Will IPL4 steal Anna Hazare's limelight?
The Indian media is like Bollywood's Box Office - every Friday there's a change of story. The Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption campaign faces a media coverage face-off today as the fourth edition of the IPL Twenty-20 kicks off in Chennai.
THE ‘STAND-OFF’ between anti-corruption protestors and the union government is delicately poised – both politically and on the basis of media coverage. From April 8 onwards this may not be the case because the media is likely to turn their cameras and pens to the glamourous and equally intense IPL.
For the media the question will be how and how much resources should be allocated to two competing events – as both the anti-corruption protests and IPL4 are pan-India as well as confined to the larger cities of the country.
It will be interesting to see how the anti-corruption protest proceed in the face of a fragmented media agenda. Will it be anti-corruption protests in the morning and IPL4 in the evenings? After all, both events, today, boast of ‘star presence’, star support, and numerous talking points. Since the anti-corruption protests are depending on national media, which has become a via media and a semi-official intermediary between the protestors and the government - Anna Hazare and his supporters will have to vie for attention with the IPL - given the fact that the media’s focus is likely to shift to the IPL, which has become a national and global brand within the mega brand of international cricket. If what advertisements have been predicting - “India will remain closed because the IPL is on” - come anywhere near coming true - then the fate of the anti-corruption story, in terms of its pan-India daily media coverage, could be sealed. For the UPA government, which has already acceded certain “breakthrough” demands of anti-corruption and social activists led by Arjun Kejriwal and Anna Hazare - the distraction caused by IPL 4 will come as a welcome breather. Daily stories beginning April 8 on the IPL will find ready audience in national and local press, and the government might go into a freeze mode. The point of debate is not why the Indian media drops and takes up stories like a hot potato. The point is the way they go about shifting gears at the cost of staying with an important story – in spite of competing stories. Should Anna Hazare time the timeline of the anti-corruption protest based on the attention span of the India media? Why should a highly consumerized event displace an event of national importance in media coverage – in case such a thing takes place? In a few days we will know if the IPL steals Anna’s thunder.
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