Audience response

 Remember, some time back, the TRP war had raged on, and violently? The only worthy detail of that manipulated and manipulative machinations is the underlying need of-n-for audience response.

Audience response and its vagaries form a touchy feely point for all the media. Let me give you an example. As much as the traditional audio, video, audio-video media, the social media matters a lot these days, right? In fact, there are media pundits who maintain that the social media would wipe out the traditional mode altogether in the AI times.

Yet be it the traditional or the social, both the media are controlled by the public, the audience. They can be controlled via the advertising. Equally interesting is the actual response. Most all YouTubers grumble that the moment they prepare a video that is not sensational or is not a 'soft' appeal to mushy emotions, or does not deal with politics, the great Indian obsession, 'views' plummet!

True! How many people watch Tedex talks, for instance? How many are interested in the History Channel? This evening, I got a chance to visit an experimental theater and a performance platform made out of  depleted factory premises. How much is the presence at such places? How many people attend meets that address genuine but not 'newsworthy' issues? Are not artists pressurised in to performing filmy, Bollwoody-ish pop songs rather than the classical raga's?  Closer home, how many students attend lectures regularly?

Yes, the audience response, including the likes, the thumbs-up and the forwards, is quirky, quite unfathomable, quintessentially tiring. Yet a committed creator never compromises with the quality. Quantity hardly matters anyways, be it number of releases or the audience response. Without being snobbish or dismissive, how to respect the truth and one's integrity, that is the question!

Pratima@The footfall @ our blog is nearing 70, 000. Thank you, everybody! Well, I do not use any  audio-visual inputs. It is just words, words and words, to quote Shakespeare's Hamlet. Mostly, I address non-glamourous issues. Yet this sure response is heartwarming. Thank you, dear regular readers!