Harmful Effects of Satellite Television or Invasion of Our Skies - Essay, UPSC MAINS | Course for UPPSC Preparation - UPPSC (UP) PDF Download

Harmful Effects of Satellite Television or Invasion of Our Skies

structure

(1) Opening    —    Graphically depict scenario.

(2) Body    —    Satellite TV has reached millions of Indians.

    —    There is no control over what is beamed.

  —    Attract viewer’s attention; lot of glamour and glitz. Advertisements to entice customers creating materialist culture. Also, lot of dissatisfaction in the minds of middle and lower middle classes. A feeling of deprivation. Lust for money. Creating competition and social tension.

   —    The serials are made in USA totally unsuitable to and unconnected with Indian realities, society and its values. A sort of cultural invasion. An overdose with no time given to think and decide.

 —    Kissing, exposure with skimpy clothes, Hippy culture, even racist undertones. Our culture and tradition being ignored.

 —    India presented as an exotic oriental land perhaps still in the age of kings with lavish lifestyles, magicians, black magic, snake charmers. Not bad as such but presentation fails to present the vigour and vitality of the culture. More looked down upon as superstitious, ritualistic society untouched by science, democracy etc.

 —    News is biased and is harmful, creating bad effect on people. No sensitivity to India’s problems. On pretext of truth, facts are presented which further create gulf.

  —    Good effects—outlook broadened awareness generated, entertainments, sport’s interest, scientific information etc.

(3) Closing    —    Need for regulation. Depends more upon the viewers outlook, mental capacity to understand select and assimilate.

A new type of revolution is taking place in India—a revolution in Television Broadcasting. One can see dish antennas in every colony. Even in the remote areas of Rajasthan and North-East, people have not remained unaffected by this phenomenon. STAR TV, BBC, Zee TV, and numerous other TV networks are vying with each other to catch viewers. This widespread advent of satellite television has been aptly termed as an ‘invasion of our skies’. The soap operas and serials transmitted by these TV stations have become a national craze.

But this uncontrolled and unregulated entry of these TV networks is proving to be very harmful in a number of ways. It is true that it is also creating some positive effects, but the negative effects outweigh the positive ones. The serials and soap operas are set in a completely different cultural milieu. They are completely unrelated to and unconnected with the realities of the Indian society. The relations they depict, the life style they show are alien to our culture. While, there is no harm in knowing more about their culture and understanding it, it becomes 

very harmful if same is tried to be copied here. The youth and children who are very impressionable, learn wrong things and try to mould their relations accordingly.

Another aspect is the lack of sensitivity for our cultural values. Passionate kissing scenes, love making, skimpy clothes worn by women, Hippy culture, alcohol consumption etc. are things which are degrading our moral values. Our traditions, our values are being forgotten in the glamour and glitz of the shows. Exposure of women’s body may be very usual for them, but in our country, it is used to degrade womenhood, abuse and attack them. College students are trying to play the roles of the actors and actresses of serials, in their real life.

High voltage advertising with the sole purpose of enticing customers is spreading the menace of materialism. While materialism is certainly needed to some extent, unabashed materialist tendencies only breed lust and greed. They create social tension especially because most of the Indians are poor. And the glamour of advertising affects the people of lower middle class and poor people most adversely. It creates dissatisfaction and feeling of deprivation amongst them. Since, there is hardly any regulation of what is being transmitted, there is a very blatant display of wealth and lavish life style. India is not yet ready for it.

A clearly visible western bias against Asia, Africa in general, and India in particular can be observed. India is presented as an exotic land of peculiar animals and plants, of black magician and snake charmers, a land where kings live a lavish life style, people are superstitious and ignorant and still unaffected by democratic and modern scientific thoughts. India is presented as a “wow” land as if one is seeing some strange animal in a zoo. The west is depicted as superior, democratic, humane and what not. The super humans like Spider man, Superman, Mandrake, Phantom whose animation film etc. are shown, are depicted to carry `white man’s burden’. The racist undertones cannot be ignored.

Alongside is the presentation of news reports. The role of India’s S&T programmes like space, atomic energy, missile is distorted. The security forces are shown to abuse human rights. Terrorists are depicted as freedom fighters. India’s map is shown which presents Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh as outside India. Also the care and precaution that have to be taken regarding presentation of news of riots etc. are ignored. In the guise of fair and impartial news presentation, misleading facts are presented, gory scenes are shown and these further inflame passions. There is no sensitivity shown regarding India’s problems of multiplicity of cultural, religious and regional groups whose interest might clash. India ‘s point of view and stand regarding international events are not properly presented.

All this shows that unabated invasion of our skies and our drawing rooms by these TVs is creating problems which should be confronted soon. One can gain lot of knowledge from these TVs, become more aware, learn new things and get wholesome entertainment. Sports can get a boost too. But all these gains are possible only if the viewer has a well developed capacity to understand, select and assimilate what is relevant to his needs. Since most of the masses do not have this capability, it is important that what is being fed to them is properly scrutinised and monitored. This does not mean censorship rather it means that only the very best should reach the masses.