Come to think of it, as a parent of growing kids, I can feel nothing but hassled by the fact that I need to make serious efforts to control the media consumption of my kids. Many parents will agree that our media is getting increasingly prurient by the day. From the time, a child switches on the TV , he or she is exposed to all kinds of indecent words, actions and scenes.
One of the realities about the reality shows especially the Dance ones is that they make it a point to keep the women participants as little clothed as they can, the so called item numbers leave little to imagination, the cartoon shows teach a lot of bad-tameezi.
Radio is better even though I have heard some RJs whose talk can best be classified as 'Phooharh'.. but Radio as a medium is much less popular than TV. Still there are many times when you hear a RJ trying to talk 'sexy'unnecessarily. This is because the poor guy thinks thats the only way to be popular!
Print is also not behind. From frequent so called Sexual revolution surveys that scream scandalous findings to printing pictures in the daily newspapers that would otherwise would have place in porn magazines,the effort is to bring adult stuff daily in your home, without your permission and perhaps with disastrous consequences.
I have worked with media. I know all about the "noble objective" of broadbasing the societal mind! The only mantra in play is Show what sells! The logical culmination of this thinking is also interesting and frightening..Imagine TV showing porn films at prime hours and newspapers becoming a "Debo" just because that is more lucrative - revenue wise.
Self censorship looks a possible way out.. but the violations in order to get a quick rise in TRPs and readerships will be far and frequent. What are the other ways?
Lets form a parents of growing kids forum that acts as a pressure group in matters like this. Are there any precedences anywhere else in the world?
What about a Parent networking site? Will it work..there we will discuss all things related to kids say from nursery admissions to media overkills! It may fetch us some millions also :-).
4 comments:
I too am a hassled parent and agree with Tv programs with bad language and newspapers with indecent photos. And since I have a boy I also have to grapple with GTA IV and Call of Duty where foul language is the norm. But I dont agree that TV channels becoming Porn or newspapers becoming Debo is a real threat or the assumption that you do it and you will mint money.
Debonair makes less money than Outlook or IT and PLayboy even after so many years is not the same size as a NYT.
Agree with both of you on TV and Shin Chan. Also newspapers and magazines. And of course movies (though Kabir hasn't seen a full fledged Bollywood film yet. Having said that as parents we can only teach them what is right and what is wrong. Beyond that they have to explore themselves. Like we did...
Didn't you use bad language? or watched 'objectionable stuff' ;) You guys turned out pretty ok (compliment)though Alok gets a bit uptight at times. :):)
Now you'll say that we did not have such explosive media exposure, but then you were also not as smart as your kid is at this age. Evolution!!!
As long as the child knows what is his/her limit, what you approve and disapprove I guess it is ok.
What say?!
Hi Alok,
I enjoy reading your posts. Keep some more coming,
warm regards,
Samil Malhotra
hey Alok, couldn't agree more on creating a forum for hassled parents. Its kind of scary to even watch news in front of my son. Even the ads smell of soft porn.
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