THE TV screen is rapidly politicising the public. The 24/7 news channels show the actual faces of politicians, judges, criminals as well as men in uniform, including police and Rangers, on the screen.

This makes people feel the presence of remote figures in their backyard. A big change is afoot on the small screen that promises to reshape our lives.

The electronic media has influenced the national discourse. Mostly, it focuses on current issues — of a political, sectarian or an economic nature — but not on policies that carry a potential for change in the short or long term. The message is usually negative not positive, critical not promising, exclusive not inclusive, underscored by an exercise in scoring points rather than clearing the mist.

The non-policy orientation of the electronic media is combined with a pervasive leadership orientation. The PPP, PML-N, MQM, ANP, JUI and many other parties are not ‘message’ parties but ‘leader’ parties. They are known by their leaders — Asif Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, Altaf Hussain, Asfandyar Wali Khan and Fazlur Rehman. This is most typical of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf. It has a leader with a party, not a party with a leader.

TV talk shows are amazingly popular, especially as they compete with plays at prime time. The confrontationist posturing of the holders of opposite views belonging to different persuasions adds a lot of spice to these shows. Controversy and confusion, sometimes deliberately conjured up by TV anchors, lead to a cyclical logic. Indeed, confrontation is understood as entertainment.

The issues under discussion take a heavy toll on the mental health of the larger public. There are suicide attacks on Abdullah Shah Ghazi’s mausoleum in Karachi, on a police check post or a military installation. There is diplomatic tension with Afghanistan, Iran and most recently with the US after the Nato attack on a border check post. There are grisly scenes of the dead and wounded persons such as those after the Karachi killings on the first of Muharram.

Imran Khan’s threat of a tsunami is not the only reason for the prevalent confusion. There is a tsunami of depression that is engulfing the nation too. Private news channels are under the pressure of competition. They handle news and views not merely as a camera by reporting the reality on the ground but as a projector by amplifying the objects of coverage, including bloodshed.

Unwittingly, the TV screen produces a siege mentality. There is conspiracy on air. There is a latent anti-Indianism that peaked after the 2008 Mumbai attacks and a strident anti-Americanism that reached high tide after the Abbottabad operation and again after the Nato attack last week. President Karzai’s hostile posturing about Pakistan covered by the small screen has a big effect on diplomacy.

Live coverage of the recent rallies in Lahore, Faisalabad, Peshawar and Karachi led by the old and new leaders of big and small parties has indeed electrified the public imagination by making these events look larger than life. People watch haplessly as commentators make wild speculations about the prospects of rival contenders of power in the next parliamentary elections.

But the link between rallies and votes is still missing.

The TV screen has uncovered such crimes as the killing of a citizen at point blank range by a Ranger in Karachi and the shooting of a half a dozen Central Asians by the law-enforcement agencies in Balochistan. The media managed to put the latter cases at the doorstep of the courts.

While the lone English-language TV channel covers foreign news to some extent, the Urdu channels are introverted in style and substance. The TV channels operating in regional languages lack a competitive spirit. Their professional capability, public appeal and financial health remain far from satisfactory. One can speculate that the full potential of the mass media is far from being fully realised.

The international hook-up of TV channels is unsatisfactory. While they are technologically rich, their intellectual resource base should be expanded. Bollywood continues to be a major source of entertainment news. The domestic scene in arts, literature, music and drama is covered less. The sparkling debate about party politics is not cushioned by analyses of major currents of opinion.

The computer screen has joined the TV screen in bringing people into the network society. Twitter, Facebook and blogs on the Internet have led to a revolution in connectivity. The recent memogate scandal represents the way the social media picks up news and comments from the horse’s mouth. WikiLeaks have splashed up complications in the relations among top political actors.

The anchorperson is a new addition in the political lexicon of the informed public. A majority of anchorpersons provide a ‘rightist’ perspective on things. Some whip up xenophobic feelings and conspiracy theories. As initiators of discussion and regulators of screen time, they tend to shape the dialogue along a chartered path. The ‘progressive’ minority is individually strong but collectively weak.

While the media has moved forward, political parties are stuck in outmoded ways of communicating with the public. Instead of fielding brisk, articulate and communicative persons in charge of their respective media cells, the two parties in government in Islamabad and Lahore have recently brought in relatively incoherent, unimpressive and non-communicative persons. The media has long outgrown such lame ducks.

In order to deal with the massively competitive and resourceful electronic media, ruling set-ups at all levels require a strategy to benefit from its investigative potential and immense outreach. Those who control the TV screen from behind the scenes are obliged to help their viewers break out of their insular imaginary world and move into the wider regional and global frameworks of thought and practice.

The writer is a professor at LUMS.