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Contemporary Issues in Journalism and the Importance of Media Training

Journalism is an oft-repeated word and rightfully so! Well, think about the contemporary world sans journalists. Chances are that many things would actually come to a standstill. While we all are aware about fake news, post-truth, paid news and other such evils, it is also a reality that democracy would cease to exist without an active press. It could truly be argued that journalism is the lifeblood of democracy.

Over the past couple of decades though, journalism and journalists have been facing an existential crisis – the crisis of establishing credibility and credence. The corporate bondage of editorial content and the dominance of business interests over the interests of enlightenment and empowerment have practically decimated people’s confidence on free and fair journalism.

Thus, in India and rest of the world, there is an urgent necessity to redraw the contours of what constitutes journalism. This process would require a substantial amount of expertise and innovation. Now, before we go any further into the discussion, let us understand as to what are the major issues afflicting the world of news globally.

Fake News: The word, per se, is an oxymoron. A piece of news can’t be fake and an information that is fake can’t be classified as news. However, the word was popularized by Donald Trump in his run up to the White House. It meant any cooked-up or incorrect news – either intentional or unintentional. Fake news, again, can be classified into misinformation, disinformation and mal information. While misinformation is unintentional, disinformation is intentional. Mal information, on the other hand, albeit being true, is created to cause harm. The popularization of social media has been one of the reasons for the growing significance of fake news as a whole. However, the mainstream media organizations have also goofed up on multiple occasions thereby reducing the trust of the audience on news.
Post-Truth: Post-truth is an interesting phenomenon. In fact, it is more dangerous than fake news. Post-truth creates a situation in which belief systems and emotions become more important than objective facts. In such a scenario, it is difficult to ascertain the difference between news and propaganda. In the quest for increasing popularity, multiple news organizations from across the world have played to their galleries and contributed to post-truth. Needless to say that this also had a disastrous impact on news credibility.
Paid News: Probably the biggest evil in the world of journalism, paid news is a practice where journalists or news organizations accept payments in cash or kind to either provide positive or negative coverage to an issue, person or organization. As bizarre as it may sound, paid news has almost assumed gigantic proportions in India. It kills the very essence of journalism and reduces news to propaganda and falsehood. In fact, renowned scribes Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and K. Sreenivas Reddy did a seminal study on how paid news is becoming a encompassing phenomenon in India.
The Absence of a Viable Revenue Model: News primarily depends on advertisements for its survival. Thus, there exists an unholy domination of marketing content on editorial content across most of the news organizations. The dependence of news on advertisements has had a terrible impact on the objectivity and neutrality factors of journalism. Although crowd funding, paywalls and donations have been experimented with in terms of an alternative revenue model, the results have been far from satisfactory.

In the clamour for organisational growth and increased revenues, journalism has ceased to be a social service in addition to being just a profession. However, is it all bleak? While it seems so from the above discourse, the situation is definitely not beyond repair. There is a need to have a fresh relook at the profession and devise ways to reclaim the position of journalism as the pillar of an accountable nation. As it is, the aspiring and younger journalists can play the biggest role in this desired transformation. Let us look at some possible solutions:

The Pre-Eminence of Ethics: While anybody can be a journalist and one didn’t require any specific education to be a journalist until very recently, contemporary circumstances demand a dedicated media education for aspiring journalists. The advent of newer technologies and the growing demands of the profession has made journalism training compulsory. While imparting training on journalism, media schools and universities need to deliver dedicated modules on journalistic ethics. The students need to be sensitised to the larger purpose of the press and rightfully so.
The Importance of Alternative Media Platforms: In the current context, it is critically important to create a dedicated space for the alternative media platforms. It is important to understand that it is almost impossible for the mainstream media to come out of the clutches of corporate control. Hence, creating independent ventures is the need of the hour. The same can’t happen unless aspiring journalists are taught the basics of media entrepreneurship. A combination of financial viability and social enterprising is required. This training can only happen at a media school or university.
Innovation Is the Key: Given the changing trends of the industry, the aspiring journalists need to emphasize on developing innovative practices to again draw the target audience. This is possible only when they understand the intricacies of the profession. Thus, it is a given that journalism training is the need of the hour. The practical aspect of the profession can be taught only at a media school or university. At a time, when technology is coming to the forefront, the importance of training can’t possibly be emphasized enough.
The Importance of Research in Journalism: At a time when shallow research has become a decided bane in journalism, aspiring journalists need to stress on real research before creating their stories. The theoretical and methodical approaches of research can only be taught at a media school or a university. This is one of the most important reasons as to why media education is extremely important for aspiring and young journalists.

Given the current situation, journalism requires a serious facelift. The onus of giving this facelift is with the younger crop of journalists. The media schools and universities will play an equally important role in the transformation. However, what is required is an astute understanding of what ails the profession and its possible solutions. There is no reason to believe that journalism won’t be able to reclaim its position in the society.

Just in case you find this blog useful and relevant, please make it a point to share it with as many people as you like for them to know the contemporary issues in journalism and understand the importance of media training.

Journalism Now and Journalism Then: Evaluating Digital Revolution from a Journalistic Standpoint

When the history of 21st century is scripted, its first two decades will be marked as the period that transformed the very meaning of human existence. The unbelievable surge of digital technologies and the advent of the internet-based virtual world have been instrumental in reimagining humanity that we know or at least claim to know. Every area of human knowledge stands radically changed. Skills that were once considered a handful have rapidly become useless. No wonder that the larger domain of journalism has also undergone fundamental and structural changes.

Print has given way to the all-encompassing web; analog broadcasting has given way to digital broadcasting and plain text have given way to multimedia. With the gradual decline in the average attention span of news consumers, contemporary news can no longer afford to just inform. Infotainment has become the name of the game and interactive infographics have slowly started replacing the once dominant text information. While the first decade of the ongoing millennium was revolutionary for journalism and journalists on multiple counts, its second decade has changed the very approach of journalism. The coming in of the ubiquitous smartphone has heralded a brand new era in the practice of dissemination of information.

This article, albeit very limited in its scope, would make an effort to document the larger changes that has marked journalism and its various offshoots over the past one decade. Just so that one is clear, all these changes that we are referring to are not necessarily desirable. However, like everything else in life, journalism has also altered – for the better and also for the worse. For the purpose of easier comprehension, let us put some of those changes in the form of pointers:

1. The Predominance of Online Journalism: If the first decade of the new millennium belonged to television journalism, the second decade most surely belonged to online journalism. While the popularity of print journalism continued to dwindle, online journalism kept on growing. The liberal usage of multimedia and easier language made online journalism the hot favourite among both the millennials and members of the Generation Z. All existing studies and surveys predict the further growth of online media to the extent that it will be the only thing in the fray.

2. The Arrival of Social Media Journalism: Before delving into the trend, it is important to point out that social media and journalism are two different concepts and are not intrinsically connected to each other. However, the rapid increase in the usage of social media and the instant need for news somehow contributed to the growth of a new phenomenon known as social media journalism. Today, breaking news items break on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook pages serve as platforms for larger discussions on recent trends. Today, anybody from any corner of the world can post a piece of news for the rest of the world to see. It can be argued that social media journalism has largely democratized the flow of information.

3. The Growing Relevance of Alternative Media: There was a time when large corporate entities and media behemoths had absolute control on the collection, production and dissemination of news. However, thanks to the largely economical nature of the online medium, a good number of smaller and independent news ventures are cropping. While some of these media organizations have already broken even, there are many that are making rapid inroads into the larger news ecosystem. Consequently, geographical locations that were once considered fringe are increasingly featuring in the mainstream. Larger corporates have lost their monopoly on news.

4. The Ominous Entry of Fake News and Post-Truth: Thanks to Donald Trump, the former President of the United State of America, the world was informed about an essentially oxymoronic term called fake news. For the purpose of academical

propriety, we would rather use the three individual terms ‘disinformation’, ‘misinformation’ and ‘mal-information’. All these are different types of misleading or false information that owe their origins to a multitude of reasons including ignorance, propaganda and unholy political ambitions. While not entirely different, the term ‘post-truth’ probably has a wider ramification on the very sustenance of press as the fourth estate of democracy. Post-truth represents a dystopian scenario where emotions and personal convictions become stronger tools in shaping public opinions than objective facts. This phenomenon indicates a general disdain for logic and common sense.

5. The Increased Popularity of Infographics: The current generation has a general liking for representative visuals. Therefore, infographics serve as a potent tool to retain the consumers of news. To put it in simple terms, infographics are charts, visual data and statistics that help people digest complex information in a systematic and uncomplicated manner. We have come to a point when different news organizations report stories only through infographics. In the next few years, this trend is only going to grow.

6. The Gradual Vanishing of Gatekeeping: For all those who are not aware of what gatekeeping is, it is the process of filtering information before publishing. With blogs, vlogs, social media and personal websites slowly becoming the primary mode of disseminating news, gatekeeping as a phenomenon is increasingly losing its relevance. While this has democratized the flow of news to a large extent, news credibility and authenticity have become sore areas. It is expected that as we move ahead, a mechanism will be worked out that will impart balance to the whole process of journalism.

7. Mobile Journalism Is the Next Big Thing: Journalists across the world are increasingly using smartphones to gather, produce and disseminate news. In fact, mobile journalism or MoJo, as it is popularly known, has become so powerful that it is predicted that in the next one decade, journalism will be primary mobile.

8. News Virality: What was once called breaking news during the heydays of the broadcast revolution is now known as viral news. Some news become viral and gather a significant number of eyeballs in a very small span of time. In fact, the greatest mechanism to make a story viral is to put it on social media platforms.

While the points mentions above are rather generic and broadly define the transformation that marks the news industry, there are many others that are equally important, if not more.

However, for the purpose of brevity, we shall discuss the same some other day. Just in case you find this blog useful and relevant, please make it a point to share it with as many people as you like for them to know the changes that have engulfed the world of journalism.

Career in Advertising-Appealing and Rewarding

Communication requires two-person to share some sort of idea or information, which can come in various forms, while advertising follows the same mechanism but with a price. This is one of the most prominent factors that differentiate advertising communication from any personal communication. Prof. Harari, in his book ‘Sapiens’, mentioned the chronological development of three orders that changes the course of humanity, the first one being economy or money, then politics, and the last one being the religion. Advertisements provide evidence of all these factors in their message of discrimination under the veil of various appeals. This is fascinating how a simple product with a very common set of features and qualities can become a hot favorite with the help of massive and effective campaigning. Advertisements play a significant role in spreading and establishing the enter-subjective reality into the mind of the consumer and end up crating and nurturing the value of the product or service they are attached to. The aura that is being created through advertisements also helps in increasing the value and reputation of the brand itself. This makes the job of advertisers even more challenging, starting from the conceptualization to execution and measuring the performances.

One might think that advertising only means creating a piece of interesting design that will increase the demand for the said product or service however, it works beyond the designated areas and lingers within the subconscious of the consumers. Therefore, it requires research beyond the usual level to create a piece of advertising that would be rememberable. Interestingly, when we recall any brand in a particular category, this happens because of the advertisements that we might have come across at some point of time in our life. If it happens, then the job of that advertiser is half accomplished as the band manages to avoid the conflict and clutter while coming to the surface with their presence. The rest half would be considered completed when the consumer finally makes the purchase. Though the job of an advertiser does not end there as the path to a successful campaign requires understanding and acknowledging the demography, psychography, and behavioral perspective and changes of the consumer for years. At the same time understanding the dynamics of the market is also important before putting the ideas into action. Recently there is an advertisement with a tag line “share the meal” where it is appealing the smartphone users to donate a minimum of 50 cents to the hungry children with statistics of smartphone users outnumbers the hungry children by twenty to one. The expected changes that can be brought forward through the contribution of all smartphone users, if they all could donate 50 cents to the poor and hungry children. That will possibly let no children to bed with an empty stomach. The campaign was launched by the united nation’s “world food program” to eradicate hunger from the children as one out of seven children does not have enough food to lead a healthy and active life. The advertisement is a public service advertisement that is cleverly designed to send an appeal to the people who are using smartphones to use their app to donate a minimum amount to save a young hungry soul. While most public service advertisements (PSA) are created to raise awareness among the people on issues of public concern, one of the most struggling challenges some public service advertisements (PSA) could encounter is managing the donation received from the people, unlike other advertisements who can easily manipulate consumers by showing the benefits to them for the investment they are making into their products or services. For some PSAs, the advertisers need to make people understand to give away their wealth for the benefit of the society which is indeed a difficult task and requires a lot of effort and persuasion. That is the reason, many PSAs are adopting innovative ways of sending their message to the people to find a way to penetrate their consciousness.

Brilliance in the message creation and presentation can certainly pull the attention of the viewers towards the advertisement and send across the message successfully. There are numerous issues like fake news, female feticide killing, health and sanitization, safe drinking water, child marriage, and so on where the PSAs are created for the people to be aware of the circumstances, restrictions, and devastations to help in the prevention.

Campaigns that aim to make changes

Fake profile on Tinder

A campaign came out to protest against the fake profiles on Tinder in Ireland that forces many women in Ireland to get into prostitution. The campaign carries a series of women’s pictures that bear the signs of bruises and also show her in a compromised position indicating the constant struggles and abuses storming on her mind and body. The pictures are arranged from a gorgeous looking woman to a submissive and gloomy one with the message “your options are left or right” appealing to men not to contribute in the transformation. While many PSAs are focused on finding a soft spot in the cognitive areas of the views to create a lasting impact on them, this one puts forward a question of moral and social responsibility to seek out the answer for the viewers.

Stop child marriage

Child marriage has been a huge problem in India, especially in the rural ages but that has also been a problem in many other parts in the world where research shows that more than 39,000 underage girls are forced to accept marriage every day. A campaign came out in the veil of the wedding blog showing a 12 years old girl “Thea” is being prepared to get married and engaged in pre-weeding activities while the groom was chosen to be a 37 years old guy called “Geir”. The video shot the wedding day where people attended with open invitations and when “Thea” walked through the aisle to attain the ceremony, more than 3.5 million people used the hashtag “#stoppbryllupet” (“StopTheWedding”) to protest against this injustice. Later on, the stunt was reviled to be a PSA created by Plan International, a Norwegian non-profit organization, to protest against child marriage.

Helpline for Children

A wonderful campaign launched by the Spanish Children Foundation “Anar” emphasizes the brutality and abuses faced by many children. The outdoor backlit standee was designed to integrate two similar pictures where the differences can only be identified by two different angels. For an adult of an average height of 1.75 m, the standee shows an image of a child with a message “A veces el maltrato infantil solo es visible para el nino que lo sufre” (Sometimes, child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it) while for a child with an average height of 1.35m, the image changes to the same child baring clear signs of struggles and abuses with a message only meant for the children to see “Si alguien te hace dano llamanos y te ayudaremos” (if somebody hurts you, phone us we’ll help you). The ad was created by the “Anar Foundation” which runs a telephone line to help children and teenagers who face risky situations with the aim to warn the adults to refrain from such abuses towards the children as well as extend their help to the children who need help to get out such abusive living condition.

Sanitary napkins for the cost of cigarette

When it comes to health and hygiene, Indian women need a lot of awareness and care on the usage of sanitary napkins, especially in the rural territory where hygiene factors are given little importance. A famous PSA is featuring Bollywood actor “Akshay Kumar” in an advertisement on a sanitary napkin where the recent popularity of his film “Padman” was being integrated to raise the awareness of among the people. The PSA depicts a scenario where a worried husband is interacting with the actor while his wife is being attended by the doctors for a disease caused by the usage of unhygienic products during the menstruation cycle at a village hospital. The actor takes the opportunity to explain the usage of sanitary napkins for avoiding such health hazards while the cost of the product is almost equal to two cigarettes. The PSA is covering two aspects in one advertisement while the visible and prominent one is to promote the usage of sanitary napkins for the women to prevent contaminations, the subliminal one is also asking people to stop smoking. The PSA uses the fame of the Bollywood actor who has managed to create an image of a social reformer through his activities and also featured as the lead actor in the movie “Padman” which is based on the achievement of Arunachalam Muruganantham who managed to produce sanitary napkins at minimum cost to provide a healthy living to unfortunate women.

Advertisements are created to raise awareness among the target audience and this industry offers the people who are eager to find a creative outlet a perfect place to reach out to thousands and millions of people. One doesn’t need to be equipped with all different forms of creativity, rather they can choose their skills carefully which would be applicable in creative magnificent at the same time meaning fool paid communication.

Career Prospect Post-Pandemic: Film & Television

Everyone wants her or his name on banners, billboards, social media sites, television and newspapers – if you think it is tough, it is. However, if you think it is impossible, it is not.

The world of audio-visual production is undergoing a stark change, especially after the pandemic – the old structure of film-funding-making-distribution-exhibition is slowly fading away. New avenues are created, new paths are laid for such purposes.

Adamas University’s post-graduate program of M.A. in Film and Television is the course that realises one’s dream to be a filmmaker. With four dedicated semesters with courses covering both theoretical and practical aspects of filmmaking, the aspiring student will have the following ‘out-of-the-box’ career options at her/his disposal:

Feature Filmmaker
Documentary Filmmaker
Short Filmmaker
Corporate Filmmaker
Advertisement Filmmaker

There are other avenues of the audio-visual industry, which might entice a youngster with promising career prospects. They are:

Script Writing
Assistant Director
Script Supervisor
Cameraperson
Executive Producer
Sound Designer
Sound Recordist
Editor
Colourist
Gaffer

Apart from these industry-oriented careers, M.A. in Film and Television and B.A. in Media Technology also come with an assurance of a career in academia. They are:

Researcher
Assistant Professor
Subject Coordinator / Specialist

Primary Career Aspects in Details

Feature Filmmaker

Filmmakers are one of the most popular faces and celebrities of the world – yes, more than a doctor or an engineer. It is not always about the paycheck that is collected at the end of the month, but it is all about what life can give you, and what you can give to life, and to the lives of the others. Filmmaking is a not a ten-to-five job. This profession aspires a lot of love, philosophy and of course, once the filmmaker is on track, he does not have to look back.

Documentary Filmmaker

Documentary Filmmakers’ lives are not entirely different from the previous one, and more than often they are the same because a filmmaker makes all kinds of films. But the only difference that we can feel is that the documentary filmmaker is more accustomed to the realities of his world he is capturing on his camera and representing, and has a certain sincerity to the research and excavate the truth that she or he wants to unravel.

Short Filmmaker

Short films are like poetry in comparison to the features, which are more like novels in their genealogy. However, shorts films are the launching pad for any filmmaker as they are mostly independent films and provide a rich portfolio or show reel for you!

Corporate Filmmaker

Corporate filmmaking is a long advertisement made for a corporate company instead of a product or service as in advertisement. In the post pandemic era, this has become more than necessity because a company or a brand has to reach out to people instead of people reaching out to them.

Advertisement Filmmaker

Ad filmmakers have an exciting as well challenging life to bring out the best of the ideas on audio-visuals, which will stick to the audience’s mind. Ad filmmakers are the best liars who are successful in reality.

Script Writing

Script is the heart of a film, series, serial and an ad. One has to know the art of writing to have engaging script. This demands the ideas of literature, music, history, politics and most importantly -emotional quotient along with a critical and thinking mind. This is the reason why the PG and UG programmes of Entertainment Media have courses on literature, theatre and music.

Assistant Director

Assistant Directors are the most important second in command in a film who eventually evolves to be a director.

Script Supervisor

They are the script experts, or to be precise, script-doctors. There are certain nuances, character and narrative arcs, developments in narratives in terms of three act-structures, development of plot points, hooks and references that are used, or rather planted in a script to make it more appealing.

Camera person

Camera person, or DOP, needs to have a clear understanding of what the script and the director wants. If the director decides what shot and frame will be in a shot, the DOP decides how to create that particular shot to make it mesmerizing for the audience.

Executive Producer

Executive Producers (EPs) have to have a thorough idea of the filmmaking process and have to control a production. Starting from the pre-production process till the end of post-production, an EP coordinates and controls the creative aspect of the entire production as bridge between the production company and the directorial team.

Sound Designer

Sound is an area that is does not gain so much of attention except for those who are in the film industry. Sound is more complicated than visuals. In order to tell a story properly, any production requires a sound designer, who would take each and every aspect of sound into consideration – diegetic (the sound which has its source inside the narrative) and extra-diegetic (the sound that does not come from the physical aspect of the narrative, but psychological) and design it at the level of the script.

Sound Recordist

In most of the cases, sound designer is the sound recordist. To be precise, a sound recordist has to record sound on and off the location, along with post-production sound.

Editor

Editor of any audio-visual is the person who joins shots, puts transitions – in short, weaves images into a single strand we call a narrative. Editors are as important as the Cinematographers.

Colourist

Colourists, similar to editors, balance colours and make the final output look charismatic. Colourists are one of the significant people in the post-production process of any film.

Gaffer

Gaffer is the chief lighting technician of a film. The role of the gaffer is slowly gaining immense significance in India since the Indian film industry has realised the significance of light in a nay production that can change the mood, tempo and even the narrative arch

Researcher

Project Fellowship, PhD, Post Doctoral degree and other such commissioned projects from various institutions, universities of India and Abroad along with the Film Archive of Pune and Online MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) projects always require academic scholars of film, media, society and culture. Film and Television Studies encourages academic research as well as film criticism.

Assistant Professor

Strictly academic, post-graduates of Film and Television students can dedicate their career to academic streams where the scholar can teach and train students in various colleges and universities in subjects like audio-visuals, advertisements, film and film making, film studies, cultural studies and so on.

Subject Coordinator / Specialist

As mentioned above, a number of career opportunities have evolved for the freelance researchers and subject specialists in audio-visual medium. There are online courses. MOOCs like SWAYAM, Coursera, LinkedIn and a host of other evolving companies require subject experts and coordinators for creating academic content, images and even video contents for various subjects of media and other overlapping subjects

Graphic Designer

Someone with an interest in software and creation of computer generated images and design can choose the career of a designer or an illustrator. As we are in a world that is dominated by the world of images as primary information vis-a-vis communication, the requirements for good designers (who can use pen, software, or any form) to communicate through visuals and designs (like illustrators in ad agencies) are acute. As we are speeding up in the information highway, designers are becoming an integral part for any industry.

Animators

Animators create a world of their own. A number of television, OTT, film and ad productions always feel the need for an efficient animator. Apart from this, an animator can be an independent filmmaker on her or his own right on the basis of his skill of creating animation, both 2D and 3d although the latter is gaining more prominence.

Secondary / Tertiary Career Aspects

Courses on Media, Film and Television open up Pandora’s box. If the above 21 career paths were primary options for someone pursuing MA in Film and TV and BSc in Media Technology, there are uncountable secondary and tertiary career options open.

If someone has a flare for writing (both the courses thrust on writing skills – both creative and reportage), she or he can explore the options for:

Film Critic
Film Journalist
Content Writer
Promotional Video Maker
Professional Blogger
Professional Vlogger
Social Media Strategist
Social Media Manager
Photographer
Designer
Radio Programmer
Actor

Industries Open for our Students

Since film, media, television and culture are overlapping with technology, communication, business, information technology and print and even theatre, a graduate or a post-graduate student with these two courses (both or any one of them) have the key to work in the following industries:

Film Industry i.e. Production houses, as Indie Independent) films
Television Industry, i.e. TV channels, TV production houses
Advertisement Agencies
OTTs
Newspaper Agencies
Social Networks
PR Agencies
Colleges and Universities
All Business Processing Outsource (BPO) companies and Knowledge Processing Outsource companies (KPO)
Online Course Creation companies

Afterword

It should always be borne in mind that someone who chooses MA in Film and Television or B.Sc in Media Technology can easily fathom the depths of cultural representations including cinema, television, literature and other arts with a little effort and self-persuasion. We believe that such a scholar or a film and TV expert that this programme will produce can venture on their own. From running their own online companies to being indie filmmakers, they can do whatever they want.

These two courses do not tell you what you have to do. Rather, these two courses empower you to dominate the world through your own key of creativity. It is often said that a course trains its students according to the industry need. However, we think a little further – these courses create students not according to the dictates of the industry (which is always changing), but creates such leaders who can mould the industry and the way industries work. These courses believe in the creative freedom of the individual, which will help them to get into, mould and lead any industry they want.

Creative Folks: Have Your Best Pick Now

Education Often ‘Killed’ Us

Everyone remembers how, when we were of 10 or 12 or 14 years of age, our parents and teachers almost gloated on our tiny abilities to draw, paint, dance, sing or write a poem; how we were paraded before our relatives to ‘show our talent’ or perform on school stage on Annual Day/s.

As we turned 16 till 18 and faced two Board exams of X and XII standards, all these great abilities took a back seat, were dubbed as ‘hobbies’ and declared not to be pursued much for the moment. We must rather focus on our careers, education that will give grades, make us logical and rational, and put us on a great professional track as the best engineers, doctors, lawyers or stock-brokers of the world.

We even thought that anything which is creative, which is right-brain, which is aesthetic or artistic is for appreciation, admiration, a tool to break ice with others, for social charm, and only that much. They are not to make money, create careers, be valued in the economy.

Exceptions to the Order of the Day:

There were exceptions though. Someone’s piece of art sold at thirty lacs you hear. Someone sang for almost half a crore one night. Someone wrote a story whose film rights went for twenty lacs you got to know. And many more. But these were not enough for your ‘security’ seeking parents and would-be parents-in-law to consider you having a recipe of ‘success’ ahead.

Security? Sustainability? Career? Money? Fame? Name? Network? Recognition? You name it and it is there for the taking. But only for those who would go the full hog to turn their die-hard dogged passion into a marketable sustainable admired profession. Dog is my favourite animal indeed.

Today, the media and entertainment industry is pegged at Rs.1.7 lacs crores (some 22 billion dollars) in India, according to FICCI Frames annual report of 2020, with some 2.4 million people working, and till 2019, it was growing at 13% annually on revenue and 11% in new work-force addition (with some 9% falling to attrition as well). The figures are far higher than the GDP growth rate of the nation. Surely, pandemic has caused a havoc in these figures, details of which are still not known till we have the next FICCI Frames white-paper on the industry. The digital revolution is sweeping across the world of creative expressions bringing forth web entertainment on the internet and through OTTs, mobile and online journalism, reputation and branding online, radio online, et al. Lower entry barriers are making digital media almost a cottage industry, though the revenue models for all digital media properties are still not in place, which is a question of time to evolve.

Bold New Path Ahead:

So, the storytellers around, stand up and choose your medium and audience to tell your story. Tell it in audio through podcasts and radio. Tell it in pictures through photo features and creative photography. Tell it visually through your computer-generated graphical or animated visuals. Tell it audio-visually through short stories, feature films, web series. Tell it for-profit and not-for-profit organizations through branded content. Tell it on streets, tell it on stage. Tell it in whispers, tell it in small groups, tell it to many, tell it to all, tell it loud and clear. Tell it in silence, tell it with sound. Tell it in tears, tell it with laughter. But tell it with all your charm and boldness. And making good money in the process. No one thought that a 400 crores investment in story-telling on celluloid over five years can bring in 3500 crores. Bahubali did. Or that a 90 crores investment can bring in 2200 crores back. Dangal did. Even Marathi and Bengali films have crossed the 100 crores mark.

But know the right techniques to tell it effectively, know your right audiences to tell it with the best-desired impact, know how to be resourceful in your work without chasing just the mundane. And, above all, know not just how to produce great content, but how to monetize it seamlessly across all media, and more particularly, in the digital medium.

For the dancers, the singers, the composers, the writers amongst us, we have a world of opportunities knocking on our doors. There are some sixteen types of professional writing, for example, that can make money: fiction, non-fiction, journalistic, web-writing, branded content, screenplay, dialogues, playwriting, copywriting, jingle writing, technical writing, and a lot more. You want to tell what you see, or what you imagine, or what you believe in, or what you observe: you have takers for all.

Media and communication domain has three broad pathways: journalism, entertainment and brand communication, and then several specialization areas within each of these. While specialized skills and knowledge are must, one must begin from a broad base of understanding the entire gamut of communication, its technology and its business, before specializing in one segment.

Tech-driven Story-telling Ahead:

Those creative geeks with penchant for technology more than others: you have a longer path of fun and success. We are now in a world of fantasy visualized into animated images, characters and stories, or into engaging games and play-stations. The stories you cooked up all your life, with some observation of your sample audiences, can be evolved into video games that engage them. Today, virtual reality (creating the make-belief world which is not in front physically) or augmented reality (extending the physical reality to a larger canvas) are storming the creative space. They are breaking all frontiers of imaginative story-telling.

And to get this knowledge right, with a portfolio that can command a price, and acquiring technical skills that will hold you for long in the marketplace of talent, choose an institute which is hands-on, which is intricately industry-connected, and which is strong in technical infrastructure and intellectual capital.

Learning Hands-on, the SOMC Way:

But you cannot get it all right unless trained well and trained by professionals with high academic and industry accomplishments. That is where Adamas University School of Media & Communication (SOMC) comes in with two Bachelors degrees (BA in Media & Communication, BSc in Media Technology), and five focused specialized Masters degree programs (MA in Journalism or Entertainment Studies, MSc in Media Technology, MBA in Communication Management or Events & Entertainment Management). And to get you strong on fundamentals, all the programs bring in Media Literacy, Computer Operations, apart from learning photography, film & television production, radio, et al. All of these with a detailed film and television production studio, sound studio, and in-house radio. A plethora of initiatives (e.g. MediaNext event, SOMC Blogspot, YouTube channel, international film festival, etc) engage you within the School, and IndiCommS, Jaipur Literature Festival, International Film Festival of India at Goa, FICCI Frames, PRSI Engage et al involving the learners outside the campus. With faculty drawn with backgrounds of Symbiosis, Asian College of Journalism, SRFTI, Roopkala Kendra, Amity, MIT, and with international experience in European and Asian nations, the School has a decidedly global perspective.

Come and interact with the School, the learners and the counsellors to know more, to know better. Bon Voyage in your creative journey.