Darwinism and the Newspapers of Mumbai

Weird title for a post eh? the article goes with the title, but first, about today. Another average day of college, again, I managed to impress the hell out of prof, and made him laugh at the same time by telling the content of what I have just written here. So woohoo... had good food at vrindavan. And i haven't blogged for twenty four hours now... because of a projects. Will not let that happen again. Have around five more things to blog... but first, Darwinism and the Newspapers of Mumbai


This was initially written as a serious article to suggest the study of mass media from a radically different perspective. But this particular perspective was so radically different that somewhere down the line, the entire thing acquired a comic feel to it, and has finally reached the uncomfortable in-between, so take it as you want it.
Darwin’s theory of evolution is probably the most misunderstood and underrated theory in science. It is a pity that such a beautiful theory is restricted to the single subject of biology, when the same basic principles of Darwinism can be applied to almost everything else in the universe. This is because of the simple fact that everything in the universe evolves over time (not only organisms), and when this happens, it follows the characteristic ways in which biological evolution operates. The study of subjects as diverse as physics, astronomy, sociology and even philosophy from the Darwinian perspective is unfortunately, an unexplored concept. Here, a few Darwinian concepts are successfully applied (I hope) to study as ludicrous a subject as the newspapers in Mumbai:

Over production
There is this tendency amongst all animals to produce more offspring than is required for the survival of the species. For example, domestic pets such as Cats and Dogs regularly bear six to twelve offspring in every litter. The fruit fly lays around two hundred eggs at a time. The purpose of this tendency is to increase an organism’s contribution to the gene pool, which ensures that the number of descendants of an organism are greater.
The recent flurry of new newspapers from the Times group is the best example for this. In the early days of the DNA campaign, the Times used the similar theme of people’s mouths taped shut, as part of their campaign for Maharashtra times. When their youth mag, JLT began losing what was hitherto an equal battle with the other popular youth mag, JAM, the times launched nGage marketed as a travel journal, but which cleverly also served the purpose of being a cheaper youth mag, that conveniently ate its way into the youth mag market. This gave Times an added advantage in that field, and retained some of its losing readership.
The launch of Mumbai Mirror coinciding with the launch of Hindustan Times and DNA only reinforces this concept. The Times Group is essentially bringing in a new newspaper to compete with every other newspaper. They are bringing in more newspapers than what is necessary to stay in the game, which ensures that they are major players for the foreseeable future.

Genetic variations
Animals and plants show variations. The favorable variations catch on quickly and spread throughout the gene pool of that organism. The neck of the giraffe which grows increasingly long to compete with the other herbivorous animals of the region is a perfect example of this. All of us must have also heard about the trees in the rain forest which compete with each other to out-grow the other so as to receive the maximum sunlight.
The same is applicable when it comes to newspapers. Anything that sells spreads like wildfire amongst all the newspapers, and the ones that do not accommodate the new trend lose out in the race. A suitable example would be the extent of the depiction of explicit material. Whether it is the language used or the pictures employed to illustrate the point (if there is one beyond the existence of the pictures themselves), the newspapers are in a frenzied competition to out perform each other. The amount of body covered by clothing is exponentially decreasing across all the newspapers.

Survival of the fittest
Probably the most famous phrase by Darwin, and therefore the most misunderstood.
This means that only those organisms with favorable variations will survive, the ones with unfavorable variations will eventually die out.
It is not the strength, or the attractiveness or the capacity of an organism that matters when it comes to the definition of the word “fit”, but instead, merely any reproductive advantage that an organism acquires. A strong Sheep is not as “fit” as a weak sheep with more babies. Even amongst students of biology, this is a grossly misunderstood concept, and amazingly enough, the newspapers in Mumbai illustrate it better than any biological organisms can.
It is widely agreed that the Indian express, the Hindu, and HT are all more news-centric and content driven newspapers than Mid Day or Times of India, and yet, the Times has the most readership. This is because the Times caters to the sentiments of the Mumbai public, which is definitely not very news-centric. There is a craving for scandal, a need for sensationalism, a desire for the razzmatazz amongst the public, and the newspaper that satisfies this sells more than something that fails to be something more than a mere “news” paper. It is therefore, the survival of the fittest, but the fittest are the papers that sell the most, not the ones that have the most content. The same applies to organisms as well.


Struggle for existence.
There is always competition between organisms for the same resources in the local environment. This is because, due to overproduction, a large number of organisms have to share the same area, food, water, shelter etc. The number of organisms increase constantly, but the natural resources roughly remains the same, and competition arises because of this.
Similarly, there is obvious competition between the newspapers of Mumbai for the readership, which is limited to the population. The big players like The Times Of India, Hindustan Times, Daily News and Analysis, Mumbai Mirror, Mid-day and the relatively smaller players like the Indian Express, the Asian Age, Afternoon, the Free Press Journal, the Daily post and the Hindu are all competing with each other for the same english readership.
Darwinism propounds three manners in which this struggle for existence takes place:
(i) Intraspecific struggle
(ii) Interspecefic struggle
(iii) Environmental struggle
Intraspecific struggle: This takes place between two organisms of the same species. Say when two sheep fight for natural resources.
The launch of Mumbai Mirror might have an unintentionally eaten into the readership of the main newspaper of the Times group, the TOI, just as the cheaper nGage might have captured some readership from JLT.

Interspecefic struggle: This sort of struggle for existence takes place between organisms of different species, say between a Sheep, a Horse and a Cow for the same grass.
An obvious parallel here is the large number of newspapers that are competing with each other for the same readership.

Environmental struggle: All organisms struggle against drastic changes in the environment. For example, Sheep, Horse and Cows all have to struggle against natural disasters like famines, floods and earthquakes.
There has been a drastic change of environment, which the newspapers are struggling against. Although the readership has gone up because of the increasing population, faster, better ways of obtaining news have emerged. The radio and television are obvious competition, but the Internet as a source of news is only just setting into the common mindset of the people. Not only is a vast amount of information available, the news is also unbiased and does not have a political undertone to it like most newspapers. E-newsletters are fast catching on, and deliver news right to your inbox. Blogs as a source of topic-specific news is as yet an untrusted source, but has untapped potential which will soon be felt with its full force.

Origin of species.
After certain variations exaggerate over generations, the organisms appear so different, that a new species can said to have evolved. For example, in the distant past, when Sheep, cows and Horses all looked roughly similar (probably a small deer like animal) the variation in the hooves, horns and other body parts became so intense that eventually new organisms evolved.
Newspapers can also be classified depending on factors like their content, format, size etc. unique groups of newspapers have thus emerged. Some newspapers like Mid-Day and Afternoon are classified as afternoon papers because they are printed and distributed later in the day than the morning papers. Tabloids that take particular pains to portray the more shocking aspect of life have emerged with a distinct identity. There are the dailies and the weeklies.

In conclusion, I would like to illustrate the larger point being made here; the argument that Darwinism is wasted if it used merely for the study of the evolution of different species. Darwinism may as well be the Grand Unification Theory (GUT) everyone is looking for.