It is an acknowledged fact that with the individual moral standards declining and people becoming more tolerant and accepting, the moral standard of the society as a whole also declines, the reason being that the society is the sum total outcome of the individuals’ behaviour and response to the surrounding environment. In earlier times the most effective solution used to be the parental warnings which were intended to reduce the obnoxious impact of vio- lence and indecency among children. However, with the rising level of computer literate children parental warnings and rating systems are equally ineffective when many par- ents are apathetic regarding what their children watch. This apathy is another sign of the rapidly declining state of morality as a result of parents not caring to protect their children from indecency and intentionally or unintentionally accepting it. Since media is one of the most significant con- stituents of the society in the present era, therefore it too has not remained untouched by the noxious effects of the declining standards in the society. The electronic and print media including the movie industries be it the Hollywood, Bollywood, Tollywood or the Lollywood, the abject state of morality in allowing the indecency, pornography, obscenity, and violence to saturated levels is quite obvious. It would not be wrong to state that the majority’s demands are met by a subservient media, giving them whatever they want, thus in a way partnering the measures towards promotion of degrading values and morals in the society. Electronic media as of today is the most pervasive means corrupting the society in terms of moral values as it is quite easily available in every home, so much so that even a child, not yet able to read, can access and be affected by the elec- tronic media sitting at homes. A thorough analysis of the developments so far as development of media is con- cerned reveals that the shift began in the western world with transformation of print media offices from cozy, lived- in pigsties with empty coffee cups, overflowing ashtrays and scissors and glue strewn all over to the present-day operation-theater level cleanliness and glamour. Once the very dominant media was got manipulated and used for propaganda against targeted populations. In such situa- tions people get daily encountered with half-truth which is as good as a lie, disseminated by the media as per the directions of respective mentors and sponsors. Since US is considered to be the most developed and progressive nation it is an irony that the rest of the world media is con- tinuing to follow the US trend without proper application of mind especially in context of the local factors in their respective areas. It is pertinent to mention here that from its responsibilities as the fourth estate, the Western media has become a lap dog of Western governments to communi- cate corporate policies. Journalism is now taught in US uni- versities as communications for corporate interests and public relations. Thus there continues to be commercializa- tion and vulgarization of the global media with even nation- al interests taking a back seat just to appease the vested interests and go on making quick bucks especially after 1980s, when the pressure from the West dominated insti- tutions like the IMF, World Bank and U.S. government resulted in deregulation of privatize media and communica- tion systems. This coincides with new satellite and digital technologies, resulting in the rise of transnational media giants in the West who play the shots as per their monetary and sometimes political interests. Today, almost five Internet conglomerates including You Tube, Face book and now twitters control 90 per cent of the terrestrial and cable audience and these need to follow the optimum ethical standards to make the world a better place to live in. The whole world needs to acknowledge the fact that United States constitutionally having the most free press or media in the world is witnessing unmanageable troubles due to such a concentration of media power by any standard of democracy. This has resulted in the decline of the US democracy standards with danger of industry, energy, entertainment and other corporate conglomerates hijacking the nation. Therefore it is high time that the developing world including India takes lesson from the situation and initiates serious measures to balance the unfettered free- dom to maintain the optimum ethical standards leaving no scope for further corrupting the society.
