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PERSPECTIVE ON RADIO CONTENT
On the
perspective of the radio content, most of
the respondent could identity what a ‘news’
is in the radio. However, there was much
confusion on what the ‘social development’
programs were. Though, the questions and the
discussions were simplified, most of the
respondent had a hard time in explaining the
types of programs other than news. These
questions were also a core issue of
discussion on the focused group discussions
(FGDs) that were conducted in 24 locations
around the country. For ‘entertainment
programs’, almost all the respondents had
only two opinions – either the programs has
some songs or are funny. There was also not
much difference in between the rural or
urban respondents for their views on the
types of radio programs.
News
Respondents
from all regions and gender were very found
to be very much clear about the concept of
news. Certain definitions provided were:
-
To know
about new incidents is news
-
Information about new happenings and
economic developments
-
Information on any subject, any accident
or on any event is known as News
-
Flow of
information via electronic as well as
print media is news
-
News
provides information in detail
A majority
of respondents treated news as a necessity &
admitted that they listen to the news every
day. There were quite a number of
respondents, in urban as well as rural
groups, who opined that news was extremely
important, given the fact that the country
is going through a very fluid situation. In
such an unpredictable situation news is an
essential source to be apprised on issues.
Chart 34:
What do you understand by ‘news’?
Drawbacks
Some
drawbacks of news, as pointed out by
respondents were:
-
In
general, news in the Nepalese Media is
distorted
-
News
mostly favours authorities in power
-
News
sometimes acts as a tool to defame
individuals for wrong reasons.
Reliability
A high
degree of trust on local FM stations was
observed. Respondents across regions placed
local FM stations as the most reliable
source of information. Listeners also regard
BBC as a very reliable source of
information.
Entertainment
Though news
was perceived to be an integral part of
daily life, entertainment programs were also
not far behind in terms of preference. In
most of the FGDs, it was observed that
respondents felt more relaxed and
enthusiastic to discuss the topic when
switching from News to Entertainment,
irrespective of age, place of residence,
gender, caste & marital status. There was a
unanimous voice on the fact that
entertainment is important for all types of
people.
Different
respondents defined entertainment in
different manners, but a generally
acceptable definition across the board was:
“Entertainment is something that makes a
person relaxed and refreshes the mind &
body”.
Negative
Aspects
In spite of
the fact that respondents stressed on
importance of entertainment programs, there
were many who were aware of the other side.
Almost all respondents from every group had
something to say in the negative, some
common responses on which were:
-
It is
hampering the culture and tradition
-
A lot of
the entertainment based programs
encourage wrong practices such as the
promotion of western culture, mixture of
languages and inaccurate grammar.
-
People
who listen to entertainment programs
often neglect other programs, which are
actually more fruitful.
-
Children
concentrate less on studies
-
Spoils
the language
-
These
programs encourage people to try and
imitate things which are not always
right
Most of the
respondents suggested that the entertainment
based programs should also have some
information on social awareness, current
political issues, science, health and new
technologies so that all the people can be
benefitted even when they are listening to
‘only-entertainment’ programs.
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