& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Polling and the media

A.B.M.S. Zahur
THE CTG is committed to offering a free, fair and credible election for establishing a true democratic order. To fulfill this mission it has taken up the huge task of reorganising, strengthening and making the EC independent to enable it to complete a fresh and accurate voters' list and help in reforming political parties etc.
I he people have been advised to elect honest, efficient and dedicated contestants. It is not quite clear as to why enough importance could not be given to the role of the
media in the next election. The emergency is certainly affecting the media, even though it is relatively modest.
If emergency is to be lifted/relaxed for holding die election the mass media may be allowed to work freely (of course in a responsible manner) to make the election truly democratic and meaningful.
Communication is regarded as the lubricant of political parties. The mass media are "the instrument of socialisation, they are efficient and their sweep is vast enough to cover the huge popula-tion ..." (Lucien.W.Pye.
Communications and Political Development, Princeton University Press, 1963). Due to the appealing devices of mass communications, and their widespread use as habit, duty or pastime people, according to Bernard R. Berlson et al, are exposed to miscellaneous information about a greater range of things than those in which they are genuinely interested.
The extent of popularity of different mass media channels in election publicity are discussed below:
• Public meetings: They are ranked the highest in terms of dependability and reliability
among the different forms of public communication. They draw more audience than the other communication gadgets. Apart from ethnic groups, the rest of the social groups arc emphatic in their support of public meetings. Ethnic groups seem to be wary of public meetings for fear of for jeering remarks by the public. The newspapers and other gadgets give them a sense of security. In urban settings public meetings draw women in good numbers. It is interesting to note that the center of gravity of political activities has shifted from towns to villages. Furthermore, public meetings decrease in urban areas as the campaign enters the final phase.
In rural areas (because of low literacy and unemployment) the number of people attending meetings is high. In urban areas, too, the fre-
quency and attendance at public meetings is high among the illiterate, the working class and the unemployed.
Among the educated, students and professional class appear to rely more on public meetings. Among tiie civil servants and busi ncssmen mostly the medium and the low ranks attend public meetings. The high officials and top businessmen very seldom attend public meetings because of fear of being identified. In a given context, public meetings appeal to all the cross-sections of the electorate, as the ideas and news radiating from the assembly spread quickly by word of mouth.
• Newspapers: They come second in terms of reliability. The readership of newspapers is surely larger than the figures of their circulation suggest. A good deal of reading is confined among a
small percentage of the electorate. Because of high illiteracy the press cannot adequately supplement public meetings as a means of making party programs and political ideas known to the people.
Some prestige-bearing status is attached to newspaper reading in Bangladesh
In rural settings people who can read newspapers wield some power over their surroundings. The newspapers readership has remained small due to illiteracy. However, on the basis of two-step flow of communication, the benefit of newspaper reading reaches the illiterate indirectly. For retaining anonymity, the top civil servants have more reliance on the newspapers than the lower ranking civil servants.
• Radio and television: In towns, restaurants, hotels, vending and
stationery shops of some standing have either a transistor or a radio set switched on almost all the time. At news times it is a common to see crowds in varying sizes assemble In front of these public places to hear the goings on. Thus, the illiterate, the unemployed and the lower income groups can get benefit from radios without possessing them. Radio occupies third position in respect of reliability. Its audience is predominantly urban oriented. The importance of radio is enormous as the news can be cheaply disseminated to the people on a wider scale. Television is a "spectator media." However compared to other media the television audience is much smaller.
• Photo-journalism: Though partly true, pictorial communication has good effect upon the
electorate it does the talking on many a count. Events are realistically depicted in the photographs, which have the potential of stimulating the eyes. These may not have lasting effects yet they move the people momentarily.
Mass media act as a transmitter of contents furnished mainly by political parties. They help in solidifying preferences. Students, the medium and lower ranking civil servants, businessmen and skilled labourers are politically conscious The media help them to harden their pre-disposition.
The uninformed and unenlightened, like ordinary cultivators, are an impressionable lot. AU types of communications are grist to the mill of the partisans who tend to find enough justification for their acts and beliefs.
AB MS Zahur is a former joint secretary