Bangladesh’s Changing Mediascape: From State Control to Market Forces

The book is a collection of essays that provide an in-depth understanding of the changing Bangladesh mediascape. The essays focus on, respectively, specific media (television, radio, film, the press and photography), policy issues and the challenge of the new media to governance in an emerging and developing nation faced with innumerable economic, social and physical problems. The book deliberately avoids the development communication model and argues that market forces rather than planned state interventions will contribute to a more equitable communication environment for Bangladesh.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Release date: Sep 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781783201259

Book preview

Chapter 1

Bangladesh’s Changing Mediascape: An Introduction

Brian Shoesmith

Edith Cowan University/University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh

Jude William Genilo

University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh

The global information economy arrived late in Bangladesh. Until the mid-1990s, Bangladeshis had little choice when it came to television, radio, or telecommunications. The press was an exception with a thriving newspaper culture; on closer examination though it was found to be composed of a large number of titles with little circulation that were almost exclusively bound to Dhaka. The circuit breaker in this scenario occurred outside the national borders of Bangladesh when India’s Supreme Court discovered that the state did not have Exclusive control of the ether, and there was a tremendous escalation in the number of satellite television stations making programs available to an ever-increasing number of viewers. The issue with satellite broadcasting is that it can both transgress and transcend political borders. This is precisely what happened in the case of Bangladesh. By the mid-1990s Indian television was available to anyone in Bangladesh rich enough to purchase a satellite receiver dish. The audience for Indian soaps, Bollywood films, and cricket in Bangladesh increased with the introduction of cable TV, which, though initially illegal, allowed the middle class to access a whole new world. In short, the introduction of satellite broadcasting revolutionized the Bangladeshi mediascape in a number of ways. This book sets out to chart the changes that have occurred in Bangladesh media; their expansion on all fronts; the increased official concerns about the possible social, economic, and political impact of the changes; and the ways in which audiences have responded to the changes in a number of, often mutually contradictory, ways. The mediascape the authors describe and analyse in this book may take some observers by surprise as it is expansionary and dynamic, taking existing media technologies and forms and shaping them to a particular Bangladeshi sensibility where Islam and secularity, pre-modernity and modernity, and nationalists and internationalists compete for the attention of a huge and rapidly modernizing audience.

Yet Bangladesh is still best known in the West for either its natural disasters, such as cyclones followed by flooding, or its perceived, deeply embedded poverty. Indeed, in a recent episode of Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey devoted to Bangladesh, the English celebrity chef articulates a view widely dispersed throughout the world when he says, ‘The only news I had of Bangladesh before I came here was of cyclones that kill large numbers of people’. He leaves the country with an entirely different perspective. He is struck by the resilience of the people, their diligence, cheerfulness, and ability to adapt to circumstances. Nevertheless, it can be difficult to dispel the negative views so firmly entrenched in the popular discourses relating to Bangladesh expressed in the mainstream western media.

There are, of course, several alternative discourses that can be deployed when discussing Bangladesh. These ways of speaking may be categorized into the internal and the external. Bangladeshis speak of themselves and their country in a variety of ways, ranging from the intensely nationalistic with an emphasis on the War of Liberation in 1971, to the discourse revolving around the glories of the Bengali language and culture. Other views focus on religion arguing that Bangladesh is an Islamic nation and should be governed accordingly. Such a view is sharply contested by the secularists, and the recent debate about the Fifth Amendment of the Bangladeshi constitution epitomizes this particular disjuncture. The point here is that these world views are articulated in the local media, which is avidly consumed in all its forms by local audiences. Indeed, the Bangladeshi media is an anomaly when compared to the international media insofar as all media forms are increasing rapidly in their production and reach. By contrast, the international media has a quite limited view of Bangladesh. Few of the major international media outlets maintain a presence in Bangladesh (there are of course exceptions such as the BBC, VOA, and Radio Veritas International) and when they do their reporting it is generally confined to Dhaka, the capital city. Thus international news about Bangladesh is limited and tends to contribute to the discourse of natural disasters, or political corruption that positions Bangladesh as the eternal recipient of the world’s development largess. What this book seeks for Bangladesh media and society is to establish the fact that the situation is far more complex than the simplistic accounts found in the international media and that this complexity requires a new discourse where we may talk about contemporary Bangladesh acknowledging its strengths and weaknesses. We call this ‘the discourse of change’. From any perspective, we find Bangladesh undergoing a transformation; it is indeed a nation in transition.

It would be foolish in the extreme to deny that compared to many other nations Bangladesh is confronted by a range of seemingly impossible problems to solve, ranging from a volatile and partisan political system that shapes much of the internal debate about a future Bangladesh to the poverty of the majority of its citizens, a hostile climate, and difficult geography, not to mention a fundamental divide between city and countryside and the creation of a megalopolis based on Dhaka, a city that seems incapable of building a suitable infrastructure to service its soaring population. And yet, given these problems Bangladesh is changing, especially with regard to the new communication technologies. As Willem van Schendel observes,

[t]oday the Bangladeshi middle classes have … become enthusiastic participants in global cyberspace: numerous Bengali fonts are now available on line, and Bangladeshi websites and discussion groups are multiplying rapidly.

The speed with which independent Bangladesh has forged transnational links is breathtaking. (2009: 231)

Clearly we agree with this view, especially the significance van Schendel accords to the means of communication in achieving change. In many respects, the discourse of change we are exploring seeks to provide the details missing from van Schendel’s tentative map of a transforming Bangladesh. This book aims to negotiate the established discourses discussed above in order to create a new paradigm, one revolving around the twin axes of resilience and modernity and how they are articulated in the media.

Resilience is a difficult concept to convey in the abstract, especially when applied to a nation. At the completion of the Liberation War in 1971, when it was clear that Bangladesh would emerge as an independent nation from the furnace of civil war, Henry Kissinger infamously observed that Bangladesh was a nation condemned to failure and so it seemed. Devastated by the liberation struggle, many of its finest minds were slaughtered in a paroxysm of ethnic hatred on the part of the Pakistani military; confronted with a serious lack of infrastructure and subject to massive natural forces in the forms of floods and cyclones few anticipated Bangladesh surviving as an independent entity. Over the years, Bangladesh has figured conspicuously in the various international indices for ‘failed states’, ‘corrupt states’, and so on. These conditions elicit compassion among the sympathetic observers and international aid has been forthcoming since the country’s inception, in private form such as the 1971 ‘Concert for Bangladesh’ organized by George Harrison, and through government-to-government aid and international NGO (INGO) interventions. This has led to the formation of an aid-dependent culture, particularly at the state level where a government seemingly abdicates its responsibilities to provide citizens with basic human and social rights, leaving the field clear for the NGO sector to step in. Interestingly, there are an estimated 2100 officially recognized NGOs in Bangladesh,¹ ranging in size from single-issue organizations with few staff such as the Acid Survivors Foundation to huge organizations such as IDP. Even more interesting is the possibility that local indigenous organizations are more successful in achieving their aims than the INGOs. BRAC (Bangladesh Research and Communication) has become an international player in its own right with operations in Africa (Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, and Liberia), South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), and Haiti, as well as providing a huge range of services locally, from microcredit to project planning and the creation of a well-respected private university. However, from our perspective the best example of resilience at any level is the work of Grameen Bank and its pioneering work in providing microcredit to rural women, undoubtedly on the lowest rung in, Bangladesh’s social hierarchy. It is this ability to survive in the face of adversity that characterizes modern Bangladesh. It should also be noted that not everyone shares our view of Grameen; the Awami League (AL) government removed the Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus from his position in 2012 as Chair of the organization on the grounds of age. Yunus was 71 years old; the minister announcing the dismissal was 73! Clearly another agenda was at work, one that in some respects blights Bangladesh, the deeply rooted partisan politics that dominates Bangladesh political discourse.

Modernity is another notoriously difficult concept to define. In the context of Bangladesh, it refers to an accommodation of western political, social, economic, and technological processes by the local elites. Bangladesh possesses a form of Westminster parliamentary democracy, housed in a towering parliamentary building (designed by Louis Cahn, high priest of architectural modernism) and built from prestressed concrete.

In addition, there is a legal system with a supreme court, high court, and lesser courts supported by an administrative model inherited from the British with its cadre of officers selected through competitive examination. All of these are part of the legacy of colonial rule, which in many respects was the harbinger of modernity in Bangladesh. In addition to these, other manifestations of modernity include a stock exchange, a railway system, and a moribund national airline. These examples seem to sit upon an older culture, tolerated but not totally integrated into everyday life, despite the passion expended on partisan politics. There are, however, other aspects of modernity that have been embraced with vigour, such as the automobile, the mass media, and the new communication technologies, especially the mobile phone.

Photograph 1.1: Bangladesh’s national parliament building. (Photo Razibul Hossain)

In 1947, Dhaka was a small provincial city of some 100,000 people then, when Pakistan was created, it became a regional capital. Its layout betrays its origins. Confined by rivers and swamps Dhaka is a remarkably flat and compact city that has expanded beyond its capacity to meet the needs of its inhabitants. Its original infrastructure is unable to cope with the strains placed upon it by a population rapidly approaching 15 million and rising. The clearest indication of this is the roads that are jammed beyond capacity. Driving from one suburb to another becomes an ordeal, often taking hours for a journey that should take minutes. Buses, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, CNGs (auto rickshaws propelled by natural gas rather than petrol), rickshaws, and pedestrians all jostle for the limited space available on the Dhaka roads. And still, the number of cars increases. The daily chaos of the roads forces the government to consider action: building overpasses at critical junctions, for example, or developing plans for an elevated road system, somewhat like Bangkok, and a subway. Money is made available and the studies done, but the chaos gets worse, presenting the negative side of modernity. Surprisingly, given the conditions on the roads and the increasing number of cars, pollution is not as bad as one would expect, largely because the CNGs were converted to run on condensed natural gas rather than petrol in the early 2000s. Furthermore, the cycle rickshaws, which are an ideal form of public transportation in a flat city like Dhaka, help to reduce pollution but contribute hugely to the congestion. Consequently, there are plans to reduce the number of rickshaws so as to free up roads for cars.

Photograph 1.2: Everyday traffic congestion in Dhaka. (Photo Razibul Hossain)

The mass media in Bangladesh is a burgeoning market. At the beginning of the 1990s, there was one television station that was perceived to be little more than the mouthpiece of the government in power. There was one radio station, Bangladesh Betar (radio), which broadcast on the AM spectrum and covered the nation. There was a moderately successful film industry and no satellite TV. Dominating the sector was the press. Traditional elite Bengali culture has always been a literary culture (van Schendel 2009: 251), and newspapers have played a key role in many aspects of contemporary Bangladesh. In the 1950s and 1960s, they played a critical role in the language movement that underpinned the demand for independence for East Pakistan. In the 1970s and 1980s they played a muted role in opposing the excesses of the military dictatorships, and in the 1990s they led the way for the reintroduction of parliamentary democracy. In contemporary Bangladesh there are over 300 newspapers published in Bengali and English, representing every conceivable shade of political opinion. This link between the press and politics has meant an uneasy relationship between the two. At times, censorship has been rigorously applied, and journalists have been mistreated and murdered. Nevertheless, despite these impediments newspaper and magazine production has continued to grow and political and cultural debate has been conducted vigorously. One aspect of the profusion of this type of media is the fact that many titles have incredibly small readerships, which raises questions about the need to publish. Moreover, when we look at the circulation figures for Prothom Alo, the most popular Bengali-language publication (it is approximately 400,000 per day), we must also ask questions about influence. Underpinning much of the publishing activity is an assumption that publication equates to political influence but when we see that the actual numbers are so small in relation to the total population (currently in excess of 160 million), this influence may be illusory. It also raises questions about the relationship between the press and the electronic media.

As late as 1997, Bangladesh had only one television station, Bangladesh TV (BTV), whose scope was confined to Dhaka and a number of major regional cities. The Bangladeshi authorities seemed to view television through two contradictory lenses. The first saw TV as being too expensive for a developing nation in South Asia and consequently chose to confine its presence to the major cities, leaving radio and other developmental media to cater for the mofussil (countryside). At the same time authorities were suspicious of the medium, which was seen to have the capacity to trivialize and divert people’s attention away from authentic Bengali culture as well as entertain people rather than improve them. Consequently BTV became the mouthpiece of the cultural elites and the politicians.

All this changed in 1997. The liberation of the Indian airwaves meant that satellite broadcasting became dominant in India; significantly satellites no longer recognized any political borders, and programs and messages seeped across from India to Bangladesh. As van Schendel (2005) has shown, the India/Bangladesh border has always been a sensitive and contentious space, even dangerous, constituting an ‘issue’ between the two countries and remains so to this day. The availability of TV messages produced outside the constraints of the Bangladeshi authorities caused consternation; how to deal with what could be perceived to be a threat not only to good order and Bengali culture but also political stability? In reality, the Bangladeshi authorities had few options and they not only sanctioned the continuing Indian satellite broadcasters but they also licensed Bangladeshi satellite stations and expanded the terrestrial system as well, to the extent that Bangladeshi audiences are well served by a proliferation of television channels including the ones devoted exclusively to sports and others to 24-hour news broadcasting.

Photograph 1.3: Newspaper sold at Dhaka’s sidewalk. (Photo Razibul Hossain)

A more recent development is the digitalization of Bangladesh. Initially on a very limited scale, computing and related activities quickly gained purchase with the Bangladeshi public. It was essentially an elite activity, governed by people’s ability to purchase a computer and pay the connection fees. However, after 2006 computing became commonplace, especially with the young, which in turn led to the introduction of, and rapid acceptance of, social media like Facebook and blogging; even the Bangladeshi armed forces have a website that incorporates a blog (The Voice of the Bangladesh Armed Forces: htpp://www.bdmilitrary.com). The effect of social media also resulted in a challenge to the concept of inviolate national borders. Bangladeshi members of the diaspora, which finds Bangladeshis located in the United States, Britain, and Australia, for example, joined the blogosphere where they wrote on Bangladeshi affairs in fresh and critical ways confident that they were beyond the control of the security forces, all of which contributed to the lively political debates that have characterized the Bangladeshi media. A by-product of the activity in the blogosphere and the growth of personal computing alerted factions of the political elites to the power of the digital. In 2008, the AL went into the election promising to create a Digital Bangladesh (DB) by 2021, which seemingly caught the imagination of the electorate and contributed to their election to power. AL presented DB as a novel, even revolutionary event with the nation being digitalized in education, government, and commerce. However, DB is an attempt by a political party to capture for their own ends what was already happening in a culture.

Of greater importance in our view has been the introduction of the mobile phone, which has been embraced by all sections of Bangladeshi culture. Initially a tool of rich urbanites the mobile phone has rapidly percolated down to the poorest sectors such as the rickshaw pullers and domestic servants. The key to this dispersion has been microcredit, pioneered in Bangladesh by the Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, which has encouraged the purchase of mobile phones because they are perceived to have social benefits as well as economic multiplier effects. For example, a rickshaw driver can determine where demand for his services is greatest and move accordingly. Moreover, phone costs are cheap by world standards: for example, a basic Nokia 1280 handset may be purchased for BTD 1650 (approximately US$25, and time credits purchased from street vendors for as little as US$1). This scenario encourages ownership. Mobile phones and the Internet, unlike the mass media per se, have been incorporated into Bengali culture as seemingly organic extensions of an essentially oral culture of the masses. As such, it is important to recognize that all forms of communication occur within a cultural context.

The Bangladeshi context is shaped by a number of recurring themes that are implicitly and explicitly dealt with by the authors of the individual articles comprising the book. The particularly important themes we wish to address are the tensions that exist between Islam and Bengali culture; the ongoing political struggle between democracy and tyranny; and the struggle that arises from the underlying desire of the state apparatus to control events in a planned and orderly way when opposed by market forces.

Jeremy Seabrook argues that the tensions between Islam and Bengali culture may be one of the underlying causes of Bangladesh’s apparent lack of material progress since independence (2001:1–11). Van Schendel refers to Bangladesh’s ‘cultural wars’ (2009: 260). Seabrook also sees the struggle between Bengali culture and fundamentalist Islam as the defining characteristic of contemporary Bangladesh.

Invoking religion, fundamentalists make of it a pseudo-spiritual and moral crusade. This creates obstacles for those who resist the political implications of what appears as a religious movement. But since fundamentalists object to Bengali culture, the main area of resistance is cultural.    (2001: 17)

Van Schendel essentially supports this view when he says,

[t]he liberal and Islamic visions of Bangladesh culture clash on many fronts; language use, dress, gender relations, festivities and music. The media are a most important battleground, especially the many newspapers, televisions stations, cinema and online conversations. (2009: 260)

In many senses, the various audiences in Bangladesh define themselves by what they read or what they view and listen to; there are more than enough newspapers and channels to cater for all religious and secular positions. Clearly, it is a complex issue with deep historical roots (Eaton 1993) that probably involves three competing elites, the secularists, nationalists, and the Islamists (Uddin 2006: 177–185). As Uddin argues,

[t]he overwhelming majority of Bangladeshis likely will continue to resist the imposition of an Islamic vision. A rich Bengali Islamic tradition exists in Bangladesh and will not easily be surrendered. This heritage is supported from the grassroots and thrives despite Islamists’ efforts to reform it. (2006: 185)

The second major theme informing the dialogue contained in this book is the ongoing fear of a return to military dictatorship. Bangladesh was founded as a secular republic based on socialistic economic principles and it remains The People’s Republic of Bangladesh. It is currently governed by AL who possess an overwhelming majority in the parliament, Jatiyo Shangshad (National Forum), but this is only the fourth period of parliamentary rule in 40 years of independence. After the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, the army seized control under General Ziaur Rahman, who was in turn assassinated in 1982. Lieutenant General Hussain Muhammad Ershad then assumed power after a period of instability. The Ershad regime ended in 1990 in the face of overwhelming public dissatisfaction with its performance, leading to elections and parliamentary democracy. The period 1991–2006 was marked by further political instability and in 2007 an interim government was installed with the support of the army. Various reasons have been proffered for this apparent tendency towards military rule. Both Zia and Ershad were Pakistani-trained military officers who had probably imbibed Pakistani military attitudes towards civilian rule; the military ruled a united Pakistan from 1957 to 1971. There is also a sense that ‘they [the military officer class] saw themselves more capable and deserving of running the state than the politicians’ (Van Schendel 2009: 195). As Ershad proclaimed in 1982 when he assumed power,

[d]ue to social and political indiscipline, unprecedented corruption, devastated economy, administrative stalemate, extreme deterioration of law and order and frightening economic and food crisis.

(Quoted in van Schendel 2009: 196–197)

The year 1990 brought victory for democracy and was celebrated as such by the media, although events in 2007–2008 dented this view. Civil society, as a consequence, remains suspicious of the military because, as van Schendel suggests, ‘the military never fully closed the door’ (2009: 197). Consequently the media, which suffered in every phase of military rule, remains cautious and vigilant about any hint of the return of the military to politics.

Finally, let us discuss the role of the state in shaping and determining social and technological changes in Bangladesh. Bangladesh was founded as a People’s Republic and remains so, with a constitution based on socialist principles that were important in the 1970s. In founding Bangladesh, the intellectuals supporting Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the independence movement fervently believed that the state had a major role in controlling the means of production and designed the constitution accordingly; they also created a range of commissions and organizations designed to allocate resources equitably across the social spectrum. India was in many respects the model for this sociopolitical structuring of the economy. The consequences of this decision are far too complex to elaborate upon here but suffice to say that since the 1990s tensions between private enterprise (the markets) and the state have emerged. One solution has been for the business interests to align themselves with one or other of the major political parties and reap the rewards when that party is in power, and then suffer when it loses control of parliament. The issuing of television licenses during the 1990s bears this out. In 1999, AL issued a licence to establish ATN Bangla, the first private TV station in Bangladesh, which was promptly rescinded on technicalities by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party when it returned to power in 2001. In many respects, the clash between the state apparatusses and the markets is the product of a developing struggle between the forces of nationalism and those of globalization, common to much of the developing world in the early twenty-first century.

The debate about the struggle between state and markets was reinvigorated by AL’s decision to introduce Digital Bangladesh (DB). However, the introduction of digital communication in Bangladesh would have to occur under the control of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulations Commission (BRTC), which is responsible for the allocation of communication resources and their maintenance. DB was greeted with enthusiasm by the urban elites – those who had the most experience of computing and social media, and desired that Bangladesh join the rest of the world in taking advantage of the opportunities that DB would offer. Consequently, there was more than a little disappointment about the failure to implement the promises made with the introduction of DB. In a recent newspaper article (The Independent, 8 August 2011) captioned ‘Absence of Policy hits bandwidth optimism’, Farsal Mahsud argued that the ‘government (is) failing to see that its open market approach cannot optimise distribution’. In January 2011, BRTC reduced the monthly rental on leased space from BDT 18,000 to BDT 12,000 (USD 225 to USD 150) in an attempt to encourage more take up of the available bandwidth. This does not seem to have occurred. At present only 20% of the available 6.01 GBT operational capacity of the single fibre-optic cable serving the country is operational because of a lack of users. Mahsud’s observation conforms to the belief that the state can solve all issues despite the country’s poor distributional network, the expense of computers in a poor country, general poverty, and the urban/rural divide. If the government can solve these primary issues, which have dogged Bangladesh since its creation, it will also have solved the problem of lack of ‘take up’ of the fibre capacity available.

From an objective point of view it can also be argued that private companies providing Internet and social networking links have done a great job in difficult circumstances in attracting customers. While the overall figure for connectivity in Bangladesh is approximately 11%, this in fact represents a dramatic increase in aggregate terms since 2006, when Bangladesh was linked to the international submarine cable network for the first time. Nevertheless, markets continue to be regarded with suspicion by significant sections of the population, especially the intellectual elite, who tend to view the state as the responsible provider of services. This view persists despite the overwhelming evidence suggesting the Government of Bangladesh’s ongoing failure to provide even a basic social safety net for its citizens. Its failure to provide services such as uninterrupted power supply to dwellings, suggests the creation of a Digital Bangladesh needs to be rethought.

About the book

The essays in this book explore the themes outlined above in detail. Here it should be pointed out that there is no particular theoretical approach in this exploration of Bangladesh’s changing mediascape. Rather, we are a broad church and the book should be read as a dossier on a newly emerging field where a number of perspectives are applied. All that we have required of the authors is that they bring a fresh approach to the subject they deal with. Hence, we will have chapters highlighting media theory and others that are framed around cultural approaches. Some chapters are national in scope while a few pertain to specific cases, places, or events. It should also be noted that Bangladeshi cultural politics is also riven by political partisanship. Within the Bangladeshi context, it is almost impossible to avoid taking sides, although we have tried to avoid this. Nevertheless, at times there are opinions expressed in the chapters in this book that do not conform to those of the editors.

While writing Bangladeshi narratives, authors seem to fall into a mindset that has been shaped by the country’s history. At times, it is as though nothing existed before 1971 and the War of Liberation, which has given rise to what we call the foundational myths of Bangladesh. Here we must stress that by myth we do not mean fabricated or untrue; we deploy the term in the Barthean sense, ‘I shall give at the outset a first, very simple answer, which is perfectly consistent with etymology: myth is a type of speech’ (Barthes 1984: 1). He goes on to add ‘this is a kind of message’. Thus, when we talk about myths we are talking about the ways in which Bangladesh talks to itself about itself, its foundation, its history, its society, its place in the world. Van Schelden, Mey, and Dewan identify two master narratives in writing Bangladeshi history: ‘the struggle for Bengali nationhood’ and the ‘emancipation of the Muslims’ (2001:4) We make this point because they are so widespread, articulated endlessly throughout the press, scholarship, and popular discourse. When all analyses seem to be linked to a limited number of definitional moments (the language struggle, the War of Liberation, genocide, the assassination of the founding father, the uneasy relationship with India), the discourse may appear repetitive. On the other hand, by linking events to these momentous occasions, we obtain a certain rhythm that reflects Bangladeshi life.

The book is organized into three sections: Histories; Contexts; and Practices. The Histories section traces the evolution of the mainstream media (press, radio, film, photography, and television), bracketed with an account of censorship and an essay on the legal environment that governs the media in Bangladesh. The essays in the Contexts section deal with the cultural, social, political, and economic conditions surrounding the production of differing aspects of the Bangladeshi media. Particular emphasis is placed on the concept of a digital Bangladesh for the reason that it represents such a significant development in the shaping of the Bangladesh mediascape. No other single event signifies quite so clearly the degree to which the country has entered into the global communication sphere. The Practices section explores the ways in which media practice has changed in the past two decades with essays on the blogosphere, the discourse of television, the manner in which the media has responded to the situation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and public relations. The final chapter deals with a particular social evil, the use of acid to disfigure and punish women, especially in rural areas and urban slums. Caitlin Harrison’s photographs are thus of particular importance. Read one way, images of an acid victim can be seen as little more than typical examples of the discourse of disaster that circulates throughout the world and is seen by many to characterize the problems confronting Bangladesh. However, we offer these images as an alternative reading, as an example of resilience in the face of disaster, as an example of the subaltern actually having the opportunity to speak for itself.

One of the things we have stated frequently is that Bangladesh has a burgeoning mediascape. All areas are undergoing unprecedented growth with more TV licences being issued, more newspapers and journals being published, the new communications technologies and their applications, and so on. One aspect of this growth, in both the public and private sectors, is the acceptance of public relations. It is in this sector that many of the increasing number of media graduates from the universities will find work. Here we provide the first scholarly account of the creation and acceptance of public relations in Bangladesh.

Finally, like all collections of essays there are omissions in this book. There is no chapter dedicated to policy or advertising as such or gender; although these matters weave through the various chapters like leitmotivs. Another area that is conspicuous by its absence is the issue of media ethics, which has become an important topic since the recent phone hacking scandal in Britain. The issue of media ethics has a particular relevance in Bangladesh – a country that has been frequently criticized by organizations such as Transparency International for corruption (http://transparency.org). Ethics separates Bangladeshi media from its western counterparts, where there is a clear agreement about what constitutes ethical behaviour on the part of the media (although in practice this may be suppressed, ignored, or plainly misunderstood by journalists, editors, and media proprietors). In Bangladesh, there is no clear agreement about what constitutes ethical behaviour. Journalists operate in an environment that is contested by three competing ethical systems – Islam (which is divinely inspired), secularism (which is derived from the western enlightenment), and local custom and practice (dastari, in which the payment of a fee for services is not necessarily viewed as corrupt). Working within this environment is fraught with the possibilities for misunderstanding and has led to concerted push on the part of journalists to clarify their work. JATRI (Journalism Training and Research Initiative) published (2011) a handbook that clearly defines ethical journalism and the journalist’s role in achieving it. We regard this as further evidence of the changing nature of Bangladesh’s changing mediascape.

Hopefully, these gaps will be made good in subsequent editions of this book or in other books written because the authors have been inspired or provoked to fill the gaps we have left. There is also one other absence, which in the Bangladeshi context will draw comment; and it is our decision not to address the issue of development and communication. This has been a deliberate policy because in our view much of the writing available on media in Bangladesh is written solely from a developmental perspective and ignores other aspects of the media or derides them for being unworthy. We think this is a distortion and we make no apology for our decision to redress this gap.

References

Ahmad, R. (ed.) (2011) JATRI Ethics and Standards Handbook for Journalists, Dhaka: JATRI.

Barthes, R. (1984) Mythologies, New York: Hill and Wang.

Eaton, R.M. (1993) The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier 1204–1760, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Seabrook, J. (2001) Freedom Unfinished: Fundamentalism and Popular Resistance in Bangladesh Today, London: Zed Books.

Uddin, S.M. (2006) Constructing Bangladesh: Religion, Ethnicity and Language in an Islamic Nation, New Delhi: Vistaas Publications.

Van Schendel, W. (2005) The Bengal Borderlands: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia, London: Anthem Press.

——— (2009) A History of Bangladesh, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Van Schendel, W., Mey, Wolfgang, and Dewan, Aditya Kumar (2001) The Chittagong Hill Tracts: Living in a Borderland, Dhaka: University Press Limited.

Note

1 There is confusion about the actual number of NGOs operating in Bangladesh. However, in order to operate legally organizations have to be registered with the Government of Bangladesh. A list of registered NGOs can be found at http://www.ngoab.gov.bd/Files/NGO_LIST.pdf.

Chapter 2

From Few to Many Voices: An Overview of Bangladesh’s Media

Brian Shoesmith

Edith Cowan University, Perth and University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh

Shameem Mahmud

University of Dhaka and University of Hamburg

Introduction

When Britain left the Indian subcontinent in 1947 after 190 years of colonial rule, the subcontinent was divided. Two independent nations based on religion rather than political desire were created, the Hindu-dominated India and Muslim-dominated Pakistan. Partition was not peaceful: communal fighting between Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims left more than 500,000 dead (it should be noted the estimates of the number of dead vary widely according to the source) in two major provinces of the British Raj, Bengal and Punjab (Pandey 2001: 2; 68). As part of the religion-based partition of India, the British Indian province of Bengal was also divided. Hindu-dominated West Bengal became a province of India and the eastern part with the Muslim majority, known as East Bengal, became part of Pakistan. In 1951, East Bengal formally became East Pakistan. The two wings of Pakistan were separated by 2,000 kilometres of Indian territory. Excluding Islam, people in East and West Pakistan had little in common. Ultimately, language and culture overrode religion as the basis for national identity for the majority of people in what was then East Pakistan. The artificial bonding through religion in East and West Pakistan lasted for 24 years: Bangladesh became an independent nation in 1971 after a brutal war in which India played a significant role. Both events – the partition of India in 1947 and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 – largely shaped the basis of present media systems in Bangladesh. At the same time, press laws and regulations developed during the British Raj and Pakistan era as well as the post-1971 independent Bangladesh, provide the regulatory frameworks under which media outlets in Bangladesh now function.

The 1947 partition severed a huge hinterland from Bengal’s major city, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), which was not only Bengal’s economic centre, but also its cultural capital and media and communication hub. Kolkata was the capital of British India from 1772 until 1911. During the period between 1900 and 1947, 173 newspapers were published in the yet-undivided Bengal (Salam 1997: 46). In 1947, East Bengal had very few regional newspapers, one-state-run radio station and no television stations. Shortly after partition, Muslim owners and editors of Bengali dailies that catered for readers in East Bengal migrated from Kolkata to Bangladesh and resumed publication.

The mediascape of Bangladesh is closely allied to the Bengali language movement of 1952 and the democratic struggles against West Pakistani rulers from the 1960s. These events provided an intellectual and ideological impetus to the separation of East Pakistan from its western counterpart. This chapter provides an overview of Bangladeshi media systems by outlining the main features of the print, broadcast, film and new media industries, as well as the cultural aspects of the industry. The purpose of this chapter is to present a brief introduction to the Bangladesh media within a socio-economic framework that is descriptive rather than analytical in manner. The developments and issues identified within this framework are dealt with in great detail in the following chapters.

Bangladesh is the world’s eighth most populous country, with an estimated population of 160 million as of 2011, living in an area of 147,570 square kilometres, making it the most densely populated country on earth (after Hong Kong and Singapore). It is also the world’s third largest Muslim country with Muslims making up approximately 88% of the population, with Hindus constituting around 10.5% with Christians and animists (largely confined to the Chittagong Hill tracts) making up the rest of the population. Ethnically, the people of Bangladesh are called ‘Bengalis’, which is derived from the spoken language of Bengali, or Bangla. About 98% of Bengalis speak Bangla, the nation’s official language. There is a small but diverse indigenous population which lives mainly in the hilly, south-eastern region and which has its own distinct languages and traditions. Moreover there are distinctive regional dialects in Bangla with Sylhetti markedly different from the language spoken in Chittagong, for example. English is used extensively as a second language in many government and private offices, NGOs, higher courts, and universities. Bengali is also the official language of the neighbouring Indian provinces of West Bengal (recently named Poshchim Bangla [literally West Bengal]) and Tripura, a contiguous state of north-east India. Globally, there are around 250 million Bengali speakers, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Consequently, Bengali is the dominant language used by the media in Bangladesh, although there are a few very influential English newspapers as well as numerous television and radio stations that broadcast English news bulletins daily.

Bangladesh is generally perceived as a poor nation facing the challenges of poverty, overpopulation, lack of natural resources, over-reliance on international development aid, frequent natural hazards, political unrest, not to mention the rampant corruption. Its economy is mainly dependent on agriculture with around 70% of the population living in rural areas. The poverty gap between urban and rural [mofussil] populations is huge. To a large extent, the media is an urban phenomenon in Bangladesh. However, this is gradually changing due to the political, technological, and socio-economic changes brought about by economic development, which has flowed into education, thereby increasing literacy rates and health care. More than 8% of households have a family member living abroad. Most migrants work in the Gulf states and are the major wage earners, supporting families in rural areas and providing a large proportion of Bangladesh’s foreign currency earnings through their repatriation of wages. Other major socio-economic data are set out in Table 2.1.

Table 2.1: Bangladeshi socio-economic data

Sources: 2011 Population & Housing Census: Preliminary Results, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS); Preliminary Report on Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2010, BBS, June 2011, available online; Bangladesh Economic Review (2010), Ministry of Finance, GoB

The foundational myths

Bangladesh is the product of historical and political events arising out of the Indian independence movement in the early part of the twentieth century and the end of colonialism in South Asia and the partition of the British Raj. The struggle to create a Bengali-speaking nation in the second half of the twentieth century has given rise to a series of foundational myths that revolve around questions of genocide, martyrdom, sacrifice, and the struggle for democracy. They are myths in the sense that they are the narratives that are endlessly recycled in order to establish Bangladeshi identity and national consciousness. To call them myths in no way denies that they are not based on fact. Rather it refers to the rhetoric of Bangladesh nationalism that infuses all discussions of modern Bangladesh.

These myths involve the foundation of the nation itself after a period of bloody war; the struggle to introduce democratic forms of government after the shift from parliamentary system to one-party presidential rule following first three years of independence (1974–75); and the imposition of military dictatorships, namely Zia’s regime (1975–81) and Ershad’s dictatorship (1982–90) and their respective overthrow leading to a return of parliamentary government in 1991. The volatility and instability of Bangladeshi politics has been exacerbated by the struggle between the two major political parties (the Awami League [AL] and Bangladesh National Party [BNP]) in 2005–06, which led to the establishment of a caretaker government (2007–08) backed by the military. In this period both parties claimed the foundational myths of struggle and sacrifice for their own political advancement. Indeed few challenge the orthodoxies surrounding the formation of Bangladesh and if they do they are subject to attack and derision.

The Awami League won the 2008 election with a program that not only claimed the myths for themselves but also promised change with initiatives such as the creation of a Digital Bangladesh, a curb on corruption, and conduct trials of 1971 war criminals. In short, the AL reset the parameters of electioneering in Bangladesh by looking both backwards and forwards in its manifesto; it was the latter that seemed to attract the young in what Genilo, Islam, and Akther call ‘the discourse of the digital’ (see Chapter 12).

According to the 2011 Failed States Index of the Washington-based non-profit Fund for Peace, Bangladesh ranks as the world’s 25th most dysfunctional country. Bangladesh improved its position since the 2008 index when it ranked 12th, but such indices fail to reflect the complex socio-economic transformations that affected politics and the media in this South Asian postcolonial country over the past decade. Foreign Policy identifies four major issues confronting Bangladesh. They are demographic pressures, group cleavage, delegitimization of the state, and factionalized elites but adds: ‘Despite frequent shocks, Bangladesh’s macro-economy still looks strong, and the government promised in May [2011] that it would see the best growth in decades’ (www.foreignpolicy.com/articles; accessed 12 June 2012). Bangladesh has witnessed an average economic growth rate of more than 6% per annum in recent years. The country Henry Kissinger famously labelled a ‘basket case’ shortly after its creation has almost become self-sufficient in feeding its population of 160 million. The prognosis for the economic future of Bangladesh, the issues of climate change notwithstanding, remains optimistic. Standard and Poor’s, as an example, rate Bangladesh BB, meaning it is judged to have the second most stable economy in South Asia after India (www.thedailystar.net, accessed 12 June 2012).

The mediascape

As far as the media system is concerned, transformations have occurred in its structure, content, consumption, availability, and profusion. This book sets out to document and analyse these changes, and this chapter introduces some of the basic features of Bangladesh’s changing media landscape.

A major issue in the Bangladeshi context is limited access to media caused by too large an emphasis on Dhaka at the expense of the country’s poor infrastructure, poverty, and low literacy rates among the rural population. However, since the 1990s there has been a significant improvement in access to the media in countryside (moffusil). In many respects, urban centres are well served by the media, especially television. Figures relating to access to television in rural areas hovers above 50 percent, and in all other areas, data suggests that Bangladesh is a society with serious problems in terms of access to the media, which has profound implications for democracy. Given that Bangladesh regards itself as a literary culture (van Schelden 2009), the low number of newspaper readers is surprising, especially as newspapers accord themselves great influence in shaping national affairs. This is borne out from Table 2.3 below.

Table 2.2: Bangladeshi media at a glance

Sources: Mininistry of Information, GoB; Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission

Nevertheless given the size of the population, the disproportionate gap between city and country, the issue of poverty, and the problems with access the Bangladesh media remains in an expansionary mode. Since 1991 Bangladesh has witnessed growth in all media sectors unlike many other countries, which have seen a reduction in the number of newspapers published and the consolidation of other media sectors. Instrumental to this growth is a number of local conglomerates who see both economic value and the accruing of political influence as sufficient for investment in the field. This is set out in Table 2.4 below.

The legal framework

Bangladeshi media outlets operate within a highly regulated environment, with many laws originating in either the British colonial era or the period of Pakistani rule. The most important guidelines are found in Article 39 of the Constitution, which states:

(1) Freedom of thought and conscience is guaranteed.

(2) Subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the society of the State, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.

(a) The right of every citizen to freedom of speech and expression.

(b) Freedom of the press is guaranteed.

Other constitutional factors also govern freedom of expression and the rights of journalists and are discussed by Mishbah below (Chapter 8). In addition, there is a raft of regulations that may be and have been applied to the media by the State in order to control the flows of information within the country. Among them are:

A major feature of press laws and regulations in Bangladesh is that the majority were promulgated by authoritarian regimes to limit the free flow of information instead of safeguarding a free press. All successive governments, irrespective of party, attempted to maintain some sort of control when newspapers adopted a critical position regarding the government. Of the various acts, the two most significant in terms of the functioning of newspapers are the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1973 and The Press Council Act 1974. It should be noted that most laws are outdated and fail to regulate the country’s booming broadcast and online media.

The Press Council was established to maintain a free press, improve the quality of news, and protect