What would have the role of media for consumer protection and welfare?
Answers
Media in all its form, print or electronic, is a mirror of the times and society we live in. It connects us to the world and the world to us. Media plays a very useful role in setting up good or amicable relations between traders and buyers. It has become a silent opinion maker and hence, it is working on a larger plane than any other institution.
So, it is important that media should work in a judicious manner.
Some suggestions for what should be the role of media for consumer protection and welfare against various exploiting elements are as follows
(i) An independent and free media is necessary in a democracy as it ensures the accountability of the government.
(ii) The media should play its role in empowering the consumers through consumer education and also highlighting various unfair trade practices resorted to by the traders and service providers.
(iii) There has to be a check on misleading
advertisements, however, the media has to self regulate itself.
(iv)The print media should have regular columns which should contain the various decisions of the consumer courts.
(v) The Departments of Journalism and Mass Communication in various Universities may include Consumer Protection and Consumer Welfare in their syllabus for under graduate and post graduate courses.
(vi)In order to disseminate information about consumer rights by organising various campaigns on this, the new media can serve as an effective platform.
In the current past, media has undertaken the job of consumer education and fighting against exploitation of consumers.