Like most other people interested in current affairs I watch television in the evenings. Because English is my language of communication, I watch the English news channels. Currently there are four that I find myself switching through and the order is decided by my cable master's configuration - NDTV 24x7, Times Now, Headlines Today and CNN IBN.
Being such a consummate customer of electronic news, I guess I have a vantage spot on the manner and dynamics with which it is generated and consumed. And though I find myself spending more time on one channel than I do on the others, this constant rotation among the four makes me feel like a welcome guest in the drawing rooms of four old and familiar friends.
The channel that I find myself watching most of my TV hours is Times Now. And that is because despite (or perhaps because of) its shrillness and the urgency of the tone of its discussions, I am afforded the feeling that I am witness to important and decisive moments in the nation's history. That spokespeople of leading parties, activists, and social commentators slug out the issue of the day so passionately and, dare I say, vociferously makes for irresistible TV watching.
And that there is some one like Arnab Goswami who assumes the garb of supreme instigator, judge and jury, ticking off the powerful, provoking the shifty, engendering views and issues and finally wrapping it all up with a concluding judgement, gives me the impression that something important has been decided, some action has been taken, some result is imminent. It is the closest I come to instant gratification, and boy does it work.
This feeling that ordinary men and women have a prime seat in the national narrative is an unbeatable recipe for success.
Times Now, we are informed, is ahead of its competition by miles and over the years I have watched how what had initially been seen as the method in its madness ('Fox news on steroids' is what Arundhati Roy had called it), has been embraced and imitated across the board.
Perhaps the powers that be behind the channels' formulae anticipated the ordinary man and woman's need for participation. Perhaps the formula of its success was the writing on the wall that political parties like the Congress and BJP ignored and that the aam aadmi grasped. People want - perhaps expect - to be involved engaged and connected.
Come to think of it, some of the biggest businesses in today's world are all predicated on the same need - connection. Mobile phone makers, social media companies, IT firms and a host of other companies that bring people together are the ones that are making it to the top of the lists around the world.
One of Aam Aadmi Party's Arvind Kejriwal's first acts was to empower Delhi citizens by teaching them how to conduct their own stings on the corrupt.
But to come back to my TV watching and its almost daily rigour, I find that even the immediacy of call in debates and the ubiquity of reproducing Twitter feeds and the like is not enough today. This new born hunger for participation and engagement by its viewers will make media mavens look for even more inclusive ways to reach their viewers. What these will be no one can tell. Televised townhouse debates? Check. Viewer vigilantes (or 'digilantes' as a friend called them)? Check. Man on the street analysis? Check.
As we reach the last few days of the run-up to the most invigorating and decisive general elections, the road ahead for media is an exciting and creative one.
Being such a consummate customer of electronic news, I guess I have a vantage spot on the manner and dynamics with which it is generated and consumed. And though I find myself spending more time on one channel than I do on the others, this constant rotation among the four makes me feel like a welcome guest in the drawing rooms of four old and familiar friends.
The channel that I find myself watching most of my TV hours is Times Now. And that is because despite (or perhaps because of) its shrillness and the urgency of the tone of its discussions, I am afforded the feeling that I am witness to important and decisive moments in the nation's history. That spokespeople of leading parties, activists, and social commentators slug out the issue of the day so passionately and, dare I say, vociferously makes for irresistible TV watching.
And that there is some one like Arnab Goswami who assumes the garb of supreme instigator, judge and jury, ticking off the powerful, provoking the shifty, engendering views and issues and finally wrapping it all up with a concluding judgement, gives me the impression that something important has been decided, some action has been taken, some result is imminent. It is the closest I come to instant gratification, and boy does it work.
This feeling that ordinary men and women have a prime seat in the national narrative is an unbeatable recipe for success.
Times Now, we are informed, is ahead of its competition by miles and over the years I have watched how what had initially been seen as the method in its madness ('Fox news on steroids' is what Arundhati Roy had called it), has been embraced and imitated across the board.
Perhaps the powers that be behind the channels' formulae anticipated the ordinary man and woman's need for participation. Perhaps the formula of its success was the writing on the wall that political parties like the Congress and BJP ignored and that the aam aadmi grasped. People want - perhaps expect - to be involved engaged and connected.
Come to think of it, some of the biggest businesses in today's world are all predicated on the same need - connection. Mobile phone makers, social media companies, IT firms and a host of other companies that bring people together are the ones that are making it to the top of the lists around the world.
One of Aam Aadmi Party's Arvind Kejriwal's first acts was to empower Delhi citizens by teaching them how to conduct their own stings on the corrupt.
But to come back to my TV watching and its almost daily rigour, I find that even the immediacy of call in debates and the ubiquity of reproducing Twitter feeds and the like is not enough today. This new born hunger for participation and engagement by its viewers will make media mavens look for even more inclusive ways to reach their viewers. What these will be no one can tell. Televised townhouse debates? Check. Viewer vigilantes (or 'digilantes' as a friend called them)? Check. Man on the street analysis? Check.
As we reach the last few days of the run-up to the most invigorating and decisive general elections, the road ahead for media is an exciting and creative one.
Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com