Category: Spotlight

By- Yati Hankar

The first question that rises is what is media? and in this world
wherever we see we find media. be it our phone, news paper, Tv, it is all the source of media, involvement of media on our daily life is done on a daily basis, it has now become a big part of virtual world as well as a big part of our lives, media has alwyas been a source of communication and a source which strengthen or weakened a country, if a media of a nation is weak, there will be very few chances for people to raise their voice against the wrong doing of the system, in many case freedom of expression is violated. where on the other hand if the media of a country is strong enough to stand by the people, the people will have the maximum authority over the country. the importance of media in today’s life is very much as we are awared about causes, addressed about happenings and assured about tensions, the media of a state works as the eye of the public, it always judges on things that is going on in and around the ststem and confronts the system to take account and define their actions. from the very early time media have been a great influence on the people it stands like a mirror and molds a society and so media can be used in various sections and thus, to define the capability of media industry is to put limit into it, today media is not only about breaking news, today at this age media is also used in promting products schemes and many other plans, media is used as a platform of political agendas, where it growing ages gradually media too has it own cons, which for a fact is actually affecting on people’s perspective, media people’s insincerity with their ethics is affecting the precievers negatively as media also has the power to influence people’s perception. and as it is very commonly stated that with great powers comes great responsibility , maybe at this younger generation media has not stood very honestly with it’s ethics like before, as in today’s most people have lost faith with media, for some the mainstream media have become nothing but a barren land of exaggeration and fake news, as till this date the future is not yet clear about the media industry it is a given that i had done a lot of gaslighting during crisis in country like india, by communalising every situation, now the mainstream media will need to look at the broader side of the story and think of making a bigger , cleaner and a little more obedient with ethic kind of industry but the real question is will the media industry actually survive if it weren’t what it is today?

By Srishti Bansal

Online Education is trending everywhere nowadays, as due to this Coronavirus everyone is locked inside their homes so it is the only thing which is helping students to continue their studies during such times. The techonolgy is upgrading itself with time and accordingly people are also evolving with it. Earlier the value of education was very less and it was not considered as necessity rather it was a luxury but now as the times are changing people value the power of education. Parents spend thousands of lakhs on their children’s education. This Corona pandemic has forced us to entirely depend upon the online mediums to stay connected and updated.

Some facts and figures;

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Online higher learning is not limited to a certain type of student. Distance education is used by students from all walks of life in almost every field of study.
• Globally over 1.2 billion children are out of classroom.
• Some of the best most popular tech tools are: Zoom, Skype, Whatsapp, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, etc.
• According to UNESCO, In India, lockdown has put 321 million children away from school.
• Byju’s app has experienced 60% surge in students using their services, which range from video lessons, live classes and interactive videos.
• Indian platforms like, Unacademy, Vedantu, Toppr are also offering free classes and content to students.
• Google and KMPG estimated that India’s online education market would be worth around $2 billion in 2021.
• New subscribers joined, a total of 25 lakh or more registered users with SWAYAM that has a repository of 1900 courses, which are being used by subscribers from over 60 countries including USA, UK, UAE, Canada, Germany, Australia, Nepal and Singapore.

# Advantages of Online Education:
• It is convenient and flexible as you can access it just by sitting at home, no matter in which part of the world you are.
• Online Education also helps in reducing cost and is very inexpensive.
• All the information needed will be safely stored in online database, which helps in documentation and also we can access the data whenever we like.
• More comfortable learning environment.
• Helps in Career advancement because students can take online courses even after completing the degree or while working.
• Improves technical skills by developing new computer skills.

# Disadvantages of Online Education:

• Online Education can cause social isolation. • Lack of practical skills development.
• Cheating prevention during online assessment is complicated.
• Online instructors tend to focus on theory rather than practice.
• Limited feedbacks by the students
• Internet connection problem can lower the browsing speed and ultimately causes disconnection.

By- Yati Hanker

By Simran Kaur

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Sometime in the second week of March, state governments across the country began shutting down schools and colleges temporarily as a measure to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. It’s close to a month and there is no certainty when they will reopen. This is a crucial time for the education sector board examinations, nursery school admissions, entrance tests of various universities and competitive examinations, among others, are all held during this period. As the days pass by with no immediate solution to stop the outbreak of Covid-19, school and university closures will not only have a short-term impact on the continuity of learning for more than 285 million young learners in India but also engender far reaching economic and societal consequences.
The structure of schooling and learning, including teaching and assessment methodologies, was the first to be affected by these closures. Only a handful of private schools could adopt online teaching methods. Their low-income private and government school counterparts, on the other hand, have completely shut down for not having access to e-learning solutions. The students, in addition to the missed opportunities for learning, no longer have access to healthy meals during this time and are subject to economic and social stress.
According to a latest report, the Indian e-learning market size was USD247 million, comprising 1.6 million users in 2016. It is expected witness an 8X growth to reach USD1.96 billion and the current user base will grow at 44 percent CAGR to 9.6 million users by 2021.
In fact, India’s e-learning market is the second largest after the US which is forecasted to grow by 15.64 percent and exceed $48 billion by 2020. Online education cost low , there has been a 175 % rise in the average annual private expenditure for general education (primary level to post graduation and above) between 2008 and 2014. During the same period, the annual cost of professional and technical education has increased by 96%. Parents spend Rs36,000 on secondary education in government school for six years, and Rs3,96,000 in private schools. If the kids are studying in boarding, the cost is close to Rs 18 lakhs. The graduation and post graduation degrees in engineering, medicine, science and commerce are unusually expensive. The aim of the government is to raise its current gross enrolment ratio to 30% by 2020. India will have the world’s largest tertiary-age population and second largest graduate talent pipeline globally by the end of 2020. However, the existing educational infrastructure is not equipped to meet the additional capacity. The e-learning can supplement the conventional model, and bridge the gap to a considerable extent.

By Muskan Mehndiratta

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The novel virus on the streets is not merely a joke. It has not only shaken the economy majorly but has majorly impacted the education of students around the globe. It is not a joke, it has already caused enough destruction, that leaders around the world have halted all non-essential industries on hold and forced people to stay indoors. For the leaders of all nations, therefore, the health of their people is of primary concern. The COVID-19 resulted in schools being shut down all over the world. Overall, more than 1.2 billion children are out of the classroom. As a result, education has changed significantly, with a noticeable rise in e-learning taking place online and on digital platforms. Though countries are at various points in their COVID-19 infection rates, there are currently more than 1.2 billion children worldwide affected by the pandemic in 186 countries. Although this is of great inconvenience to a lot of people, it has triggered a sudden increase in demand for internet learning, or we can say online education. Correspondingly, educational institutions (universities and schools) are offering online courses and a few online courses – online companies are also providing free online classes to help distinguish the effect of school and schools being shut down for the time being.

Now the question arises that Online Education, a Boon or Bane?

In this lockdown period, information technology has emerged as a superhero. We are all under house arrest, but we are still connected to the outside world. Citizens are working from home, sharing knowledge and stories, learning new recipes and DIY ideas, outdoor workouts, virtual indoor marathons and, last but not least, youngsters getting their online classes. Initially, I was not in favor of these online courses, but slowly I started to like it because it was not that boring of which i was thinking about, and it was really enjoyable, plus gained a good experience. With the uncertainty of the lockdown period , people became serious about online classes and began to see it as the future of our education system. We are coming out of our comfort zone for the first time. We have met people from various cultures and cuisines. Because of this lockdown, people learn to do stuff on their own. They make new friends, new games, new opportunities for themselves. They are learning to work as a team. They are widening their boundaries. Students across India use every technical resource at their fingertips to pursue their studies. Some of the popular tech tools that enable online learning through audio and video links include Zoom, Skype, Whatsapp, Cisco Webex, and Microsoft Teams, etc..

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This is a statestical data of Microsoft team in which around 13 million people are daily active users.

Live classes on such platforms ensure that in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic education is not obstructed. Given the audio and video capabilities that the tech devices provide, most people agree that the classroom environment and the human to human interaction can never be replaced by any technology. My personal experience with online learning has its ups and downs. A positive feature is the mute button, which helps to dissolve all the background noise and allows you to listen more clearly. Despite advances in technology, multiple disconnections would occur in an online class, forcing students to say Mam you are not audible. As online platforms seek virtual learning sessions, Lack of proximity to the graduates. Personally, I like the fun group study sessions with friends as they help us to effectively share ideas and create an emotional bond that will last a lifetime between us.

Is learning online as effective?

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There is evidence that learning online can be more efficient in a number of ways for those who do have access to the correct technology. Many research indicates that on average, when studying online , students retain 25-60% more content compared to only 8-10% in a classroom. This is also due to the students being able to learn online faster e-learning takes 40-60 percent less time to learn than in a typical classroom environment as students can learn at their own speed, go back and re-read, skipping or speeding through concepts as they want. Despite the lockdown, complexities of the Covid-19 it remains to be seen how long online learning will replace the actual teaching in the classroom.

By- Samyukta Narayanan

False and distorted news material isn’t exactly a new thing. It has been part of a media history long before social media, since the invention of the printing press. It is what sold the tabloids before.

Fake news can spread through word of mouth in traditional media and recently through digital forms of communication such as edited videos, memes, verified ads and social media propagated rumors. The damage caused due to fake news on social media has increased due to the growth of internet.

Worldwide in India, it has rised from 137 billion internet users in 2012 to over 600 million in 2019 one of the main problem is the receivers believing anything send to them over the platform due to lack of awareness.

Fake news was very prevalent during the 2019 Indian general election. Misinformation was prevalent at all the level of society during buildups of the election. The elections were called by some as “India’s first WhatsApp election”,with WhatsApp being used by many as a tool of propaganda. Facebook went on to remove nearly 1 million access a day, including one spreading misinformation and fake news before the elections.

Around 5000 social media handles from Pakistan were part of actively spreading fake news and its information on CAA, some using “deep fake videos” in the process 15,000 social media mediators worked over time to identify fake news related to CAA from platforms such as Facebook, tiktok, Twitter and helo.

India has the largest number of social media users in the world across platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, share chat and tiktok. Fake news, rumours and hate speech spread through social media have been connected to various incident of mob attacks and lynching in the country.

The government in its adversary said that coronavirus outbreak has become a global concern and it has been reported that there is a trend of circulation of misinformation and sharing anonymous data related to virus creating panic among the public.
It urged social media platform to initiate awareness campaigns on the platforms for users to not upload a circulate fake news concerning coronavirus.

WhatsApp has been dealing with fake news and hate speech for a long time, has launched a chat box in partnership with health ministry for disseminating authentic information on covid-19. The app has a feature limiting message forwarding to one chat at a time. The limit kicks in once a message has been forwarded on the platform five times, after which a message can be forwarded to either one WhatsApp group or an individual at a time.

By- Samyukta Narayanan