The media has several functions each of them serving their purpose well but it is the media’s role in the propagating of social messages which gives it its humanitarian edge. Radio, television, cinema and the newspapers are the key tools of mass media.
Mass media has enjoyed number one status in the spreading of social messages. Let’s take a social cause like health. Smoking and drinking are both detrimental to health. While smoking in public places is an infringement on human rights it continues unabated despite legislations having been passed to this effect.
The truth however is that the force of a habit far exceeds the force of any legislation or the will for enforcement. The need of the hour is support to legislation and that can be provided only by social awareness.
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The 1990’s showed a significant upsurge in the amount of smoking in movies and television. Smoking was and is frequently depicted onscreen.
Smoking and drinking are shown as being glamorous or as a resort to stress which is dangerous in a country like India where almost a quarter of the population uses tobacco in some form or the other. Cinema is an extremely useful tool to the tobacco industry.
76 percent of all Indian movies portray tobacco wittingly or unwittingly. It doesn’t help the cause of anti-smoking when famous film personalities are seen smoking even when they are not at shoots. But when a celebrity likes Shah Rukh Khan, who is a chain smoker, goes on air to promote anti- smoking it works wonders for the anti-smoking campaign.
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Radio jingles serve to promote awareness with their catchy tunes cashing in on public memory. During epidemics messages are relayed in between programs that advise to boil water and drink it. In the seventies Lifebuoy soap made a jingle that said, “Tandurusti ki raksha karta hai Lifebuoy” (Lifebuoy guards your health).
This jingle with its catchy tune was a big hit and although Lifebuoy was surely the winner in terms of sales, by default a lot of people who didn’t use soap in rural areas began to use Lifebuoy. The advertisement was successful in promoting personal hygiene.
Newspaper articles provide information on the damages caused by drinking and smoking. Through repeated campaigning and advertising across all media, the government has been successful in the eradication of polio and small pox which is no small feat in a country that boasts of the second largest population and falls under the tropical zone which is prone to outbreaks of diseases that spread like wild fire due to dense population.
Big movie stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan have been roped in to do ad campaigns for pulse polio. The catch line for one of these advertisements being “Ek boondh zindagi ki” (one drop of life). This line has been victorious in getting across to the masses of rural India that it takes just one drop of pulse polio to prevent your child from being crippled for life.
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Website details but a search engine could find it for you if you just hit the name of the company you are looking for. Such is the use of search engines in marketing today that search engine optimization has become the need of the hour for marketing. Search engine optimization (SEO) makes sure that a site is as accessible as possible to the search engines.
Its aim is to improve the probability of the search engine serving it up when potential customers type in specific search items.
Search engine optimization improves the volume and quality of traffic to the web site from search engines through search results. The earlier a site is presented in the search results, the more searchers will visit the site.
Whether it is free software download, or free movie download, or a game of chess, a recipe of a dish or an idea for a gift; almost anything you can think of, the search engine can dish up in a few seconds. It’s like a private genie that considers your every wish its command. It virtually puts the world at your fingertips.