Ah, you robbed my senses. Review on General Tips on Image Morphing

We see and believe what they want us to, they being the media and the advertisers who glossify, glamorize and beautify, sometimes exaggerate and intensify the importance and role of the individuals, products, clients and ideas that they endorse. The 4th estate never had a more important role to play in shaping of the public feelings, ideology and aspirations from their role models, their leaders, their celebrities and the various products and services. Some might call this planned and organized shaping of public emotions as propaganda or proselyting or advertising in more modern terms.

Having started on that note, let me know break down the entire review into two major sections, the role of the media and the role of the advertisers/ad agencies.

4th estate rulezz and how so. In today’s high tech, high speed communication age, where the idea of private and public life is becoming increasingly blur and where everything seems to be a part of the public domain, even your most private and zealously guarded secrets are out in the open for everyone, the 4th estate is calling the shots both literally and figuratively. They shape the public opinion and notions, they feed the masses with their concoctions and more often then not even if they are presenting half-baked sometimes totally wrong stories people are buying them up at face value, without going into the nitty-gritty’s of verifying the veracity of the news. The umpteen 24*7 news channels and 100’s of tabloids which peer into everything from Princess Diana’s bath suit to Madonna’s bedroom escapades to Clinton’s tête-à-tête’s are becoming omnipresent and omnipotent. They can make or break careers in a jiffy.

One must question some of the news and information that they dish out with such alarming rapidity, really. Take for instance the Kargil war, at the start the media reported how Pakistan had betrayed us yet again and how our armed forces were fighting a hopelessly stacked against them battle with amazing grit and courage and how the government at the center was one of the strongest when it came to dealing with cross border terrorism, and suddenly everyone in the country were rooting for the BJP led government. Only later did the news trickle that Kargil was a major intelligence failure on the part of the government and then to hush up the unrest in the army the government handed out tones of gallantry awards including the coveted Paramvir Chakra.

Having discussed that let me take up another lineage of visual robbers, the media managers who work overtime for their clients be it the political leaders and parties, film stars, players and other celebrities. More often then not it is the success of the media managers in projecting their clients that decides the fate of the US presidential elections. So suddenly you would find a hitherto unheard of man being fostered to the center stage and his image given such a make over that even he himself would not be sure if it is he or someone else. They would be shown posing with all sorts of people from the working class to the children to the business classes to the what have yous. They are projected as the statesman, friend, ally, father, loving husband all in all a perfect man people could and should look up to. Overnight a hawk would turn into a dove, a recalcitrant turn into an appeaser, the transformations are indeed stark and noticeable.

This trend is fast catching up across the world, even in our own India, we had the rather infamous India Shining campaign which tried to paint such a rosy and glossy picture of the state of affairs in India that it felt like we were again that sone ki chidiya famed nation. But then the basic premise of that campaign was faulty and hence it doomed ensuring the defeat of the incumbent BJP. The campaigns funded by black obscure sourced money during election times is indeed funny, but then their efficacy has never been under question what with it having the effect of whitewashing the fickle public memory and painting new images on it. Pramod Mahajan said not long after his party’s drubbing in the central elections, “ elections are fought and their fate decided on the ground of perceptions and not on reality. Reality never helps you win elections, perceptions do”.

Also consider the way the media managers change the image of their celebrity clients. Brittany Spears who has been an infant terrible all her life would suddenly transform into a messiah for the youth after her marriage, and how then suddenly she would become the wronged after her marriage falls apart. Or for that matter how suddenly Angelina Jolie who has had a bad/nasty image all her career gets overnight transformed into a caring mother and a doting wife to be for Brad Pitt after he falls apart with Jennifer Aniston and suddenly its Aniston who is painted as the villain and the culprit for everything. Image makeover is the latest buzzword these days where battles are being fought for public loyalty and stardom and the success of the media men decides the fate of their celebrity clients.

Remember the propaganda ministry under Joseph Goebbels during the Nazi heydays and how he used the media to ensure that people revered everything Nazi and hated everything that they were asked to loathe? The same was used to brilliant effects by Winston Churchill who advocated “V for Victory”. Movies, songs, stories all sorts of things were concocted to stoke up nationalistic fervor. Heroes and role models were being invented all around the war-ridden world, the Romells, Eisenhowers, Montgomeries were national nay-international heroes. The same has found increasing echo during the Gulf War, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to ensure that public sentiment remained strongly in favor of the government actions. Facts are suppressed; stories and fictions are concocted and given colors of authenticity all in the name of presenting politically correct news. Did someone talk about right to information and freedom of expressing the truth?

Ad em baby the umpteen jazzy and flashy ads which hits the various forms of mass contact to endorse and sell the various products, have the same thing in common with the media managers, they are also their selling their products to us. The products may or may not be worth the money we spend for them but the ad-men would want us to believe that their product is the best. More often then not the product, which is backed by a better ad, campaign and a sustained marketing effort, succeeds in the market. Does this not amount to some form of visual robbery and are they not accountable for trying to fool the consumers by showing them imageries and stuff which may not necessarily be true or authentic?

Before I wind up my review here is the favorite part of the review.

Questions

1. Do you think the so-called impartial and unbiased 4th estate has political allegiance and do they work really in a free and fair manner? What stops them from working in a free and impartial environment?

   
   




2. What do you make of the sensationalisation of news and the falling levels of     journalism around the world?

   
   




3. Do you think the media has the right to invade the privacy of the celebrities? What do you make of the latest buzzword ‘sting operations’, is it ethical?

   
   




4. Which news channel/ newspaper according to you is the least biased and presents news in as pure a manner as possible?

   
   

Last but not the least a special mention of thanks for my wonderful friend aditi009 for suggesting this topic to me and providing me with some valuable inputs for the review, thanks adi.