India
Ratheesh Kaliyadan
Most of our children abounded with media messages emerged from newspapers, magazines, TV, Radio and from
the new media. The affluent flow of messages influences their life from various
directions. Media syndrome is a major issue of city folk and even in villages,
though the intensity is lesser. Increased exposure to the media is associated
with multi-faceted problems like increasing obesity, body dissatisfaction,
aggressive behavior and many more amongst Indian children. They are growing
fast mentally and physically whom psychologists are termed now as ‘The New Kid’. It is pathetic to realize that
our children are not treated by the media world considerably. India
has least number of kids channels. Out of total only 3 percent of channels are
kids’ channels ( 17). In a country which has 550 TV channels, 77,600 newspaper
types in multiple language, 595 movie releases ( including Hindi, regional and
Hollywood releases) and so many FM channels have we ever wondered what space
have we given in a such a wide canvas to our children. According to FICCI-KPMG
Indian Media and Entertainment Industry Report 2011 “Hitting the High Notes”
the Indian media and entertainment industry grew from INR 587 billion in 2009
to INR 652 billion in 2010. The growth is registering an overall growth of 11
percent. The industry includes TV, Radio Print, cinema and gaming. The
educational and entertainment needs of a very vast population i.e. children is disregarded
in this race.
The kids’ genres of
channels are not offering much better performance is yet another reality which
we face. The children watch programmes produced for Adults. The reality shows,
the soap operas, the highly sensualized news stories are definitely not meant
for children. But they anyhow are watching them with great interest. In such an
environment, there is a wider chance to implement media literacy programmes in
schooldays. Children reach school at the age of 5 in India .
Curricular and co-curricular experiments are possible in India
environment. Sophisticated media consumers and the fact that they experience so
many medium at home would seem to be as a good reason to include it in the
curriculum than to exclude it. At national level, Central Institute for Education
and Training, NCERT, New Delhi began
an effort to make media literacy campaign. Their target audience is the
secondary and senior secondary students. The institute started Media clubs in
schools.
Government of Kerala introduced journalism course in Higher
Secondary Schools is the first attempt in India
to consider at a large. The course introduced in August 2000. Higher Secondary Education began the course
in seven schools, now the course runs in 75 schools. The growth indicates the
social demand for the course. The major drawback of the curriculum is that it
does not cover the critical thinking. If the curriculum is revisited in a
style, which promotes critical analysis of the media sector, the effort will be
the first one in India
media education history at school level.
Non- Governmental Organisations like Mediaact in
Thiruvananthapuram and Media Analysis and Research
Center Kozhikode
tried their own efforts in media literacy sector in Kerala. These are not well
framed and organized forms of activities. Lack of closely knitted curricula and
research oriented documents pull back such efforts from the mainstream.
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