Abstract:
The omnipotence of mass media was already felt in the beginning of the twentieth century even though the main media present were only newspapers, magazines and radio. Of course, media attained the status of a religion only with the arrival of television – family altars were replaced with the “idiot box”; television,“the big medium”, by the end of the twentieth century became the surrogate parent, teacher and god. And then the omnipresence of the media was felt with the launching ofthe internet enabling instant social networking. It should be noted here that in the age of media convergence information technology has to be considered integral to media operations. FB, Twitter, Whatsapp, Pintrest, Instagram … would be rendered ineffective without the internet. FB has captured the imagination of more than 1.5 billion people, one hundred million and growing in India alone. Twitter and Whatsapp are catching up. In the early 21 century the world moved beyond the “global village” ending up as a “global living room”. No wonder Alexander Bard, the prophet who calls for triumph of the ‘netocracy’ in his latest book ‘Syntheism – Creating God in the Internet Age’, speaks of the internet as the new Holy Spirit. Indeed with the New Media a new culture, religion, sanctuary idols and priesthood are emerging.
Cost: Full paper (6422 words) available for Rs 300