Lesson 14: Role and Impact of Mass Media on the Society
Educational Role
Right from pre independence days, attempts have been made by both Government and Private Groups to use the media for educational purposes.Dadasaheb Phalke the pioneer of Indian cinema made educational documentaries such as “The growth of Pea Plant” and “How to make film” besides fictional films. Radio experiment in the use of Radio for promoting literacy and education were conducted as early as the 1930’s.Television introduced in India by the Nehru Government with the primary aim exploiting the medium for distance education. The most ambitious attempt to exploit the mass media form education was of course, SITE (satellite Instructional Television Experiment). It sought to educate the rural people in 6 states of India above the need for family planning, improved agriculture hygiene, nutrition and health care. Today, Doordarshan devotes atleast ten percent of its telecast time to educational or enrichment programmes for farmers, school children, youth and other groups. Literate and educated people benefit much more from educational media than the less literate and educated, unless the educational oriented programmes for specifically geared to the needs, interest and levels of specific groups. This is essential condition of any educational programmer on any medium to have some kind effect. Even before groups and regions can benefit from educations through the print or electronic media, there will need to become media literate. Media literacy precedes or is simultaneous with the skill to learn from the media. The folk media perhaps much more effective in promoting the message of literacy than any of the mass media. The main thrust of the message conveyed through songs, dance and discussion was literacy. The social structure obtaining at the grass root need to be taken in account, as well as the infrastructure in the form of schools, teachers, volunteers, post literacy facilities and the caste and communal devices. A factor often over looked is the time available to agricultural and industrial workers to respond in any meaningful way to literacy drives in the media.
Participants