By Renton de Alwis
Since
this article was written and published in January 2011, there had been many
fiascos that unfolded on television screen i.e. Japan’s nuclear plant disaster,
typhoons, gale winds, floods, school shootings, elections, anti-corruption
movements, rape victims, public outrage in the global front and closer to home,
serial murders in Kahawatte, floods,
gale winds that took away roofs, land slides, gimmickry in parliament,
development of new roads, housing schemes for solders, street goons, superstars,
cookery-stars, conflict between the three arms of governance etc. The article
explored how and why there should be more involvement of parents and the
enlightened in managing the good, bad and the ugly, seen by our children on
commercial television.
Anuradha Koirala won the CNN Hero of the Year 2010 Award, for the excellent work she has been doing since 1990 to support victims of the prostitution networks operating in Nepal and India. Her own story and the plight of the hapless Nepali women, was in an instant exposed to over 5 million viewers and created huge doses of emotional appeal among many around the world. She will for sure get more and more support for her work and that is a positive contribution of what, some call in slang the ‘idiot box’ has made in addressing a cause that needs attention.
Trapped and freed
The rescuing of the trapped miners in Chile made live network TV coverage for days and created loads of emotion. Glued to their screens, viewers from the world over felt one with the families of the miners and from their own living-rooms felt good that it all ended well. Not so, for the Chinese or New Zealand miners, who perished and only got passing coverage in the news bulletins. The plight of their families went unnoticed in the make believe world of television of ‘where they all lived happily ever after’. Today, it is a world of mega reality shows, soap operas, confession sessions and big-time winners or losers, with very little to reflect the ‘normal’ lives most of us seek to lead.
It is interesting how all that is shown in that defined space of the ‘Idiot Box’ (now extended to the computer and mobile device screens) is all about what happens far away or next door, hardly touching on those who are viewing them in the comfort of their own domains. Just recall the occasions, when your relative or friend living in Europe, US Middle-East or Japan called you on the phone, to check on a terrorist attack reported to have happened close to you during those gory days of our own conflict, of which you were yet unaware.
Come Tagged
The world saw on news on the eve of this New Year how Sydney, Australia celebrated the dawn of the New Year with fire-works and revelry, when in the very same country in Queensland a hour or so earlier, New Year dawned, with many struggling to keep their heads above the water with floods that had created unprecedented damage to their lives. They had not seen anything like it in a century, in Australia.
Disasters
are reported with varying doses of positive and negative commentary on them
depending on where they occur and what emotional response can be created in the
minds of the audience. Often they come tagged with well-documented consumer
research backing them that had tracked reactions of viewers and / or loaded
with biases that substantiate desired positions of owners of media or interest
groups they represent or support.
Cold winters in Europe, closed airports in eastern USA, water shortages in Ireland did not bother merry makers anywhere in the big cities in the world. That is no surprise for any other similar disaster or human suffering may have the same reaction from majority of viewers, unless it provided an emotional feel good of being able to donate or assist. For most, it will be “if it is not I or my family there is not much I can do” or “thank God it did not happen to us”. We must recall how most of our own city folk here in Sri Lanka went on their New Year eve revelry in 2004, just days after much of the rest of the country was devastated and hundreds of thousands of lives were lost with the Boxing Day tsunami in the region.
Greed
not need
Recall the times a programme or a telethon on greening of the world, on climate change and global warming, had been followed by strings of advertisements of the most luxurious goods that, from a pure human needs perspective, could be classified as useless or unwarranted.
Television like all other forms of consumerism thrives on research findings. It takes the form of determining preferences of viewers based mostly on emotional fulfilment and purchasing patterns. Findings are used to determine programme content development, presentation and placement of advertising. While television brings us news of what happens around the world as well as various other content it in effect, programmes our minds to positively receive that content as well.
Mahatma Ghandi’s philosophy and appeal to human kind to place ‘need before greed’, has never served as the basis for programme content development platforms of television anywhere in the world, except in the area of public television.
Towing lines
In the Sri Lankan context, since the beginning of the past decade, a significant change in programming content has taken place. Channels based on political or business affiliations have effectively polarised content and /or expressed opinions to serve predetermined positions and needs. There is a distinct polarisation between the state-run and privately-run media as well. Interestingly, claims of being independent is made by most media organisations today, when in the first place, the basis for the existence of such media is to be independent and be free of bias.
I have a
few friends who refuse to own a TV set or watch television. Some do not watch
TV as a matter of principle and focus more on reading and association for
learning. Their claim is that it allows their intellectual capacities to develop
in a rational and independent manner without being exposed to compulsion from mostly
‘faceless’ people responsible for content development for television. They
remind me that we have reached a stage when we ‘read’ our daily newspapers or
have it read for us by commentators on TV and on radio.
Restraint
and care
Yet others
do it for the sake of their children for they want them to grasp life
themselves, without being aided and abetted by that of the idiot box. While
agreeing with most of what they have to say, I am happy that I am in a stage of
my life, where I can rationally sieve the content I receive on the media and
throw away what I consider as thrash. I also must confess that I love watching
live cricket on the ‘idiot box’. With children in their early formative days, I
would agree that a strict regime of exposure may be the way to go.
In our
midst, content developers or advertisers do not seem to practise adequate restraint
on the exposure they make to children. There are advertisements placed at prime
family viewing time where children are used to endorse products or demand ‘goodies’
from their parents. They are lured by both programme and advertising content
towards generating interest in products and services unsuitable for children in
their formative years. I recall how in the 1980’s in Sri Lanka, there was
strict adherence to norms and standards of conduct set by the State for the
media, on the area of exposure for children.
A child
psychologist friend recommends that the best solution for adults will be to first
understand the true nature of the functioning of the various forms of media and
share thoughts honestly, rationally and progressively with growing children as
they gain exposure to that medium of communication. As for the very young in
their early play-education phase, the recommendation is to keep them away from
television as much as possible or exercise much restraint in exposure. With all
children, the recommendation is to facilitate as much play, interaction with
other children, regular study sessions and personal intimate interaction with them,
with less talk and more listening to what they have to say.
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