Drawbacks of Alternative Media in Development: Bangladesh Context

Abstract

This article focuses on the real face of Development, Alternative Media (AM), Drawbacks of AM in the context of Bangladesh. Organizations like UN who work for Development are not in the right track since they deny problems like ‘poverty’ and ‘hunger’ as parts of Development. As a result, their projects start and end without any mentionable Development. Most experts include internet to be an AM but folk media like opera and doll-dancing never get priority. But these are found to be more effective for Development. After 90’s Internet evolved in our country that is a New Media (NM) but is not again effective since till date the percentage of internet users is very low. In the NM like Internet the voice of labour class never gets focus and that’s why it is not universal. In the NM like Facebook, Blog we see the active participation of general people and they can easily raise voice in favour or against any issue. But these cannot play mentionable role in Development. Various arguments like Mujib-Zia, Left-Right etc prove that AM is for Development, Development is not for the AM. Development comes through some root level people like farmers not through AM. Certain TV Shows like ‘Hridoy e Mati o Manush’ (Earth and man in Heart) proves that they misguide the Development stakeholders. The use of difficult words by the Development workers somehow creates a hindrance on the way to Development. Folk media like songs of Sufia, doll-dancing are more effective for Development than the so-called AM like internet. Whereas internet covers a small portion of nation, folk media covers a larger portion but the matter of fact is that folk media never reaches the ears of policy makers. That’s how AM cannot come out of its drawbacks and we need to think newly with the NM and way to Development.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n23p2229