Bangladesh's Changing Mediascape: From State Control to Market Forces
400
Bangladesh's Changing Mediascape: From State Control to Market Forces
400eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
The book is a collection of essays that provide an in-depth understanding of the changing Bangladesh mediascape. The essays focus on, respectively, specific media (television, radio, film, the press and photography), policy issues and the challenge of the new media to governance in an emerging and developing nation faced with innumerable economic, social and physical problems. The book deliberately avoids the development communication model and argues that market forces rather than planned state interventions will contribute to a more equitable communication environment for Bangladesh.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783201259 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Intellect Books |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 400 |
| File size: | 9 MB |
About the Author
Brian Shoesmith is Adjunt Professor of Communication and Contemporary Arts at Edith Cowan University, Australia
Jude William Genilo is Head of the Media Studies and Journalism Department. University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB)
Brian Shoesmith is Adjunt Professor of Communication and Contemporary Arts at Edith Cowan University, Australia
Jude William Genilo is Head of the Media Studies and Journalism Department. University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB)
Read an Excerpt
Bangladesh's Changing Mediascape from State Control to Market Forces
By Brian Shoesmith, Jude William Genilo
Intellect Ltd
Copyright © 2013 Intellect LtdAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78320-125-9
CHAPTER 1
Bangladesh's Changing Mediascape: An Introduction
Brian Shoesmith Edith Cowan University/University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh
Jude William Genilo University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh
The global information economy arrived late in Bangladesh. Until the mid-1990s, Bangladeshis had little choice when it came to television, radio, or telecommunications. The press was an exception with a thriving newspaper culture; on closer examination though it was found to be composed of a large number of titles with little circulation that were almost exclusively bound to Dhaka. The circuit breaker in this scenario occurred outside the national borders of Bangladesh when India's Supreme Court discovered that the state did not have Exclusive control of the ether, and there was a tremendous escalation in the number of satellite television stations making programs available to an ever-increasing number of viewers. The issue with satellite broadcasting is that it can both transgress and transcend political borders. This is precisely what happened in the case of Bangladesh. By the mid-1990s Indian television was available to anyone in Bangladesh rich enough to purchase a satellite receiver dish. The audience for Indian soaps, Bollywood films, and cricket in Bangladesh increased with the introduction of cable TV, which, though initially illegal, allowed the middle class to access a whole new world. In short, the introduction of satellite broadcasting revolutionized the Bangladeshi mediascape in a number of ways. This book sets out to chart the changes that have occurred in Bangladesh media; their expansion on all fronts; the increased official concerns about the possible social, economic, and political impact of the changes; and the ways in which audiences have responded to the changes in a number of, often mutually contradictory, ways. The mediascape the authors describe and analyse in this book may take some observers by surprise as it is expansionary and dynamic, taking existing media technologies and forms and shaping them to a particular Bangladeshi sensibility where Islam and secularity, pre-modernity and modernity, and nationalists and internationalists compete for the attention of a huge and rapidly modernizing audience.
Yet Bangladesh is still best known in the West for either its natural disasters, such as cyclones followed by flooding, or its perceived, deeply embedded poverty. Indeed, in a recent episode of Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey devoted to Bangladesh, the English celebrity chef articulates a view widely dispersed throughout the world when he says, 'The only news I had of Bangladesh before I came here was of cyclones that kill large numbers of people'. He leaves the country with an entirely different perspective. He is struck by the resilience of the people, their diligence, cheerfulness, and ability to adapt to circumstances. Nevertheless, it can be difficult to dispel the negative views so firmly entrenched in the popular discourses relating to Bangladesh expressed in the mainstream western media.
There are, of course, several alternative discourses that can be deployed when discussing Bangladesh. These ways of speaking may be categorized into the internal and the external. Bangladeshis speak of themselves and their country in a variety of ways, ranging from the intensely nationalistic with an emphasis on the War of Liberation in 1971, to the discourse revolving around the glories of the Bengali language and culture. Other views focus on religion arguing that Bangladesh is an Islamic nation and should be governed accordingly. Such a view is sharply contested by the secularists, and the recent debate about the Fifth Amendment of the Bangladeshi constitution epitomizes this particular disjuncture. The point here is that these world views are articulated in the local media, which is avidly consumed in all its forms by local audiences. Indeed, the Bangladeshi media is an anomaly when compared to the international media insofar as all media forms are increasing rapidly in their production and reach. By contrast, the international media has a quite limited view of Bangladesh. Few of the major international media outlets maintain a presence in Bangladesh (there are of course exceptions such as the BBC, VOA, and Radio Veritas International) and when they do their reporting it is generally confined to Dhaka, the capital city. Thus international news about Bangladesh is limited and tends to contribute to the discourse of natural disasters, or political corruption that positions Bangladesh as the eternal recipient of the world's development largess. What this book seeks for Bangladesh media and society is to establish the fact that the situation is far more complex than the simplistic accounts found in the international media and that this complexity requires a new discourse where we may talk about contemporary Bangladesh acknowledging its strengths and weaknesses. We call this 'the discourse of change'. From any perspective, we find Bangladesh undergoing a transformation; it is indeed a nation in transition.
It would be foolish in the extreme to deny that compared to many other nations Bangladesh is confronted by a range of seemingly impossible problems to solve, ranging from a volatile and partisan political system that shapes much of the internal debate about a future Bangladesh to the poverty of the majority of its citizens, a hostile climate, and difficult geography, not to mention a fundamental divide between city and countryside and the creation of a megalopolis based on Dhaka, a city that seems incapable of building a suitable infrastructure to service its soaring population. And yet, given these problems Bangladesh is changing, especially with regard to the new communication technologies. As Willem van Schendel observes,
[t]oday the Bangladeshi middle classes have ... become enthusiastic participants in global cyberspace: numerous Bengali fonts are now available on line, and Bangladeshi websites and discussion groups are multiplying rapidly.
The speed with which independent Bangladesh has forged transnational links is breathtaking. (2009: 231)
Clearly we agree with this view, especially the significance van Schendel accords to the means of communication in achieving change. In many respects, the discourse of change we are exploring seeks to provide the details missing from van Schendel's tentative map of a transforming Bangladesh. This book aims to negotiate the established discourses discussed above in order to create a new paradigm, one revolving around the twin axes of resilience and modernity and how they are articulated in the media.
Resilience is a difficult concept to convey in the abstract, especially when applied to a nation. At the completion of the Liberation War in 1971, when it was clear that Bangladesh would emerge as an independent nation from the furnace of civil war, Henry Kissinger infamously observed that Bangladesh was a nation condemned to failure and so it seemed. Devastated by the liberation struggle, many of its finest minds were slaughtered in a paroxysm of ethnic hatred on the part of the Pakistani military; confronted with a serious lack of infrastructure and subject to massive natural forces in the forms of floods and cyclones few anticipated Bangladesh surviving as an independent entity. Over the years, Bangladesh has figured conspicuously in the various international indices for 'failed states', 'corrupt states', and so on. These conditions elicit compassion among the sympathetic observers and international aid has been forthcoming since the country's inception, in private form such as the 1971 'Concert for Bangladesh' organized by George Harrison, and through government-to-government aid and international NGO (INGO) interventions. This has led to the formation of an aid-dependent culture, particularly at the state level where a government seemingly abdicates its responsibilities to provide citizens with basic human and social rights, leaving the field clear for the NGO sector to step in. Interestingly, there are an estimated 2100 officially recognized NGOs in Bangladesh, ranging in size from single-issue organizations with few staff such as the Acid Survivors Foundation to huge organizations such as IDP. Even more interesting is the possibility that local indigenous organizations are more successful in achieving their aims than the INGOs. BRAC (Bangladesh Research and Communication) has become an international player in its own right with operations in Africa (Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, and Liberia), South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), and Haiti, as well as providing a huge range of services locally, from microcredit to project planning and the creation of a well-respected private university. However, from our perspective the best example of resilience at any level is the work of Grameen Bank and its pioneering work in providing microcredit to rural women, undoubtedly on the lowest rung in, Bangladesh's social hierarchy. It is this ability to survive in the face of adversity that characterizes modern Bangladesh. It should also be noted that not everyone shares our view of Grameen; the Awami League (AL) government removed the Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus from his position in 2012 as Chair of the organization on the grounds of age. Yunus was 71 years old; the minister announcing the dismissal was 73! Clearly another agenda was at work, one that in some respects blights Bangladesh, the deeply rooted partisan politics that dominates Bangladesh political discourse.
Modernity is another notoriously difficult concept to define. In the context of Bangladesh, it refers to an accommodation of western political, social, economic, and technological processes by the local elites. Bangladesh possesses a form of Westminster parliamentary democracy, housed in a towering parliamentary building (designed by Louis Cahn, high priest of architectural modernism) and built from prestressed concrete.
In addition, there is a legal system with a supreme court, high court, and lesser courts supported by an administrative model inherited from the British with its cadre of officers selected through competitive examination. All of these are part of the legacy of colonial rule, which in many respects was the harbinger of modernity in Bangladesh. In addition to these, other manifestations of modernity include a stock exchange, a railway system, and a moribund national airline. These examples seem to sit upon an older culture, tolerated but not totally integrated into everyday life, despite the passion expended on partisan politics. There are, however, other aspects of modernity that have been embraced with vigour, such as the automobile, the mass media, and the new communication technologies, especially the mobile phone.
In 1947, Dhaka was a small provincial city of some 100,000 people then, when Pakistan was created, it became a regional capital. Its layout betrays its origins. Confined by rivers and swamps Dhaka is a remarkably flat and compact city that has expanded beyond its capacity to meet the needs of its inhabitants. Its original infrastructure is unable to cope with the strains placed upon it by a population rapidly approaching 15 million and rising. The clearest indication of this is the roads that are jammed beyond capacity. Driving from one suburb to another becomes an ordeal, often taking hours for a journey that should take minutes. Buses, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, CNGs (auto rickshaws propelled by natural gas rather than petrol), rickshaws, and pedestrians all jostle for the limited space available on the Dhaka roads. And still, the number of cars increases. The daily chaos of the roads forces the government to consider action: building overpasses at critical junctions, for example, or developing plans for an elevated road system, somewhat like Bangkok, and a subway. Money is made available and the studies done, but the chaos gets worse, presenting the negative side of modernity. Surprisingly, given the conditions on the roads and the increasing number of cars, pollution is not as bad as one would expect, largely because the CNGs were converted to run on condensed natural gas rather than petrol in the early 2000s. Furthermore, the cycle rickshaws, which are an ideal form of public transportation in a flat city like Dhaka, help to reduce pollution but contribute hugely to the congestion. Consequently, there are plans to reduce the number of rickshaws so as to free up roads for cars.
The mass media in Bangladesh is a burgeoning market. At the beginning of the 1990s, there was one television station that was perceived to be little more than the mouthpiece of the government in power. There was one radio station, Bangladesh Betar (radio), which broadcast on the AM spectrum and covered the nation. There was a moderately successful film industry and no satellite TV. Dominating the sector was the press. Traditional elite Bengali culture has always been a literary culture (van Schendel 2009: 251), and newspapers have played a key role in many aspects of contemporary Bangladesh. In the 1950s and 1960s, they played a critical role in the language movement that underpinned the demand for independence for East Pakistan. In the 1970s and 1980s they played a muted role in opposing the excesses of the military dictatorships, and in the 1990s they led the way for the reintroduction of parliamentary democracy. In contemporary Bangladesh there are over 300 newspapers published in Bengali and English, representing every conceivable shade of political opinion. This link between the press and politics has meant an uneasy relationship between the two. At times, censorship has been rigorously applied, and journalists have been mistreated and murdered. Nevertheless, despite these impediments newspaper and magazine production has continued to grow and political and cultural debate has been conducted vigorously. One aspect of the profusion of this type of media is the fact that many titles have incredibly small readerships, which raises questions about the need to publish. Moreover, when we look at the circulation figures for Prothom Alo, the most popular Bengali-language publication (it is approximately 400,000 per day), we must also ask questions about influence. Underpinning much of the publishing activity is an assumption that publication equates to political influence but when we see that the actual numbers are so small in relation to the total population (currently in excess of 160 million), this influence may be illusory. It also raises questions about the relationship between the press and the electronic media.
As late as 1997, Bangladesh had only one television station, Bangladesh TV (BTV), whose scope was confined to Dhaka and a number of major regional cities. The Bangladeshi authorities seemed to view television through two contradictory lenses. The first saw TV as being too expensive for a developing nation in South Asia and consequently chose to confine its presence to the major cities, leaving radio and other developmental media to cater for the mofussil (countryside). At the same time authorities were suspicious of the medium, which was seen to have the capacity to trivialize and divert people's attention away from authentic Bengali culture as well as entertain people rather than improve them. Consequently BTV became the mouthpiece of the cultural elites and the politicians.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Bangladesh's Changing Mediascape from State Control to Market Forces by Brian Shoesmith, Jude William Genilo. Copyright © 2013 Intellect Ltd. Excerpted by permission of Intellect Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Bangladesh’s Changing Mediascape: An Introduction – Brian Shoesmith and Jude William Genilo
Chapter 2: From Few to Many Voices: An Overview of Bangladesh’s Media – Brian Shoesmith and Shameem Mahmud
PART I: Histories
Chapter 3: The Transformation of the Bangladesh Press – Shameem Mahmud
Chapter 4: Radio in Bangladesh: Growth, Decline and Transformation – Jude William Genilo, Bikash Ch. Bhowmick, and Brian Shoesmith
Chapter 5: Rickshaw Puller’s Dreams: From a Cultural History to an Economic Geography of Bangladesh Popular Cinema – Zakir Hossain Raju
Chapter 6: Mu- lafhireejawa (back to the root): Photojournalism and Documentary Photography in Bangladesh – Norman Leslie
Chapter 7: Fragile Fourth Estate: A history of Censorship in Bangladesh (1972–2012) – Naeem Mohaiemen
Chapter 8: Media Law in Bangladesh – A B M Hamidul Mishbah
PART II: Social and Political Contexts
Chapter 9: Negotiating Identity: Islam in the Films of Tareque and Catherine Masud – Juditha Ohlmacher and Anis Pervez
Chapter 10: Women in Bangladeshi Soap Operas: Myth or Reality? – Monami Haque
Chapter 11: ‘Digital Bangladesh’: Technology, Inequality and Social Change – AJM Shafiul Alam Bhuiyan
Chapter 12: Narratives on Digital Bangladesh: Shared Meanings, Shared Concerns – Jude William Genilo, Shamsul Islam, and Marium Akther
Chapter 13: A Political History of Television in Bangladesh – Brian Shoesmith, Shameen Mahmud, and S M Shameem Reza
PART III: Media Practices
Chapter 14: The Profile and Activity of Citizen Journalists: A Study on Bangla Blog Community – Fahmidul Haq
Chapter 15: Independent Cinema in Bangladesh: Its Roots, Growth, Challenges, and Opportunities – Fahmidul Haq and Shanthi Balraj
Chapter 16: Politics of Restraint: The Media and the Chittagong Hill Tracts – Hana Shams Ahmed
Chapter 17: Television, Discursive Spaces, and the Public Sphere of Bangladesh – Jude William Genilo and Ashik Mohammad Shafi
Chapter 18: Public Relations in Bangladesh: Past Discourses, Future Trends – Jude William Genilo and Imtiaz Ahmed Chowdhury
Chapter 19: Challenging the Hegemonic Gaze: Women and Representation in a Cross-cultural Context – Caitlin Harrison
Chapter 20: Conclusion: A Final Word on Market Forces and the Bangladeshi Mediascape – Brian Shoesmith and Jude William Genilo