Media Menace - Prologue

Not that the media are always up to something big, to make some sensational news, like blowing up some sex scandals or some heavy money laundering. Often there are these little things that these media men keep blowing out of proportion until it finally starts irritating you.

Here’s one such example. The hoopla-hu created about the mp3 player named iPod.

These days, the television and the paper media have decided to create hype about the iPod’s. Its not just the Indian media that is a victim of this stunt, but world over, the iPod is probably the only thing that has got so much hype about itself after Monika Lewenski (Monica, please pardon my spelling for it still doesn't auto correct in MS Word spell-check!) . It’s just that shameful as it seems, the Indian media is slow in mimicking the West. At least when it’s about portable mp3 players. Now, whether its Apple Inc.’s deliberate effort to bring their product into the spotlight or its just their good luck, the media has been a significant catalyst to their sales volumes. Either Apple Inc. used the media to hype the iPod, or if not, then the media self volunteered into this bandwagon. Rather the media are themselves the bandwagon.

Personally, I did not buy the iPod for three reasons. One, I started hating it for the hype it got. Second, it’s expensive than many others. And thirdly, I strongly feel that in this e-age, it’s just not possible that of the zillions of manufacturers, only one company is able to produce the best quality portable mp3 player.

Probably half the readers have raised their eyebrows reading the label ‘portable mp3 players’. And it’s not the fault of the readers, for the public can only see what the media decides to display. And this is the very precise point. The people have let the media take control of deciding what’s good for them and not. The media is suddenly policing around, censoring things and blowing trumpets. And the innocent readers and viewers are left to believe that the media have not lost their conscience. That the people in media truly know what’s good and what’s not for the masses.

Let me now stop talking in circles and clear the doubts as to what’s the link between the media, mp3 players and iPod. Well here goes. iPod is primarily an mp3 player. Revelation? Apple is just one of the manufacturers, amongst thousands of others like Creative, Sony, Samsung, Rio, iRiver and god knows how many more, who all manufacture the same type of mp3 players. Apple decided to name their mp3 player as iPod. That’s it. Revelation 2? Samsung named their mp3 player as Yepp, while Rio named one of their’s as Rio Carbon. So they all basically are based on the same technology, using either the flash memory or mini hard drives to save their contents or music files. Revelation 3? Of all these, iPod got the maximum publicity. Lucky for Apple Inc. for whom many say, iPod become the sole chariot to ride the company out of their heavy losses.

But then what has media got to do with this mp3 player business? Well, simply that while media started talking specifically about iPod’s as a medium of carrying music around. The media lead half of the discrete readers/viewer’s to believe that if they wanted to be hip and cool, and if they felt that walkman’s and discman’s were thing of the past, that the iPod was the only saviour. Soon iPod became a must have.

The iPod craze not only took the techno shy people for a ride, but also the technology freaks (or the Gadget Guru’s as one TV show so calls themselves) as well. The ‘Gadget Guru’ a TV show on one of the premium channels is supposed to display the coolest and latest electronic gadgets and gizmos that are available in the market. I could not believe when they had an entire section of their episode dedicated to just iPod! Somewhere at the end of show did the host decide to say one line that there are other mp3 players available in the market as well..

Give me a break! I thought Sony was good at audio products. Maybe Philips took over, as they are technology innovators. But Apple? The computer company? One fine day, the computer company thought - hey, our computers are superlative, but somehow still don’t sell, so how about building audio music players instead? And God has been really kind to those inventers at Apple for blessing them with iPod.

And the media was largely responsible for making this success. You still asking why??

The main point that I want to drive home is, fine the marketing department at Apple Inc. did a splendid job of creating the hype for iPod. But was the media sleeping? Is one to believe that the entire mass media is so naïve that they blindly believed the guys at Apple? Is their job not to expose similar marketing gimmicks, should they not make the viewers and the readers’ knowledgeable about the competitors of Apple Inc. who are also in the line of manufacturing mp3 players that are at least cheaper if not sleeker than the iPod’s?

I was scandalised the other day when I opened the morning paper’s local edition and found an entire quarter section of a page dedicated to some of the corporate heads’ who use iPod? And they all talked of iPod as though it were a Silver Bullet. My iPod is great, or I have been using it over a year or I like its menu. I mean come’ on, give me a break. Have you tried any other players? To make a comparison, you at least require something else to compare with. Or you are so dumb as to declare your verdict by looking at just one of the them. Its like the story where the turtle tells his friends I came first in the running race. Everyone is baffled. Finally when one of his wise friends dares to explore the facts asks ‘how many participants were there in the race?’ The turtle replies in a whisper ‘only one’.

But my dear friends, iPod is not the turtle. Unfortunately. There are many other mp3 players that can better suit your requirements. So please check them out first. Do not rush into the bandwagon blindly. Be a proud and conscious owner of some good mp3 player, not just an iPod.