The impact of television in rural development

Parthajit Borah *

A TV anchor at ISTV Network

Television has thrown the seeds of transition into the society. It moulds various effective aspects very largely and influentially. Television has assisted in the exploration of our mind and manipulation of our imaginary thinking. Television is intricately attached with our daily lives, which becomes successful in yielding much speculation on the seen objects in our mind.

According to Marshall Mc.Luhan “If the movie was the mechanism of movement and gesture TV was the electrification of the same. The innovation of satellite and cable TV has made a new revolutionary era in the field of world Television. A pioneering contribution with regard to the use of TV came from Surgeon Generals study in the U.S.A.

The Surgeon Generals report (1972) found that there was some relationship between TV use and mental ability. The pervasiveness and importance of TV now draws the attention of many researchers. The term development is entangled in this research where TV and its programme gets priority. The Impact of Television in Rural Development and particularly children and young, old people has been the subject of research ever since TV was introduced. Various studies were conducted to learn how T.V. was used by the Rural community of our country.

Many researchers have endeavoured in order to collect the attitude of Rural people towards TV and its various programmes. The effect of TV can be classified into two categories. One category comprises the influence of TV in urban areas and another category enrolls the influence of TV in Rural areas. Both have distinctions due to existence of various factors.

In India national telecasts were introduced in 1982. In the same year colour TV was introduced in the Indian market. The eighties was the era of Doordarshan with shows like “Hum Log” (1984), Buniyaad ( 1986). Mostly mythological dramas like the Ramayana (1987), the Mahabharata (1989-90) glued millions to Doordarshan. Foreign channels like CNN, Star TV and private domestic channels such as ZeeTV and Sun TV started satellite broadcasts. Starting with 41 sets in 1962 and one channel, by 1955.

TV in India covered more than 70 million homes giving a viewing population of more than 400 million individuals through more 100 channels. There are at least five basic types of TV in India, broadcast on over the air television, free to air television, free to air, direct to home, Cable Television and IPTV.

In DD National, various educational components are obtained from the contributions from varied sources like universities, such as IGNOU, UGC, CIET, SIET. In addition to this there point, Adult education Programme, Tera quiz and Bhoomi programmes on issues related to women, tribal women and other public service programmes which are broadcast on regular basis.

The Impact of Television in the rustic community is a vital condition for a wholesome transformation in the field of Education, Health, Culture, Sports, employment etc.

Television are the visionary electronic media whose influence for rapid development of villages can not be denied. Television had always encouraged people to upgrade their way of living life, taken precautions of epidemic diseases, gather people against existed injustice and deep rooted corruption. Apart from these, some social reformation become effective and possible by the intense manipulation of TV’S in the Rural context.

Many developing countries of the world like India is largely experiencing various pernicious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, TB, Cancer etc. Here TV is being used as the pioneering media to make awareness among the people of our country mainly village people. Television successfully and boldly telecast various programmes which provide information relating to the mentioned diseases, its initial stages ,symptoms, treatment.

One of the most inspirational aspects of Television is that, it reduces discrimination and hatred over the diagnosed patients. Through sundry programmes it conveys the message to embrace the Cancer patients, HIV patients, TB patients as they highly need our loveto live a common life. Only Tv’s and other print media extensively work to change the mentality of the people towards these patients. Their initiative and influential steps are considered as the weapon of social reformation. In a nut shell, they reshape our society for a novel experience, ie. humanity.

In the Rural context, TV’s always received unprecedented response from a large community of people. It is the model of the common life. Their entertainment, epitome of knowledge, sentiments for the nation, duties for the nations, political obligations etc are dependend on television and the programmes that telecast.

In reality villagers prefer to dwell in a society which seems to be more flexible and easy. They maintain communication, sharing ideas, discussion and gossiping with their neighbour and other villages. It was discovered that they maximally like to spent their leisure time by talking, gossiping under the trees of villages, in front of local stalls , in front of the verandah of village head.

In their discussion, a spell of topics automatically emerge from the TV’s where they have seen providing their valuable comments regarding the topic. Even villagers raised their voice against the most burning issues of our country.

Agriculture is the backbone of our country. The technological innovations have brought improvement in the industrial sector a lot but agriculture sector is still using traditional ways of farming. Therefore it is appealed to the policy makers of our country to use Tv’s as new developmental technology to enhance rural prosperity in our country.