RADIO SHOW: Promote Your Own Districts Digitalization & People’s Perspective

LOK LHAR RADIO SHOW

Promote Your Own Districts Listen and Unlearn

Digitalization & People’s Perspective

Is there a bias in favor of large Urban Cities?Can media represent People?Is community media an answer from consumer perspective?
Discussion about digital revolution from people's perspective
10 Websites of Punjabi Districts and its impact
Listen the Program recorded at 28th September 2015 Monday 4 to 6 PM in Lhore Station of Mast FM 103

Need to change media preferences from people/consumer angle

Guests: Tahir Mehdi Lok Sujag & Mukhtar Ahmad Ali, Information Commissioner Punjab

Faisalabad, Pakpattan, Vehari, Nankana Sahib, Jhang, Chiniot, Okara, Khanewal, Toba Teak Singh and Sahiwal. You can visit websites athttp://sujag.org/ 

https://soundcloud.com/emanuel-iqbal/lok-lhar-promote-your-own-districts-listen-and-unlearn

What is the problem?

Media has become the most important intermediary agency between the government and the governed. Whatever finds a place in newspapers and on TV channels is attended to by the governments. More so in Pakistan’s context, where the political parties have almost no working organizational structures making it impossible for the grass-roots level demands to be formulated and transmitted to the decision/policy making tops. Media thus has become the major, if not the only, conduit.

Media, however, is a corporate entity and carries a clear bias in favor of issues of large urban centers. A dateline analysis of Dawn Lahoreshowed that 76 percent of all the news in year 2005 originated from the five capitals (Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta) though they represented just 12.9 percent of the country’s population.

A similarly skewed reality exists on the governance side where media holds the prominent parliamentarians/functionaries accountable but cannot attend to the local level leaders. The mainstream media only helps in drawing the attention of big leaders towards big issues leaving the ‘smaller’ issues unattended and the local leaders go scot free. In the absence of established and efficient party structures, there is no way the governance related grass-root level demands could find an expression into policy/administrative actions. This makes democracy dysfunctional and ‘useless’ in popular perceptions which mostly are based on local experiences.

What is the?

The idea is to develop a district specific news website that publishes local level development-related and social and political issues with the same treatment that the mainstream media gives to the national news. This will use the same formats, like news reporting, photographs, video clips, interviews and even talk shows. This website will be popularized through local means of advertisement and extended into social media platforms, like Facebook pages, which allow for interactivity. A periodic forum on the issues thus raised will also be held at local venues. These forums will be participated by local political leadership including MPs and councilors. The information thus will inform political debates and support demand formulation. The initiative will not only fill the ‘local’ gap in corporate media coverage, it will also become as a database of local political debates and demands. The whole approach puts a premium on objective information based political discourse and community drive demands. This institutionalized approach towards information collection and dissemination will make it easier and safer for individuals and communities to use RTI laws to overcome bureaucratic inertia and resistance from vested interests while accessing development related information.

The internet use in Pakistan is rising at a fast pace. There are 31 million internet users and latest numbers put Facebook accounts at 12.8 million. An overwhelming majority of these is aged below 30. (For more details on Internet usage in Pakistan http://ansr.io/blog/pakistan-market-trends-2013-online-mobile-social/ Pakistan’s population exhibits a similarly prominent youth bulge, implying that the most numerous and important section of the population is accessible through internet.

                                                                

3G technology has been launched that will make internet availablewith all cell phone. Touch screens and adaptability to local languages have already made devices more user friendly. Video making and photography are at hand and skills can be easily polished through trainings.

If the localized news approach is multiplied with this huge outreach potential of IT, it is likely that this website and its associated social media outlets willcollectively play exactly the role that the mainstream media does for larger national issues with national level leaders/functionaries. It will become a bridge between the local political leaders/functionaries and the communities and help translate the grass-roots level demands into policy/administrative actions making democracy effective.

Websites of DISTRICTS

1 http://sahiwal.sujag.org/
2 http://faisalabad.sujag.org/
3 http://vehari.sujag.org/
4 http://jhang.sujag.org/
5 http://pakpattan.sujag.org/
6 http://chiniot.sujag.org/
7 http://okara.sujag.org/
8 http://tobateksingh.sujag.org/
9 http://khanewal.sujag.org/
10 http://nankanasahab.sujag.org/