When we and our NGO partners initiate community members—young
men and women from the slums and villages of India—into their
new full-time jobs as ‘Community Video Producers,’ we often
start the training sessions by drawing a triangle on the board.
‘This pyramid,’ the Video Trainer says, ‘represents the global
media.’ The Producers then divide up the triangle into different
layers—the nightly news programs at the top. Then, going down,
CNN. Then India’s Murdoch-owned English language stations. Then
India’s regional language private news stations, then India’s
national televsion, ‘Doordarshan,’ etc. etc. At each layer, a
slightly wider percentage of the global population is
represented by that particular media outlet. But never does it
appear that more than the top 20% of the global population (the
middle class and urban part of the world) find their own
representatives in the media hierarchy. Then we draw a line near
the bottom of the triangle, to illustrate the ‘bottom of the
pyramid,’ which is the 1/3rd of t