Overview Environmental awareness and reporting on environment and development has come of age in India. Television is an excellent medium for promoting environment awareness, development, literacy, social awareness and political consciousness. Millions of TV watchers in India and other developing countries provide a tremendous potential for development communication. Unfortunately, the electronic medium is not being used sufficiently to promote the above. Instead, television has become a medium totally dominated by entertainment programmes. Television was introduced in our country in 1959 on an experimental basis, and regular broadcast started the next year. This was followed by twenty years of diffusion at a snail’s pace. The mid-eighties witnessed a sudden spurt in television diffusion. Indian television viewers multiplied four times in five years, and by 1988, the number of television watchers crossed the 96 million mark. Ironically, it was the popular soap operas that led to this spurt in television viewers. Thus began the commercialisation of television in India. Popularity of the soaps and the increase in viewership drove home the point to commercial advertisers that they could advertise their consumer products via television to a captive audience of millions of people. Besides the soaps, it was also the government’s television expansion programme and wider access to communication satellites which led to the expansion of the electronic medium. Expansion of the electronic media was not bereft of negative impacts. It gave a fillip to consumerism, widened gaps between the urban elite and the poor and it expanded at the cost of the print media and the film industry. The coming of the cable channels and the satellite network revolutionised the electronic media. A cable connection became an integral part of a home with a television. The impact of satellite channels has been debated time and again. The list of ill-effects is oft repeated and our country has gone through series of debates, seminars and discussions on this, but the onward march of satellite channels could not be stopped.
What is very obvious today is the fact that the growth of installed capacity for transmitting programmes has been utilized more and more for non-development purposes. Supreme Court Intervenes In an effort to curb this trend, on November 22, 1991, the Supreme court delivered a historic ruling. From February 1992, it ordered, India’s Information and Broadcasting Ministry must ensure that Indian TV would guarantee to broadcast one film a day on what is called ‘catching aspects’ of the environment. Four years have gone by since this directive, and do we get to see a film on any aspect of environment every day? Rarely.
Software for television
has played a significant role in influencing what people think and feel.
Software producers have a social responsibility since what they produce
influences people and their perceptions. DA’s Initiative Keeping this in mind Development Alternatives stepped into the field of television by producing a weekly television programme. BE GREEN ... THE GREEN SHOW is basically a business and environment interface programme. This programme deals with issues that are environmental in nature but are related to the activities of the industrial sector. It also suggests ways to reduce pollution and conserve our non-renewable resources. The Green Show is an area specific programme designed to promote sustainable development by drawing the attention of viewers into the process of current development and help them understand the impact of these “developmental” activities on environment. The foremost objective of DA in producing this programme is to inform, educate and also entertain with a view to create awareness among the people about the nation’s environmental problems. This show also endeavours to widen the horizon of the viewers about the gravity of the situation but to help them realise that grim and difficult though the situation is, it is possible to find ways of arresting the degradation that is taking place and reverse the process. It is not easy to help television perform the role of an initiator of change and development. Positive software planning is vital. any software which does not evolve out of some form of public participation is weak in authenticity and appeal. For DA, The Green Show is yet another tool to speed up the dissemination of environment education and awareness and a means to fight the blatant consumerism on the audio-video media with environmental messages. q |
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