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What motivates the mainstream newspapers in Bangladesh to choose newsmaking needs more scrutiny as they face greater challenges than ever to survive functionally. It's not just about being in the news but about being relevant as market pressure intensifies. This correlates with the structural changes in the overall media scene as social media and internet-based audio-visual (AV) media gains power every day.
How the print media handles the crisis is more important than ever because voices of credibility are declining and the middle class, the traditional consumer and dependent, may well be left without a voice as the two classes below and above are increasingly showing tendencies of ignoring them.
The role of media dominated by political views has been in existence since the colonial era when contesting the same was a major objective of the post-1857 middle class. It was a period after which unreserved loyalty to colonialism was no longer profitable for any group.
After the 1947 stumble when the Lahore Resolution of 1940 was amended by the Delhi Resolution of 1946 and independent East Pakistan was not birthed, a new phase of state-making politics began in which the media became an active participant and its role was more or less established.
Thus the period from 1947 to 1971 was one of intense politics for state making led by the middle class in which the media played a significant role. Thus we see the next stage of the "patriotic" media. Just as the media in times of war is part of the larger conflict and an agency of progressing the cause forward, not objective news making, the media was seen in that role. And in that, it was successful.
In the subsequent post-1971 stage, the media continued along the same trend. Two senior managers at the Dainik Bangla were removed in 1973 in reaction to articles on the USIS firing. The subsequent BKSAL and the martial law period saw a whole new kind of media which reflected the social and political changes vividly.
By this time, the middle class and the upper class had become much better off, benefiting from an independent state economy. It was also a period of partisan media as the middle class was split along two political party lines. That trend continues and it has become a conflict between two "patriotic" groups and objectivity is the welcomed casualty. It's the media of competition.
The middle class continues to be the principal consumer of the mainstream media but as a class have declined in importance due to the absolute rise of the two tertiary classes- upper and lower. While the upper class owns the media and uses it to gain social capital that can be transformed into wealth or protection of already accrued wealth, the once poor class has been transformed by remittance, employment in the RMG sector and in some cases, non-traditional agriculture and off farm employment.
The middle class is the grumbling class as they struggle to achieve higher income and higher consumption patterns which causes stress and blaming those in power at all levels. It's they who consume political news the most as they believe in political change as a solution to their problems and strengthening of their role as intermediaries. They are more critical of the situation at any given time. As a result they are more prone to consumption of both political and also negatively critical news. This is fine as it matches their interests.
However, the upper class owns the media and as part of the ruling regimes is the policymaker and implementers and can not only control the news flow but also the events. So they are not interested in public opinion and ignore it. They enjoy class immunity so are not interested in the media except as owners and promoters and not as consumers.
Meanwhile, the lesser class including the rural population has little interest in either national political news nor in disaster reporting. They are influenced by local events and economics so their world is limited by geographical proximity and economic opportunities. Local politics matters to them not national events as much or even much. Most importantly, they access social media and not mainstream media.
While the desire to play the political savior of Bangladesh is high amongst the media professionals and even establishments, the opportunities to do so are becoming limited. As a weak class, nobody is looking to the middle class for a plan to bail out. The majority -the rural population- has become either external as migrant workers- or local as villagers.
Both have significantly by-passed the so-called national issues and reality. As they are not depending on the national economy much if at all, they are far less interested. So the chances of getting the largest and well-off population in terms of size are not mainstream media's consumer base anymore. With advertisements also shifting to social media, we see the rise of local media -often informal and focused on districts, upazilas etc.
Niche media is the only answer as Bangladesh is split along various classes, culture and antagonism lines. The earlier conventional one media for all models won't work. With more entries but many of them unhealthy, there needs to be more targeted media products for different groups. That mono- media model is not working and even more, the market suffers from overproduction is obvious. Whether the national media establishment can reinvent itself is the point.