Framing the right rhetoric!

It now seems certain the television viewers are not adept at choosing equitably. In the now popular Star ‘Voice of India’ program, 5 judges had selected 12 able and talented singers from various town and cities pan India. These finalists would render a song each week, and SMS votes were solicited from viewers to the deserving candidate.

The producers of the program assumed that
1. Discerning viewers will vote.
2. Viewers can make the right choice
3. Viewers have no bias or prejudice in casting the vote.
4. Viewers cannot be coerced to vote for any single candidate on account of caste, creed or religion.
5. The poll itself cannot be rigged.

I don't know if the producers of this show considered these assumptions & limitations from inference it looks unlikely. I am certain that there could be more assumptions than what I have cared to mention above, but hope that the few indicated above does communicate the limitations in soliciting an 'open' poll from the public.

The producers of the show should have taken care to frame the question before soliciting a poll. The term 'framing' in pschology and sociology refers to an inevitable process of selective influence over the individual's perception of the meanings attributed to words or phrases. 'Framing' defines the packaging of an element of rhetoric in such a way as to encourage certain interpretations and to discourage others.

However programs in India or producers of such programs in India are a wee bit uninformed about ‘framing’ when soliciting responses from viewers.

Infact 2 deserving contestants were shunted out for lack of votes, but were brought back in vide wild card entry. Despite this fiasco, the producers still have not gathered their wits in framing the rhetoric to solicit an equitable poll. Infact this week, one of the two contestants who were brought in vide wild card entry, were shunted out. Next week the other contestant too will be shunted out for lack of votes. Quite naturally, there will be shock and surprise by viewers and producers alike, a retake of their ‘vote out’ a few weeks ago.

In fact in a program such as this the method to be employed should involve judges grading the finalists based on song renditions. Each week the producers chose the bottom 2 contestants in the grade score. The question should then be posed to the public. “Which one of these 2 contestants performed better? For Contestant A: SMS A for Contestant B: SMS B”. This process can be duplicated every week till the final 2 contestants.

Not everybody in the real world is a clear thinker sometime there is a clutter of information and not everybody can look through it. This is not to say people are daft; but it goes to say some look at it better than others. So choosing and framing the rhetoric is essential to curtail limitations and assumptions to reflect an accurate affirmative.

A similar case was raised a few years ago by Pakistan to conduct a plebiscite in Kashmir; raising the rhetoric ‘let the people of Kashmir decide if they would like to join with Pakistan or remain a part of India’. India moved this motion to the UN, and UN officials rejected this rhetoric on the grounds that the present populace in Kashmir does not reflect the actual populace so a plebiscite would not be an accurate representation of the people’s choice.