Traditional and Folk Media in Development Communication Role

Published Date: 16 Oct 2017

Role of Traditional and Folk Media in Development Communication

Development Communication:

Development communication is the kind of communication which is functional to the prompt conversion of a country and the mass of its people from the insufficiency to the self -moved state of economic progression that creates possible enormous social equivalence and the higher implementation of human potential this is known as the process of Development Communication.

Media:

The means of communication to the large audience through newspapers, television and radio etc.

Traditional Media:

It is the time privileged, predictable means of the mass communication which includes the mediums of communication before the dawn of internet such as newspapers, television, magazines etc. It is also known as the old way of communication.

• Role of Traditional Media in Development Communication:

Communication is the key to human development. For the development process people’s participation is the key element to the progress. Communication is the essential to the development task in many ways. For example, it permits proposers, when classifying and framing development programs and to check with people in command to take into account their requirements, attitudes and traditional information. Only with the process of communication the project recipients will become the major performers to make development programs successful and for this purpose Traditional media is a very important and operative component in the way of communication for the development process. Traditional media procedures are portion of the means of life of a community and deliver satisfactory means of fetching development issues on its own terms into the community. Media is known as the source of entertainment but with the quotient of entertainment it can be a revolutionary giant in the society. In the society media can highlight the different issues of the society and can expose the corruption and made people realize about the certain things and led them to the way of development.

Traditional media like television, newspaper is playing a vital role in the society. The attainment of agricultural development programs in many developing countries mostly depends on the nature and the magnitude of use of mass media in deployment of people for the progress in the society. Developers in emerging countries recognize that the expansion of agriculture could be accelerated with the active use of mass media in the society. Radio, Television has been much-admired to be the most operative media for disseminating the methodical knowledge to the masses. In a country like Pakistan and India, where the literacy level is very low-slung, in those countries the choice of communication media is of dynamic status. In this esteem the television and radio are the important mediums for those who cannot read, as these mediums transfer the contemporary agricultural skill to the knowledgeable and uneducated farmers alike even in the internal areas, within short period. In country like India farm and home transmission with agricultural shove were familiarized in 1966, to instruct the farmers on the usage of numerous technologies to improvement the agricultural development in their society. Media is providing rights education and building the society. Traditional media also aware the masses from social and economic levels. The very important role played by the traditional media is to educate the people. Like in Pakistan many development projects like “Prha Likha Punjab” is helping people to get education and this add is run by television and its creating awareness of education amongst the people. The programs like AUO are also run

Media is also very vital for human, development, bringing health and education material to isolated towns in the countries from Uganda to Nicaragua. But as the familiarity has shown and the freedom of the media can be delicate and simply bargained. It is quite strong that to support the growth and media need the accurate milieu in terms of liberties, dimensions, and checks and balances.

Folk Media:

The type of media which is usually used at the small cluster or local level to communicate with the society like folk choral, drum beating, native riddles, folk dancing, wall chalking, poetry of local saints and the local theaters which originate under the realm of folk media. Folk media is also known as the basic media or community media. It is the face to face communication procedure and it is very operative as the audience have the straight communication with the medium or the communicator.

• Role of Folk Media in Development Process:

Folk media is the inimitable in the nature, as it is look like the day-to-day life pattern of the rural masses. This type of media is a source of prevalent entertainment for the audience of rural areas, in addition to providing education and information to the people of the society. Countries like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh has a rich inheritance of folk art, folk tales, folk dance, classics, ballads and dramas that can be used for the development work in the society.

Folk art is a purposeful and unprompted form of art. Basic media is very beneficial to contract with the issues which is very sensitive for the society like of health, where face to face communication might not be appropriate. The folk media is used as to reach the people in the process of change and development of the country. Folk media have a extraordinary impression on the rustic society because of their adequate idioms, purposeful significance and entertainment component. Countries like Pakistan and India who have more rural areas than urban and have low rate of literacy and have intense heritage of culture, in those places, Folk media can overcome the exertion of language, dialogue, words and other communication barriers like, understanding, clarification, curiosity, attitude and perception. In India with 35 per cent of the population is uneducated and with the media’s reach principally constrained to urban areas-information, education and entertainment do not grasp a great majority of the people of the society. The Indian society is considered by a multifaceted social system with dissimilar caste, dogmas, and the communities. The rate of illiteracy and poverty in the Indian society auxiliary to the scantiness of the mass media to stretch almost 700 million people who reside in village. To those people, the mass media is demonstrated to be glitzy, objective and implausible in the contrast with the conversant recital of traditional artist with whom the people of that particular area could not only understand and hear but even touch passionately. Back in the struggle times of India these execution arts have frolicked a vigorous role in dispersion the essence of freedom movement. Many plays, street theatre took place and it helped in the revolution also.

Issues like polio immunization, family planning, Aids, construction of toilets, dowry etc which are common in the rural areas, the awareness about these issues has been promoted by this medium because this medium is common to them and effective to them For example the stories about the energy conversion, dowry etc are explained in the form of Ballad in Indian and Pakistani society. A ballad is a poem habitually set to the music and is often a story told in the form of a song. The folk arts like Dholki Baris, Loknatya, Jatra”, Keertana”, Puppetry, etc., have been used by the amount of communal personnel, campaigners, and political leaders and the developing agencies to instruct the rural masses and to broadcast innovative information. This media have created a marvelous impact within the society in persuading the attitudes of the people towards the issues in the past. But now a days things have changed the developmental authorities have loosened their attention towards the folk media and focused on the fast emerging electronic media. The new age electric communication appliances hold a strange charisma for the people involved in the development work. A perilous look at the appearances of these contemporary media reveals that virtually all of these appliances require a lot of substructure conveniences like the electricity, the computer facility, Internet connection, telephone connection etc., this type of communication remains to the people who can afford it and it is seen that the richer gets rich because who can afford these appliances the development is bounded to them only but is also a fact that as long as this form of media is esteemed, they can be kept blooming for future peers. This form of media is the great treasures of culture and tradition which helps the society to groom as well by the quotient of serious art and entertainment.