to present themselves as the news. So this is a problematic context. It's one form of a sensationism that is out there. And what happens is, in the broadcast media, they are moved away from reportage. So reportage is a live blood of any good journalistic platform. So they need to go out on the field, talk to people who matter, gather the information, try to process it, and then share it with the general public. This ought to be the practice. But unfortunately, they don't do that. They find out who are the key noise makers and bring them to the studio or through a kind of a webinar, I mean online platforms, and let them clash with each other. And this is something that is so dramatic that people get glued to it. And unfortunately, the people assume that it is true as well. So this is a problematic model that is there. So they don't go out and do much of reportage. This studio wars, unfortunately, give us a sense of something to be news, which is problematic. So that's major concern, which we need to definitely take that into account. So they are indeed guided by the PRP. So they find out who are the audience that they have and what are their priorities, what are their value systems, what do they look for. And accordingly, tend to stitch the news and then serve. That's a problematic model. So Ishan goes on my thoughts on the question that you posed. Thank you for that question. All right, we'll quickly go on to the next question, Arthur Ishnallam. OK, he says, critical thinking is most effective tool to discern fake news that is from critical information. But it's quite difficult to ensure it at scale. Is there any merit in steering clear of the news entirely and focusing on information that is quite relevant to immediate circumstances? Does engaging with the news offer any real benefit? OK, so thank you so much, Arthur. It's a web of questions that you've posed. And let me try to divide them and try to answer. Critical thinking is the most effective tool to discern fake news from credible information. Absolutely. And we have agreed on this on many, many occasions. And yeah, so there's no doubt about it. But it's difficult to ensure at the scale. Yes, you're right. India is a huge country and a diverse country. And the kind of literacy that we have in general itself is a problem. And more so when it comes to media literacy. We are not medically literate. We are not literate in terms of law. We are not literate in terms of many, many other aspects. But media literacy, which is fundamental for any good democracy, is hugely lacking. But as I had already pointed out in some other context, education is a route through which we can probably promote media literacy. Scale you're spot on is something that is definitely not convincing. What could do is, I mean, before, I mean, there are different ways in which we can look at it. Of course, we need to empower our citizens to interpret and process news with a critical acumen that's there. But before that, what could be done? I mean, until we arrive at that stage, what could be done is to ensure that the platforms are themselves responsible and only share information that is trustworthy. Only information that is relevant. Only information that is verified. So these are things that news platforms should take care of. Every news platform should have a very rigorous fact-checking team. And without their approval, no news should go out. So that should be a mechanism that we need to think of. The next one, does engaging with the news offer any real benefit? Well, it depends upon where we are and how we see that our position, our subject position, decides whether it's important or not. But some of the other, this collectivity that we are as members of this particular nation does need a very rigorous engagement with news. All of us do follow news. But we might perhaps put it on a hierarchy and think that that's more important. This is not important. This is irrelevant. So we might do that. But it's important for us to know who is our local counselor, who is our MLA. It's important what they say about the unfolding things. But some of the other, the discourse is designed in such a way that the person who is sitting at the top would decide everything and we'll have to depend on that model for our own well-being. So it has to be a decentralized kind of an engagement. I think news does have a lot of role to play in our own context. There are very real benefits that we would get provided. We become a very rigorous citizen dream. So that's my response. I know it's not as simple as I've tried to present over here. But yeah, as a collectivity, we need to move towards that phase. Thank you, Anusha. It's a very insightful question. All right. Simon Virgis asks, do you think that our vernacular media is acting as opposed to these methods of the infodemic? But that's not a brilliant question, Simon. Before I answer the question, we need to establish these importance of the vernacular media. We are always trained to, I mean, most of us, unfortunately, believe that the English media matters the most, but most of the country is dependent on the vernacular media and they have a huge role to play. And they are the mightily influencing the ways in which people respond to any given context. So vernacular media has a huge role to play. And is it acting as a boost to the manners of the infodemic? Unfortunately, yes, because I've seen it. And they can be easily swayed. I mean, they can be easily swayed because they're vulnerable. Well, that's debatable. Some of them are. And some of them choose to because their sustenance itself is a challenge. The corruption in the vernacular media is higher because their basic needs are not attended to. And so they become dependent on certain people for their own economic support. And so they're willing to corrupt. So that's another problem. Apart from them having lack of awareness about certain issues, this is another kind of a problem that is unfolding. And so unfortunately, the vernacular media, in at least some parts of the India, is adding to the manners of infodemic. Yes, you're right in observing that. Thank you, sir. All right, as we're running short of time, I think we have time for one last question, a very quick question. So anyone who wants to ask a question can switch on your microphone and ask it. Otherwise, we'll wind up the session. If there's anyone who wants to ask any additional question, you can quickly switch on your microphone and go ahead and ask the question. All right, so since there are no more questions coming in, I believe that we can end our session over here. Thank you so much, everyone, for having joined us from different parts of the country. It's really encouraging to see that technology is helping us come together during such a time and share our ideas, thoughts, and views, opinions. At the same time, a special thanks to the guest speaker, Mr. Padma Kumar, especially for me, it has been great because I was your student eight years ago, and it's so great to see you on this platform once again. And for the rest of us, I do believe that we have learned something, and we have taken away something quite valuable from here. So thank you so much, all of you, and our session over here. Thank you so much. Stay safe and have a wonderful day. Thank you. Yeah, Anjan, let me also thank Heversa and Ellika for considering me for this particular program. And once again, my hearty gratitude to Anjan and to get to college. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, audience. You had a pleasure to be along there. Thank you. Thank you so much, everyone. Have a wonderful day.