Dumbing Down (Journalism)

‘Dumbing Down’ is a term coined around 1933 by screenplay writers of motion pictures to indicate modification where language had to be simplified so as to reach a less educated audience. The slang, however, took various manifestations and eventually meant oversimplification so as to destroy the intellectual value of the final product/work.

For example, schooling, as represented by John Taylor Gatto,”were designed exactly as if someone had set out to prevent children from learning how to think”.

In the field of mass communications media, ‘dumbing down’ came into practice due to business monopoly.

Also, the movie ‘Idiocracy’ uses this concept.

Superficial writing or even complete avoidance of complex topics, that could even be vital to current affairs, can compromise the very core values of journalism, especially when the ‘dumbing down’ is done to such an extent as to alter the entire meaning, or the avoidance tends to bring ignorance rather than knowledge to the society, which is what journalism should provide. Complex topics (mostly scientific) and side-effects of ongoing politics/trade, in today’s world, tend to be assimilated into the long format of journalism – documentaries. Whilst even daily newspapers and news bulletins are losing out on audience, especially in India, documentaries are not even close to be widespread nor do they have enough competition to bring out, most of the time, good quality of narration.

Making the readers relate and understand the topic doesn’t call for speculation that oversimplification and also time constraints may cause. Journalism must be credible and this foundation stone is in itself broken down when the topic is melted beyond a true meaning. Very little analysis is offered by news when dumbed down, which denotes an auto-removal of the power of the press. Also, the other side of this phenomenon is the glitz, meaning, domination of glamour through celebrities over crime, club parties over political parties, etc. This tabloidization of standard news services is an ever-increasing epidemic of the media and the need to be curbed almost seems invisible though strongly necessary. This phenomenon also seems to grow with the orientation of capitalistic competition, to a finance-based extreme.

News has become all about who sells most; and by “who”, I mean, which channel/paper. Thereby the vision to provide the mass with insight has almost been replaced by TRPs (which on the other hand, don’t provide accurate data in India). In this internet era, web marketing is dominated by the long tail of niche markets. In the 3.0 age, media hasn’t escaped from the trend of the trade. What was little, limited and in the corner, has suddenly become abundant, both in websites and on 24 hour news channels. News has certainly died culturally with such an overrun.