National media plays an adverse role for students

A couple of weeks back I was watching a programme on one of the most reputed private television channels of Bangladesh; the programme was actually aired on the eve of Eid-ul-Azha. It was a drama about some teenage students of Bangladesh. While I was watching that drama, I was kind of puzzled since I could not relate the total theme of that drama with the socio economic condition of our country. The theme was completely different and I was not quite clear whether this drama was suitable for our country, or for the western countries. Our media plays a venomous role on the mentality of our students. I do not recommend that we should prevent our students from watching western programmes on various channels, but we need to be very careful about the programmes we telecast on various national television channels. If we simply look at Bangladesh Televesion (BTV) and other private channels, we can see the differences between the programmes that are being aired. Most of the private television channels now follow such programmes which are not compatible with the tradition and culture of our country. The drama programmes simply divert our young students to a different way. A western programme in a western channel means something and a western type programme in one Bangladeshi channel means something else. Surprisingly some of the words now we hear are used in these programmes which are not actually permitted to use in American channels in prime time. I have been in the US for quite a long time and I am very much familiar with the programmes and channels of that country. There are many programmes that are quite similar now what we see in our television channels; the only conceivable difference is the language. Sometimes we see some funny language; since we think that we need to mix up Bangla language with English, we use both Bangla and English in the same programme, but we do not see how funny it becomes when we present something like this. My concern is not what programmes are aired and how they are presented; my concern is that there are some programmes that affect adversely on the minds of our students and their study habit is affected negatively. Our culture and our view points are completely different; there is no way we can argue that we also possess the same attitudes what Americans do. We need to realise that if we see something that is relevant only for western countries and if we want to implement those in our country, then there would be social dilemma. Our media advises us to imitate western culture, but can we really afford that? Some of these programmes may be suitable for few people living in some certain places in our country, but the overall percentage of these people is very slim. How could we possibly think to prepare these programmes for the students and people of our country? We understand that one of the main reasons we have these programmes is business; but we do not know that we are destroying the mentality of our young people slowly and steadily, especially the teenage students. For example, there are many words we use in these dramas, but we do not even know the meaning of these. These words would be applicable for those countries, but our value does not permit us to use those words. We think those slang words would make our programmes more attractive, but we truly live in a 'world of fool' when we think something like this. Our college and school going kids try to imitate those words and consequently, deteriorate their values. Again, like western channels, our private channels have started to telecast some fashion design programmes in which they show how someone could be more attractive with western dresses and the presenter mention that now-a-days Bangladeshi boys and girls are becoming more modern through wearing these western dresses. To become a modern person does not necessarily mean that someone from Bangladesh must follow western culture. I would like to mention one channel named as 'Disney'. Young kids watch a cartoon on this channel which is now widely known as 'Doreemon". Our children can enjoy this cartoon for six to seven hours a day, because they telecast the same programme over and over again. Right now all kids are just mad about this cartoon, and most importantly they learn Hindi language through this cartoon. We see the Hindi version and this channel pays huge money to Bangladesh Cable operator and this is the reason why this channel is still available in our country. This is conceivable that how this cartoon affected our children; I have my niece, who just forgets everything if this cartoon is being played in front of her. We need to realise that we should not use our media to destroy the minds of our children. We need to be careful while operating various television channels and consequently, our government also needs to play greater role to make sure that we keep our values and tradition in upper position. Media can play a very big role to uphold the society, and at the same time it can be harmful. We should direct our media to the development of our values and culture; we should not do anything through which we deteriorate the minds of our students. Our students are our future, if they grow up with western culture, they cannot be respected as Bangladeshis in near future. The writer is lecturer at School of Business in Independent University, Bangladesh, email: sahmed@ashland.edu