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The Mac Bride commission said, “Two thirds of the
illiterates I the world are women…. need access on equal terms to education,
social participation and communication if they are to share significant degree.”
This was the view of Swami Vivekananda who summed up the national problems in
India in two words - the women and the people and traced the downfall of India
to continued neglect of women and the masses. It is the vital for a nation to
have a significant involvement of women in the process of change as they
constitute around half of the population.
Through mass media have proved to be important
inputs in the process of development, the question of the role of the media in
relation to women have received little attention. The dimension of the relation
between mass media and women may be detailed as -I. Women’s media participation as functional units
of mass media.II. Portrayal of women through mass media.
Various studies conducted from time to time reveal
that exposure of women to different mass media is very low in absolute terms and
significantly lower than that of males. This obviously leads to many
disadvantages to women. In addition, illiteracy and low education excludes women
exposure to all print media. Through various studies and observations it has
also been found that no education or low education is associated to a great
extent with low exposure to other media also. In other words we may say,
education is the best singly predictor of mass media exposure.
Another important factor is the difficult access
to mass media. Though women have been put in new roles by pressure of
development, there is no reinforcing information dissemination to guide the
women to fulfill new demands put on them.
Only in 1960’s the women’s entry into journalism
began with enrolment in the few institutions providing training in journalism.
Of course, over the years, there has been an increase both in the number of
school as well as number of entrants. But only in the next stage, that of
securing jobs in media does a women face some obstacles. It is only further on
that as a working journalists, the women faces a challenge to continuing career.
Though Indian press has seen tremendous growth in recent years the participation
of women in this section has remained marginal. The bias against employing
women, revealed by various studies, is one of the reasons for this type of
situation. The press Commission, too, after a study of women in South India ,
concluded that 99percent of newspapers discriminate against women who form a
bare 3 percent of the profession although four times their number are trained
professionals .
To educate women is not only the duty of
government and educational institutions the media also have the responsibility
in this regard. Emphasis should be given by the newspapers on broaden the scope of family
welfare messages from a -macro demographic, stereotype with narrow emphasis on
sterilization to life cycle approach, population education for the young, raising the age of
marriage, safe motherhood, spacing, child survival, ante natal and post natal
care with a stress on women’s status to counteract the son preference and
promote male responsibility to share the contraceptive burden. Media activities
in the States at the peripheral level will be further strengthened and
streamlined.
With the technological advancement in every
field that too, with the launching the grassroots democratic structures followed
by enormous efforts to empower women and the spirit to spread the literacy, the
media is now in an advantageous position to meet the challenge of the uplift of
women folk.
By-
Mr. Dipankar Biswas
Faculty member, ICFAI University
Department of Education |