Television in Bangladesh: News and Audiences 9780367354459, 9780429331398

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TELEVISION IN BANGLADESH

This book examines the role of 24/7 television news channels in Bangladesh. By using a multisited ethnography of television news media, it showcases the sociopolitical undercurrents of media practices and the everydayness of TV news in Bangladesh. It discusses a wide gamut of issues such as news making, the localized public sphere, audience reaction and viewing culture, the impact of rumours and fake news, sociopolitical conditions, protest mobilization, newsroom politics and perspectives from the ground. An important contribution to the subject, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of media studies, journalism and mass communication, anthropology, cultural studies, political sociology, political science, sociology and South Asian studies, as well as television professionals, journalists, civil society activists and those interested in the study of Bangladesh. Ratan Kumar Roy is Research Fellow at the Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India. He was trained in anthropology and sociology at the University of Dhaka and South Asian University and has worked as a television journalist in Bangladesh. He was a residency fellow at Asia Culture Centre, Republic of Korea in 2018 and is a member of the Early Career Scholars Advisory Committee of the International Visual Sociology Association. He has authored many journal articles and book chapters. He has also made documentary films and feature stories for television.

There is a huge need for comparative studies of the world’s media audiences. Building on the work of Shakuntala Banaji on South Asia, Dr Roy’s important new book provides fascinating insights into the public and private practices of television watching in contemporary Bangladesh. Richly theorized, this study usefully complicates our understanding of the sites of media practices, including both news consumption and news production. Highly recommended! Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, and author of Media, Society, World and Media Rituals

TELEVISION IN BANGLADESH News and Audiences

Ratan Kumar Roy

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Ratan Kumar Roy The right of Ratan Kumar Roy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this book are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher. The analyses, case studies, data and figures based on research material are intended here to serve general educational and informational purposes and not obligatory upon any party. The author has made every effort to ensure that the information presented in the book was correct at the time of press, but the author and the publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability with respect to the accuracy, completeness, reliability, suitability, selection and inclusion of the contents of this book and any implied warranties or guarantees. The author and publisher make no representations or warranties of any kind to any person, product or entity for any loss, including, but not limited to special, incidental or consequential damage, or disruption alleged to have been caused, directly or indirectly, by omissions or any other related cause. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-35445-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-33139-8 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

D E D I C AT E D T O M A A O B A B A – M Y PA R E N T S W H O H AV E L AT E LY B E C O M E A C T I V E A U D I E N C E S O F TELEVISION NEWS!

CONTENTS

List of figures List of tables Foreword by Marcus Banks Preface Acknowledgements

viii ix x xii xv

1

Introduction: television news and audience in Bangladesh

2

History and politics of news television in Bangladesh in South Asia

21

3

On the ethnography of television: the field and the work

40

4

Television viewing culture: perspectives from below

76

5

Newsroom: culture and politics of news making

108

6

Social mobilization and the role of media

146

7

TV news, the public and localized public spheres

161

8

Television media culture: Hujug and the myth of happenings

183

Conclusion: the said, unsaid and yet to be said

199

References Index

214 232

9

1

FIGURES

1.1

2.1 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 5.1 5.2 6.1 6.2 8.1

Reach of a particular news channel among viewers in percentage and average television rating point (TVR/TRP) per year of Somoy Television. After the channel CSB News was shut down by the regulatory body. Karwan Bazar Circle dotted by the offices of the television channels, buildings and the SAARC fountain in the centre. News professionals at work in the newsroom of Somoy TV. Producer delivering direction to the news anchor during a live news broadcasting. Watching television in a household, Bandarban, Bangladesh. Cartographic locations of the ethnographic study in Bangladesh. The framework of conducting an ethnographic research on television news making and viewing in Bangladesh. Broadcast journalists at work: Interviewing people at their doorsteps. Trends of acknowledging the audience by TV professionals. News channels have paid special attention to provide live updates of mobilization to audiences. The protest agitation by tenth grade students in Nilphamari, 5 November 2017. In a rural television viewing location, Lenin’s poster is on the wall in alignment with posters of other Hindu deities.

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6 33 43 45 48 56 60 70 137 141 151 154 196

TABLES

2.1 List of private satellite channels in Bangladesh. 3.1 Reporting beats of news channel. 3.2 Based on public demand, the cable operators of Nilphamari placed the channels in hierarchy. The channels in the left column are the most popular, then the middle, then the right. 5.1 External forces for controlling TV news in Bangladesh. 5.2 Agenda reports of TV channels. 5.3 Subject matter of special reports for TV channel. 5.4 Subject matter of special news reports from district/ divisional level.

ix

31 51

65 127 130 133 133

FOREWORD

The media of culture or the culture of media? This question lies at the heart of Ratan Kumar Roy’s important and fascinating ethnography of the production and consumption of television news in Bangladesh today. Roy’s work demonstrates that the distinction – media/culture vs. culture/ media – promulgates an artificial and unhelpful binary. Through his ethnographic investigation of television news production and consumption in Bangladesh, Roy demonstrates that news production is unsurprisingly not without bias but rather, more significantly, a co-production of news creators (journalists, producers, media editors, etc.) and news consumers. While this is not necessarily a new perspective – see the work of Stuart Hall, David Morley and others at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in the 1970s and 1980s – Roy brings a fresh analytical perspective. He draws upon his academic background in anthropology and sociology and hence his understanding of the importance of empirical ethnographic enquiry. But Roy has also been a practicing journalist: he has a rare insight into the world he investigates in this book. Earlier, and important, studies of broadcast news and current affairs media paid scant attention to the empirical investigation of media consumption (what would now be called reception studies) in favour of ‘readings’ as understood by the media scholars investigating the products of a particular medium, a position derived originally from literary studies and seeing its full flourishing in the heyday of film studies in journals such as Screen, Sight and Sound and Cahiers du Cinema. However, even within the empirical social sciences, such as anthropology and sociology, there has been a slowness to acknowledge the importance of the audience. Arjun Appadurai’s highly influential notion of mediascapes (and other ‘-scapes’) makes no reference to any empirical study, and indeed his piece was intended to be analytical and advance an agenda for the study of globalization, not provide a survey of empirical studies of these ‘-scapes’. What Roy does so skillfully in this study is to take the early theoretical and analytical contributions of scholars such as Appadurai, Hall, Morley and others and then combine them with the much more empirically grounded studies by scholars such as Somnath Batabyal and Page and x

FOREWORD

Crawley’s pioneering Satellites over South Asia. Roy also surveys and draws upon a wealth of recent studies by South Asian scholars, including work by Bangladeshi scholars that might not be accessible to non-Bengali speakers. As we move into the 21st century, the question arises: What’s next for news and television in Bangladesh in 2020 and beyond? Despite the rise of 24/7 news channels in Bangladesh since 1997 (after the monopoly of Bangladesh Television), media consumption – including broadcast news – patterns have changed. Roy gives the example of a tea stall in Nilphamari where customers used to gather to watch the news and discuss current events with their friends. Roy notes that in recent times, however, the customers watch reality shows and the like at the tea stall and watch the news as a family-based activity within the home. This may well continue to change – in the UK, from where I write, the television landscape is constantly shifting. A recent survey showed that almost eight in ten British people now watch streaming services such as Netflix rather than broadcast television, and they often watch alone; almost half of the adult population get their news coverage from social media. This is a general shift, not just in the area of impartial news reporting. Indeed, the idea of impartiality is under threat with the rise of so-called fake news in social media, which bypasses traditional print and broadcast media. However, there has been fake news for as long as there have been channels of mass communication – and village gossip before that. Roy demonstrates that Bangladeshi television viewers are self-aware consumers of broadcast news: they understand the media landscape and consume appropriately. Drawing upon his academic and, more particularly, professional experience as a journalist, Roy demonstrates that Bangladeshi news consumers are not the ‘idiot box’ consumers proposed by some media commentators. Internet connectivity in Bangladesh has increased exponentially over the past few years, and it will be interesting to see how news consumption practices change accordingly. From the evidence so far, Ratan Kumar Roy will be one of the leading scholars to chart these changes. Marcus Banks Professor of Visual Anthropology Institute of Social & Cultural Anthropology University of Oxford London, August 2020

xi

PREFACE

Until the late 1990s, most of the academic research on Bangladesh’s mediascapes was limited to the domains of newspaper, radio and cinema. Primarily, this was because there was only one TV channel, namely the stateowned TV channel BTV (Bangladesh Television). Before the 1990s, only BTV served as a ‘loyal’ mouthpiece of the government. BTV was part of the state machinery disseminating the ruling-class ideology as an apparatus of power. This scenario became complicated with the rivalling channels fostering loyalty to as well as differences with the state. Domestic private channels began their journey in Bangladesh in the late 1990s after the satellite channels entered in 1992. At that time the sociocultural life of the viewers in the new regime of television broadcasting came into existence. This book is an endeavour to comprehend the complicated interface of people and television in Bangladesh. In the larger domain of news-media studies, however, researchers were mainly dealing with power, politics and processes of representation. Research was restricted to the relationship with the political, commercial and ideological aspects of the establishment viz. television as an institutional expression, or the impact and influence of television to the society and culture (for example, Ahmed 2009; Alamgir 2008; Ferdaus and Salam 2009; Islam and Hasan 2000; Islam and Kabir 1998; Nessa et al. 2013; Priyadarshani and Rahim 2010; Rabbi 2012; Rahman 2009; Rahman and Rahman 2007; Shamsher and Abdullah 2012; Wahid 2005, 2007; Zhou et al. 2011). Some of them were also tangentially about ethics, responsibility, objectivity, value neutrality, credibility, quality and the pro-public sensibility of news production and broadcasting in Bangladesh (for example, Ahmed 2007; Ferdous 2009, 2013; Haq 2003; Haq and Mamun 2013; Nasrin et al. 2002; Newton 2008; Nipu 2015). Against this backdrop, scholars in Bangladesh have expressed their suspicion and anguish towards both private and public television for not being able to benefit the public interest as well as the public sphere. BTV as a public institution has been alleged to be ‘more of a government broadcaster than a public broadcaster’ (Naser and Aikat 2011: 13) and unable to ‘provide information for public’ (Chowdhury 2003: 86). xii

P R E FAC E

Private television channels have also been accused of being commercialized and profit-oriented and hence reluctant to play a pro-public role (for further on this, see Islam and Marjan 2013; Khan 2009a; Pandey 2009; Rahman 2009). Simultaneously, these private channels are vulnerable to the allure of nationalism in the various ways they express their patriotic nature. But to maintain their credibility and gain popularity among viewers, these channels represent multiple other sociopolitical issues in an attempt to point out the problems within systems, governance and governing. This book is a humble attempt to broaden the approach to the mediascapes and to understand television beyond the aspects of content, forms and influence. The ethnography of television offers immense possibilities to depart from this limited approach of media studies in Bangladesh. A focus on the distribution of technology and the dissemination of mediated information is not sufficient to map the mediascapes of Bangladesh. It is crucial to incorporate media practices by delving deeper into the lifeworlds of media participants. The media culture, practices and emerging public sphere are central to this book. It seeks to unravel a qualitatively different relationship between television and audience. There are multiple layers of tension between representation and reception. These layers also entail various negotiation strategies. The present book engages with one in relation to the other. Instead of taking the ‘encodingdecoding’ (Hall 1973) model for granted, it captures multiple localized and distinct forms of practice at the sites of making and viewing television news. In order to focus on the meaning-making process, close attention has been paid to the aspects of individual choice, resistance, subjective roles and semiotic exercises. In the final analysis, the book conceptually deals with the dialectics of interconnections and contradictions within the domain of television media culture in Bangladesh. As a student of anthropology, I was keen to understand the allure of television media and the vibrant viewing culture of Bangladesh. During 2009–2010 I had conducted a systematic study to capture audiences’ engagement with television. As a journalist working at a 24/7 news channel in Bangladesh, I was able to explore some dynamic that were crucial for in-depth research. My 2012 book in Bengali, Dorshoker Chokhey Television (Television in the Eyes of Audiences), was a solid motivation to working towards an anthropology of media. Further training at South Asian University and continuous brainstorming aided in formulating the key questions and developing a pertinent framework for a successful project to fathom the interactive dynamic between news and audiences – in a broader sense, between media and people or, to say it anthropologically, between subject and the structure. This book hinges on a multisited ethnography of television to illustrate the sociopolitical undercurrents of media practices and the everydayness of TV news in Bangladesh. Major sites of this ethnography are located in Nilphamari, a small town in the northern part of Bangladesh, and the xiii

P R E FAC E

newsroom of a 24/7 news channel, Somoy TV, in Dhaka. Television viewing practices are interlinked to the sociopolitical conditions and cultural motivations of the media participants, including news-makers and news viewers. Overall, the dynamics of television news making and its viewership unfolds a complex set of social practices. In the process of examining the mediated social practices, this book highlights the significance of television news in manifesting protest mobilization and informal and emotive discourses. The book reveals the culture of 24/7 television news in Bangladesh that aided in the creation of a distinctly local public sphere defying the conventional binaries of private and public. Furthermore, the idea of media culture, with adequate performances of rituals, is accompanied by other equally indispensable characteristics. Following the broader anthropological understanding of the complex relations of individual and society, this book shows how audiences form localized public spheres in the process of viewing and talking about television news. The book elaborates on some of the defining characteristics of television media in Bangladesh, including the aspects of operating hujug, living gossip, expressions of desire and disenchantment, fantasy and the frustration of the media participants. Further, it unfolds two major aspects of 24/7 news television practices in Bangladesh: mediated social movements and a ‘myth of happenings’. In an ethnographic sense, this book attempts to show how news making and news viewing are more than aspirations of information dissemination. The book presents evidence of non-linear relations, processes and politics that eventuate into a more nuanced discussion on the nature and scope of democracy in Bangladesh. I sincerely hope this book is a modest contribution in the areas of sociology and anthropology of mass media, visual studies, performance studies, culture studies and the larger domain of South Asian studies. Part of the authorial scheme is an attempt to enact an interdisciplinary temperament even though the larger disciplinary mainstay is anthropological-sociological.

xiv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

An ethnographic work only becomes possible and eventually successful because of its interlocutors. They are the lifeblood of an ethnographic investigation. I acknowledge the individuals who helped me access the lifeworld of news making and viewing practices in Bangladesh. Due credit should go to Somoy Television, which once enabled me to grow as a journalist and extended hands when I sought to conduct research. Tushar Abdullah has been highly supportive of the newsroom ethnography not merely as a head of news of the channel but also as an enthusiastic writer, critic and collaborator. Our conversations for more than a decade helped shape this book in many ways. Ahmed Jobaer, the chief executive officer, has also been kind enough to extend his consent and support. In addition, the other officials – Niyaz Morshed Qadri and Mujtaba Danish – should be credited for their time and valuable information. I must acknowledge the support of newsmaking professionals and journalists from Dhaka and the regional locations who have wholeheartedly supported me. Shumee Sahabuddin should get special credit for her invaluable support. Without her contribution I would have missed out on some crucial aspects of the changing news culture in Bangladesh. Similarly, my friend Weely, a passionate journalist, provided vital insights for understanding the trends of broadcast journalism practices. Kakoli Prodhan has been a guide and collaborator and has provided instrumental support with her kind contribution of photographs. I extend my thanks to Kakoli Apa. In the field of viewing television, I am grateful for the key informants and interlocutors in Nilphamari. The public library of Nilphamari and some local government officials facilitated the study. I must thank Shofiqul Islam, Ronojit Roy, Anisur Rahman, Dipak Islam and Harish Da. In Dhaka, Monirul Haque offered his kind support. During the research period, Saifur Rashid, then chairperson of the Anthropology Department, University of Dhaka, provided warm support. Indeed, it was the Department of Anthropology where I began to formulate the idea of exploring television news from an anthropological viewpoint. The following Bangladeshi academics (professors) have given me valuable suggestions and encouragements: xv

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Manosh Chowdhury (Janahingnagar University), Farid Uddin Ahmed (Chittagong University), Hasan A. Shafie (University of Dhaka), Zakir Hossain Raju (Independent University), Abu Jafar Md. Shafiul Alam Bhuiyan (University of Dhaka) and Fahmidul Haq (University of Dhaka). This book began as a doctoral thesis at South Asian University, a university established by South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations. My mentor and teacher Dev Nath Pathak’s contribution and effort can be felt in every page of this book. His role has been crucial in making this project successful and shaping the book as it is presently. Without his motivation, guidance and support, it would have been a nightmare for me. In the process, all the faculty members of the department of Sociology have contributed with their critical and valuable insights. The book has been enriched with critical comments and suggestions by professors Sasanka Perera, Roma Chatterji (Delhi University), Steve McDowell (Florida State University), Abhijit Roy (Jadavpur University), Biswajit Das (Jamia Millia Islamia) and Marcus Banks (University of Oxford). I am grateful to Marcus Banks for taking the time to write the foreword for this book in spite of the challenges of the pandemic. Special thanks to my intellectual home, IVSA (International Visual Sociology Association), and the encouragement I received from colleagues there. I acknowledge the generous support and guidance of Douglas Harper, Greg Scott, Yolanda Hernandez-Albujar, Molly Merryman and Tara Milbrandt (all from IVSA). This book is more focused and enriched due to critical comments, suggestions and inputs I have gathered from various conferences and seminars. I acknowledge and convey my gratitude to the participants and organizers of those conferences, including the international seminar on Location Neighbourhoods in the Global South organized by the Department of Sociology, Tezpur University, Assam (2019); the conference on Visualizing Political Process organized by IVSA at the University of Evry Paris-Saclay, France (2018); the postgraduate conference on South Asia, organized by Ireland India Institute, Dublin City University (2017); the international conference on Visual South Asia: Anthropological Exploration of Media and Culture, jointly organized by the University of Dhaka and South Asian University in Dhaka (2017); the conference on What You See Is What You Get: Old and New Ways of Seeing Society organized by IVSA at Tinos, Greece (2015); the International Studies Convention on Power, Resistance and Justice in the International System: Perspectives from the South, organized by the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (2015); and the International Seminar on Performative Communication: Culture and Politics in South Asia, co-organized by the Department of Sociology, South Asian University, and the Centre for Culture Media and Governance, New Delhi (2015). Similarly, I want to thank the anonymous reviewers for their extraordinarily helpful comments and suggestion for the manuscript. A considerable amount of the qualitative work towards this book was done at xvi

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the Asia Culture Centre (ACC), Gwangju, Republic of Korea. Thanks to the ACC research team for making my residency period in Korea smooth. Special thanks should also go to Golam Rabbani, who was instrumental and warm. Some of my peers and friends were generous in facilitating the finishing journey of this book. Among my peers and friends at South Asian University, I must mention Kumud Bhansali, Preetha Hussain, Sariful Islam, Mohiuddin Al-Amin and Murtaza. Our tea sessions, intellectual chitchat and wit have been always a source of energy and motivation. I received support from Nipa Nandita, Nazuk Sidana, Anakshi Pal and Daloar Hossain. A sincere thanks to Anakshi for her enthusiastic help at various levels of preparing the manuscript. Discussion on public and media with Ridhi Kakkar has been illuminating. Her generosity to share a rare collection of books contributed to enrich some sections. This note would be incomplete without stating my gratitude to Joyashree Sarma. Joy has been kind enough to extend her care and encourage me at every step of research, writing and organizing my work. Thanks to Rhythm, who’s presence has been felt to complete the work with pace and rhythm. Thanks to Mahi for inspiring me and providing me with interesting insights about Dhaka’s changing popular culture. My sincere gratitude to Hardina Ohlendorf for providing motivation and sharing refreshing glimpses of adventure with Mina. It gives me immense pleasure to convey my sincere thanks to Banangkur Mustafa, who not only encouraged me to join television media but also kept inspiring me at every level of my professional journey. My family lived with this book, even almost unknowingly. My siblings, Bishwajit Roy (Sajal) and Subarna Roy (Monisha), were highly supportive with their creative thoughts, activities and contributions for my work. Maa and Baba, my parents to whom the book is dedicated, have silently contributed to make this work happen. I was able to complete the manuscript on time because of the support from the Centre for Culture, Media and Governance (CCMG), Jamia Millia Islamia. As a fellow at the centre and with the guidance of professor Biswajit Das, this work came to its final shape. The centre’s project CPEPA (Centre with Potential for Excellence in Particular Area), supported by University Grants Commission, not only helped me complete the book but also allowed me to imagine many futures. I must thank the honorary director of the centre, professor Saima Saeed, and all other colleagues at CCMG. Thanks to my CPEPA colleague Ajaz Ahmed Gilani for his kind support and collaboration. Finally, I acknowledge the team at Routledge, particularly Antara Ray Chaudhary and Rimina Mohapatra, for their kind support. Some parts of Chapters 2, 6 and 7 have appeared in two of my articles: Ratan Kumar Roy, 2019, ‘Online Activism, Social Movements and Mediated Politics in Contemporary Bangladesh’, Society and Culture in South Asia, Vol. 5 (2): 193–215. xvii

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Ratan Kumar Roy, 2020, ‘Emergence of a “New Public Sphere” in Bangladesh: The Interactive Dynamics between News Television, Citizens and the State’, Visual Studies, Vol. 35 (1): 65–75, https://doi.org/10.1 080/1472586X.2020.1731323. I am grateful to the editors and publishers of Society and Culture in South Asia (Sage) and Visual Studies (Routledge) for granting me permission to use these. Finally, it is with deep sorrow I mention Marcus Banks who waited eagerly to see the book in his desk, but unfortunately we lost him on the way. He shall continue to remain alive with the life of this book.

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1 INTRODUCTION Television news and audience in Bangladesh

I always speak the truth. Not the whole truth, because there’s no way, to say it all. Saying it all is literally impossible: words fail. Yet it’s through this very impossibility that the truth holds onto the real. . . . For there’s no difference between television and the public before whom I’ve spoken for a long time now, a public known as my seminar. A single gaze in both cases: a gaze to which, in neither case, do I address myself, but in the name of which I speak. —Jacques Lacan, ‘Television’ (1987: 7)

These remarks by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan originated from his script for a speech to be delivered on a television programme in France in 1973, and the translated version was later published in English. He was not ready to consider television as a taken-for-granted communication media. The visual aspects, psychosocial consequence and interactive framework of television made the medium ambiguous and complex. In the wake of burgeoning broadcast journalism and the sensationalization of the 24/7 news channels, questions are often raised on various social forums: What is the authentic ground of television news? How real are these televisual statements? Lacan hinted that there is no way to state the whole truth, but the process of ‘impossibility’ makes it possible to unravel the truth. Yet it remains an obscure subject that requires further elaboration and exploration. Since it is not possible to state a unique and singular definition of television, it can be deemed at once as a ‘changing set of technologies’, a ‘set of institutions and relationship among the institutions’ and a set of multiple ‘social experiences’ (Allen 2004: 1). Therefore, comprehensive engagement is pertinent to underline the complex relationships of television and co-related sociocultural practices. This book outlines the ethnographic tradition of television, provides a television news ethnography of Bangladesh and presents the interactions between media professionals and audiences. One of the central propositions of this book is that the interface of practices relating to 1

INTRODUCTION

24/7 television news making and news viewership constitutes the television media culture. The emergence of 24/7 private news channels marks a shift in the history and practice of media culture in Bangladesh, like elsewhere in South Asia.1 The new millennium and its corresponding sociocultural practices aided in transforming the mediated social system. How do the audiences encounter and negotiate with the changing media environment? Is the arrival of newsbased satellite channels predominantly a case of technological development? If not, then how do the individuals and society respond to the transformation? What are the socioeconomic and politico-cultural undercurrents of public (dis)interest about watching news in Bangladesh? All these interlinked questions become vital in dealing with television media culture. These questions guided the investigation of a central problem of this study: What are the interactive dynamics between the television news channels and the viewers? Instances of audiences’ enchantment and disenchantment towards television news are often expressed in mundane interactions in households or at public viewing locations. This is evident by their everyday conversations related to television viewing or by simply using the remote-control device to switch the channel or turn it off. The actions and practices are not to suggest a simple ‘for or against’ – to prove whether television news has lost its popularity – but to substantiate that people have something to say about television and also something to do with it. Early theorists of media such as Marshal McLuhan (1964) have emphasized a larger scope of audience interaction in the context of television. Television news provides moving pictures where commentators appear on the screen and pretend to take the audiences along with them or their camera to the spot of reporting. It does not provide every single description; rather, it presents visuals that leave the scope of interpretation open to the viewers. Hence, television has made it possible to be liberated from the one-directional domination of print media. McLuhan developed this argument based on the possible ground of interaction between audience and media. But such technologically determined theorization of participatory communication practice hardly explains the interactive nature of television media. What is needed, rather, is to comprehend the practical world of interaction between the human and the medium – receivers and senders – which may help us unearth the interactive dynamics. A detailed view of such interactive process and practices around television media provides considerable knowledge about agency and social structure; the viewers are not mere spectators and the TV is not a mere technological device (Cushion and Lewis 2010). Thus, one needs to enable the framework to underline how people have been engaging with television news and responding in different manners in different contexts of its development. This may amount to making the anthropology of media more nuanced, which is an aim of the present book.2 2

INTRODUCTION

With the emergence of satellite television news in Bangladesh, there is no longer monopolization of state-owned Bangladesh television (BTV).3 There has been a radical change not only in the variety of news channels but also in the manner of audiences’ interaction with them. Since 2000, domestic private channels began to screen news bulletins. In 2007, the first 24-hour news channel was launched; from 2009 to 2013, five news-based 24/7 TV news channels began to broadcast, and three more were added from 2014 to 2017. This fast proliferation of news-based channels reveals the technological upgradation and digitalization of the media industry. There have also been many political issues in relation to this media boom,4 including cases of shutting down TV stations,5 political pressure to telecast particular news events and threats not to broadcast some ‘sensitive’ issues.6 The popular readings of television media in Bangladesh also emphasize the economic factors to indicate the growth and survival mechanism of the media industry. Despite these dominant factors regarding the policies, politics and finance of the media industry, the emergence of television news echoes cultural phenomena and issues of everyday life. These cultural elements can be identified in the interaction between media and the public at several locations in everyday life settings. This is fairly reflected in people’s account of television news, as presented in the ethnographic chapters in this book (Chapters 4, 6, 7 and 8). An elaborate process of meaning making surfaces from such ethnographic recounts. In sum, this meaning making encapsulates the interaction in the larger domain of media participation. Arguably, media participation is a domain where different stakeholders and agencies have their own stakes. They can be considered as media participants broadly divided into two categories: consumer and producer. The interactive practices as a whole can be considered the media culture. It is media culture not simply because of its interactivity but for the role (and arguably dominance) of communication media in everyday life. Media culture includes the making of media, the implementations and use of media messages, the meaning making of media texts, individual and group responses to media, changing everyday practices in relation to media and so on (Ginsburg 1992; Ginsburg et al. 2002; Hodkinson 2011). And given the density of participation along with diverse vested interests, it is likely for media culture to become a contested domain. It needs to be elucidated through an intensive inspection on the site of media production and consumption in relation to everyday practice and culture as executed in this research and presented in this book. On further investigation, the study underlying this book departs from the deterministic argument of media impact and influence, although it acknowledges the role of media in the social life of audiences. It also examines how the audiences and their everyday practices give social life to television news. The ground of investigation is composed of interface between sender and receiver, news reporter and viewer, encoder and decoder. The interface, in the contested domain of 3

INTRODUCTION

media culture, is fraught with contradiction, confrontation and cooperation among media users and producers. The probability of generating knowledge about media culture has been secured by interactive communication and negotiation between audiences and television. In a broader aspect, it helps in determining the interaction between individual and society. Since the beginning, it has been a challenge for anthropologists to examine the individual’s relationship with the society and vice versa; it is possible to undertake this challenge by ‘locating cultural niches, and wary of all ethnic categories’ (Metcalf 2005: 162). The niches are the micro spheres and categories that hold diverse forms and features of people’s lives and social actions. It is possible to identify the changing cultural pattern in a given context by locating those cultural forms and features. Therefore, this research considered media, culture and society as the unit of study in anthropology, wherein a multisited ethnographic investigation allowed engagement in the complex world of meaning making, media use in everyday life and interactive practices. This book thus endeavours to furthering the development of anthropology of mass media with a particular reference to TV news in Bangladesh.

The background and context In the early days, people in Bangladesh considered TV journalists and media celebrities to be problem solvers. There is even evidence of local people taking photographs with and admiring the role of TV journalists.7 Conversely, the scenario after 15 years shows a different picture, as seen in the incident of assaulting news reporters at the spot of reporting. Hence, it is worthwhile to identify the factors contributing to the audiences’ changing perception, whether with interest or disinterest, of the television news-makers.8 I asked some of the viewers in Nilphamari, a local town in Bangladesh,9 about why they chose to watch news bulletins at the tea stall every evening instead of watching it in their respective homes. They responded, ‘News is not something you watch alone at home, you need a partner. . . . While watching, we debate, discuss and share our views, which is very important’. However, this does not affirm the prominence of audience viewing news beyond the living room. People also watch television news with serious attention in household living rooms, too. The various facets of TV viewing in urban or rural, in private or public, can be further explored with the help of two major incidents that happened in Bangladesh: the Rana Plaza collapse and the Oishee case. In 2013, a garment factory building collapsed near Dhaka, causing the death of more than 1,000 people and injuring around 2,500. The disaster was followed by a dramatic10 rescue operation that was telecast by all the TV news channels for weeks. People tuned into news channels and discussed the Rana Plaza accident with family members. Similar hints of people watching and discussing news in the living room have been 4

INTRODUCTION

pointed out in the case of Oishee Rahman, a teenage girl accused of killing her parents in their flat in Dhaka in 2013. In my interaction with a group of news audiences, it appeared they remembered Oishee’s case in the very sequence it was presented by television channels. This news of 2013 was very much a part of the everyday conversation of audiences in 2015–2016. It is brought up as a reference whenever they talk about English medium schools and anxiety concerning teenage upbringing. This is mainly owing to the manner in which the news about Oishee – who studied in an English medium school and killed her own parents – was presented. Perhaps it hints at how television presents something and audiences consume, conceive and celebrate the same. It seems so in a general sense, but it is yet to be explored whether the factors were already embedded in the society or people had this kind of perception towards English medium schools due to the Oishee incident. The reporters who were making the report on Oishee already knew that people generally hold a negative perception of English medium schooling in Bangladesh and they assumed that after their reporting audiences would take the proposition for granted and consume the reports blindly. This is perhaps a common and crucial point of debate in contemporary media research: whether media shapes culture and society or vice versa. A group of viewers always occupy the two rustic backless wooden benches in front of Abdul’s tea stall in a narrow lane of Dhaka. Abdul himself was an avid news viewer who installed the TV set in his tiny shop and enjoyed conversation with the regular viewers. The tea customers usually do not have a chance to sit on the benches, which are mostly occupied by the consumers of news bulletins. In 2015, there was little less gathering at the tea shop as the TV was mostly off. This generated curiosity about the change towards viewing television news bulletins. One often heard answer was ‘Khobore aar notun ki ase? Akei jinish, faltu! akhon aar khobor dekhina’ (What is ‘new’ in television news to see? The same thing, useless! Nowadays I don’t watch television news). It was not an expected reaction from people who used to be enthusiastic about live news bulletins and regular viewers of 24/7 news channels. The change in people’s perspective seemed widespread in Dhaka. For instance, my visit to some busy tea stalls in 2012–2013 and subsequently in 2015–2016 allowed me to witness two different peculiarities in relation to television watching. The tea stalls11 earlier consisted of people watching news on television over evening cha (the local term for tea). Now, this culture of collectively watching news in a public space, such as the tea stall, has been replaced by TV programmes like reality shows and teleserials. Such a change in television watching caught my interest. This led to a conversation with the tea stall owner, who aptly summed up a popular sentiment: It becomes boring! No politics, no news, however, now I watch news at night once. Moreover, you see talk shows are not enjoyable 5

INTRODUCTION

anymore; they are all agents of the ruling government now. Speakers who were articulating facts were stimulating public opinion. Poor guys, they are being arrested for their arguments. I have nothing more to say. It is pretty visible. The two incidents in Dhaka underlined a slice of public (dis)interest about watching news in Bangladesh. This underpins the key issue running across this book: the interactive dynamics between television news channels and viewers. The following diagram based on the weekly frequency and distribution database12 provides a comparative view of the television rating and reach of Somoy Television, which telecasts round-the-clock news and current affairs. It clearly indicates the fall of viewership of television news in the post-2014 scenario. The evident changes in viewers’ tastes towards television news are not a simple case of absolute disinterest. Marketing research of television channels may not be equipped to unravel the deeper undercurrents of the phenomenon under discussion in this book. But an anthropologically grounded and sociologically enabled study reveals the undercurrents of viewing practices. These viewing practices consist of the sociopolitical conditions and cultural motivations of the media participants located in a particular sociohistorical context. Therefore, this book explores the social practices in fathoming the interaction between television news and audiences within an ambit of reframed anthropology/sociology of mass media.

Rise and fall of TV viewrship Reach of News TV%

Average TRP

7

3

3.5 2 69.5

49.7

2012

1 45.7

2013

2014

40.6

2015

33.3

2016

Figure 1.1 Reach of a particular news channel among viewers in percentage and average television rating point (TVR/TRP) per year of Somoy Television. Source: Author

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Core problem area: news and audiences This discussion enables us to underline the interrelation of media production and consumption, which is arguably the main constituent of media culture. The meaning-making process in television news, which includes the domains of visual production (news making/construction of meaning) and audience consumption (viewing/perceiving [and construction of] a meaning), served as the point of departure in examining the television media culture. However, the angle of consumption needs further development. The objective is to move beyond the common-sense linearity about the impact of media culture. Since it incorporates the role of audiences, the impact is seldom one way. Further, it attempts to understand the processes and consequences of the interactive practices between society and media, audience and television. The central aim of this book is to underline the tension, anxiety, anger, influence and acceptance in relation to television news making and viewing while assuming media culture is at the centre of everyday life.

(Television) media culture The concept of media culture juxtaposes the two primary terms in sociocultural anthropology: media and culture. It is a complex category in reading media and the related cultural practices. It can be seen as a vehicle of the dominant ideology as well as an innocent medium of transmitting information. The economic and political discourses are also embedded in the dominant character of media culture in everyday life. Culture can be understood as a way of life and as creative practices (Williams 1988). Media culture has been conceptualized as the dominant form of culture in today’s life that socializes us by providing materials of cultural reproduction and transformation. It has also been considered as a complex interaction among audiences, their practices and representation of media texts and formats, as argued by Shakuntala Banaji (2010). It seems to cover a larger domain of cultural life that incorporates the meaning-making process and practices of using visual texts. But the question of the domination of media culture is more dynamic in the sense that it is not a one-sided domination where media manipulates the individual or society. This can be substantiated further with Douglas Kellner’s (1995) argument that media culture stimulates individuals to challenge the dominant forms of media and empowers the media consumers in practice. He goes on to say, ‘Media culture is contested terrain across which key social groups and competing political ideologies struggle for the dominance and that individuals live these struggles through the images, discourses, myths, and spectacles of media culture’ (Kellner 1995: 2). There are various ways of conceptualizing media culture in the context of global media flow (Bhabha 1994). It disagrees with the traditional interpretation of ‘media culture’ as a singular expression; rather, it considers 7

INTRODUCTION

the possibility of having several media cultures at a single point of time in a particular location. For instance, Couldry and Hepp (2012) prefer to read it as ‘media cultures’ and adopt a ‘transcultural’ perspective as an alternative approach of investigation. According to this approach, media cultures are ‘translocal’ in nature and not necessarily territorially defined. In researching television news, the translocal approach remains helpful to some extent, especially at the site of television news production that is not exclusively local. In addition, transnational and global media circulation seems to shape the audience’s taste. But it is not wise to completely undermine the national territorybased distinctiveness of media culture. This ethnographic investigation seeks to understand the distinctiveness from within and across the national border of Bangladesh. This initiative aims at extending the theoretical concept of ‘media culture’ based on contextual and empirical findings. In the context of Bangladesh, it intends to divulge the multiple layers of cultural politics and the politics of culture as outlined by Banaji (2010). In other words, it examines the distinctive sphere of politics behind making and viewing news and the political implication of news production and consumption. Overall, this book extends the existing theorizations and conceptualizations of media culture at the site of news broadcasting culture in the context of 24/7 news channels in Bangladesh. It not only examines the emergence of television media as a cultural element and agent of cultural change; rather, for broadening the scheme of understanding media culture, it is imperative to contextualize the arrival of television, multiple responses and related practices within the cultural domain of Bangladesh (Mamun 2013). There has been a dominant notion in the society to consider television a powerful agent of anti-culture (Apasangskriti in opposition to Sangskriti). But television gained popularity and became an integral part of sociocultural life despite the anxiety of an allegedly evil force that could contaminate the pure culture and values of the society. Writer and cultural critic Elias (2000) points out the curious role of television in Bangladeshi society as a platform for intellectuals to cry out to save culture from ‘anti-culture’ while the television itself is a prime domain for disseminating ‘anti-cultural’ elements (Elias 2000: 26). Television as an unholy medium for the middle class notwithstanding, the same people also deem television a harbinger of cultural form. The class with this double perspective on television is largely urbane and educated. The same section of people become instrumental and their aspirations get reflected in the news-making culture of Bangladeshi 24/7 news channels. This book presents multiple layers of interactions among news television, various sets of audiences and related practices to elucidate the media culture in Bangladesh. The primary focus is ‘the interface’. As stated by Silverstone, ‘television operates at the interface between the elite and the popular, the commercial and the public, the state and the citizen’ (Silverstone 2003: ix). Emphasizing these interfaces, the book highlights newly emerged tensions, ambiguities and contradictions. 8

INTRODUCTION

Media rituals As an essential component within media culture, this book has taken forward a critical perspective of media rituals, almost continuing with the anthropological insight on culture constituted by rituals, among other things. The making of television news is a complex sequence of activities while viewing news has a routinized form. The interactive dynamic of making and viewing television has been explored within the framework of ritual, overlapping the idea of media rituals. In anthropology, the term ritual corresponds to habitual and formalized action that involves transcending values (Couldry 2003). It has been associated with the production, reproduction and maintenance of social integration that is often considered ‘customary’ and ‘repetitive’. Victor Turner’s (1977) contribution in the classic anthropological understanding of ritual is significant. In his view, ritual is a stylized or formalized activity of human life and transformative everyday experience. Durkheimian anthropologists including Mary Douglas (1984) contributed in elaborating the cultural aspect and symbolic act of ritual to sustain social relations. Michael Jackson (2008) argues from an existential viewpoint of anthropology and considers ritualization not simply as an aspect of social relations but ‘as an ontologically “primitive” mode of action that plays upon the emotions, manipulates the body and changes consciousness’ (2008: 107). He invites readers to explore ritualization as mundane actions and mindful displays of human existence. There have been considerable scholarly attempts to associate ritual with media and constitute new categories – ‘media ritual’, ‘ritual and media’, ‘ritual view of media’ – that require further conceptual elaboration with due empirical explorations (Grimes 2002).13 The news-making ritual and the viewing ritual have been primarily considered the particular ways of action and practice in media sociology (see Lembo 2000; Nordenstreng 1972; Rubin 1984). But in this book, media ritual has been considered the key mechanism in reproducing the legitimacy of media at the centre of social life. Nick Couldry (2003) aims to develop a critical theory of media rituals from an anthropological perspective. He proposes a short route and a long route to understand media rituals. In the short route one can challenge the conventional understanding of ritual; in the long route one grasps the wider space of interacting with media and society where ‘ritual’ plays an influential role, the space Couldry (2003: 30) defined as ‘the ritual space of the media’. His approach challenges the common-sense notion of the term ritual that contains some habitual, formalized and repetitive performances. This book contextualizes the critical theory of media rituals in reference to television news production and consumption in Bangladesh by offering an empirical viewpoint on ‘the myth of the mediated centre’ (Couldry 2003: 45). There might be multiple ways to define myth; however, from an anthropological viewpoint, Claude Levi-Strauss (1966) and Roland Barthes (1972), among others, provide significant insights. Levi-Strauss

9

INTRODUCTION

(1966) takes a structural approach and identifies myth as the mode of consciousness and the base of structural patterns. Myth can refer to perspectives that are structured, and hence it is not something we can see but rather the lens through which we can see things (Grant 1998). Barthes (1972) provides more functional view of myth that, according to him, is different from the nature and actions of symbol. Myths are intangible, inseparable from our existence and not easily identifiable.14 Although it is difficult to propose a universal definition of myth, which is often associated with mystery and imagination, the social significance of the term is immense. Therefore, the framework of myth along other aspects is pertinent in comprehending the interaction among human life, everyday social actions and media practices. According to Couldry (2003), myth validates an assumption that media captures the centre of the social world through its symbolic power. Creative endeavour is required to sketch the interrelation of media rituals and media culture, which has been attempted in this book and is discussed further in the following chapters (see Chapter 8).

Television news and the localized pubic sphere The trajectories and debates on the interrelation between media and the public are multifaceted. The emergence and role of public service broadcasting, the corporate takeover of news media, freedom of the press, enlightening the people with information and enabling public opinion are core components for discourses in and around media and the public sphere (Ripley Jr. 1994). The idea of the public is quite intimate to news media, as we will see in this book (Chapter 7). It is not merely the inherent nature of information per se that is key for news media. The sense of the public at large works in the overall process of news making, from the inception of a topic for a report to the search for information and qualifying that information as news by addressing, implicitly or explicitly, public demand, public concerns and public opinion. The point of contention is whether information that has been shared in the form of news satisfies the public and addresses their sentiment. Dennis (1992) finds it the most crucial challenge for news to survive in the information age. According to him ‘information is the raw material on which news is based’ (Dennis 1992: 204). Following Lippmann’s (1922) metaphoric explanation on how the news itself is incapable of informing the germination of seeds in the ground until the first sprout breaks through the surface and someone talks about the mechanism, delays, progress and problems, he indicates the significance of adding value to pure information in the formation of news. He continues, The news as we know it, of course, is a report, and a report is generated by people – professional people who gather information, write stories, edit and transmit them to the public. This is the value-added 10

INTRODUCTION

aspect of news that can be distinguished from the pure information of lists and tables. (Dennis 1992: 204) This book argues for a localized public sphere in relation to television news in Bangladesh. In doing so, it critically engages with the debates and deliberations on the public sphere. Habermas (2011 [1992]), in his revised version of the propositions of the public sphere, reflects on the diverse routes of the public sphere in between welfare state and commercialization. Nevertheless, the primary understanding of the bourgeois public sphere was loosely derived from the normative ground that makes a sharp distinction between private arenas of individual interests and public forums of collective concerns. It follows the shift from a political public sphere to a discourse-centred public sphere where electronic mass communication plays an influential role (Dahlgren 2000 [1995], 2009). To explore the concept of the public sphere in the light of television viewing, the distinction of ‘talk’ on and about television adds another dimension (Scannell and Cardiff 1991). In this book the role of public discussion has been acknowledged in order to locate the public sphere beyond the television set. In addition to emphasizing the public discourses, it illustrates the interaction among news reporters, viewers, broadcasting authorities, the state and televised events related to public life.15 The localized public sphere in the wake of television news viewing in diverse sociocultural locations creates multiple discourses and performs as the oppositional force of the urbanbased cultural and political elites. This set of urban elites and intellectuals has also been facilitated by the news-based private channels. To some extent, the political orientation of the localized public sphere is ‘cultural’ and provides the power to resist, subvert and be critical (McGuigan 2011 [2005]). The cultural public sphere has been conceptualized by McGuigan as preferring visual media and television programming where the spaces of action are identified through standpoints: uncritical populism, radical subversion and critical intervention. Uncritical populism assumes the consumer capitalism as culturally democratic, radical subversion reflects the anti-capitalist and anti-globalization manifestation and critical intervention combines the best from both of the prior stances to develop a potentially popular position (McGuigan 2011: 72–74). It is further important to take into consideration the political aspect of television that Douglas Kellner (2018 [1990]) has attempted to elaborate in developing a critical theory of television. He situates television within a theory of society even though this technological force is highly controlled by corporate capitalism and is manipulated by the so-called liberal democratic structure. Television’s hegemonic and counterhegemonic nature has to be contextualized in the historical conjunctures and analyzed by taking into consideration the ‘result of balance of power between contending groups and societal forces’ (2018: 17). In the age of the 11

INTRODUCTION

neoliberal market economy, the role of audiences, often categorized as media consumers, in (un)making politics at the local sites of television viewing provides an alternative view of the public sphere.16 In the ultimate analysis, this line of reasoning leads to an understanding of the continuum from consumer to citizen. The local public sphere, therefore, is also a site of consumers becoming political citizens and vice versa.

Audiences and viewing culture The audience remains an influential category in conducting media and communication research. Some studies have prioritized audiences in examining culture after television. For instance, David Morley’s (1992) small-scale ethnographic investigation in domestic media consumption and Cohen et al.’s (1996) exploration of local audiences in the context of the global newsroom help us understand the global–local dynamic of the media system. However, contemporary media practices are characterized by more diversified and fragmented elements. Significant shifts have happened in past few decades in audience analysis as scholars have been emphasizing on cross-generational dialogues on audience research (Das 2013, 2017). Identity has also been a major factor in apprehending the audiences because it crosscuts many identity positions. In studying viewing culture, audiences are being considered the public, and there have been propositions of a ‘consumer-citizen’ framework (Harindranath 2009). Discussion and gathering knowledge about audiences, along with media and democracy, are crucial for a consumer-citizen framework. This framework considers audiences as citizens who are active participants in civic politics and at the same time consumers who maintain a certain practice towards media commodities. The negotiating strategies and complex terrain of ‘consumer-citizen’ have been explored in relation to television viewing and in the context of Indian political culture by Harindranath (2009). In search for a conceptual clarity, many scholars have pointed out the debated relation between audiences and the public. One group is ready to acknowledge that ‘audiences are subsumed within the broader conception of “the public” or “publics”’ while the other group found them ‘mutually opposed’ (Livingstone 2005; Livingstone and Lunt 1994). Daniel Dayan’s search for a ‘television public’ made the debate more complex as there are varied considerations to qualify television audiences as ‘fully fledged’,‘proto’, ‘quasi’ or ‘pseudo’ publics (Dayan 2001; Livingstone 2005). This book does not recommend subscribing to an oppositional understanding between audience and public or citizen and audiences. Rather, it proposes to credit the audiences as publics who have certain belongingness; as citizens they can form certain opinions, as consumers they are capable of shifting their taste and as masses they can express and resist. Chapter 7 provides more detailed discussion on the making of public spheres in the wake of viewing and forming discourses by the audiences – or, interchangeably, viewers. 12

INTRODUCTION

Emphasis has been given to the category of viewing culture, taking cues from cross-disciplinary approaches of anthropology, media and culture studies that enable researchers to capture the sociopolitical undercurrents of viewing television. Television viewing is a complex set of actions that has logical implications of tastes, identity, cultural orientation and political belonging. The viewing culture as a frame of reference in studying television and its viewership helps illustrate the actions and practices in different times and contexts. Further, it provides clues as to how viewers can enable a critical outlook towards the dominant texts and ideas.

Mediascapes of Bangladesh The television mediascapes of Bangladesh refer to the interrelated practices of media professionals and media consumers along with the transformative process of media communication in the foreground of changing sociocultural and politico-economic conditions. In a way, this is a humble attempt to anthropologize the ghostly abstraction of Appadurai (1990, 1996) in this ethnographic endeavour. In general, the Bangladesh mediascape is constituted by a changing dynamics of public engagement and a burgeoning market economy. It owes much to a traditional elite Bengali culture, also known as literary culture, that emerged in response (or reaction) to the colonial legacy (Van Schendel 2009). In the preindependence era of Bangladesh, newspaper and radio broadcasting played a significant role in generating the nationalist ethos. Post-independence, film and television media successfully entered into the public domain until 1990 (Raju 2014; Shoesmith and Genilo 2013). In the early 1990s, satellite TV channels entered Bangladesh, but the local entrepreneurs of Bengali satellite channels took one more decade to build their self-capability for dissemination and popularization. Chapter 2 provides more details on historical trajectories. Connectivity to the international submarine cable network and adoption of the digital Bangladesh project played significant roles in transforming the mediascapes of Bangladesh.17 An ethnographic imagination of mediascapes should not be solely determined by technological and distributional factors. It should also take into consideration the public engagement, cultural proximities and audiences and their everyday interactions with media in regards to television news. Such an attempt provides us with creative possibilities for capturing emic categories, as we will see in this book with a proposition to consider hujug as a significant category, as elaborated in Chapter 8. It is a phenomenon entailing gossip, intrigues, notion of ‘happenings’ and countercurrents of discourse. This provides dramatic effect to media communication politics and culture. The category of hujug provides an alternative viewpoint to understand the nature and forms of fake news in Bangladesh. As far as fake news is concerned, a section of journalists may argue ‘direct control of media trumps fake news’ in Bangladesh (Ahmed 2018). 13

INTRODUCTION

Such claims are supported by the control of state machineries, the dominance of the ruling party and various threats to journalists. Bangladeshi mainstream 24/7 news channels do not exist in an atmosphere where they can amplify fake news, unlike their Indian counterparts.18 However, sometimes they become helpless in spreading government-backed fake news, as Ahmed claims, ‘While government-backed fake news has understandably garnered a great deal of attention recently, it is just one of many tools used by governments to control media narratives, and in many ways it is not a novel phenomenon’ (Ahmed 2018: 909). In the contemporary media landscape of Bangladesh, the spread of fake news online has contributed to fueling communal conflicts and stimulating mass mobilization. The particularly popular social networking site Facebook has been the prime platform to disseminate forged information that led to a spate of communal violence, attacks and atrocities against minority communities as well as bloggers since 2012 in Bangladesh. These 24/7 TV channels encountered difficulty in coping with such events as the spread of misinformation via social media gained access and popularity. Sometimes their efforts to counteract the fake news turned a section of the audience against them, evoking a question of authenticity, agenda and reliability. Therefore, it is imperative to delve deeper into the question of how the television news channels tackle situations of virality and the spread of fake news via the internet, as well as how such events and conditions have contributed to changing the larger mediated practices. Such issues will be elaborated in Chapters 5 and 6 along with an analysis of events, mobilization, virality and violence in relation to media. Suffice to say that mediated social protests and mobilizations are also intriguing factors for the mediascapes of Bangladesh. The youth-blogger and student-led protests, political culture and democratic transformation in relation to television news are discussed in Chapters 6 and 9.

Theoretical and methodological orientations Television representation, audience reception and media culture have appeared as the major categories as well as focal points in this book. Practically, it is directed towards the practices of media participants: the actions of audiences – individuals as well as groups of viewers – and the activities of making news by television professionals. The interactive domain contained the psychology, performances and personality of social agents. The anthropological approach enabled examination of the relationship of individuals to their own societies and culture (Wulf 2013). Therefore, the theoretical framework has been built upon centering the social practice theory.19 The conceptual underpinning of (social) practice theory has been useful for the anthropological analysis of studying media culture, complexities of audience reception, meaning making and television broadcasting and cognitive and 14

INTRODUCTION

emotional formations in everyday practice (Couldry 2004; Fuchs 2011). The theory primarily provides a key to engage with ‘practices’ on the one hand and ‘social actors’ on the other to outline the dialectics of sociocultural structure. In doing so, it enables a possibility of interaction between the objectivist and subjectivist approaches. In order to illustrate the social (media) practices in the domain of news making and television viewing, Sherry Ortner’s (2006) updated version of social practice theory remains key.20 Her updated version of the theory accumulates the power, history and culture in practice while a reinterpretation of culture has been acknowledged (Ortner 2006: 3). Taking a cue from Ortner and extend it, the conceptual framework concerns why people watch television news when they experience feelings of distrust and boredom. It also illustrates how the television media culture has been shaped and transformed with the confrontation, contradiction, compromise and collaboration of making and viewing news. The following chapters of the book provide detailed insight on this. The conceptual building blocks of the research have taken into consideration the cultural turn widely discussed by Fredric Jameson (1991, 1998). He provokes a rethinking of the anxiety between culture and economy or base and superstructure. Hence, the theoretical outcomes of this research, as presented in this book, consciously depart from the confusion of emphasizing either culture or economy because to say that my two terms, the cultural and the economic, thereby collapse back into one another and say the same thing, in an eclipse of the distinction between base and superstructure that has itself often struck people as significantly characteristic of Postmodernism in the first place, is also to suggest that the base, in the third stage of capitalism, generates its superstructures with a new kind of dynamic. (Jameson 1991: xxi) Theoretically, this book promises to contribute to the anthropology of news and journalism21 and advance the disciplinary potentials of the anthropology of media and culture. Given the multiple layers of interactions among media and human agency, consumer and producer, television and culture, practice and contents, news and audiences, a multisited ethnography methodology has been chosen. It takes into account the struggle of media and communication studies researchers to pursue ethnographic study as the realization of capturing the social world in relation to media has begun (Machin 2002). This ethnographic study has been designed with a qualitative approach and considers participant observation as the central technique of data collection (LeCompte and Schensul 2010). Participant observation enabled this research to employ 15

INTRODUCTION

multiple methods in fieldwork while helping forge rapport with the respondents and evincing information through informal interactions (Bernard 2011; Denzin 2007). The methodological approach of this study was informed by ethnographic attempts to understand television media culture and audiences. For instance, Lila Abu-Lughod (1997) raises the complex issues of thick description and the importance of ethnographic investigation among local communities on television text and meaning. Ethnography of television is not confined to see a ‘culture’; rather, it prefers to locate the ‘cultures’ while television renders ‘more and more problematic a concept of cultures as localized communities of people suspended in a shared web of meaning’ (Abu-Lughod 1997 [2010]: 95). She advances Geertz’s (1973) call for thick description as the methodology of ethnography and provides creative interventions to incorporate it in the mass-mediated culture study. The present research closely and critically interacts with these methodological debates. Outlining the trajectory of media ethnography, Elizabeth Bird (2003) argues for an interdisciplinary future for television and audience studies. Adhering to the fact that ‘only ethnography can begin to answer questions about what people really do with media’ (Bird 2003: 191), the research underpinning this book incorporates both overt and covert points of view from the field. To initiate the empirical investigation in the domain of media and culture, the book critically reviews the methodological trend of media research worldwide.22 The process of developing the methodological framework involved intensively examining some contemporary ethnographic investigations on television news in South Asia and beyond.23 The book hinges broadly on the site of television news production and the site of television news consumption. Put together, the two sites reveal the details of media participation. Furthermore, an in-depth newsroom ethnography of Somoy Television, a 24-hour news channel in Bangladesh, is a key point of discussion in this book. It was an intentional decision to exclude BTV (Bangladesh Television), a state-run channel, because various survey reports and research (Genilo and Shafi 2013; Naser and Aikat 2011) had shown that, in terms of news, BTV has lost its viewers in both urban and rural settings while satellite channels have entered in the marginal localities. Rather, a local town called Nilphamari and adjacent villages from the northern part of Bangladesh became a crucial destination for the discussion of television viewing practices. Chapter 3 in this book brings forth insights about ethnographic and methodological challenges and possibilities in the field.

Outline of chapters This introductory chapter is followed by eight chapters. The second chapter offers a synoptic history of television media in Bangladesh. It does not simply illustrate the historical evolution of news broadcasting but flags the 16

INTRODUCTION

interactions of technology and society and practices of journalism and television viewership. The chapter aims at situating television journalism and the rise of news-based domestic satellite channels into the larger social, political and economic developments of the country. Hence, the role of the state, market forces and their interactions with the burgeoning television media industry are outlined in the chapter. The third chapter is about the field and methodological underpinning that outlines the philosophical and practical blueprint of conducting ethnography. It introduces the locations of viewing and news making and elaborately discusses the process of engaging with the research subjects. The research design and strategic frameworks of conducting fieldwork for ethnographic research are explained. The fourth chapter explores the narratives of television viewers in Bangladesh to underscore the viewing practice of television news. Specifically, the chapter promises to map the viewing of television in a particular district as well as at multiple sites that came under the ethnographic study. The enchantment and disenchantment of the viewers, their tastes and preferences of television content, their practices and performances in relation to television viewing and their discourses and discomforts towards the pattern of television media are discussed with particular cases and instances. Who are the viewers, what do they watch, why do they watch, what do they do in the context of viewing television and what are the viewpoints they generate in the process of viewing television news? Chapter 4 answers these questions. The fifth chapter of the book illustrates everyday life in a television newsroom, the concerns and priorities of the television professionals, the journalistic dissatisfactions and the practices and paradoxes of the television channels. Who controls the news, who sets the agenda, what are the ways audiences find a space into the television, how are any public concerns being acknowledged by the television journalists? The chapter attempts to respond to these pertinent questions. The sixth chapter underlines a possible interaction among media, culture and society by concentrating on the social mobilization, protests and role of television media. Further, it discusses the interlink between television and digital media platforms in the contemporary sociopolitical context of Bangladesh. The formation of a localized public sphere in Bangladesh in the domain of public viewing and discussing television news is elaborated in Chapter 7. The collective efforts of audiences and media professionals to sustain a mediated social practice, constitute a media culture and transform the social (as well as media) system are elucidated in Chapter 8. It is composed of the central arguments and conceptual contribution of the research. It provides the conceptual basis of the findings of the ethnography and explains the nature of television media culture in the wake of interaction between viewing and news-making practices. The concluding chapter summarizes the major findings of the research and states the ways forward. 17

INTRODUCTION

It indicates the possible interventions of media practices in the cross-border frame of South Asia. The chapter also provides clues for further research in the domain of digital media culture in Bangladesh. Pseudonyms have been used for some respondents who requested anonymity; however, most of the respondents agreed to be named. In a nutshell, the book holds the following key arguments that solicit further debates beyond the ambit of this book: The book offers an ethnographic sense of how news making and news viewing are more than the aspirations of information dissemination. Departing from a hard-core political economy viewpoint and the impact-influence model of examining media, the cultural approach conceptualizes television media culture and its intriguing complexity. This interactive dimension of media, the public and mediated practices is fraught with melodramatic intent, politics of personal and public interests and the vested interests of various stakeholders. Key concerns are how mediated social movements and activism flourished in the changing media landscape of Bangladesh and how, as a post-Bollywoodization phenomenon, the Bengali soap opera and other media elements from across the border thwarted local broadcasters. These aspects of mediated culture and communication require further attention. Due to the state control, commercial centrism and self-censorship of television media, viewers are switching to digital media platforms, thus inviting advanced studies to investigate the practices of digital news circulation to capture the transformations of media culture in Bangladesh. The work invites readers to engage with the evidence of non-linear relations, processes and politics that lead to a more nuanced discussion on the nature and scope of democracy in Bangladesh. The book flags many issues – such as a paradoxical presence of Southasianism despite nationalist orientations, among others – and prepares the ground for further exploration within the anthropology of mass media in South Asia.

Notes 1 Officially, the regulatory body does not offer a licence for 24/7 news channels in Bangladesh. However, private television channels are branded as 24/7 news and entertainment media and popularize themselves as news channels. For convenience of discussion and taking this practice into consideration, this book interchangeably refers to 24/7 news channels and news-based channels in Bangladesh. 2 I am interested in using anthropology of media instead of the popularly used ‘emerging subfield’ of media anthropology partly because of the ongoing debates on the line of disciplinary functionality and sanity. Media anthropology as a subdiscipline has been vibrant since the outset of the 21st century, and some debates don’t move beyond the complaint about anthropology’s late interest in engaging with media. Anthropology of media can enable a larger scope of investigation in the ‘media-saturated world’ with alternative viewpoints, thick descriptions and possibilities of bringing the sociocultural aspects of media (Askew and Wilk 2002; Peterson, 2003; Postill 2009; Ohm 2013).

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3 Before the launch of satellite television channels in 1992 in Bangladesh there was a monopoly age of BTV. Before 1997 it was the only domestic TV channel in the country and before 2000 the only source of Bengali television news. For more, see Alamgir et al. 2016, Sagor 2014. 4 The fast-growing television industry has been popularly considered a media boom by commentators of media and researchers; see Alamgir (2015), Rahman (2009). 5 Ekushey Television was the first private channel to broadcast news bulletins and was shut down in 2002. The first 24/7 news channel, CSB News, was only on air for 3 months and 15 days. Bangladesh has continued shutting down private channels, and regulatory bodies have accused them of telecasting controversial or sensitive news. 6 See Choudhury (2010), Jahangir (2010, 2013). 7 This is from my interaction, dated 30 August 2015, with four media professionals who were employed in the year 2000 as reporters with ETV (Ekushey Television), the first private news broadcasting channel in Bangladesh. 8 Interchangeably used with the term television professionals. 9 Nilphamari is a district town of the northern region of Bangladesh where I conducted ethnographic research. People there watch television news together at local tea stalls and market places, unlike in Dhaka, where people have shifted their viewership to private spaces within households. 10 Right after the accident, there was no exact estimate of how many victims were buried and how many were still alive under the devastated building. Initially there was a lack of proper rescue operation, and various television live coverage programmes showed victims requesting rescue. The death of a rescue worker and an instance of rescuing a woman alive 17 days after the collapse made the whole event dramatic. 11 These are some selected tea stalls in Dhaka where people used to get together in the evening and watch television news similar to many other tea stalls that are considered an adda (an informal chat) place. 12 The database on television rating was accessed by the author from the respective channel. The rating point for the private satellite channels was analyzed and provided by a particular company, MRB, previously known as SIRIOUS Marketing and Social Research Ltd. However, the weekly data and analytical ratings produced by these kind of third-party company are always challenged by the TV channels, and hence remain controversial. 13 In the broader range of cultural and media studies, some of the remarkable works that revealed the association between media and ritual are Alexander (1994), Carey (1988), Carey (1989), Couldry (2003), Goethals (1981), Hoover (1989), Sobchack (1982). 14 For more on myth and anthropological theory, see Barrett (1984) and Menzies (2014). 15 For further on this line, the concept of ‘the public life of broadcasting’ that was developed by Paddy Scannell (2011 [1989]: 238) can be useful. He argues that broadcasting as a public good enables a new kind of public culture and a new kind of general public. 16 The concern has been raised by many theorists, including Hammer and Kellner (2009), that under neoliberalism it is difficult to create an alternative public sphere because there is a dominant practice of depoliticizing public life and providing a ground for consumerism. Therefore, they believe that ‘against neoliberalism, educators, cultural studies theorists, students, and activists face the task of providing a language of resistance and possibility’ (2009: 103). 17 The Awami League–led government that came into power in early 2009 took an initiative known as ‘digital Bangladesh’ to transform Bangladesh into a society

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based on information and communication technology. For further details, see Bhuiyan (2013). Media critics argue that Indian mainstream TV channels ‘amplify, justify and legitimize fake news’. See Anadolu Agency, ‘Indian TV Channels Amplify, Justify and Legitimize Fake News’, 5 March 2020, www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/indian-tv-channels-amplify-justify-and-legitimize-fake-news-/1827364. Since the late 1970s, social practice theory has been recognized by scholars as dominated by three major paradigms: Geertz’s symbolic or interpretive anthropology, Wolf’s Marxist political economy and Levi-Strauss’s French structuralism. The theory became popular through the work of another three scholars: Bourdieu (1977), Giddens (1979) and Shalins (1981). To update the social practice theory, Ortner proposed the ‘new-old’ and ‘newer’ forms of culture. To follow her, the ‘newer’ concept helps one engage with televisual impact and the mobility of symbolic patterns. The new-old concept of culture has been suggested to capture the behavioural pattern and worldview of the audience. As a whole, the main domain of investigation in this project is interactive practices of social actors – in a technical sense, ‘culture-practice’. The anthropology of news and journalism has been considered a relatively new disciplinary domain that allows researchers from anthropological backgrounds to conduct an ethnography of news as a cultural form and related social dynamics (Bird 2010). According to Elizabeth Bird (2010), it requires the researcher to be humble to acknowledge the existing knowledge and adopt an interdisciplinary approach. Informed by this new trend of studying news and journalism in anthropology, this research tried reflecting through its methodological as well as conceptual underpinnings. The history of methodological approaches in global media research demonstrates the dominance of survey research on audiences that was initiated by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) in 1936; however, a question of reliability remains because these surveys suffered from contradictory sources of data and validity issues of research findings (Mytton 2012). A debated appearance of ‘methodological nationalism’ (Beck 2000) was vivid in the scholarly domain of social sciences during the mid-20th century, which is argued as failed and demeaned with the appearance of ‘methodological cosmopolitanism’ (Beck 2007). There also have been attempts to propose ‘cross-national research’ (Livingstone 2003) or ‘methodological inter-nationalism’ (Rantanen 2010) in media and communication study. For example, Batabyal (2012), Clausen (2003), Cottle (2007), Krauss and Pharr (1996), Mankekar (1993), Ohm (2007).

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2 HISTORY AND POLITICS OF NEWS TELEVISION IN BANGLADESH IN SOUTH ASIA

The invention of television was no single event or series of events. —Raymond Williams, Television (1974 [2003], 7)

The emergence of television in South Asia had a peculiar pathway. Western society saw a largely techno-social development of television due to industrial development and capitalist modernity. In the South Asian context, the emergence and development of television were intricately associated with the process of nation building. Television entered the non-Western countries as a powerful tool of techno-mediation that was undertaken and endorsed by the states to create the modern public (Rajagopal 2015). The objective of mass mediation and a developmental agenda led the states to control television since its emergence. The modern nation-states utilized television as a technological means to disseminate socio-educational propaganda. There is, however, a need to engage with the historical development of television broadcasting beyond state control. Television in South Asia ought to be conceived in the context of public viewing, too. In other words, the interaction between television and its audience plays an important role in the evolution and advancement of television in South Asia. This chapter provides a synoptic overview of practices around television news and audiences in Bangladesh within a historical framework. The historical trajectory enables us to examine the political culture of television media practices. The historical framework in effect in this chapter is inclusive of public engagement and the role of the state, with reference to instances related to television broadcasting in Bangladesh.1 If one agrees with Raymond Williams (1974 [2003]) that technology evolves and enters into a particular society due to aspiration and demand from within, then the arrival of television in South Asia needs to be examined with its multiple realities and events. With appropriate exegeses, this chapter deals with the historical events behind the emergence of television in Bangladesh with a specific focus on news broadcasting.

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History of broadcasting: the global perspective The emergence of broadcasting owes to the sociopolitical transformation in 19th-century Britain. Scannell and Cardiff (1991) argued that the movement for press freedom, the evolution of a critical public to demand a representative democracy and the right to vote from the late 18th to the mid-19th centuries, worked as catalyst for the establishment of broadcasting. The arrival of the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) had to negotiate with one crucial aspect – public service broadcasting. The inception of ‘broadcasting’ as a public service suffered from severe ambiguity and contradictions (Scannell 1990). On the one hand, it was deemed to be dedicated to the public interest, and on the other hand, it was considered as providing a ‘national service’. However, how much of the public interest could have been served by public service broadcasting is debatable. On examining the social history of British broadcasting, Scannell and Cardiff (1991: 7) deemed it ‘a cogent advocacy of public service as a cultural, moral and educative force for the improvement of knowledge, taste and manners’. Conceiving the responsibility as a public service controlled by the state, the BBC in its early stages attempted to promote the British Empire while at the same time ‘building up a broadcasting empire of its own’ (Potter 2012: 1). Even after the conversion from company to corporation, the BBC had to follow the mandate of national service and remained loyal to the state. Unlike British public service broadcasting, the scenario in the United States was more privatized and market oriented. Advertising was dominant in early 20th-century US broadcasting media, and thus the United States witnessed a rapid flourishing of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). As Potter notes, ‘Broadcasting was financed and operated in Britain and America in distinct ways, but arguably with the same aim of taming the medium and harnessing it as a force for national integration’ (2012: 18). In European societies, national broadcasting systems were used for ‘political and cultural propaganda’ and ‘religious propaganda’ with some positive attitudes towards allowing space for controversial news (Scannell and Cardiff 1991: 41–42). The historical timeline of the invention of television as a landmark of technological revolution in modern human history can be traced back to the 17th century. The scientific inventions and intention to develop direct and faster communication technology paved the way for television in the later centuries. In the 19th century, the combined emergence of telegraph, telephone and phonograph marked the possibility of transmission of sound and vision. The concept and techniques of scanning introduced by Paul Nipkow in 1884 were a crucial contribution to the formation of television. In the initial years of the 20th century, there was significant progress in terms of giving a real shape to television through the invention of the cathode ray tube, which enabled electronic vision from distance. From 1923 onwards, various experimental

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displays to establish a substantial form of television were made in the United States, London, Germany, Japan and France by pioneering individuals and companies. It was only in the 1930s that agencies from the different nations known as ‘superpowers’ started setting up full-fledged transmission of television. Some of the early landmarks of the transmission were the BBC’s experimental television service since 1929, transmission of the Olympic Games in 1936 by the German Post Office service (DRP), the launching of the London Television Service in 1936 and telecasting the speech of President Roosevelt in the United States in 1939 (Abramson 2003). By the mid-20th century, Europe and America had experienced a phenomenal enthusiasm of the masses towards television broadcasting; it is said that ‘TV soon had won all its battles’ (Glick and Levy 2005). However, it is pertinent to keep in mind that state and commercial agencies from the developed nations figured out television as a potential medium for communicating with their ‘citizens’ and ‘consumers’ given its substantial existence and performance by the 1950s. The emergence of television is not an autonomous process of technological advancement, as argued by Williams, who elaborates the social history of television as a technology and its uses. He invites us to examine the interface of technology and society that has been significant since the beginning of public broadcasting. The radio also entered into social life as a medium of information and entertainment that played a crucial role in shaping the social system and forming public life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The advancement from sound culture to visual culture with the advent of television brought a major social transformation in terms of public consumption and popular culture. In South Asia, the arrival of television broadcasting is primarily a case of Western intervention if we take into consideration the collective initiative of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and the Ford Foundation to launch educational telecasting in 1959 in India (Page and Crawley 2001; Thomas 2010). It is also pertinent to take note of the state’s intention to utilize television media to create ‘modern publics’ and hence not merely consider a borrowed version from the West. According to Rajagopal, during ‘the spread of television in the global South, information uptake did not occur as policymakers expected, either in the part of the broadcaster or the audience, until the state ceded control and the market, which was usually transnational, took over’ (2015: 85). This requires looking back at the colonial period in India when the modern technology of broadcasting was introduced by the British Empire. Radio transmission increased in popularity during the last decade of imperial rule, and its influence in catering to the public domain by disseminating political news continued in the post-colonial period (Lelyveld 1990, 1995; Luthra 1986). It is also pertinent to keep in mind that ‘print-capitalism’, which in Anderson’s (1983) view is an accelerating factor for the modern nation, did not have a unique impact in the case of the Indian sub-continent. As Chatterjee (1991 [2010], 28) argues, 23

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‘the specificities of colonial situation do not allow a simple transposition of European patterns of development’. The vernacular languages and ideas disseminated in the age of the printing press and newspapers created a new network beyond the control of the modern nation-state and Western influence. Similarly, in post-colonial India, radio broadcasting in different regional languages fostered a possibility of wider public engagement (Awasthy 1965). At the same time, in the post-partition era,2 control of broadcasting was highly centralized by the state. While the colonial development of broadcasting had imperialist interests, the post-colonial interest was on nation building and fostering a sense of unity in diversity. Allegedly, though, the state-owned broadcasting systems failed to generate a true sense of pluralism and emerged as the custodian of national culture and values, paying attention to educating the masses and serving the middle class. As Page and Crawley (2001) argue, the emergence of satellite broadcasting in South Asia generated consumer values among the public. There was an evident perception towards television as a middle-class ‘luxury’ rather than a ‘mass media’ like radio (Page and Crawley 2001). However, the public was inclined to television because of its dramatic quality as a visual medium. Besides, economic liberalization played a crucial role for the spread of satellite television not only in the West but also in South Asian societies. The dominance of media trade and commerce, however, hindered public service broadcasting in Bangladesh from serving as a truly public-oriented media. As Rahman (2014) observed, along with commercialism and political instrumentalization, contradictory tendencies in the policy realm as well as within broadcasting professionals made it impossible for public service broadcasting to perform freely for the public interest. He states, ‘BTV’s reluctance for gaining autonomy from the government while maintaining an exploitative hierarchal structure shows BTV’s internal contradiction to serve the public’ (2014: 62). Public engagement with satellite news unfolds the transnational nature of television broadcasting and viewing. The Gulf War coverage by CNN (Cable News Network) ushered in a new era of broadcasting in South Asia; a new set of motivations and interests began to unfold. In general, the news and current affairs programmes on television had always negotiated between ‘professionalism’ and ‘commercialism’ (Hallin 1996). In the same breath, it ought to be admitted that television journalism was not explicitly engaging in ‘public service’ (Cushion 2012). This makes sense particularly in South Asia given the state control of news and current affairs on the national broadcasting media. The political regimes and historical milieu invariably determined television news culture across the region.

Lineage of television broadcasting in Bangladesh The emergence of television broadcasting in Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, began with the political propaganda of Pakistani ruler Ayub Khan in 1964. 24

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Aiming at the presidential election scheduled in 1965, the commander-inchief of the army, Ayub Khan, decided to set up two TV stations in Lahore and Dhaka. The intention of utilizing this broadcasting televisual medium for political gain was very explicit as the state authorities not only arranged the transmission but also took the initiative to distribute TV sets. The establishment of Pakistan TV in the early 1960s was conceived by the rulers as a means of political communication and national integration. In the initial stage, it was managed by the people who were not skilled in the television industry but came from the field of radio broadcasting and creative theatre arts. The conflict of interests between TV professionals’ creative minds and whims of rulers was apparent during the inception of television in Pakistan. Such a confrontation has existed and can be traced back during the colonial period between creative professionals and bureaucratic administration in general (Page and Crawley 2001). Finally, on 25 December 1964, the Dhaka centre of Pakistan Television began its journey as Pilot Television Dhaka. The seeds of state control and censorship were planted at the point of inception of television in the country. The then opposition political alliance led by Fatima Jinnah called a protest meeting in Paltan, Dhaka, near the Dhaka Improvement Trust (DIT) house, where President Ayub Khan and East Pakistan’s governor, Monaim Khan, inaugurated the TV station. The television broadcast was launched while the protest was taking place, but the news of the protest event was not telecasted. Pilot Television was turned into Pakistan Television Service after three months and continued with a highly controlled public communication media by the regulatory bodies from Pakistan (Bhowmick 2016; Chowdhury 2016). The political crisis in East Pakistan, arguing for the autonomy and independence of its political and cultural activists, was reflected in the transmission of Pakistan Television in the pre-independence era. The conflict of Bengali directors, artists and officials with the regulatory bodies from Pakistan and the army continued. Pakistani rulers wanted television to be utilized as a medium of disseminating state propaganda and Islamic ideologies while in East Pakistan officials attempted to project Bengali programmes as a way to express their linguistic, cultural and regional dignity. Television served as a vital medium to express the sentiments and emotions towards the Bengali language (Chowdhury 2016; Sagor 2008, 2014). During the 1970 general election of Pakistan and on the eve of the liberation movement of Bangladesh in 1971, the cultural activists and officials of East Bengal appropriated television to begin a cultural movement through their creative and artistic interventions. The programmes were designed with Bengali music shows, patriotic songs and theatrical innovations along with using signs and symbols in the everyday work of the TV station. However, the rulers of Pakistan did not allow the televising of any news or current affairs related to the political protests in then East Pakistan. According to Chowdhury (2016), Pakistan radio was the only source for news, and the 25

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rulers had conveyed a clear instruction for TV to copy the radio news and not state anything extra. The crackdown in Dhaka with the inception of Operation Searchlight by the Pakistani military force began on 25 March 1971. The army took over the television centre, and many pro-liberation officials were detained. At the moment of independence, the television centre was taken under by the freedom fighters of Bangladesh. On 17 December 1971, the logo of Bangladesh Television appeared on the screen. Given the post-war conditions of the country, it was a difficult relaunching. But the new government of Bangladesh realized the importance of this public medium for building the nation. In 1972, Bangladesh Television (BTV) was nationalized from a public corporation, and it continued serving as the mouthpiece of the government (Page and Crawley 2001; Sagor 2014). As is evident, Pakistan and Bangladesh have shared a lineage of media and politics and underline the benign interaction of the public and politics.

The public and television: the history of interrelation The history of the interrelation between television and the public is vigorous in the case of Bangladesh. Since the emergence of television, people received the medium with a welcoming attitude. In turn, television professionals also made efforts to connect with the people and fulfil their expectations. Initially, the transmission was limited to 15 kilometres around the DIT house (where the TV centre was located in Dhaka) in its initial phase. Over time, the television industry enhanced its technological and structural capability, and after a decade the broadcast was shifted to a dedicated centre in Rampura, Dhaka. Many instances and initiatives by television professionals enabled the possible interaction between television media and the public. From 1966 to the liberation of Bangladesh, television provided interactive shows in which people from diverse backgrounds participated. There used to be dedicated shows to read out selected letters from viewers. In order to gain viewership, the television shows offered lucrative prizes for the audiences. Most of the shows were designed to connect people, and slowly the producers started prioritizing the interests of the people. From entertainment to information, television professionals tried to bring freshness in all aspects. There was a strong sense of understanding public demand and acknowledging audiences’ expectations among the television programme producers (Sagor 2014). There were a good number of foreign English serials, cartoons and films in the early age of television in Bangladesh. Those films and characters became widely popular among television viewers, including kids and youth. The dubbed shows of Tarzan, Robin Hood, MacGyver, Akbar the Great and Alif Laila found viewers across the county. In addition, the 26

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initiative of Bangladeshi theatre activists and cultural personalities to use television media for their creative pursuit also brought newness for audiences. There were many quiz shows, general knowledge shows and science- and health-related shows in the pre- and post-independence eras of Bangladesh. These initiatives were not merely for the purpose of educating people but also to generate and circulate information in society. Various knowledgebased, agro-related, farmer-oriented featured programmes were aired on television. Access and interest towards television kept increasing in the 1980s. Colour television was launched in the 1980s in Bangladesh, and people from different corners became enchanted by the medium. In small towns, people started possessing televisions in their households, and there were public gatherings around television sets in clubs, municipal offices and some select locations. The enchantment and engagement of the people towards television reached its peak after the 1980s. By the 1990s, BTV’s Bengali teleserials and weekly films enjoyed nationwide popularity. For instance, public outcry broke out on the streets of Bangladesh to resist a scripted death sentence of a central character in the teleserial Kothao Keu Nei (There Is No One Anywhere) in 1993. People protested, threatening the television to change the decision of hanging the innocent protagonist when they found out in the course of the serial that it would end with his punishment. The writer and director of the teleserial did not reverse the decision, and the serial with the death sentence to the character known as Baker Bhai. In the serial Baker Bhai lost his battle and had to die, and the viewers who supported his character and made a public demonstration also failed to change the storyline.3 But they held public funerals at various locations for the fictional character. This character became so real for them that for many years after his death they carried special prayers for the rest and peace of Baker Bhai’s soul. The memory of Baker Bhai and its associated public engagement are still very significant to the viewers of Bangladesh. Asaduzzam Noor, the actor who played Baker Bhai, later was nominated by Awami League and ran in the national election of 2008 from the constituency of Nilphamari. In that election, his identity as Baker Bhai helped him gain popular support, and eventually he won and served as a cultural minister in the Bangladesh government. It remains not only a significant memory but also a case often referred to remember the golden era of television viewership in the county. It is a historical marker because from the late 1990s the viewers of television started switching to satellite channels, which were predominantly Indian. The satellite channels entered the country in 1992, and at the same time there were unofficial attempts and individual initiatives to import dish antenna. There was a rapid popularity of GTV, STAR, SONY, ESPN and MTV channels through satellite cables and dish antennas. The consumption of sports, movies, music and Indian TV serials dominated the routine of television viewing in the households of Bangladesh.4 27

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Political history of satellite television Right after independence, Bangladesh conceived its constitution in 1972 with a vision to achieve socialism.5 After the political achievement in 1971, the nation bag its struggle for economic freedom under the leadership of Bangabandhu sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In his Bangladeshi version of socialism, there was an attempt to dissolve all political parties into one named a BaKSAL (Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League) in 1975 to bring about a revolution. As part of that attempt, Bangladesh Television turned into a mouthpiece of the government, and only four newspapers were allowed to publish. That attempt of nationalizing the news media was criticized and considered an attack on freedom of the press. In August 1975, after Sheikh Mujib’s assassination, the revolution was dismantled and a regime of military autocracy continued until 1991 under army general duo Ziaur Rahman and Hussain Muhammad Ershad. During Ziaur Rahman’s time, the introduction of colour television and setting up several relay stations for wider transmission of television were considered significant developments. Following Ziaur Rahman, Lt. General Ershad also took maximum benefit of the broadcasting media to disseminate his ideas, statements, directions and activities. Historical evidence states that, as president, the appearance of Ershad on television was so dominant and recurrent that people got tired and turned their eyes from it. There are some sayings about how, among various other reasons, his too-frequent presence on television paved the way for the fall of his dictatorship (Alamgir 2008, 2016). After Ershad stepped down, Bangladesh began its new journey towards a parliamentary democracy from 1991. Begum Khaleda Zia,6 wife of the late president, Major General Zia, became the prime minister and took initiatives to open up the local market for the global economy. Her government emphasized deregulation and privatization to participate in the world market. On the one hand, the global media market was flourishing, aided by neoliberal endeavours, and on the other hand, Bangladesh was opening its doors by signing agreements like GAAT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) in 1991 (Bhowmick 2016). Wahid (2007) illustrates that the political and economic policies of Khaleda Zia’s government had a great role in introducing satellite television in Bangladesh. The American news network CNN attempted to enter the South Asian market with their 24/7 news programmes with their live broadcasting of the Gulf War in 1991. There was a round of meetings with the representatives of CNN and Khaleda Zia’s government that finally saw success when CNN’s owner, Ted Turner, met Bangladeshi prime minister Begum Zia and convinced her upon her visit to the United States (Faisal 1993, cited in Wahid 2007). Following the entry of CNN and BBC, other entertainment channels entered the country, including STAR network, Zee channels and SONY TV. From 1992 to 1995, people became accustomed at least 10 TV channels in their household for news,

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sports and entertainment shows. With this welcoming of foreign satellite channels, the single Bangladeshi channel, BTV, began to struggle to hold viewers, and eventually it started losing viewership. In terms of variety of programmes, globalized features of televisuals and new trends of creative innovation, BTV was lagging behind the satellite channels. Sheikh Mujib’s daughter, Sheikh Hasina,7 came into power in 1996 and took further initiatives to boost the television media culture in Bangladesh. The new sub-centre of BTV was set up in Chittagong and was run and controlled by the government even though there was promises of BTV’s autonomy. Her regime saw the introduction of the domestic private channels in the country, putting an end to the age of BTV’s monopoly in the Bangladeshi television industry. ATN Bangla came in the market in 1997 as the first domestic satellite channel. Subsequently, Channel I was launched in 1999 with digital broadcasting service. Both the channels were focused on entertainment-oriented programmes. In the initial days of satellite broadcasting, the television professionals had to struggle with many constraints in terms of transmission and the technicalities of making programmes. The channel owners, however, took the challenge to meet audiences’ expectations by providing enhanced televisual entertainment. The advent of domestic satellite channels opened up a new ground of interaction among the owners, cable operators and advertisers, adding new players in the domain of the television industry. In 2000, Ekushey Television (ETV) came onto the scene and used BTV’s terrestrial facility to broadcast nationwide without satellite connectivity. As people used to get the channel without any cable connection, it became widely popular among viewers. Another important factor behind its popularity were news bulletins, as it was the first private channel in the country to begin news broadcasting. Under the supervision of Simon Dring, a reputed British journalist, there was a full-fledged news team at ETV. In terms of television news broadcasting, this channel brought about a revolution by initiating proper field reporting, presenting the news in a new style and televising issues from all aspects of social and political life. Overall, the viewers began to experience a new and dynamic style of TV news bulletin at ETV in sharp distinction from BTV. Following them, the other two channels, ATN Bangla and Channel I, also started news bulletins and newsrelated talk shows. These television channels offered televisual stories and spot reporting on political issues that were not limited to governmental events and statements. None of these TV stations are exclusively news channels, although in 2007 CSB News came up with the idea of 24/7 news channels solely dedicated to news and current affairs. The popularity of news bulletins on private channels had increased to such a considerable level that TV journalists started receiving celebrity-like appreciation in society. In 2001, political power transferred from Awami League to the BNP-led four-party alliance, and Khaleda Zia again became the prime minister. In 2002, the broadcast of ETV was barred by the regulatory body with an allegation of 29

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not having legal papers or permission to telecast. In the new millennia, there has been a persistent trend of political considerations in issuing licences for opening television channels in Bangladesh. On the flipside, there has been a culture of shutting down television channels allegedly also due to political considerations. The shutting down of television channels continued, and it can be said that news-related broadcasting led the channels into trouble. Channels were shut down by the regulatory bodies: in 2007 the first 24/7 news channel, CSB News; in 2010 Channel 1 and Jamuna Television; and in 2013 Diganta and Islamic TV. In all these cases, the government had marked the news broadcasting potential of the channels as a threat factor. The channels were shut down from fear that the news and live telecasts of political events might go against the government and the ruling party. Nevertheless, since 2008 when the Awami League–led alliance came to power and Sheikh Hasina retained power until now, the government has been generous in terms of issuing licences for opening private channels. Table 2.1 provides a glimpse of the private satellite channels in the country.8

Flourishing news channels: paranoia, control and progress This table indicates the rise of a news-based television culture from 2010 onwards in Bangladesh. In 2007, the first 24/7 news channel was launched as a successful experiment but its lifespan was limited to only 5 months and 12 days. CSB News reached countrywide popularity within that short timespan although the cable operators did not provide the channel’s signal in some areas. A young news team composed of reporters, camera crew and video editors and other technical professionals was trained under the supervision of national and international journalists and television professionals. Some ex-journalists and professionals from ETV, the first private channel that aired news bulletin in the country after BTV, were in the front line of CSB News. The owners of CSB News came into the market with an idea to do something new and hence hired professionals from India and abroad to set up their channel. The Bangladeshi professionals and journalists who had several rounds of meeting with the owners at the early stage of the channel expressed their interest to start an exclusive channel for news. Indian professional group Media Guru, which assisted in setting up the channel, also supported the idea of launching a 24/7 news channel. During the same period in India, NDTV (New Delhi Television Limited) also started 24/7 news broadcasting, and some new round-the-clock news channels were taking up space in the Indian media market. However, a large number of professionals were apprehensive about an exclusive channel and believed it would be difficult to sustain in the market depending only on news content. But soon that apprehension was proved wrong with a profitable business 30

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Table 2.1 List of private satellite channels in Bangladesh. Year

Name

Genre and Remarks

1997

ATN Bangla

1999

Channel I

2000/2007

Ekushey Television (ETV)

2003

NTV

2005

RTV

2005

Boishakhi TV

2006

Banglavision

2006–2010

Channel 1

2007–2007

CSB News

2007–2013

Islamic TV

2008–2013

Diganta TV

2009

Desh TV

2010 2010/2014

ATN NEWS Januma Television

2010

My TV

2010

Mohona TV

2010 2010 2011

Somoy TV Independent Television Channel 9

First private satellite channel; entertainment and selective news bulletins First digital channel; entertainment and selective news bulletins First terrestrial private channel; entertainment and selective news bulletins; in 2007 relaunched as private satellite channel Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins; shut down in 2010 First 24/7 news channel and shut down in the same year of its appearance Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins with a preference of Islamic programmes; went off air in 2013 Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins; went off air in 2013 Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins 24/7 news channel 24/7 news channel; test transmission was shut down by regulatory body in 2010; fullfledged on air in 2014 Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins 24/7 news channel 24/7 news channel

2011

Maasranga TV

2012 2012 2012

Channel 24 Ekattor TV Gazi Television

2013

SA TV

Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins 24/7 news channel 24/7 news channel Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins (Continued)

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Table 2.1 (Continued) Year

Name

Genre and Remarks

2013

Asian TV

2013

Bijoy TV

2013 2015

Gaan Bangla Deepto TV

2016 2016 2017 2018

News 24 DBC News Duranta TV Nagorik TV

2018

Ananda TV

Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins Music-based channel Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins 24/7 news channel 24/7 news channel Kids TV channel Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins Mixed channel of entertainment and selective news bulletins

Source: Author

potential and hype for news channels in the country. Nevertheless, the private TV news professionals had to bear the risk factors of being threatened, controlled and shut down. Journalists who worked at CSB News deeply bear the memory of the night of 6 September 2007 when the regulatory body shut down the channel.9 Some of them are now running another round-the-clock news channel in the country – Somoy TV. It was a dark night for them, with the threat of becoming jobless overnight. The allegation brought against the channel was that they had aired provocative news that was against the government. This was during the military-backed caretaker government when Dhaka University students agitated against the army in late August 2007. CSB telecast the news of the protest and related events. The BTRC (Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission) warned the channels to not telecast anything that might upset the people or cause harm to the peace and security of the society and finally came with security forces to shut down its broadcasting.10 That incident remained a reference point among television news professionals to operate their respective channels with the paranoia of being shut down by the government. On this note, it is important to state that the television news culture of the country has never been free from the circuit of control and paranoia. Similarly, the field of broadcast journalism is yet to thrive with an institutional imperative and collective mandate (Alamgir 2015; Rahman 2013). The first day of television broadcasting, 25 December 1964, marked the history of control and censorship when the political procession of the opposition political alliance was not allowed to be telecast on television news. The state authorities and regulatory bodies had been expressing their 32

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Figure 2.1 After the channel CSB News was shut down by the regulatory body. Source: Courtesy of Kakoli Prodhan

discomfort towards television journalism in both pre- and post-liberation Bangladesh. The ruling political groups had taken state-owned television for granted for their party propaganda and publicity. With the arrival of private channels, viewers and media critics believed it was the beginning of journalism without censorship. However, the conditions and contestations made it quite difficult to exercise freedom of media coverage during different sociopolitical events. The governmental agencies started piling on restrictions of private broadcasting of news. ETV was given permission to broadcast news with the condition that it would retelecast BTV’s 8 p.m. news (Sagor 2014). Realizing the overnight popularity of ETV’s news bulletins, other private channels also aimed at televising news shows. But in the initial days, the information ministry asked the channels to secure special permission to broadcast news. They had secured permission with the condition of mandatory retelecasting of BTV’s news bulletin in their channels. This condition remains unchanged for all the private channels now in the country, although the private channels are not happy with the imposition. BTV’s news bulletins are monotonous to audiences because they are not able to provide updates about happenings and chiefly deliver a monologue of the ruling party and governmental activities. After the shutdown of CSB News, two private channels, Diganta and Desh TV, came onto the scene. Both channels had a preference for news-related 33

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programmes partly because some of the news professionals from ETV and CSB had been recruited to these TV stations (Abdullah 2013). Since 2010, the round-the-clock news channels kept coming into the market one after the other. The news-based channels gave special attention to technical competence during live coverage from the spot and faster airing of events and incidents. It was quite pertinent for them to collect and telecast news on activities related to oppositional political parties because that was missing on the state-owned channels. Another feature of the private satellite channels was talk shows. These live talk shows are not only lively in terms of broadcasting, but the content and explicitness of the speakers or guests are bold and provocative in nature. These talk shows enabled a new platform for argument, opposition, criticism and contradictions on television like never before. They helped voice different political perspectives for the first time on television. Hence the news channels were flourishing in the media culture by gaining popularity among viewers. This marked a great turn in the television media culture of the country. TV news shows were entertainment shows in a new avatar with performative elements of contentions, confrontations and controversies. On the other hand, the control and censorship of these news and views shows, news contents, live telecasting and argumentative talk shows of the 24/7 news channels remained significant in the history of television broadcasting. The government and its different regulatory bodies started putting unofficial restrictions and pressure on the private news channels to not telecast live events of opposition parties (Jahangir 2010, 2014). These restrictions are considered unofficial because they are communicated verbally and informally. Generally, the representatives of the government or ruling party make phone calls to the key officials and warn about certain content. There were allegations against governmental authorities for conveying hidden threats to the channels for inviting critical and oppositional voices on talk shows. The subsequent chapters provide detailed discussion in this regard. The history of shutting down and the continuity of political control and censorship instigated paranoia among the television professionals. These journalists always suffer from the paranoia of being threatened or warned to shut down. The memories of being unemployed and helpless overnight are neither too old nor pleasant. Also, most of the channels that were shut down never got back their licence to reopen, and for a long period many news professionals did not have an alternative platform on which to work. This persistent paranoia has shaped the overall mindset of the new generation of journalists and restricts them at every stage of making news for television. Moreover, the TV journalists are not secured under the regulations of the wage board for their salary and professional benefits. The prevailing environ of paranoia is often sustained and maintained by various imaginations, assumptions and self-motivated precautions taken by TV professionals. For 34

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example, in 2012, TV journalist couple Sagar Sarwar and Mehrun Runi was brutally killed at their residence in Dhaka. As yet there has been no considerable progress on the investigation of that murder case and justice has not been delivered. The gossip of media professionals hinted at a planned killing since Sagar and Runi intended to expose the guilty on TV and serve the public interest. The audience doubted the power of media professionals and implications of journalism since there was no sign of justice for the journalist couples (Roy 2012). In order to situate the burgeoning cable culture in a systematic framework, it is vital to review aspects of censorship and attempts at cultural regulation. Bangladesh is not an exclusive case; rather, issues of censorship and control started gaining popularity in the South Asian nation-states since the late 1980s (Akhtar 2000; Hoek 2013; Kharel 2001; Kaur and Mazzarella 2009; Senadhira 1996). The social, political and market forces had come with their values and logic and contributed in determining the cultural regulations. According to Kaur and Mazzarella, ‘the relationship between public interest and the interest of publicity inevitably became more complicated. . . . Structurally, the lure of what one might call “profitable provocation” meant that the boundaries of public civility and decorum were constantly being challenged’ (2009: 3). The rise of cable culture that was blessed by deregulation and liberalization has since been subject to a new regulation. In the case of Bangladesh, different political and social groups joined hands with the government to bring cable television under cultural regulation. Since 2005, the government took sincere initiatives to introduce a law regarding cable television networks. In 2006, the law was passed in the parliament with a clear motivation to control, supervise and administer the activities of commercial cable television. This law was amended in 2010 and reintroduced as the Cable Television Network Regulation and Licencing Guideline, 2010. According to the guideline, the channels would be bound to broadcast all government-related events and follow censorship-related regulations.11 Furthermore, in 2014, the National Broadcasting Policy was introduced to put more restrictions and regulations on news broadcasting.12 This policy brings out clear directives to broadcast the speech of the president and prime minister, pay special attention to national events and days and not air anything critical of the nation and its people. While it sets an objective to ensure a ‘pro-people’ broadcasting culture in the country, it also instructed news and current affairs programmes to bar any kind of ‘anti-national’ content and statements that go against the ‘public interest’. In terms of commercial broadcasting on channels, the act provides particular guidance to abide by social, national and religious values.13 Rahman et al. (2017) examine the trajectory of policy formation and identify multiple stakeholders in national broadcast policymaking. In their views, the key decision-making power remains in the hand of the politico-commercial nexus while the ordinary people are far removed from the policymaking 35

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process. On top of this policy, the government introduced a Broadcast Act of 2018 with a clause of punishment for violating certain norms. Broadcasters can be put behind bars if they disseminate fake news or any information against the state policy and the spirit of the liberation war. The government and regulatory bodies can exercise more power over licencing through this legislation. These cases are impelling to identify the state-sanctioned censorship as a clear factor of institutional dominance. Suffice it to say that underlying sociocultural factors and forces are implicitly active in the regulatory mechanism. As Kaur and Mazzarella (2009) noted, there are multiple reasons and social responses that have to be recognized to unravel the non-state actors in sponsoring censorship and institutionalizing cultural regulation. There are religious, cultural and social actors on the one hand who advocate for the ethical and moral values of television broadcasting. On the other hand, television professionals ought to be acknowledged and formalized in the media industry of the country. Thus, the process of institution building is undergoing changes; introducing various sets of policy directives, acts and guidelines; furthering the complexities and ambiguities; and adding more anxieties. It is pertinent to note that there is a dominant trend of looking at media in Bangladesh through the lens of corporate capitalism (for instance, Newton 2013, Sharma and Majumder 2016). In doing so, local scholars often tend to borrow from Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) Manufacturing Consent or McChesney’s (2008) Political Economy of Media.14 Newton (2013) borrowed Herman and Chomsky’s ‘propaganda model’ to illustrate the nature of censorship and control of Bangladeshi media in general. According to him, it is very much influenced by a neoliberal market economy where the elite capitalists muzzle the voices of the masses. But we need to explore beyond these frameworks to understand how, at a micro level, people engage with the media and how television broadcasting adds meaning to people’s lives and vice versa. Moreover, internet-led media outlets, such as social media platforms, have enabled people to display activism within the context of state control and censorship in Bangladesh as well as other South Asian countries. Particularly the participation of ordinary citizens in online politics through social networking sites and blogging culture in contemporary South Asia offers an alternative viewpoint on mediated culture and politics (Pathak and Roy 2017).

Conclusion The discussion in this chapter about the historical trajectories of television media and news culture helps explain the paradoxical nature of Bangladesh’s mediascapes. On the one hand, control, contestation and concerns regarding public service media remain crucial; on the other hand, there is a dramatic interface between the public and television. Moreover, the discussion traces 36

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back the social relationships and implications of this particular medium. The historical analysis revealed that television has neither been an innocent medium nor are its viewers helpless consumers or morbid subjects on the receiving end. Therefore, the history of television broadcasting has to be explored with pertinent attention towards public engagements. In the case of Bangladesh, public interest in television remains vital in its very course of development. After the arrival of burgeoning news television, politics entered into the conversation with due vigour and substance. Traditional politics also come into a proximate relationship with television news broadcasting culture. The following chapters illustrate these aspects in further detail. Since 2010, the emergence of eight news-based channels indicates a remarkable and historical landmark for television journalism in the country. There are around 20 private channels that air news bulletins, current affairs and news-related talk shows every day. The competition among news professionals has multiplied on the one hand, and on the other hand viewers have found multiple options. In a broader sense, this can be considered the outcome of a democratic political motivation by the state. But incidents of the government enforcing restrictions, reservations and constant alarm in regard to the telecast of certain news content also persists. In this wake, there has been a formation of different professional bodies related to private television channels. These associations were formed primarily to come together on a common platform but eventually helped build a larger pressure group from television media. To name some of them: COAB (Cable Operators Association of Bangladesh), ATCO (Association of Television Channels Owners), Television Reporters Association of Bangladesh (TRAB), Television Camera Journalists Association, Bangladesh (TCA), TV Programme Producers Association of Bangladesh, Presenters’ Platform Bangladesh (PPB), Electronic Media Marketing Association, Bangladesh (EMMA) and many more. In addition, some dedicated institutes have been established in Dhaka to supply manpower for television news production and train TV journalists, news presenters and producers. Private news channels extend their trust to youth professionals, and hence there has been a flow of young, educated employees in this sector. Eventually, television studies, journalism and mass communication have increased in popularity as a subject matter for higher education, and dedicated departments and centres have been established in the public as well as private universities of the country. There are prevailing questions on the quality, professionalism, credibility and unbiased of news broadcasting of the private satellite channels (Haq and Mamun 2016). The dialogue between history and practice must continue to reveal the manifold aspects of television journalism, the politics of news making and related viewing practices. The owners of television channels consider news a source of power and a medium to promote their agenda or demean their enemies. The corporates have found a new platform 37

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where marketing agencies are trying to innovate new formulas to sell TV news with newer forms (Abdullah 2016; Amin 2016). From headlines to breaking news, from news presenter to studio guests, everything has been branded for sale. However, there are newcomers and enthusiastic professionals in news channels who believe in contributing to building an informationbased, resilient society. There are television journalists committed to use this medium for the larger audiences, exploring truth and disseminating information for the larger wellbeing of society. As a result, there are constant negotiations and contradictions among multiple interest groups – the state, owners, corporates, journalists and viewers. The interactions of the stakeholders and related bodies remain crucial in the history of television broadcasting of Bangladesh. This history is rich with its constant transformations and progress. The emergence of the internet, and subsequently online news platforms and the burgeoning trend of information sharing via social networking sites, adds dramatic significance to the development of a 24/7 television news culture. Indeed, the online news portals and news-based TV channels had a parallel journey. Both the media platforms have gained an overwhelming public response in the 2010 milieu. Mainstream newspapers have started paying attention to the online versions. In the initial phase of such convergence, decision makers of the mainstream media, such as TV channels and newspapers, were a bit apprehensive in emphasizing digital media. But eventually the market logic and striking boom of social networking sites made the traditional media embrace the new media. As a consequence, online news portals and newspapers started adding audio-visual tabs to their sites while the TV channels put more emphasis on social networking sites. As a matter of fact, YouTube and Facebook turned out to be more vibrant sites for the channels to concentrate than Twitter and Instagram, which are widely popular in neighbouring India. The following chapters (especially Chapter 6) shed further lights on these aspects.

Notes 1 Some parts of this chapter have appeared previously in Ratan Kumar Roy, 2020, ‘Emergence of a “New Public Sphere” in Bangladesh: The Interactive Dynamics Between News Television, Citizens and the State, Visual Studies, Vol. 35 (1): 65–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2020.1731323, reproduced with permission. 2 The partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and the end of British Empire. 3 Sayed Iffat Ara (2016) investigates the sources of public response particularly towards this teleserial on her research paper in Bengali. 4 For a detailed historical trajectory of television production and the evolution of TV journalism trends in Bangladesh, the following vernacular texts can be helpful: Alamgir (2008), Alamgir (2015), Alamgir et al. (2016), Sagor (2008, 2014), Ullah (2001). 5 Fundamental principles of state policy as conceived in the constitution of Bangladesh are: nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism. Source: Constitution of the

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6 7 8

9 10 11

12

13 14

People’s Republic of Bangladesh. 2019, Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs Division. Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs. Dhaka. Available at http:// bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/act-367/section-24556.html (last accessed 1 September 2020) Chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). President of Bangladesh Awami League. This list contains the channels that have been launched for public viewing. However, according to the information minister, there are 44 approved private channels in the country. In addition, BTV, BTV World and Sangsad TV (Parliament TV) are state-run channels. Daily Bangla Tribune.“44 Approved Private Television Channels in the Country (Desk Report)”, Bangla Tribune Online, 28 February 2018. Drawn from in-depth interviews with television professionals during fieldwork in November 2017; names not disclosed due to anonymity requests by the respondents. BTRC was formed in 2001 as a regulatory body to control and oversee the burgeoning broadcasting media of the country. The channels are restricted to televise anything that can go against the state, might hurt the sentiment of any religious group or conflicts with the national beliefs and ideologies. Ministry of Information. The Cable Television Network Operation and Licensing Guideline 2010, Dhaka: Ministry of Information, GoB, 25 October 2010. Available at https://moi.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/moi.portal. gov.bd/files/45265ee0_4607_4f08_9137_117d7ebdcda3/Cable_TV_Rules.pdf (last accessed 3 October 2020). Ministry of Information. National Broadcast Policy, Dhaka: Ministry of Information, GoB, 6 August 2014. Available at https://moi.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/ moi.portal.gov.bd/files/a22f434a_b3f5_4931_be15_7a56494fb8df/National_ Broadcasting_Policy.pdf (last accessed 3 October 2020). Haq and Reza (2016) argue that the act reflects the government’s aspirations to control broadcast media in opposition to the owners. As well as McChesney et al.’s (1998) Capitalism and the Information Age.

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3 ON THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF TELEVISION The field and the work

The study of television encourages an anthropology that engages not just with the academy and its ‘big words’ but with other social fields of the world in which we work. —Lila Abu-Lughod, ‘The Interpretation of Culture(s) after Television’ (1997: 113)

Without an ethnographic framework, it is nearly impossible to examine the sociocultural and politico-ideological undercurrents of television news making and the viewing practices of the audience. In general, there are various criticisms of ethnographic methods within the larger spectrum of humanities and social sciences; in particular, investigations in media and communication studies are barely convinced and enthusiastic to attempt ethnography. It is therefore necessary to be aware of the misconceptions and myths about ethnography. Boellstorff et al. (2012) pointed out ten popular myths about ethnography that often discourage and misguide the research orientation.1 They have categorically argued against such myth of obsolescence and showed the potential of an ethnographic approach that utilizes both emic and etic perspectives to provide an interpretative understanding of cultural life and social actions. An ethnographic approach enables the researcher, more than capturing the culture and everyday life, to illuminate ‘the often-unexplored thresholds that lie between the conscious and unconscious realms of human life’ (Poulos 2009: 17). The dual prospects of ethnography open up a dynamic ground for media research; it enables us to know and offers a unique way of knowing, qualifies us to participate and observe, simultaneously appears to be ontological and epistemological, theoretical and methodological, and a way of researching and writing (McGranahan 2018). For any explorations in the world of media, in this case for television, ethnography is significant because the media practices are central to our lives although never up to our expectations, all the participants and

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non-participants have something to say about it and we hardly know about its internal dynamic. This chapter attempts to justify such an imperative of ethnography in media studies.

Mapping the field The locations where the fieldwork has been conducted are diversely situated within the cartographic boundary of Bangladesh. A television newsroom composition and beyond – where the journalists move around to collect news, the places where events take place and channels go for news coverage – remain crucial as field sites. The field sites are also composed of TV viewing locations ranging from household to local markets, offices to tea stalls, inter alia. The private and public sites of TV viewing and engaging with television news have been covered both in the urban and rural locations. Gupta and Ferguson (1997) attempted to redefine and reconfigure the fieldwork tradition and the ‘trademark’ idea about field guides in their anthropological research to not only to examine ‘the local but with an attentiveness to social, cultural, and political location’ (1997: 5). For them, going from the academic world and entering a world that is located in the field has to be well-informed and accompanied by the perspectives and sociocultural distinctiveness of the field location. Taking these concerns into consideration, this study does not subscribe to the mere idea of the ‘privileged site of anthropological knowledge’ of ‘the field’ but attempts to function with ‘a sense of a mode of study that cares about, and pay attention to, the interlocking of multiple social-political sites and locations’ (Gupta and Ferguson 1997: 37). My prior familiarity with the language and culture of the field sites remains crucial for the ethnographic investigation. The following section provides a glance at the sites of news making and viewing of television activities. Such segregated visions of field sites indicate the enmeshed character of the ethnographic field but do not harm the nature of the polychromatic field. A particular television newsroom (of Somoy TV) was selected for a more concentrated investigation to develop an understanding of the everyday practice of news-making people. Similarly for the everyday life and practices of the viewers, a small district was selected.

The locations of making news The capital city of Dhaka is the centre of all the socioeconomic and politico-bureaucratic activities of the country. Decentralization remains an

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unattained expectation for the citizens and an unimplemented promise by the government.2 With the development of roads, highways and modes of communication in Dhaka, media became highly centralized. For instance, until the late 1990s, the regional newspapers were more popular at the district level as the dailies from Dhaka used to take time to reach the localities.3 But with the corporatization of newspapers in Dhaka, efforts to bring out multiple editions and well-managed circulation aided by faster transportation facilities triumphed over the Dhaka-centric newspapers even at the local level. In the post-2000 period, the local newspapers started losing readers, with an overabundance of circulation and availability of Dhaka-based newspapers.4 The establishment of private satellite channels is highly centralized in Dhaka, too. In the initial phase, the private channels made some efforts to move beyond the capital city in search of news content, but in terms of office setup and facilities, there was hardly any tangible sign or attempt to shift beyond Dhaka. Once the number of private channels started increasing and they began to emphasize news bulletins, the peripheral and local news found space in domestic satellite television. Setting bureau offices in other districts with the support of camera, editing panel and studio to collect and broadcast news added a new dimension after the arrival of news-based channels. Some news-based channels also started providing camera, internet modem and other technical supports to their district correspondents. Despite all this, the role of the Dhaka office for most news channels remains central and superior in terms of management, power, control and facilities. In Dhaka, the Karwan Bazar area serves as the hub for electronic media. In particular, some prominent satellite private channels are located in that area. Karwan Bazar is easily accessible and well-connected with all the corners of the city. The headquarters of Dhallywood,5 the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC), is located there, too. The location started becoming popular as a media hub in the later half of the 1990s when private entrepreneurs and corporate funders of the media came together. Before that, locations such as Paltan and Motijheel, via Dainik Bangla in Dhaka, served as the centre for newspapers (media) in the country. These locations are towards the southern part of Dhaka city. In the new millennia, there has been a rapid establishment of television channels, newspapers and private FM radio stations based in the Karwan Bazar area, which is comparatively a central point of the city. One of the oldest satellite channels, ATN Bangla, started its operations from Karwan Bazar in 1997. Two of the popular dailies that eventually took a leading role in Bengali media, Daily Prothom Alo (since 1998) and the English Daily Star (1991), run from there. The first private channel to introduce the full-fledged news bulletin, Ekushey Television (ETV), is also situated there. Over time, the other private television channels started setting their offices in and around the Karwan Bazar area. Television channels have been located in other parts of the city, but 42

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Figure 3.1 Karwan Bazar Circle dotted by the offices of the television channels, buildings and the SAARC fountain in the centre. Source: Courtesy of Bishwajit Roy

the journalists and television professionals continued coming to Karwan Bazar area for meetings and chitchatting with friends and colleagues from different media houses. The unofficial nomenclature of the location is media para (the media neighbourhood). The 24/7 news channels located in other vicinities of Dhaka city maintain a second office in Karwan Bazar to get the news quicker as the location is easily accessible from every corner of the city. In addition to all the news channel offices, there are some popular locations where media people meet and have conversations among themselves. Those locations also served as a source of interaction and knowledge about the making of television news for this investigation. Newsroom The newsroom is an exclusive place of a television channel and often considered the heart of the station. It is the core location from where all the news content is processed and final outputs are delivered for broadcasting. Emulating the BBC and Al Jazeera’s presentation style, there is a growing tendency in Bangladesh to make the bustling newsroom a visible backdrop of the studio in the news bulletin. However, on enquiry, it appeared that it’s not only BBC and Al Jazeera but also India- and Pakistan-based channels such as NDTV and GEO TV. 43

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Somoy Television is located on the ninth and tenth floors of a commercial building situated within 500 metres of Karwan Bazar Circle. The main studio of Somoy TV is incorporated in the newsroom. During the main bulletin, the newsroom turns into the background of the studio while a jib camera, with a device enabling the camera to pan around, sails through the newsroom, providing a glimpse of desk editors and journalists at work and then focusing on the presenters after the final countdown. Also adjacent to the newsroom is the production control room (PCR), from where the producers deliver commands and count down to the presenters on their talkback. There are three rooms within the newsroom for the head of news, the chief news editor and the editorial head in addition to some editing panels where the audio-visuals are processed for final output. The newsroom is generally composed of a central desk from where the news editors finalize the bulletins along with separate sections for reporters and newsroom editors to write and process their news. The separate sections are defined as business desk, international desk, national desk, sports desk and assignment desk. The journalists who work from within the newsroom are designated as newsroom editors while the news professionals who go out to collect news are known as reporters. The assignment desk is considered the heart of newsroom and plays a major role in smooth communication between the input and output sections. The journalists, camerapersons and other news professionals who collect the news and deliver it to the newsroom for broadcasting are defined as the input section. The output section is composed of people who are engaged in editing, assessing, formatting, designing and arranging other technical materials to telecast and do not usually go to the field. The assignment desk mainly makes the daily plan of collecting news and assigning reporters while keeping the news editors updated about the position of the reporters. The assignment desk maintains two mobile phones, one for communicating with the central reporters and another to get news from local correspondents. Both the mobile phones remain equally busy, in addition to a landline meant for in-house (intercom) correspondence. Around the clock, the district correspondents keep providing news over the phone. For the journalists who maintain the assignment desk, the first shift begins at 7 a.m. and second shift at 2 p.m. A night-shift reporter takes charge of the phone at 11 p.m. and keeps following the updates coming to the newsroom. In the regular shifts, the assignment desk is operated by two to three reporters who coordinate the workflow of the daily news coverage, correspond with the local reporters and bridge between the news, news reporters and newsroom professionals. Towards the end of the day, the assignment desk develops a coverage plan for the next day based on the information provided by the journalists, beat reporters, emails, faxes, press releases and telephone messages from informers, stringers and diverse sources. 44

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Figure 3.2 News professionals at work in the newsroom of Somoy TV. Source: Author

The reporters are assigned to follow up and keep the newsroom updated about a particular area, event or sector. For instance, some are responsible for political news, some are for business and some other for legal, crime or foreign affairs. The reporters who cover political news are considered popular and superior because political news dominates the television bulletin. The political beat reporters’ access and contacts with politicians, and frequent appearance on the television screen, also creates a perception of their superiority. But the reporters who cover political stories think their professional life is too restless, and they are always under pressure. According to them, there are constant and tense encounters with the newsroom officials, particularly the news editors. The conflict is regarding the content, length, priority and style of the political reporting. To cover beat news, the reporters often try to make contacts with various political parties and eventually enjoy good ties with party leaders, including press wing members. These contacts help them get the latest updates about the events and activities of the respective political groups. Often the beat reporters act as mediators between the channel and the political parties. Sometimes political parties become upset when a particular news story is edited and modified by the editors to be telecast. Modification can happen due to an editor’s intervention or some policy intervention by a newsroom official. Corresponding reporters have to provide a justification to the political leaders if such edits and styles of presentation appeared ‘non-preferable’ to them. The duration of the news is also curtailed sometimes, which makes the 45

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reporters in charge of covering that particular news unhappy. Somoy TV has a policy of appointing young reporters in comparison to other media houses, where journalists with seniority and experience are preferable. Young and fresh reporters hardly argue with the senior news professionals in charge of editing and finalizing the bulletins. The people who run the bulletins and make rundown are part of the central desk and are designated as news editors. News editors are comparatively senior and appointed on the basis of their capability to judge news value and policy and are skilled in editing news, arranging reports and preparing a complete bulletin to be presented on television. On the one hand, they have to consult with the superiors of the channel, and on the other hand, they keep track of the events and reports coming into the newsroom. The other superiors of the newsroom are the head of news, editorial heads, directors of the channel and the CEO. In Somoy TV, the journalists are appointed for these positions, but in many other channels, other than the head of news, the directorial and CEO positions are occupied by the owners, who are mere investors or businesspersons. There is a perception among newsroom professionals that it is good to have journalists as bosses who can understand the issues and concerns of people working for the channel. But some disagree and expressed concerns, saying, ‘When the channel is run by journalists then it is difficult to find luxury; there is no breathing space as they know how things work and how to get the work done by the employees’.6 Engagement at the assignment desk helped to a great extent to understand the interdepartmental complexities of a news channel. But there are intradepartmental issues, too. For instance, there are issues between the reporters related to the assignments they are appointed to cover or the benefits and incentives they get from the office. Also, there are blame games between the reporter and the cameraperson regarding missing a particular shot or not being able to capture a crucial event. The reporter and cameraperson both work as a team while covering a report on the spot. Their mutual coordination and understanding are vital for them to cover an event with due requirements of visuals, information, sound bites and other supporting components for a news report. While reporters often complain about the lack of technical fluency, aesthetic sense and variation and the unsatisfactory quality of footage captured by the cameraperson, the camerapersons find the reporters immature, uncooperative, bossy and incapable of guiding. Two other major departments that participate in the everyday newsroom fracas are video editors and production. The production department is headed by executive producers, and the team consists of senior producers, producers, assistant producers and junior producers. Some designated producers are given the job of making promotional, documentary, talk and special current affairs shows. The producers who run the news bulletin are responsible for making sure all the content is ready to be aired, anchors are all set to go 46

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live and reporters are connected from the spot to deliver the updates for the news bulletin. The video editors work in the audio-visual panels to process, edit, synchronize and export a furnished news report that is composed of reporter’s voiceover, sound bites, visuals and other graphic elements. Video editors are often controlled by the producers as they complain about a lack of creative liberty to work under the editorial or production policy of a TV station. The newsroom professionals maintain regular correspondence with other departments of the channel, including administration and HR, sales and marketing, broadcast and IT, studio and make-up, master control room (MCR) and presentation and transport. The sales and marketing department has a regular intervention in the newsroom. There are requests to cover particular events, broadcast selective news items and insert certain brand names in between the news bulletins. In most of these cases, the news editors are unable to deny the requests from sales and marketing as this earn revenues for the channel. The interference of the MCR and the presentation department is a routine in the everyday activities of a newsroom. The technical department is responsible for quality control and final transmission. All the content and audio-video signals pass through the MCR for broadcast. The presentation team takes account of the overall time management and planning. It places the news bulletin, commercials, promotional, talk shows, fillers and all other content and develops the final schedule of the 24/7 transmission of the channel. Representatives from this department inform the newsroom about the time to be allocated for each bulletin based on the space dedicated for commercial and other content. It is imperative to mention that an understanding develops between the sales and marketing and presentation departments over time. The sales and marketing department highly recommends telecasting all their clients’ advertisements and commercials and hence convinces the MCR and presentation departments to keep a sharp eye that extended news does not take up commercial space. The newsroom professionals believe the duration of news is curtailed every day. Initially the main bulletin was for 40 minutes, out of which 33 minutes were allocated for news content and 7 minutes for commercial break. The shrinking of news duration has continued, and at present (in November 2017) it has come down to only 18 minutes of news and 22 minutes of commercials. According to them, the channel has gained popularity among the viewers by providing detailed live broadcasting of events or incidents in the past. But now, due to the shrinking of space, they are not able to allow much time for the reporters to deliver live briefings from the spot. This squeezing of news space of the bulletin is one of the many reasons behind the growing dissatisfaction of television news-making professionals. They expressed their dissatisfaction not only in the newsroom but also at other locations within and beyond the television office. 47

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Figure 3.3 Producer delivering direction to the news anchor during a live news broadcasting. Source: Author

Journalistic adda and locations beyond newsroom The management and HR departments are located on the ninth floor of the television channel office. This section has a reception area for visitors and outsiders making enquiries. The sales and marketing department also maintains its office on this floor. The CEO of the channel is connected to the production control room and newsroom via a talkback device. All the noises and conversations in the newsroom can be heard by him. Like the producers, he can also command the anchors while they are live. The newsroom is always under surveillance, so the employees don’t get a chance to gossip, but they whisper when they have to indulge in it. Therefore, the journalistic adda continues beyond the newsroom.7 The smoking zone, cafeteria and tea stalls outside the office serve as vital locations for them to come together and gossip. After two or three hours of work, the newsroom professionals go out for a cigarette or tea break. Most of the gossip and other discussions take place in the smoking zone inside the office building (near balcony and terrace) and at roadside tea stalls outside the office. The gossip is related to their everyday professional issues and national and international events. Some of these are discussed in Chapter 5. When Somoy TV was established in 2010, only one tea stall was operating in that area. Over time, six more tea stalls have come up in the same row where the reporters and other news professionals get together, drink tea, smoke and chitchat. Such locations provide extraordinary viewpoints about the news-making practice 48

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that otherwise cannot be accessed in the air-conditioned glasshouse of the newsroom.The journalists express their fearless opinions about their profession, job satisfaction (or dissatisfaction), office policy and everyday experience of the workplace while they chitchat with colleagues outside the office. In Karwan Bazar, other tea stalls have gained popularity as meeting points for television journalists. One such meeting point is Ekushey TV’s lane, popularly known to the media people as ETVr Gali (Lane of ETV). These tea stalls serve tea and varieties of snacks round the clock, arranged with some wooden sitting benches in the small lane in between the rows of high-rise buildings. The first-generation broadcast journalists working for private satellite channels in Bangladesh are from Ekushey TV. Over a period of time, the tea stall–centric adda became an integral part of the journalistic profession. The adda in ETVr Gali is not only attended by broadcast journalists but also by media professionals from other TV channels, newspapers and radio. These tea points are preferable locations for their everyday interaction and communication, especially when they plan to meet colleagues from other media houses. The National Press Club in Dhaka is another vital location designated for journalists. But the working journalists and the younger generation from private television channels do not gather and enjoy the facilities of the Press Club. Rather, it serves the journalist-leaders and politically active media professionals. In the post-1990s era, Dhaka-based working journalists started feeling discomfort at the dominance of politically conflicting unions of journalists at the National Press Club. Access and membership to the Press Club became difficult for professional journalists. As a consequence, in 1996, Dhaka-based journalists established a new platform called the Dhaka Reporter’s Unity (DRU). The alternative platform soon became popular as a union and easily accessible for working journalists. A set of young television journalists as well as some seniors continued meeting at DRU on an everyday basis. The explorations in this location provided insight about the professional concerns of journalists, their political motivation and other aspects related to everyday media culture. The owners, high-profile television professionals, high-ranking journalists and top-level officials from broadcast media, go to different elite clubs and some selected bars in Dhaka. These locations provide opportunities for senior journalists and television professionals to collect news and clues about national issues, negotiate and collaborate with the elites (politicians, businessmen, industrialists, social elites) and engage in many other professional deals. Event sites Working journalists spend most of their duty hours in the field, where they go to cover an event for a news report. There are some designated event sites in Dhaka city. In everyday planning, 24/7 news channels mandatorily deploy reporters for those designated sites. These include the secretariat, 49

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the high court/supreme court (also the magistrate court), the offices of the main political parties (Awami League and BNP), the parliament (during the session) and the Election Commission (occasionally). Events also take place at irregular locations, and incidents occur at random sites where reporters go with their television camera. One or two reporting units (composed of journalist and TV camera) are deployed for ‘city round up’, which takes care of the police briefings, road accidents, fire, murder, arrest, road blockages, sudden protest mobilizations and so on. Reporting units are also deployed for sports team, business team and entertainment team. The culture of beat reporting is strong among television journalists. Beat is considered a specialized reporting where particular reporters are assigned designated areas and sectors. They keep developing their knowledge about those areas and build networks and rapport with the sources from those institutions. Beat reporters from various channels share information among themselves; when they meet every day at a designated location for collecting news, they discuss issues related to the news and beyond. Office politics, internal issues of their own channels and problems and prospects related to their profession are discussed at these locations (Table 3.1 provides an overview). Beat reporters try to find a convenient space at the designated location to meet, stand or sit together before they begin the news-collection activities. For instance, in the secretariat is a jackfruit tree under which all of them park their cars and wait. From that location they move together to cover a minister’s press briefing and again come back there to wait for the next. They have developed a mutual understanding to pass information about multiple events in different ministries so nothing is missed by any channel. If one reporter gets to know that something is happening in a particular building or in a particular ministry, she passes the message among journalists waiting under the jackfruit tree. Similarly, in other sectors (beats) of news reporting, the journalists have a tendency to sit together or wait at a tea stall before starting to prepare for news coverage. Truly, they all act as jacks of the same trade bound by a sense of solidarity despite competition. The National Press Club and the DRU are considered two mandatory sites for television reporters where several events take place at once. Each has multiple auditoriums that can be rented by different social and political groups to hold their events or press conferences. The Press Club Road is also taken for granted by protestors and sociopolitical groups to demonstrate their demands in the form of human chains, processions, rallies and assemblies. Hence, every day the television news reporting units from different channels gather in these places in the morning and keep covering one after another event. In their leisure time, they engage with each other and share everyday life and concerns with their co-workers. Two other locations in Dhaka city – Shahbag Circle and Paltan Circle – are also popular sites for bringing out protest demonstrations, and the reporters hang out for any newsworthy event. 50

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Table 3.1 Reporting beats of news channel. Beat

Journalistic Location

Remarks

Awami League (Political)

• Party’s central office (Bangabandhu Avenue) • President’s office (Dhanmondi) • Events organized by the party anywhere in the city • Party’s central office (New Paltan) • Chairperson’s office (Gulshan) • Events organized by the party anywhere in the city • Media centre of the national parliament • Party’s central office • Events organized by the party anywhere in the city

Everyday coverage by multiple reporting units in two sessions: morning and evening

BNP – Bangladesh Nationalist Party (Political)

Parliament (Political) All other parties (Political)

Election Commission

• Election Commission Secretariat

Secretariat (Ministries)

• Inside the Secretariat vicinity at a particular spot

Prime minister and president

• • • •

Law and court

Prime minister’s house Prime minister’s office President’s house Travelling with them as media delegates • Court premises • Court cafeteria • Bar Association Office

Everyday coverage by multiple reporting units in two sessions: morning and evening

Only when sessions are on Other than main two parties, there is no dedicated beat for any single party; sometimes reporters are asked to follow the Jamaat-e-Islam and Islamic party, and some reporters are asked to take care of the left and other small parties; there is no everyday coverage for these political parties Only when some election-related updates are provided during polling time Reporters need to have an accreditation pass to enter into the Secretariat; everyday basis follow-up Designated reporters and camerapersons have to carry accreditation card to cover the president’s and prime minister’s news; everyday reporting After the establishment and operation of the International Crime Tribunal (ICT) in 2009 for prosecution of war criminals in 1971, the court reporters are also following and covering ICT-related updates on a regular basis (Continued)

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Table 3.1 (Continued) Beat

Journalistic Location

Remarks

Crime (Police)

• Police Headquarters • Media centre of Dhaka Metropolitan Police • Media centre of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) • Dhaka Medical College Hospital (for murder cases and crime-related cases) • Random or organized raid by law and order forces in various parts of the city Anti-Corruption • The media centre for the Commission ACC (ACC) Health • Not a regular beat as such, reporters don’t meet on an everyday basis Business • Stock Exchange Market • Central Bank governor’s office • Chamber of Commerce • BGMEA (prime body of the garment manufacturer of the country) Sports • Stadiums • Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) • Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) • Academy and club grounds Energy, power • Not a regular beat and mineral resources Tourism and • Airport civil aviation • Biman Bangladesh Airlines office • Tourism Corporation Culture and • Shilpakala Academy entertainment • Mahila Samity • Dhaka University • BFDC Source: Author

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Minimum of two reporters are assigned to follow up on an everyday basis

Not a regular beat –

Reporters do not maintain an everyday (mandatory) coverage of all these designated locations; only when called or for events

Depending on the events and stories beat reporters go together to cover; on major events they spend time in the stadiums and sport academies Not a regular beat Not a regular beat

Not a regular beat

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Table 3.1 also indicates the politics of news making vis-à-vis a hierarchy of beats and an allocation of workforce. It reveals the coverage policies of a news station that tend to overemphasize and underemphasize various arenas of reports. The categorization and prioritization depend on the subjects and issues related to the sociopolitical aspects. The consideration that the cultural beat is a soft beat, unlike politics and business, which are perceived as ‘hot’, is evident in the news-making milieu of television journalism. Local news offices The news from outside Dhaka is mainly delivered by local correspondents. Dhaka-based journalists who are appointed to work at the central office are hardly connected to the facts and events of the countryside. In every district, the channel has its correspondents who are often associated with some other media (newspaper and online portal). Until 2010, there was a situation where one local correspondent used to deliver news for multiple channels from a district. But with the advent of news-based channels and given their competitive nature, all channels started appointing their own reporters in the districts who are loyal and responsible only to them. News-based channels have also invested highly at the divisional level to set up a bureau office with due technical and structural facilities, unlike the traditional channels.8 The bureau office at the district headquarters is composed of two to three rooms. It consists of a studio from where the reporter as well as guests (speaker) from the locality can be connected live to the main news bulletin, which is transmitted from the main office in Dhaka. Often the guests are invited and selected as advised by superiors from the Dhaka office. The selection process depends on the political and ideological standpoint of the news channel. There is a camera unit with a cameraperson, a car and live connectivity devices. Somoy TV has a bureau office in all regional headquarters that are called divisions. The district correspondents, located across provinces, generally don’t maintain a full-fledged office. Instead, they operate from shared office spaces in the town. These shared office spaces are mainly maintained collectively by the local journalists from different media houses. Some who work for multiple news media can afford to run a small office in a single rented room. There are also some local correspondents who locally run online news portals. In some cases, the district correspondents work from their home and when required use the space of the district press club. Such formal and informal office spaces of local journalists are significant in terms of news and information flow. Therefore, these sites are crucial to gain ethnographic insights of public engagement with news. The local correspondents maintain a harmonious relationship and liaison among themselves. If one sends some news to the central office, the others also get to know about it. Sharing and caring is a very common practice among local correspondents. There is growing pressure among them after the arrival of news-based channels 53

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gave rise to competitive practices. All channels wish to break a particular news before the other channels to become the first in telecasting a news report. This sharing and caring environment has started transforming into a competitive one in the local sites of news making. The newsroom editors and shift in-charge9 in Dhaka keep pressuring them to deliver news without delay. The newsroom professionals keep following other channels, and if it is found that something is missing in their channel, they immediately contact the respective local correspondents. According to the local correspondents, sometimes the news the office demands from them after seeing other channels is not valid and credible. But the editors from the central office get frantic and start coercing them. Also, many times the central office trashes the news the local correspondents consider important. Kamol Chakma, a local correspondent from a hill district of Bangladesh, told me while I interviewed him in his small office located at Bandarban10 that the attitude and interaction of the newsroom people is very harsh and humiliating at times. Sometimes they behave rudely and abuse with their tantrums. But at times the newsroom people fail to understand the merit, value and depth of a news report delivered from the localities. He gave examples of some reports that were delivered to the central office at various times on the traditional livelihood and challenges of the tribal people, the right-based movement of the hill communities and the social security of the marginal communities. The central office did not show any interest in telecasting the reports. But when a case of hill tracts suddenly pops up in the national media or some hill community–related issue gets national priority, the newsroom suddenly becomes overactive and pressures them to send reports related to the issue. The local offices of the journalists also serve as an information hub where the correspondents from different news media come and share available updates about the district. They also develop local relationships with different sets of people, build networks and maintain their sources. They maintain a connection with the local political leaders and officials of local administrative bodies, various governmental offices, the police station, the hospital, the district court and major district-level institutions. In addition, people from connected village areas deliver information to them if something crucial happens in their localities. For instance, the local people come and complain about cases like land grabbing, killing, unnatural death, atrocities, crime, instances of river erosion and conflicts between villagers to the journalists. Detailed observation of the flow of information in the localized settings and the everyday workflow of the local journalists adds exceptional substance to the ethnographic account of news culture.

The sites of viewing The viewing sites of television are fraught with multiple possibilities of interaction between the social subjects and media. Literatures on media 54

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consumption and audience studies suggest variations in tastes, ways of engagement and level of avidity of the viewers towards television.11 Television news is a popular medium in the everyday watching practice of people in the households of Bangladesh. Once the private satellite channels came into being and spread across the localities over time, people started gathering together in front of television sets to watch news and political current affairs. An increasing number of news-based channels have had to feature a wider variety of political events and sociocultural aspects to catch up with the competitive market. People started switching on those channels at tea stalls, small restaurants, offices and clubs in Bangladesh. Russell and Puto (1999) investigated the audiences’ connectedness with television and argued that the relationship is quite deeply rooted. In their view, the interactive dynamic between the television programme and the viewers is not bound to the domain of the viewing ritual but is highly connected to the audience’s personal and social lives.The following section provides an overview of the sites where the audiences watch television on an everyday basis. Households It is the households and family viewing that enabled me to understand the engagement of women with television news. In the ethnographic investigation among the viewers, researchers can only get access to the household at an advanced level of fieldwork. A successful community study makes entry into the household easy. Also, an ethnographer may pay attention to the intensive observation of the activities and practices in the domestic viewing more than a household survey. David Morley’s Family Television project to comprehend the sociology of domestic television consumption dealt with the complexity of family/ household distinction (Morley 1992). Given the complexities with the dimensions of family, family size and changing patterns of the household, at the end he limited his project to the nuclear family. Taking family/household as the basic unit of television consumption, he attempted to understand the changing pattern of television viewing in relation to leisure activity at home. Pointing out the ‘trouble with numbers’ of the quantitative approaches to examine viewership, Morley emphasizes a qualitative and interpretive aspect. According to him, the quantitative empirical investigation has limitations in understanding ‘television viewing as a complex and contextualized domestic practice’ (1992: 175). Taking a cue from Ang (1991), he indicates the problem of assuming ‘watching TV’ as a usual and objectively measurable behaviour and discusses the importance of focusing on context-specific everyday practices. Morley eventually prioritized the gender dimension and tried developing the gendered framework of family television viewing. The gendered dimension remains one of the determining factors in family viewing for many scholarly attempts to comprehend media culture. Purnima 55

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Mankekar’s (1999) ethnographic attempt to conceptualize womanhood and nation in the context of family viewing of television in India is one of the remarkable works from the South Asian context. Her objective was to ethnographically explore the representation of womanhood in Indian televisuals and the gendered interpretation. She was interested in examining how the family as well as the gender dynamic are reshaped by the family viewing practice. There has been a dominant pattern of the survey method to understand household viewership not only in the marketing and policy-oriented research (such as Gutman 1973; Yang et al. 2006), but also in the sociological domain of knowledge production (such as Robinson and Martin 2009). Nilanjana Gupta’s (2000) study in West Bengal in India to examine the changing patterns of television viewing and gendered aspects in the domestic sphere is one such survey-based initiative. But it appears that survey-based generalizations are too thin in claiming to capture the intimate and personal habits of viewing culture. The ethnographic investigation underpinning the present book considers the domestic sphere as a vital source for an in-depth view of the changing patterns of viewing and interaction with television news. It does not present a gender dimension of viewing but rather shows how female viewers at a household engage with television news and interact and implement it in their everyday social life.

Figure 3.4 Watching television in a household, Bandarban, Bangladesh. Source: Author

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Public viewing The public viewing sites are composed of people from diverse sociopolitical backgrounds and demographic settings. The tea stalls serve as the most significant site for viewing and talking about television news. In rural settings, the television set is one of the common components for a tea stall or a small restaurant. This trend is also popular in the district towns. The metropolitan cities are different in terms of incorporating a television set and its usage at tea stalls. In branded and trendy restaurants, the television is barely used for news viewing. There the television set is turned on in a muted mode, and mostly sports channels are playing. However, when some crucial incidents take place in the city, they switch to news-based channels. The luxurious restaurants are limited to the customers who come to eat and hence do not serve as a public site for viewing and interacting. In the metropolitan city, there are small eateries, tea stalls and affordable restaurants in the lanes and small pathways where people gather to watch television. These locations are highly enabling for an ethnography of television in regards to public viewing and interaction with news. In Dhaka city, the clubs and offices of the societies were found to be vital sites where people gathered to watch television. Two such clubs accessed by me in the locality were called Azimpur and Nilkhet. In the local towns, some old clubs no longer served as centres for the people to watch television. During an informal interaction, the respondents, who were regular goers but now met in tea stalls for chitchat, informed me that those clubs used to be crucial locations for watching football and cricket matches and TV news even if people had their own television sets in their homes. People wanted to watch TV in groups, and these clubs used to have bigger and colour television sets, which were not available in many households those days. But over time that tendency in the districts has declined because more people have satellite connections and colour TV in their households, and the clubs have turned into a place for a handful people to gamble with a few others and play cards. In districts, where, on the one hand, the old traditional clubs are either disappearing or are less frequented, on the other hand, some societies and association offices are being established by different groups of professionals. Television sets and satellite connections are common in these offices. Also, television sets have become an integral part of different local and regional offices of the government. The local government offices of different district headquarters and other public service departments at the regional level follow television news during office hours. Some of these public sites of viewing do not mandatorily have a television set where people must watch news, but they do discuss talk shows they might have watched elsewhere. This conversation in reference to their viewing news elsewhere is found in some of the public locations involving a TV set where the device may not be switched on.

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People in the margin The advent of 24-hour news channels contributed to capturing the lives and livelihoods of marginal communities. This led the channels not just to make the communities objects for representation but reached out to such locations, which are considered far away from media and market influence. The overall development and corporate interruption have been so fast that no remote locations remain a mere hideout. The entry of satellite channels into such locations problematizes the common-sense assumption about rural viewers that they are untouched by the urban and modern media market. The viewers of these hill stations and remote localities geographically situated in rural areas are considered the people in the margins for this discussion. In the hill stations, markets are an important site where people watch news and discuss the happenings related to national and international events. But the subscription of news channels is very nominal in the hill community neighbourhoods and territories that are fully composed of the tribal people. In those sites, people dominantly watch Indian channels such as Zee TV, Star Plus and Star Movies and some Bangladeshi entertainment channels such as ATN Bangla, Channel I, Desh TV and so on. However, the youth population from tribal communities and politically active individuals from the non-Bengali ethnic communities tune in to Bangladeshi newsbased channels for updates about national politics. They also mention the intensification of the reports related to them on television after the arrival of news-based channels. But the ordinary population in the remote locations of the hill tracts are not much bothered about national politics and other sociopolitical developments and hence do not take an interest in getting updates by tuning to those channels. Indifference and lack of interest towards news bulletins are also found among people living in the plains in comparatively remote locations of rural areas. They are mostly the consumers of soap operas and family dramas from Indian entertainment channels. Nevertheless, there is a trend of purposive and random subscribing to news channels in all the marginal and remote sociodemographic composition that came under observation. People from these localities get to know about the national and international issues, characters and events even though they do not take an interest in following these events on a regular basis. Most people reach these channels while randomly scrolling through channels. As usual, they figure out there is a new channel and start following it for some time. When they find out these channels only telecast news all the time, they again switch the channel to get back to the more entertaining soaps. Some of them were introduced to these channels in a purposive manner when educated youth or politically vocal people asked them to change the channel and find a news channel. Among the economically backward, illiterate and socially marginalized people, the subscription of news-based channels is significantly low. Rural people are not consumers of late-night talk shows of Bangladeshi television channels. 58

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However, it suffices to note that sociopolitically active individuals from rural Bangladesh follow the talk shows to gather information and become well versed with arguments to participate in public conversation among peers.

Nilphamari: an ethnographic site The enmeshed character of this ethnography took me into the diverse sites of television viewing and news making. A concentrated site of ethnographic investigation, however, can provide vital insights about the arrival of television in a particular locality, the changing culture in relation to television and the news-viewing practices of the community. The Nilphamari district is located in the northern part of the country adjacent to the Indo-Bangladesh border. In 1800, the rulers of East India Company located the farming land of this place and considered it fertile for producing indigo. The town and its adjacent areas still carry some of the evidences of the factories, farms and offices of the indigo planters. Indigo is called neel in Bengali, and the farm is khamar; the farmers who worked at the farms were known as khamari. Over time, the place became popular as the home for neel-khamari, and with further phonetic transformations it became Nilphamari. The anthrogenealogical roots and routes of the people in this land are linked to the tribes Koch and Rajbangshi.12 Having demographic lineage with greater Assam, the first district office of Nilphamari was established in 1875 in Bagdogra, which is now a prominent town in the Darjeeling district of West Bengal, India. In the pre-partition period (1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent), all these areas were under the larger umbrella of North Bengal. In the post-partition period, Muslims from Jalpaiguri, Siliguri and other parts of West Bengal migrated and settled in Nilphamari. The first-generation migrants from those territories who are now settled in Nilphamari often share their memories of migration, partition and dislocation. In independent Bangladesh, Nilphamari was upgraded to a district in 1984, and it now consists of 6 upazilas (sub-districts). According to the census of 2011,13 the Sadar Upazila has 97,088 households in its geographic area of 373.3 square kilometres. The literacy rate has doubled (more than 40%) in 2011 in comparison to 1991 (around 20%). The region is considered one of the poverty-ridden areas in terms of the human composition of the country, and livelihood here is primarily based on agriculture. However, in recent years there has been a qualitative change in lifestyle. There has been development in farming, diversity in crops and positive growth in the employment and educational sectors.14 In addition to all these, the progress of electrification has been significant in Nilphamari. According to the database of the Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (BREB) that supplies electricity in the rural areas,15 until August 2017, it built 3,939.783 kilometres of electrified line in Nilphamari, which had 2,561 in 2008–2009. The consumers of electricity in 2017 are three times more than in 2008. 59

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In 2008–2009 there were around 60,000 consumers, which increased to 1,80,000 in 2017. The district-level database says that, in the year 2013– 2014, the company provided new connections to 7,500 customers while in 2014–2015 new connections were given to 14,500 customers. There is a positive correlation between electrifying and the viewership of television. Particularly in rural areas, the electric connection helped households possess a television set, which was otherwise a tedious affair, as they earlier had television sets with rechargeable batteries. During those days of dependence on batteries, people used to switch on the TV set for selective viewing as they had to recharge the battery every alternative week or in some cases weekly from a shop located in the market. The census of 2011 indicates that half the population of the Nilphamari district watches television. Since the Palli Biddyut connection (electric connection facilitated by BERB) has reaches the remote localities, rural mini-markets, consisting of one or two grocery shops and tea stalls, remain open until late evening. Television is a common component for those small public locations. The activities of watching TV news and related chitchat have become an everyday practice while they were previously limited to the days people used to go to the Haats market.16 In the rural Haats and comparatively big marketplaces, battery charging centres (shops) have now turned into other business centres or grocery shops. The switch began in 2012–2013 as the remote localities of the village

Figure 3.5 Cartographic locations of the ethnographic study in Bangladesh. Note: This is an artistic adaptation of the cartographic locations where the ethnographic study was conducted. The international boundaries, coastlines, demarcations and other information shown in this map do not necessarily imply any judgement concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such information. Source: Courtesy of Bishwajit Roy

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were electrified. The rural households now depend on electricity and have colour television with a satellite connection. This is why people have stopped coming to charge the batteries for their battery-operated television sets. In a particular para (neighbourhood), a few households may have not taken the electricity connection. They frequently visit the house of a neighbour who owns a television. In rural neighbourhoods, watching television is rarely for private viewing as there is always the access and presence of neighbours, who are quite frequent. Such neighbourly interaction creates a sociability where internal family affairs do not remain private. Frequent movements and accessibility of neighbours inside the living room complicate the binaries of public and private realm. Also, neighbourly enmity and conflicts can be marked by looking at who visits whose household for watching television. In such a rural neighbourhood composed of 23 households, I found out that a cable connection is only available in three houses. People from neighbouring para also come to watch television in this particular neighbourhood. That led me to examine how the satellite cable connections are supplied into such remote locations, which are only accessible through a mud road or across the paddy field.

The arrival of television and satellite in Nilphamari In the Nilphamari district, the first cable connection came in 1995. The first television set was introduced sometime around 1984. The then chairman of the city council (Pourashava) installed one television set in the Nilphamari Council Office, and people from all over the neighbourhood and far-away villages used to come watch. Enchantment with the television of those days is still remembered by the older people of the town. In the afternoon, the TV set used to be placed outside the office. The big playground would be filled with viewers from different localities. Those were the days of the Bangladesh Television (BTV) monopoly, and people also watched neighbouring countries’ national channels, viz. India (DD National/DD Bangla) and Nepal (Nepal Television), if the TV antenna could catch signals for these channels. They had to struggle by rotating the knob to find a channel for watching some programmes. The former chairman of the city council, who had been a part of local politics during 1980s, shared his experience and memories of those days: Our fingers used to get hurt while rotating the knob of television set, and also the antenna has to be set in a proper manner to find out wave signal. There used to be so many viewers and barely any place to sit. We had to struggle finding a chair or stool to sit. People used to come from far away and sit on the grass. BTV used to broadcast some English serials, and the news at 8 p.m. was the main attraction. If we kept rotating the knob and antenna, some fuzzy view 61

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of the channels could be seen, where we could see boxing shows. Barely anything could be seen, but all the eyes were glued to the TV screen in those days. People who experienced the early age of television in Nilphamari shared similar stories and memories. By late 1980s quite a few households possessed black-and-white TV sets. The trend of listening to BBC radio had been shifting towards watching television news, which was mainly BTV’s 8 p.m. news. However, television news viewing was not able to take away the reliability of and dependence on BBC radio. For the purpose of information about national and international politics, people alternatively used TV and radio. Even today, they subscribe to BBC Bangla radio when they want to know about the various aspects of a significant incident. The common-sense linearity about TV replacing radio is therefore problematic. Hussain Muhammad Ershad’s autocratic rule ended with a nationwide public uprising in the 1990s.17 The inhabitants of Nilphamari expressed their attachment to television news those days to get national and political updates. By 1995, there were a large number of households in possession of a television set, and eventually two or three TV mechanics opened businesses in the town. According to the respondents, the World Cup football of 1994 was one of the crucial instigators for buying television sets. Some clubs and public locations were also becoming popular for people to watch television. In 1995, one TV-radio mechanic got the first dish antenna in the town and distributed some selective connections. He provided 25 connections with the service of six non-Bangladeshi satellite channels, including Discovery, Star TV and later Animal Planet. The launch of ATN Bangla in 1997 and Channel I in 1999 cultivated public demand as those were the initial domestic satellite channels of Bangladesh. The viewers started getting cable connections in their households. In 1999, another TV mechanic of the town, Jahidul Islam, bought a dish antenna and planned to distribute cable connections in the town. It was not only his self-taken initiative to launch a business but also the demand of the viewers that led him to install a satellite connection. He provided information about the development of satellite connections in Nilphamari and people’s engagement with it. I spent around 30 thousand taka [Bangladeshi taka] for setting up the dish antenna. People came with money and told me to get the connection. Interested viewers had given me 1,000 to 5,000 taka individually in advance for installing the dish antenna because people had no other option for entertainment in the town. The administrative officials who used to come to this district looked for a satellite connection at their residences. Even, those days, towards the end of 1990s, people used to gather in my radio-TV servicing shop to watch television. So, in 1999, I started providing cable connections and 62

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began with 150 lines in the town. It kept increasing in the following years and people from other localities used to come with money and look for a cable connection. I was not so much interested in reaching beyond the town areas. It was a tedious job for us that time and the security of our cables was also an issue then. But people assured us about the security of the cables and hence we had taken it further in other remote locations. People were always a great support. Jahidul Islam is now one of the main distributors of satellite cable connections in the Nilphamari district. His business enterprise, Chowrangi Cable Networks, is one of the leading service providers for television viewers in the town. In 1999 he began with only 10 channels; this doubled in 2000, and in 2005 he provided 40 channels. People also started using remote-controlled television sets instead of the analogue knob ones. They switched to colour television instead of black and white. According to the cable operators of Nilphamari, after 2005 the number of cable connections reached 5,000, and by the end of 2017, around 15,000 households were connected to satellite channels. Providers were now offering more than 60 domestic and international channels to their consumers. Similarly, people in the village areas expressed their interest in cable connection, which led someone to take the initiative to set up a business. Parimal Roy, the satellite connection provider in the villages of Palashbari Union Council, began his business in 2009 and initially distributed around 35 connections in the local bazar, mainly to different shops. In 2012, he relaunched the business by connecting with the digital server system in place of a dish antenna to provide the cable connection. He had originally been looking for a job since 2002 after completing his diploma in engineering from a local college. He had gone to metropolitan cities looking for jobs but failed to prosper and so returned to his village. Finally, he took up the business of satellite cable connection provider, estimating the changing patterns of entertainment of rural people. In his view, people from and around his village were also going to the towns and seeing newer developments that were reflected in their changing tastes. These changing mindsets and tastes motivated him to introduce cable connections in rural localities. In 2012, when he started providing connection to the households, the first month he had only 12 customers. Soon after, people from different neighbourhoods started asking him to provide satellite connections. But in rural areas, the composition of households is different, and hence extra effort was needed to carry the cable from one area to the other. He now has 500 customers, including people from some remote localities, rural households and around 70 shops in the rural market. This discussion and statistics are not the only indicators of the numerical development of satellite television subscription. Multiple sociocultural undercurrents and political and economic aspects are involved in this 63

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development of satellite culture and television viewership. The national drive to go digital in the post-2008 milieu and the facility of fiber optic connectivity have transformed the satellite media culture in the marginal localities of the country. In 2006, the country inaugurated new submarine fiber optic connectivity, and after two years, a new public limited company was formed to take care of the high-speed connectivity across the country.18 This fiber optic connection has brought about a revolution in media and information communication that has been highly appreciated by the local cable operators. The task of providing the service of satellite cable connection had become too easy. But with the development of information and communication technology, people started demanding more and more. The viewers had started looking for various options in terms of genre and content of channels. The cable operators are the primary agents to whom viewers lodge their demands and complaints. For instance, the Urdu-speaking people living in the Nilphamari district started demanding Pakistani channels. A group of youth started asking for sports channels. So the cable operators had to subscribe to those channels and include them in their list to meet the demand of their customers (viewers). After the arrival of domestic news-based channels, viewers started asking for those channels in their connection. The newly launched Dhaka-based channels sometimes are delayed in their availability to the countrywide cable operators. Cable operators play a crucial role in introducing a channel to the viewers while the viewers also work as a pressure group for the cable operators for running particular channels. For instance, which channels are listed on which numbers of the remote-control device is centrally set by the operators based on the demands and tastes of the viewers (see Table 3.2). Therefore, the cable operators are vital mediators between the television channels and the audiences. They are imperative agents in the interface of viewing and making television. According to them there are three major groups of viewers in terms of their demand of television contents: The first group is interested in watching news, the second group is interested in sports-related channels and the third group is jointly composed of viewers who demand Indian serials and Islamic shows. This categorization, although loose and broad in nature, helps reveal the tastes and interests of television viewers in a local town of Bangladesh.

Towards an inquisitive approach to ethnography The ethnography of media is a much-debated scholarly domain due to the perpetual epistemological complexities around ethnography in general and the obsessive attempts to mark a rigid disciplinary boundary with a distinct approach and orientation towards the methods. Debates on ethnography within the discipline of anthropology swamped the sub-discipline of media anthropology. Television studies as a subject matter were more associated 64

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Table 3.2 Based on public demand, the cable operators of Nilphamari placed the channels in hierarchy. The channels in the left column are the most popular, then the middle, then the right. Highly Popular

Moderately Popular

Less Popular

Star Jalsha Life OK Bijoy TV Mohua TV DAM Gaan Gaan Music Jamuna TV TARA Bangla 24 Ghanta Khobor (Chobbish Ghanta) B4U Movies 9xm Music BTV ZEE cinema Bangla CN Sony Independent TV TEN Sports STAR Sports Gaan Bangla Maha Movies

Sony Aath MTV Plus Colors Colors Bangla ZEE Cinema Zee Bangla Ruposhi Bangla DVD Geography TEN Cricket Star Gold Discovery Al Jazeera UTV Action Animal Planet Sony SIX HBO TEN Action Masti Gaan Akash Bangla

71 TV Boishakhi TV Somoy TV Mohona TV NTV RTV MY TV Ekushey TV Maasranga TV Desh TV Gazi TV Bangla Vision Channel 9 24 Bangla Channel I GTV BTV World History Sony Mix DBC Channel

Source: Author

with media and communication studies than social anthropology (Alvarado et al. 2015). Therefore, there has been a lack of discussion on television ethnography in particular and media ethnography in general. Nevertheless, there have been some noteworthy ethnographic initiatives since the mid20th century within the domain of media culture – such as Powdermaker’s (1950) ethnography of the Hollywood industry and Warner’s (1959) work on mediated and symbolic life of Americans in small town of the United States – and the tradition has been taken forward by Tuchman (1978), Morley (1980), Spitulnik (1993) and others in the late 20th century (see Machin 2002; Vidali and Peterson 2012). Taking the trajectory and changing trends of media ethnography into account, therefore, we need to recognize that ethnography is more than fieldwork, understand the significance of this tradition both as theory and as method and acknowledge the ethnographic moments in media and communication culture (Ohm 2013; Vidali and Peterson 2012). The in-depth engagement at various sites of viewing and television news making in Bangladesh is primarily geared towards multisited ethnography. A multisited ethnography was vital for this study to gain a holistic view about the actions and practices of the participants and the sounds and sights of the 65

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locations where they are situated (Reeves et al. 2008). The everydayness of viewing television, engaging with news content and constituting discourses need to be placed before the everydayness of the newsroom, journalistic practices and diverse actions related to news making. Suffice it to say that the everydayness is interlinked to the social phenomena and various cultural threads – and thus the crucial need to conceive a multisited ethnography. George Marcus’s oft-cited article on the emergence of multisited ethnography explains the limitation of single site ethnography to capture the social subjects, phenomena and cultural formations that are ‘variously situated’ and can be traced ‘across and within multiple sites’ (Marcus 1995: 96). The subjects and cases of multisited ethnography are situated and distributed variedly, and thus the need to follow the aspects and move on to multiple locations is vital. According to Falzon, ‘The essence of multisited research is to follow people, connections, associations, and relationships across space’ (2016 [2009]: 1–2). It was imperative to follow the process and practices of news making in multiple locations and move with the people engaged in the TV news culture (Allan 2010). This book contains interviews with TV journalists who are not only Dhaka based; bureau reporters and local correspondents also were interviewed. Journalists are not only based in the newsroom but move around different spatial locations of subjects, events and happenings. There are qualitative variations between the journalists at the centre (capital city) and the ones in the local areas (regional towns) in terms of political and professional mechanisms. In viewing practices, persistent differences (and similarities, as well, in many ways) can be noticed in the urban and local as well as in local to local in terms of the access to satellite channels, the nature of viewership, preferences of contents and performances of viewing. Marcus (2007), in his recent reflection on multisited ethnographic fieldwork and ethnographic writing, emphasized the mediational, critical, experimental and reflexive interventions. He writes (2007: 1133): So, the engaged reflexive subject, who cannot be a mere informant or subject of research, but in some sense, must become involved in its intellectual work and scope; the multi-sited arena of fieldwork as networked knowledge sites the ethnography of which is both thick and thin, and is patterned by very politicized relations of collaboration; and ultimately the inclusion of reception itself as an object or site of fieldwork – these together constitute an ethnographic baroque today that would move us beyond what the exemplary ethnographic textual form has come to in its past messiness. Marcus’s consideration of fieldwork as a way of gaining networked knowledge has been insightful in the practical and conceptual orientation of this multisited ethnography. Interaction with television news professionals, 66

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journalists, media critics and viewers of television news from diverse backgrounds helped in locating and getting involved with a network constituted and maintained by media participants. While the multisited ethnography has been influential in bringing depth and local perspectives, the auto-ethnography, on the other hand, aided in reflecting on the cultural and social practices from the vantage point of personal experiences. Auto-ethnographic accounts are not only to write about the experiences and personal relationships to television media culture but to ‘humanize the research by focusing on life as “lived through” in its complexities’ (Adams et al. 2017: 8). My professional network as a television journalist helped provide access to the newsroom and interactions with the respondents from an insider’s perspective. Also, personal memories of my hometown and my familiarity with the sociopolitical composition of the location helps in reflecting on the viewing culture. It is useful not merely to write about people you know but also to feature different fragments of personal memories, positioning the self into the character of a ‘TV journalist’ and an ‘avid TV viewer’ while narrating the complexity of the cases.19 According to Hamilton et al. (2008: 26), ‘Auto-ethnographers tend to embed a story within a story, thereby providing a metanarrative’. There has been a conscious effort in this book to avoid creating a metanarrative out of the personal memories and experiences; rather, it depends on the multiple sources and aspects collected from the field through interaction, participant observation and other techniques of data collection. A careful and critical outlook has been used to maintain the balance between experiential and experimental, viewpoints of the self and the other and personal orientation and perspectives of the respondents to mitigate the overwhelming nature of auto-ethnography.

Challenges of doing television ethnography There have been two challenges in researching the ethnography of television in Bangladesh. The first problem I would like to highlight is the interrelation of media professionals and ethnographers. To be more specific, it is a concern as to how a reporter and a researcher are interconnected. Is there any common ground where both of them can come together and share their worldviews? The second challenge is related to a dearth of audience ethnography in Bangladesh. My personal engagement and negotiation of being trained in anthropology and ethnographic practice as well as working at the news channel as a fulltime TV reporter may add some insight in comprehending the challenges of doing television ethnography. It was essential to be reflexive in overcoming this dilemma and positioning myself into action with utmost self-clarity. Since my training period as a journalist, I started encountering differences in objective and action between the two fields of anthropology and journalism. 67

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Over my professional career in media, I realized that the basic point of disjunction is the way of presentation. There is not much difference between a reporter and a social science researcher in the ways they should see and examine a case. But the qualitative differences are vital and inescapable due to the default and expected style of presentation in television journalism. Television journalism requires briefness, a style of presenting things in a capsule manner and in a packaged format. It requires a story to be narrated in a maximum duration of two minutes that include the reporter’s description, the expert’s opinion, respondents’ reactions and the anchor’s introduction. But that does not mean the reporters gather limited knowledge about a fact although they may be stating selective information from the whole they have gathered. As a working journalist, I always tried to negotiate between the anthropological aspects of a holistic viewpoint and the journalistic requirements of partial, singular and concise patterns. Another crucial aspect is ethical anxiety. In terms of dealing with the respondents, interviewees or victims, television journalists often undermine their ethical boundaries and eventually mishandle people and their privacy. There has been a burgeoning concern among television journalists regarding ethical aspects with the rapid growth of news television in Bangladesh. But on practical grounds, it is hard to follow the ethical boundary lines when the conditions demand that journalists be abrupt, insensitive and to some extent inhumane to collect the best footage, noise-free sound bites and provocative visuals. It is productive to value collaborative endeavour and enhance mutual appreciation for developing an anthropology of news and journalism that may contribute positively to both the fields. In Elizabeth Bird’s view: I believe anthropologists have also shied away from the cultural study of journalism because in considering it, we necessarily find ourselves thinking about the sometimes uncomfortable parallels between ethnography and journalism as ways of describing and understanding reality.  .  .  . Nevertheless, we all know that ethnographers and journalists are both in the business of gathering information about people and constructing narratives about what they learn for an audience.  .  .  . This is not to say that the two professions are the same. They have different missions, and they work in different environments and under different constraints. . . . Yet the goals of anthropology and journalism are enough alike that some mutual appreciation is surely desirable. (2010: 4–5)

Epistemological concerns and methodological orientation A blend of empiricism and interpretive turn in social anthropology is central to methodology. It gives more advantage to a unit of knowledge, an episteme, 68

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which is available for sensory experience and rational interpretation. Such a blend prioritizes the ‘meaning-focused and person-centred concerns’ to rehumanize social sciences (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2015: xiv). An interpretive approach is quite instrumental in comprehending the meaning-making process, the politics of news making and the sociocultural undercurrents of the viewing practice. There have been attempts to comprehend the ‘interpretive communities’ in the audience research, as Jensen (1987, 2018) tried by bringing an integrative approach to reception study and emphasizing the codes of understanding and the ways of interpretation by the viewers. The methodological approach of interpretive anthropology is informed by the phenomenological and hermeneutic strand of philosophy (Uyangoda 2015). According to Dvora Yanow, ‘When phenomenology focuses on processes of perception, hermeneutic focuses on principle of interpretation’ (2015: 17). This combined effort enables the researcher to understand the human meaning – the actions and practices associated with the meaning-making process. Identifying the central concerns of phenomenological and hermeneutic philosophies, Yanow (2014, 2015) explains the importance of ‘knowing’ not only what it means but also how it means (if it means anything to the subject). This insight is crucial as a methodological underpinning of this study geared to examine what news means to the audiences and how they derive meanings. The phenomenological insights helped this study investigate how the ‘meaning-making takes place in the “lifeworld”’ and helps in situating the subjects into their social world (Yanow 2015: 12). In Paddy Scannell’s (1996) view, the collaboration of a radical hermeneutic and phenomenology can help unearth the complexities in the interface of television and its viewership. He emphasizes the hermeneutic interrelation of the totality of practices and the totality of viewers’ expectations in the context of broadcasting. The communicative intentions of the broadcasters and the expectations of the viewers need to be examined as an interlinked set of interpretive actions. The present book focuses on the subjects of the mediated social system in the context of satellite television news. Figure 3.6 provides a glimpse of the methodological orientation and research design.

Data collection and analysis in ethnography Newspaper hawkers are commonly found at railway stations, where they come near the windows of the train before it departs the station. I bought a newspaper from a hawker at Dhaka’s Kamlapur Railway Station and boarded the train that leaves at 8 a.m. for Nilphamari. It was an intercity train named Nilsagar Express operating on the Dhaka–Nilphamari route. The passengers of the compartment were mostly inhabitants of Nilphamari, and I introduced myself to them. Once the train started moving, I started looking at 69

Hermeneu c and phenomenological grounds

70

Viewership

Interface

Television News

Who?

What?

Who?

What?

Viewers from diverse socio­ poli cal-spa al background, viewers and media prac oners from a concentrated site

Viewing, interac ng and meaning-making

Journalists, television professionals, different external forces

Mul ple sites of news-making and journalis c prac ces

Reasonable collabora on of Mul sited ethnography and auto-ethnography

H O W?

Source: Author

Figure 3.6 The framework of conducting an ethnographic research on television news making and viewing in Bangladesh.

Techniques and methods: Observa on, par cipant observa on, focus group discussion, interviewing, case studies

Qualitative, interpretive, empirical research to understand the social (media) practices

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the newspaper while the passenger on the opposite seat started watching talk shows on his mobile phone. Some older people are not experts in handling the technical glitches of mobile internet and the features of smartphones. But many have learned to run YouTube on their phones with some assistance and have subscribed to particular YouTube channels to watch television talk shows. Entry into the field and getting access to the sociocultural settings of the respondents are not only practical concerns. They are significantly associated with the ethical aspect and the perception of the respondents. Negotiation is needed at every point of encounter in the field. Even loitering around the town and participating in the public domain requires an introductory effort from the researcher. Unlike metropolitan and other big cities, Nilphamari is a small town where people are closely related and closely knit. In general, people are hospitable and maintain a simple lifestyle, and thus it was not so difficult for me to get access into the households for research. The personal identity and position of the researcher was crucial in initiating the conversation, getting familiar and building rapport with the respondents. The ‘presentation of self’ and ‘impression management’ remained a priority concern for me (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007; Robben and Sluka 2012). Long-term conversation, regular chitchat over tea, talk about politics and society in general and maintaining a routine to attend such afternoon gatherings helped me build trust. Another challenge to conduct ethnography was the difficulty of explaining the purpose and value of any media-related research. The respondents were curious how the television viewing practices of people could be studied or how they were significant. I tried to explain the importance of research by stating the value of their everyday culture and the role of television in their lives. But in some of the rural locations, my key informants emphasized my identity as a journalist identity rather than introducing me as an academic researcher. I realized that it was more effective to begin the interaction regarding television viewing practices while being introduced to the respondents as a TV journalist. Therefore, initiating the conversation as a television journalist interested to know if the respondent watches television news remained one of my key techniques to get access into the field. At the advanced level, during my long-term observation, regular visits and mundane interactions, I also revealed my researcher identity. In the rural areas, the rapport-building process took longer than in urban localities. It was only possible since I was a local boy who was mostly away studying and working in the cities. I was able to make them believe that I was honestly keen to learn from them and they had significant knowledge to share with me.20 It was also relatively easy to build rapport in the newsroom in comparison with the viewing sites. At the site of news making, the main challenge was to negotiate with the gatekeepers. Hammersley and Atkinson (2007) extensively discussed the significance of initial contacts with gatekeepers, particularly for studying any formal organizational settings. In their view, gatekeepers 71

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are often the ethnographer’s initial point of contact in such research settings. For an ethnography of television news, it is crucial to get the approval from the gatekeepers in the newsroom settings. It is a task to locate the multiple gatekeepers and convince them to provide proper access to the newsmaking sites. My intense relationship with my previous workplace helped me conduct research in the television newsroom. I was able to approach different departmental heads of the newsroom. But prior to all this, it was a big task for me to convince the supreme authorities of the news channel. The top officials of the newsroom were not hesitant about my presence in the newsroom, which enabled me to engage with other colleagues more easily. Also, my familiarity with the newsroom routine, reporters, drivers, camerapersons and the everydayness of news-making culture facilitated connecting with the respondents from the media sector. Ethnographic research requires a set of complex acts and multiple actions in the field that have often been associated with a ‘multi-headed beast’ (Law 2004: 4). Media ethnographers should hone their ability to be multitasking researchers at work. In Elizabeth Bird’s (2003) view, to capture ‘on the ground perspectives’, media ethnographers have to take multiple challenges to ‘follow the people’, ‘follow the metaphor’ and ‘follow the life’ at once (2003: 187, 190). She further emphasizes ‘methodological innovation and flexibility’ as the key in any context of media research (2003: 188). Taking participant observation as the central methodological approach, there was an effort to opt for the triangulation of different techniques. The dependence on multiple and alternative sources of data from the very beginning of this research helped maximize the elements from field. Observation, individual and group interviews, in-depth and face-to-face interactions, life histories, participant observations and collecting secondary as well as audio-visual materials were combined in the process of data collection. ‘Interactional expertise’21 highly facilitated my ability to participate and quasi-participate in the domain of audiences’ viewing and news making. Particularly to situate the self into the context of respondents’ everyday life settings, the effort of initiating interactions on mundane issues developed a bond that further helped in in-depth interviews. Participant observation aided in carrying the conversation while observing the behavioural patterns, changes and routinized actions of the respondents. Collecting data from the domain of news making involved taking the life histories of some selected journalists, unstructured and semi-structured interviews and participation in news-gathering and news-making activities. Hanging out in the locations of the newsroom and the sites where journalists often meet for tea and chitchat helped in rebuilding rapport and hearing their viewpoints about journalistic practice and related issues. The collection of rundown, daily planning and lists of news reports from the TV channel aided in getting some content-analysis information. Accessing the audio-visual archives of the news channel provided rich 72

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insight about the news-making practice. The case study of some selected events where television media professionals had an active participation and engagement remained useful for developing knowledge about mediarelated social practices. For assembling and analyzing data, the research has an analytic standpoint owing to the grounded theory and thick description of ethnographic tradition (Charmaz and Mitchell 2001). The ethnographic orientation it followed is not simply descriptive but also analytic. It does not fall into the sharp binaries of meta-theory and anti-theory but rather tries building the arguments in collaboration with the theories and methodologies of the social sciences.22

Conclusion In the two-fold challenge of introducing an ethnography of television in Bangladesh, the first can be taken care of by enabling and advancing the anthropology of news and journalism. The second problem related to the lack of audience ethnography requires institutional attention and academic patronization. The anthropology of media in Bangladesh has yet to take an institutional shape in terms of formal academic research and innovation.23 There is a persistent trend in the disciplinary domain of mass communication and journalism along with management and marketing-oriented research to study the effects of television through selective interviewing, structured questionnaires and brief surveys among the target group (for example, Shamsher and Abdullah 2012; Do and Kincaid 2007; Andaleeb et al. 2012). There is barely any initiative to conduct long-term research among viewers to understand the cultural and social dynamics of viewing. Audiences are not familiar with responding to queries about their television viewing practices. They are accustomed to replying to questions asked by researchers or surveyors about their income, agriculture, food habits, family planning and environmental disasters.24 The disciplinary challenges of conducting audience research are manifold, ranging from the why of audience research to how an empirical reception study can be done. But for me, above all these, the question posed by the respondents remains more vital: ‘What is the point of knowing about our television viewing practice?’ This should not be taken as their resistance but rather curiosity about the practicality and effectiveness of such research. That encounter led me to bring out creative strategies for participating in social conversation and observing everyday life in general. It is pertinent to recall Elizabeth Bird’s (2003) approach to audiences in everyday life through long-term familiarization and intensive observation. To her, media ethnography has to be carried out with a two-fold agenda of considering the audiences as ‘real people’ and looking ‘beyond the audiences’ for a ‘richer ethnographic understanding of life in a mediated world’ (2003: 20). Towards this, Lila Abu-Lughod (1997) provides a pertinent clue through her engagement with the viewers of television in an Egyptian village. To begin 73

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with, she emphasizes the social concern, cultural concern and social practice of the respondents, locating them in their real lifeworld. She also had to face the challenge of examining the encounter between television serials and the viewers, who are primarily women from Upper Egyptian villages. She found the solution for a thick description of television in adopting a multisited ethnography. To get insight about the cultural dynamic, she focused on the meaning and life of the respondents and collected their opinions about the television serials while at the same time tracing the production process of those serials in Cairo. The challenges of researching the ethnography of television in Bangladesh were overcome by conducting a long-term study among the audiences, engaging with them in their sociocultural context, reflecting back into the intervals of the fieldwork, examining the culture and politics of television media production and finally pointing out the interface between the audiences and television. There is always anxiety in finding the appropriate categories while dealing with television audiences as well as the practices of media production and consumption. But it is imperative to emphasize the micro factors, gossips, expressions, stories, stories about stories and likingdisliking in relation to the television media culture. As Abu-Lughod (1997: 113) puts it, ‘We can still profit from trying to use careful contextualizations of small facts and events – in the case of television consumption in particular places’. To deal with these challenges, the most effective method is to take a break and be reflexive in every encounter with the media participants and their practices in a mediated social setting while continuing to correspond with the ethnographic sensibilities.

Notes 1 Those fundamental myths are, as they have listed: 1. Ethnography is unscientific; 2. Ethnography is less valid than quantitative research; 3. Ethnography is simply anecdotal; 4. Ethnography is undermined by subjectivity; 5. Ethnography is merely intuitive; 6. Ethnography is writing about your personal experience; 7. Ethnographers contaminate fieldsites by their very presence; 8. Ethnography is the same as grounded theory; 9. Ethnography is the same as ethnomethodology; 10. Ethnography will become obsolete. 2 For more discussion on decentralization in Bangladesh, see Khan (2009b), Panday (2017). 3 For instance, in the eastern region of the country, Chittagong has Dainik Azadi and Dainik Purbakon; in the southern part, Khulna, Dainik Purbanchal; in the northern region, Bogura, Dainik Karatoa used to be very popular among the local readers. 4 Some of the popular newspapers established printing facilities in the regional cities to have more circulation. For instance, the popular Bengali newspaper Daily Prothom Alo, launched in 1998, eventually developed printing facilities in Chittagong and Bogura in addition to Dhaka, and by 2013 it achieved popularity by having a circulation of half a million each day. 5 The Dhaka-based Bangladeshi film industry is frequently referred to as Dhally wood.

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6 Based on interviews among TV professionals during fieldwork in Dhaka, July 2017. 7 In the context of Indian news television, Nalin Mehta (2008) considers adda a framework of comprehending the communicative structure. Further, by adopting a performative framework of analyzing the communication culture, Abhijit Roy (2018a) discusses the forms and significance of adda with the advent of television news and talk shows on Indian channels to delve deeper into the idea of the argumentative nature and oral tradition of the Indian sub-continent. See Roy (2018a) for more details. 8 The divisions are administrative headquarters of the districts. There are eight divisions in the country, including Dhaka, where the 64 districts are distributed. 9 By rotation, one of the editors take the charge of taking the final decision and run the news in the newsroom for a shift of the day. A day is divided in to three shifts, and the post of a shift-in charge is not designated administratively rather it is instrumental and operational for the newsroom. 10 Interviewed in June 2017. 11 For example, see Livingstone (1998), Audience Research at the Crossroads; Alasuutaari, ed. (1999), Rethinking the Media Audience; Ang (1996), Living Room Wars; Bird (2003), The Audience in Everyday Life; Morley (1992), Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies. 12 See History of Nilphamari District by Mani Khandakar (2002). 13 Population Census Sample Survey, 2011. 14 District Census Report (Nilphamari) 2011. 15 A counterpart of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) that supplies electricity in the urban areas. 16 Haat is an open-air market that serves as a trading location for neighbouring villagers. Twice a week there is a grand trading, but there are some permanent shops for everyday utilities and consumption. 17 Ershad seized power as the head of the military in 1982 and imposed martial law. Eventually he declared himself the president of the country and ruled until 1990. There was an all-party movement against his autocratic rule that gained public engagement. 18 For details, see the website of Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited at www.bsccl.com (last accessed 12 January 2018). 19 In this regard, I was informed by Ellis (2004) and Ellis and Bochner (2000, 2003). 20 It is significant to recall that more or less similar anxiety-driven processes unfold at the onset of fieldwork. In the context of India or South Asia, see, for example, Beteille and Madan (1975), Srinivas (1976) and, very recently, Pathak (2019). 21 In a nutshell it refers to a researcher’s effortless ways of understanding the currents and countercurrents of views and interpretations (Collins 2009). 22 Grounded theory as an analytic framework aided in this study. For more, see Glaser and Strauss (1967), Charmaz (2006), Hammersley (1992), Hammersley and Atkinson (2007), Emerson (1987) and Puddephatt et al. (2009). 23 The first formal academic initiative towards developing visual and media anthropology was started in 2012 at Dhaka University; however, there is not a regular course or research initiatives by sociologists and anthropologists in the domain of television and digital media. 24 Bangladesh serves as a hub for non-governmental organizations and development agencies to conduct research, and researchers from sociology and social anthropology often facilitated such studies, mostly related to social problems, development, disaster, health and agriculture in the rural and urban inhabitances.

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4 TELEVISION VIEWING CULTURE Perspectives from below

The television reception is much more than just ‘watching television’; it is messy, impure, contaminated with non-television. —Dennis Giles, ‘Television Reception’ (1985: 12)

Giles’s observation is the kernel of discussion in this chapter. The television viewing practice of the audience is a complex composition. It varies according to locational variations as well as viewers’ actions and interactions. This is most commonly referred to as reception of a medium among the audience. Reception is multimodal and interactive and has a connection with the ‘social and historical theory of meaning’ (Eagleton 1983: 107, cited in Staiger 2005). It is imperative to take up the challenge to unearth the politics of meaning making in the process of television viewing. Audiences bring in intentions, motifs and subjective values in producing and reproducing meanings. Needless to say, the processes and consequences are ‘contested as well as negotiated, and embedded in a social context’ (Kogan 1998: 230). Many contemporary media and cultural studies scholars, including Douglas Kellner, caution against overemphasizing the audience’s role in the meaning making, which could allegedly undermine the political economy of media production. But, to enhance our understanding of critical and radical social theory of media, it is crucial to engage with the cultural texts and audiences in coherence with the political economy, production and reception that may enable us to adopt a blended approach (Das 2005). Therefore, it is imperative to situate the audiences and their practices in relation to text and context, power and politics, culture and social settings. This chapter pieces together ethnographic narratives of television viewers in Bangladesh in order to build up a perspective from below. It amounts to a thick description1 of audience viewing practices in the wake of the rise of satellite television channels in Bangladesh. This engagement reveals the tastes and preferences of the viewers, along with the changes in their preferences concurring with sociopolitical dimension. The shift of viewers from news-based channels to entertainment programmes should not be read 76

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merely from a consumerist point of view. Rather, audience’s complex intimacy (fragments of love and hate) with television news programmes needs to be observed from a close view. The responses of the viewers in relation to television news, their everyday practice and routine engagement helped in discovering the thin line between the enchantment and disenchantment towards television. Moreover, in addition to attention to practices related to television media, there is an exceeding interest in texts and the processes of production in audience studies. Nick Couldry created a new research paradigm to theorize media as a practice; this new paradigm ‘treats media as the open set of practice relating to, or oriented around, media’ and aims at decentring ‘media research from the study of media texts or production structure (important though these are) and to redirect it onto the study of the open-ended range of practices focused directly or indirectly on media’ (2004: 117).

Sounds and sights of Nilphamari Walking around a small town in Bangladesh provides an opening into the television viewing culture of the locality. I attempted this with an aim to explore the news-viewing culture in Nilphamari, but it amounted to disappointment; the public sites of watching news had altered. People had switched to watching Indian TV soap operas, cricket matches or game shows. At some places the TV was switched off. While I was walking along the street that crosses the municipality market of Nilphamari, I tried to check if the televisions were switched on in the shops where people used to gather for watching news. Dipak Islam, a middle-aged journalist and a local correspondent of a national daily, justifies the reason behind such a change, saying, ‘People are not interested in news at all, it’s the same boring news, tell me why would they watch it on TV. Is it really worth watching anymore?’ Some avid viewers of news also raised similar questions on the worth of watching television news given the repetitive and ‘non-exciting’ nature of bulletins on the burgeoning 24/7 news channels. They turned to private viewing of news at home instead of sitting in groups in public locations. Nevertheless, discussions and debates in reference to news continue at various public domains. However, some conventional public locations still serve as vital sites for watching TV news and related chitchats. Tea stalls, mini restaurants, barbershops and small community clubs are some of the significant sites for such practices. Barbershops are one of the most popular locations for customers to spend time with television, radio and newspapers. They discuss news while waiting their turn with the barber. Some residents from the neighbourhood also hang out in leisure at such shops. The barber and a local man started talking about news related to cricket. The barber asked, ‘I was watching news that day, 77

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what happened to Tamim [Tamim Iqbal, Bangladeshi cricketer] in England? He did not play against the English team and returned to the country’. The person then corrected the barber, ‘No, no, actually Tamim encountered life threat in England. He went to play for the clubs, not against the English team, and due to the security threat, he came back. But the media is numb now in this regard. Basically, the government and the cricket board have threatened the media to not speak in detail about this whole issue. There must be some internal politics, otherwise why is there no more detailed news on this to reveal what actually happened with Tamim?’ The conversation then shifted to the nature of control over TV news media. The act of watching was absent, but the conversation provides a clue to television news viewing. This further indicates that viewing television is not limited to the site of ‘watching’ and that the discussion and discourses generated in relation to television are vital in understanding the viewing practice. However, scholars have reflected on the physical presence of television while studying viewers in different sociocultural contexts (for example, Banks 2001; Lull 1990; Morley 1992). Marcus Banks (2001) considers television set an ‘embodied agent’ to explain the literal presence of television in the room. He further argues that the top of the television set serves as a kind of ‘shrine’ where people display lucrative objects and family photos. He mentions, revisiting an argument by David Morley (1992), that the television set acts as a ‘dual medium’. One is that a TV is a source of visual expression. Second, the TV top, or the body of the device, itself becomes a source of visual expression. In Bangladeshi households, a television set is considered a significant asset that is placed in a unique place inside the living area. In rural areas, most households have a wooden table box that holds the television and can be locked. In cities, the television is mostly set up on a wooden table or even in a television cabinet made of steel and glass. The television cabinet and the table meant for the TV set are used for other purposes, primarily to keep daily papers and documents – for example, utility bills, magazines and so on. The top of the television set is rarely used as a place for displaying family photos or a flower vase. There is a tendency to handle the TV, an electronic device, delicately; hence, people generally keep the top of the television set free. In some households, mainly in cities, there is a trend of putting a cloth cover over the TV set, and occasionally a flower vase or some showpiece is also placed over it, especially when distinguished guests visit. It can be said that the dual visibility factor does not fit into the general tendency of household television viewers in Bangladesh. Instead, the value attached to the material presence of television might be considered a unique factor considering its role in social status and sociocultural practices. In recent times, both in cities and small towns, people have started acquiring the trendy flat-panel TV sets known as LED TVs that can be affixed to the wall. 78

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The respondents from small towns have a tendency to express their status by informing about their possession of a television set. In many interactions, they started with the material description of the television instead of their viewing trends. One such was Moni Khandoker, a retired official from a local government office who lives in Nilphamari. Every evening he comes to a centre point of the town (near the new market) where mostly middle-aged and retired people gather to read the newspaper and converse. To inform about his habits of watching television, his initial response went on further, giving me this material description: My son lives in Natore, and he has a big television, here I have got a small one, 21 inches, not that small though! At my son’s house it is 32 inches, and at my daughter’s place it is 42 inches. I bought the colour television long back when only a handful households used to own a colour TV in this town. This is just one example of the way people like to express their status in relation to the material supremacy of their television set, such as size and features. Many respondents claim they were one of the earliest owners of a television set in the town. There is a sense of superiority and status in terms of possessing a television set by way of narrating the year of buying, size, colour and brand. This tendency is common in both rural and urban areas, but the ways of expression are slightly different. The consideration of a television set as an asset for the families becomes more evident by acknowledging the dowry system. A television set is a item commonly given by the bride’s family as a gift. From the mid-1990s, the trend of asking for a television set as dowry became quite common among the Hindus. In Nilphamari, families in both rural and urban areas still ask for television sets as dowry, although it is not as popular as earlier. When the bridegroom’s family asks for a television set as dowry, further negotiations happen in terms of its size, colour and brand. The physical presence of a television set in the household is considered a source of social status. In rural areas where access to neighbouring households is quite easy and frequent, unlike in cities, the colour and dimension of the television set gains more appreciation as the viewers would talk about it openly. To some extent there is a dynamic of economic status attached to the material presence of a television set in rural Bangladesh. When it comes to the practice of viewing, transformation over time in the household setup requires attention. Earlier, the elders in the households had control over when the kids and other young members of the family could watch television. Over time this power relation has collapsed, as Nasima, a 37-year-old homemaker, states: During childhood my father never allowed me to watch television during daytime and even in the evening. There was a fixed sched79

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ule for me and my brother to watch the television which included afternoon, after coming back from school and at night sometimes while having dinner or after dinner. It was impossible to even turn on the TV in the morning except for holidays. My father also did not watch the television during our study hour in the evening. But now things are totally different if you look at the practice in my home. Both my kids start watching television right after getting up from bed until the time they go to school. It has become so much a part of their lifestyle that if they are eating, getting dressed and even sometimes while doing homework they watch TV. Even their father, my husband, tunes to all the news and talk shows in the evening while my kids are studying. The restrictions in terms of watching television have changed significantly. Nasima herself turns on the television throughout the day while doing household chores. Her statement indicates how the household practices of viewing television have evolved over time. The dramatic transformation of watching television almost the entire day also shows how households in Bangladesh have become accustomed to the agency of television over the years. In other words, the viewers have embodied this agent in their families. Hence, over a period of time, the presence and role of television have shifted it from an ‘alien’ to a ‘native’, from something exclusive to something familiar, as if it has always been an inhabitant. This transformation of family practices of viewing offers one way to comprehend the composition of enchantment and disenchantment towards television; there are certainly other aspects. As informed by the respondents, a decade or so back, the senior family members warned the kids and ensured the television was switched off during any conversation or family discussion. But the senior members are not bothered anymore. There are certain cases where individuals have become avid viewers of television over time although they were earlier apprehensive towards the presence, impact and practices of television. Anisur Rahman, a respondent who runs a small business in the town, provides a comparative picture of television viewing over time in his family. He used to remove the television antenna and cable during his sisters’ board exams, anticipating that it might hamper their studies. This happened in 1996 when his sisters appeared for their board exams. However, the television was not a problem when his daughter appeared for her board exams in 2015. In support of the television, he argues that it was important to get information about the question paper leak2 and updates about the exam situation and the sudden change of exam schedule. Nevertheless, there are still a few families where the senior members defy the presence of television and addiction to it. While appreciation of and apprehension towards the existence and role of television provide a way to examine the transformation of audiences’ viewing, the analytic aspect of enchantment and disenchantment 80

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requires further and deeper engagement with a particular genre, content and set of viewing practices and is largely about viewership. Exploring the viewing practices of television in Bangladesh, it was easy to discover a sudden fall of interest in terms of viewing news and talk shows on news-based channels. According to the viewers, these days there is nothing new or worthy to watch on the news channels. These kinds of generic statements were supplemented by complaints and viewers’ dissatisfaction. They expressed their affirmative engagement with and subscription to the newly emerged domestic channels since 2005, which allowed them to no longer depend solely on Bangladesh Television (BTV) for news and visuals. In particular, they conveyed their intimate attachment to television channels for news and information-based programmes during the volatil pre-election period in 2013. In their opinion, the news coverage on television during 2016–2017 was way too boring when they compared it with 2013–2014. According to them, there is nothing new on the news channels being broadcast by private sattelite channels. The other major objection towards news-based channels is the repetitive nature of the bulletins. As observed by one of the avid television viewers, What they are showing at lunchtime, the same thing would be shown in the evening, and again at night. Hardly anything changes. I think they just copy and paste things, no variation at all! Moreover, there is no analysis by the news channels. For instance, a channel was broadcasting an interview of the IGP [Inspection General of Police] in its 2 p.m. bulletin, but in the 7 p.m. bulletin it is screening the home minister’s reaction on the same issue but the claims were contradictory. Now the channel is not at all pointing out the contradictory statements while broadcasting in the same bulletin only. Hence I think, the news channels are unable to come up with analytic and creative ways. This statement, on the one hand, indicates his sheer dissatisfaction towards the news channels; however, on the other hand, it shows his expectations, which, in turn, prove his engagement with the news. Avid viewers of news bulletins have strong judgements about the uncritical nature of television news reporting. They are also critical of the superflouous nature of the reporting, which lacks deeper issues and detailed facts and thus makes them unsatisfied. When encountering the repetitive nature and unsatisfactory performance of the news channels, why would they still follow television news? A respondent states, ‘At least once in a day I tune to the news channels, just to go through it and see what is happening around, sometimes I just follow the news scrolled at the bottom of the screen, maybe at night time’. Such choise, preferences and availability of news bulletins were absent during the age of BTV’s monopoly. The BTV news at 8 p.m., which was 81

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popular in Bengali as Raat aat tar Bangla Shongbad (8 p.m. Bengali News), was one landmark news bulletin the elders of the household would tune into. In addition, BBC (BBC Bangla Radio) was another vital source for news and current affairs. The respondents of Nilphamari strongly credited the Gulf War (1990–1991, to them the Iraq War) as triggered them in tuning in to BBC radio and following news in general. They all used to gather where the BBC radio was on loud. Those with television rarely missed the 8 p.m. bulletin of BTV. There was also a 10 p.m. news in English. A respondent from Nilphamari claims, BTV’s 8 p.m. news was not that great, and it was very limited. But we had no other choice, and we wanted to watch the war grounds and the attacks, though the sounds and descriptions on BBC radio news were quite fulfilling. However, the 8 p.m. news had become a routine and if we missed that we used to watch the 10 p.m. news only for the visuals as it was in English so we could hardly understand it. Visuals have a certain ability to attract viewers, and hence TV news became part of the daily routine of audiences. Domestic private channels came up with a promise and potential of offering a wider range of news visuals, varities and live coverage from the event sites. While these elements attracted people to the 24/7 news channels, eventually they also became critical and to some extend judgemental about the authenticity, neutrality and capability of private TV news broadcasting. It is not constructive to make a sharp divide between the enchantment and disenchantment of viewers towards television news. Instead, it is productive to probe how the disenchantment of news channels can be qualified as another way of engaging with it. It is imperative to presume there exists a thin line between enchantment and disenchantment towards television viewing. A detailed discussion would make it evident that viewers contribute in the process of making television news by way of expressing their opinions and expectations. Few underlying questions help in examining the overall engagement of viewers with television broadcasting: What do they watch? Why and how do they watch? While making sense of the content, how do their sociocultural backgrounds inform them? How do they reflect on the content?

Mapping the viewing: news and entertainment An in-depth investigation at the sites of viewing in Nilphamari offers multiple layers of understanding in terms of the practice, tastes and actions of dealing with television audiences. The viewing of television is certainly not limited to news and news-based programmes, so in order to engage with the viewers, it was imperative to be open to the actions and practices they 82

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indulged in. To map the viewers and viewing practice in Bangladesh, one has to take into consideration the pre- and post-watching phases of an individual viewer. The act of viewing television is not a singular act, and similarly it has multiple causal and consequential factors. There has been a popular trend to put television sets in shops, offices and clubs. In small towns, various associations of different professional bodies or working groups maintain an office that also has a television set. In Nilphamari, some of these association offices for rickshaw pullers, microbus and car drivers and truck drivers are often attended by groups of people who spend time watching television. When the rickshaw pullers are tired, they sometimes come to their association office to take a rest and watch television. A conversation with a rickshaw puller provides further insights about the variations of tastes and interests in viewing television: I : Do you come here every day? R I C K S H AW P U L L E R : Not every day, but frequently. I : Do all other rickshaw pullers come here to watch television

or for some

other work? R I C K S H AW P U L L E R :

This is our office, but we do not always have work here, we come here to rest and also to watch television. I : What do people watch on television? R I C K S H AW P U L L E R : It depends, different people watch different things, somebody watches drama, some want to watch drama queens, some just want to listen to music. No particular demand, no certain taste. But mostly films. I : Oh, I see. What do you watch more often on television? R I C K S H AW P U L L E R : I watch everything: cinema, games, dance, everything. I : Don’t you watch the news? R I C K S H AW P U L L E R : Why not? Certainly I do, it is something common. I : What kind of news do you watch, political? R I C K S H AW P U L L E R : No! I am not part of any politics, I don’t know about politics, nor do I watch all this! I : I see, so knowing about politics is not neccesary for you? R I C K S H AW P U L L E R : What would politics bring to my life? It has no use in my life! I : Ok, then what are the other kinds of news you watch? R I C K S H AW P U L L E R : Say, for example, agriculture-related, flood, accident and all these kinds. This interaction with a rickshaw puller shows that the interest areas are quite diverse while there is a subjective understanding of television news. The sites of watching television also determine the kind of programmes watched. For instance, in the rural setting, where village males and females collectively gather to watch television, Indian television serials are viewed 83

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with great interest and hardly any news channels are tuned into. But it is not simply the distinction between the household and public places or urban and rural settings. Rather, as observed in Nilphamari, the tastes vary from one viewing location to the other, from one set of viewers to others. Sometimes there may be different content played at the paan and tea shops, the small offices and the associations and clubs, but at the time of some crucial event happening in the country being telecast on all channels, the news channels would be on everywhere. While mapping out the viewers of Nilphamari and their viewing practices, many categories and compelling issues came to the fore. The perception, attitutude, practice and interaction of the viewers of television are placed under a few prominent themes drawn from this ethnographic investigation.

The preference for crime, war and violence Abdul Malek is the owner of a prominent restaurant in Nilphamari. He installed the television in 2004, and since then he has been a regular viewer of television while manning the cash counter. Most of the time he tunes in to the sports channel, and in particular he prefers watching the WWE and WWF shows. He hardly moves his eyes off the screen. It was a common sight to find his hands busy collecting bills from the customers but his neck barely moving. I took a table near the cash counter on purpose to chat with him. I raised my voice towards Abdul Malek,‘Vai, let’s have a look at the latest news updates, what all is happening’. He replied, ‘What all would happen? It’s the same kind of thing you get to know from all news sources’. He changed the channel for a while but then returned to the same channel for the wrestling show. Further interaction with Abdul Malek informed about his passion for action-oriented televisuals and his preference for wrestling shows. In my quest to find out people’s interest in television news, I continued visiting that restaurant to check if there had been any demand for watching news channels. The next day I went there again and occupied the same table. Another person was sitting on the same table and shifted his chair a bit, positioning it in front of the television for a direct view. By the time my tea was served, I had found out that the person knew Abdul Malek and they both watched the wrestling matches regularly. This person belonged to a political party and had a part-time engagement in a small business. His name was Karimuddin. They have become acquainted when Karimuddin used to spend time at Abdul Malek’s restaurant and have business meetings there. In their leisure time, both of them happily enjoyed discussing the wrestling shows. Some of the shows were repeats, so they knew who was going to win. But still they watched and enjoyed the repeat telecast of WWE wrestling shows. Such practice offers an insight about the inner urge of people to be entertained by exciting and explicit content. Violence, war, crime and action are the grounding force for that thrill. 84

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WWE is one of the major content areas people consume on an everyday basis in the small towns of Bangladesh. The way people get enchanted by wrestling shows is fabulous – as if they have to be entertained by every action presented dramatically by the WWE or WWF. This enchantment comes from the dramatically presented fights and action. I found similar wrestling shows being played on TV in another tea stall known to the customers as Rahim’s Tea Shop in Nilphamari. As the wrestling show was played on the muted TV screen, two customers started talking about the polling that was scheduled on the same day for Narayanganj City Corporation Election.3 They were curious to know the updates and asked the stall owner, Rahim, to change to a news channel. Rahim informed them that the sound system of his TV set was dysfunctional and hence there was no point changing the channel. On the insistence of the customers, he changed the channel and then turn back again to the WWE shows. The curious customers quickly glanced at the running scroll on the news channel and continued to discuss among themselves about election-related issues. It was quite evident that they had gathered updates from TV news and were carrying on the conversation based on that information. There are many such commonly found instances like Rahim’s tea stall, where people in the absence of television initiate discussion while referring to the television news they must have watched elsewhere. Explorations among the villagers and rural markets also made it evident that wrestling shows, crime shows and programmes with sensational content have a larger viewership. War and violence topped the choice of genres watched on television. Some of the respondents were quite curious to know about the ‘war’, in reference to the tensions between India and Pakistan around the Kashmir border in 2016–2017. Discussion of war was not only about India and Pakistan, but the viewers were also curious about the wars in Iraq, Palestine, North Korea and Afghanistan. On questioning, I realized the audience was enthusiastic to know about war scenarios because of their interest in action, violence, competition and fights on the one hand and also a general urge to be aware of global politics in their own ways. The following interaction in a group of television viewers can give a sense of how the local understanding of global issues acquires a distinctive nature. This discussion was initiated while they were discussing US president Donald Trump in reference to some news on his policies right after he came to power. Now Trump has come, and he will start the war! It has been said that Obama was far better than him, but even in Obama’s time the war did not stop; then imagine what would happen in Trump’s time! V I E W E R A : This one [Trump] would start the war with Russia, Korea and China. I am telling you, the war is just about to begin. VIEWER A: VIEWER B:

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He was just waiting for the moment to come to power. He is damn crazy about wars and is also an anti-Muslim, so he will not leave any place. V I E W E R D : See, brother, as the fish cannot survive without water, America cannot survive without war. Now it does not matter if it is Trump, Hillary and whosoever comes!

VIEWER C:

This slice of conversation among the viewers is not just to indicate the locals’ perspectives about global politics; rather, it also displays their imagination and assumption towards war. Primarily the war news they follow today is a continuity of the Gulf War news they had started getting during the initial days of broadcast media communication. In the imagination of people, war is a never-ending process; hence the news of war keeps coming, sometimes in a steady way, sometimes with buzz. One fundamental source of this imagination may be the idea that the world is moving towards a disastrous end and hence wars are something that will continue. Another group of viewers were quite addicted to crime-based TV shows. They were thrilled and fascinated by crime scenes. As Atikul Islam, an intercity bus ticket agent, expresses his view, ‘Too much of love has been shown on television, no more love, now what I want is all about rape!’ He has made a binary between love and rape, and what he meant by rape is a preference for watching crime shows. For the last 30 years, he has been watching television with too much fascination, but now he has a pessimistic view: ‘What is the point of seeing something which would not give you quick solution and answer’. He continues, For instance, these soaps and serials have been running for a long time on TV, our kids are turning into grandmothers, but the serials never end. So I rather found it worthy to watch crime based shows, murder, sensation, investigation and solution. Hence, now I am watching only channel Aath [Sony Aath is the Bengali version of the SONY channel that provides crime patrol series]. Further interactions reveal that there is a certain section of people who enjoy sensation, action and crime-based televisuals almost to the extent of addiction. When it comes to news and news-based programmes, some viewers raised the complaint of the news channels in Bangladesh censoring images and events. According to them, television channels don’t show detailed visuals and facts of sensitive news – for instance, murder, accident, hazards and so on. There is a self-imposed censoring by the channels whereby they blur bloodshed, dead bodies and detailed visual narratives of a hazard. The news-making people believe such visual expressions might be psychologically harmful to a particular section of viewers. But this explanation did not 86

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satisfy them, and they further argued that if some gross images are blurred, at least detailed description and deeper investigation of the case should be presented. They claim that there are films, fight scenes and action shows where people do watch violence and bloodshed and wonder what is the harm in screening similar kinds of content in the news, which is real. They believe there is no point in seeing television news if it cannot provide details on what has happened, who has died and how. However, in principle this is an insensitive demand by a certain section of viewers who seek enthralling details and do not take into account the matter of consent of the victims. But the expression indicates an urge for quite an explicit view of volatile images and visuals full of sensation, bloodshed, thrill and action even if it is news. Overall, the audiences in local towns of Bangladesh are avid viewers of Indian TV channels that fulfil their thirst for sensational, thrilling, dramatic and appealing televisual entertainment.

The Star Jalsha syndrome The Kolkata-based Bengali channel Star Jalsha is an outlet of STAR India network and widely popular among Bangladeshi viewers for its family dramas, reality shows and films. The other Bengali channel, Zee Bangla, is similarly popular; in addition, the Hindi channel Star Plus is highly favoured by urban viewers. The characters, events and stories of the dramas on these channels are so influential that there have been instances of viewers committing suicide. Characters like Pakhi from the serial Bojhena se Bojhena, Kiranmala from the serial Kiranmala and Pari and Jhilik from the serial Maa are too familiar, along with many others, to the viewers of Bangladesh. In 2014, three young girls from the country reportedly committed suicide for not getting a particular dress screened in the drama serial aired by Star Jalsha.4 There was a report about a husband who allegedly committed suicide due to conflict with his wife over buying the trending dress Pakhi, named after the character of the serial Bojhena se Bojhena.5 The craze towards these serials spilled out beyond the visual and entertainment world and has become a pressing concern for society. Thus, the Star Jalsha syndrome has been considered by cultural puritans in Bangladesh as anti-social and a reason for the degradation of social values. Given the overall scenario, in 2014, the high court of Bangladesh issued a ruling asking the government to explain why it should not be directed to ask the cable operators to stop airing the three Indian satellite television channels, Star Jalsha, Star Plus and Zee Bangla. In 2017 came a writ petition seeking directives from the government to stop the telecast of those channels. But the high court rejected the writ petition to ban these channels in Bangladesh.6 While there are legal, cultural and social concerns about the ‘addiction’ to Indian entertainment channels, viewers from different localities have not bothered to shift their choice from Star Jalsha or Zee Bangla. Instances from the sites of viewing help capture these realities. 87

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The channel Star Jalsha has not only become a craze for household television viewers but is also popular in shops and public locations. It is possible to determine the dominance of Indian Bengali and Hindi channels from the cacophony heard when walking around the neighbourhoods and marketplaces. In the rural markets, too, people from different age groups meet to watch Bengali TV serials. Middle-aged and older people are the primary viewers of Star Jalsha serials in the shops and tea stalls. One such avid viewer, Kripa Chandra, comes every day to watch the evening shows and stays in the local market for two hours to finish his favourite serials on Star Jalsha. He is a farmer who occasionally sells his agriculture products in the market. He had a television set at his home, but it has not functioned for nine months. Since then, he has been coming to watch television, and particularly Star Jalsha, in the market. The first time I met him he was standing in front of a shop where the serial Kiranmala was being aired, and all the possible sitting places and benches were occupied. If he was a regular viewer, I was curious to know why he was standing and why he did not fix a place where he could spend two hours every day. He informed me that Star Jalsha and Zee Bangla are so popular that almost every shop tunes to only these channels in the evening. So it is not required to request someone tune in to the Star Jalsha channel. The number of television sets had also increased in the last two to three years so now almost all the shops possess a TV set. Hence it is possible for regular viewers to do their daily family shopping during the short break and move to the next shop to finish the serial. The ‘influence’ of Star Jalsha and Zee Bangla is quite high and perceived negatively among males in Bangladeshi society. Young, educated male viewers have an aversion towards the extreme ‘addiction’ of females towards Star Jalsha. But the female viewers believe the serials telecast on Indian channels are quite dramatic, entertaining and well produced. Something of similar quality on Bangladeshi channels would fulfil their purpose of getting full entertainment and they would watch it the same. The male viewers of Indian serials argue that the decorations, sets and colours are quite fascinating in Indian family dramas. The stories and events of the serials are very touchy and dramatic while the performers are also capable of playing the roles skillfully. They further added that in terms of the content and stories, the serials would bring out family dynamics as well as mythical and mysterious factors. Sensation is one key factor they live with and embody as routine viewers of these serials. They indulge in the tension, the crisis and the consequence performed in the teleserials. Immense criticism of and opposition to these Indian TV channels persists in all strata of Bangladeshi society. The ‘negative influences’ of these serials have been calculated in extreme terms of women affected, families disintegrated and society destroyed. Different scholarly as well as opinionbased analyses arrived at the conclusion that extreme interest in Indian 88

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serials would negatively affect social value and norms and destroy the social institutions and progress of future generations in Bangladesh (for example, Khanam et al. 2014). There is also a tendency to consider the popularity of Indian channels in Bangladesh from the perspective of cultural invasion and imperialism.7 Amidst the impact and popularity of these serials, Islamic speakers have started referring to these during their public lectures popularly known as Islami Jalsha or Waj Mahfil. One such address by a speaker Maulana Amir Hamza merits attention: The female members of the households used to weave, now they don’t do it anymore rather spend time watching Indian TV serials. If they somehow miss it at night then they do the Qaja [Qaja Namaz is the make-up prayer for the followers if they have missed praying on time] in the morning. These Jalsha–Zee Bangla have created a devastating situation in the families, all families in Bangladesh are suffering from instability due to these. The women now no more need their husband and family; they are rather happy with Zee Bangla and Star Jalsha. That’s why I want to sing a song: Star Jalsha and Zee Bangla, destroyed my Sonar Bangla.8 In the latter part of the song, he utters all the possible titles of the serials being telecast on these channels and juxtaposes them poetically with social issues. He continues the song further, talking about pregnant women who watch all these Zee Bangla and Star Jalsha serials and stating that their babies would not be pious even if they were purified by holy water. Then referring to the Quran, he states that people who are part of making and viewing these obscene films, visuals, music and cultural activities would be sent to Jahannum, the dangerous hell. According to him, women today watching these serials would be judged by Allah and sent to the hell along with the actors of the serials. Nothing can save them, and moreover their religious activities will not be counted. Such propaganda against the Indian TV serials is commonly found in the small towns and villages where the Islamic leaders – the imams of the mosques – are always criticizing addiction towards these Indian TV serials. A serious apprehension against this viewership also persists among corporate media leaders, cultural protagonists and television personalities in Bangladesh. The male members who belong to the advanced sector of the society in terms of their profession, education and cultural position also believe these Indian serials are responsible for the crisis in the households, spoiling women and breaking family ties. For television media personalities, this addiction towards Indian TV serials is the prime reason behind the unpopularity of Bangladeshi channels among audiences. What has been found is that not only for entertainment but also for news and current affairs, viewers have turned to the Kolkata-based Bangla channel. 89

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24 Ghanta and the blurred boundary between news and entertainment channels The subscription of viewers from Nilphamari to the Kolkata-based Bangla News channel 24 Ghanta (Chobbish Ghanta) was truly a puzzle. It is even more of an exclusive issue because this particular group of viewers does not operate with a hard-core distinction between Bangladeshi entertainment-oriented and news-based channels, so it is unclear why they follow a news-based channel from India. Skipping over the Bangladesh vs. India question, the viewers were more concerned about the content and style. While watching the 24 Ghanta channel with them, I realized the interest was much higher in comparison to the Bangladeshi news bulletin. Unlike the tendency of tuning to a news bulletin only when something major has happened in the country, the Kolkata-based news channel is watched with a very personal interest. To assert his interest towards this particular channel, Ajizar Rahman stated, This has everything that you want. It is a complete package! You don’t have to wait there for news, one after another – it would just continue. Also, there are variations in the news. There is something which is called Ek Nimeshe Ek Sho [Superfast 100] where you get all news headlines. It has Ek Minute a Bishow [the global news in one minute] which would cover everything in one minute. ‘Offbeat’ is another item they offer where they show some interesting issues related to our everyday life. They are very fast and at the same time they give details of a story. The way Ajizar Rahman explained and remembered the names of the content from 24 Ghanta, it is quite evident he was highly attached to that channel. The apparent satisfaction towards this particular channel was common to the study location as a significant number of viewers believed the channel showed news content that was not considered serious news by Bangladeshi TV journalists. The viewers picked news stories from that channel and continued their discussion. The news was about a young Muslim girl’s driving skills that helped bring her economic independence. During the same time span, there was a Bangladeshi news bulletin about a terrorist arrest that had been viewed by the same group of viewers but did not trigger further discussion. This phenomenon might not be that convincing to claim that the interest of the viewers can only be judged by the content being discussed. But it certainly allows us to question why people found an ordinary issue happening in a different nation-state exciting enough to discuss it further. The viewers’ narratives help reveal that there is an immense interest in issues that are very close to life and may not be nationally significant. Sometimes they can be offbeat and might not gain merit to be considered news 90

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items. A news story about a thief being captured by the residents of a household from a peripheral locality of West Bengal creates curiosity among the viewers who were watching 24 Ghanta. They are more interested in the details of that particular case from the 24 Ghanta channel than listening to a briefing by a police spokesperson from the detective branch on the issue of a terrorist arrest being presented on Bangladeshi news channels. It seems that the music in the background, the extra effects and the graphical excessiveness to present the news with a cinematic touch successfully attracted the viewers. Anisur Rahman, a retired school teacher, shared his experience of viewing 24 Ghanta: I am a regular viewer of the 24 Ghanta because this one single channel gives me complete satisfaction. While watching Bangladeshi news, I have to keep changing the channels to find detailed news as something or the other is usually missing. For example, yesterday the operation to capture the terrorists in Dhaka, I got tired to find out who all have finally been arrested and rescued. But the 24 Ghanta would always give you complete news. It is all in all; not like the Bangladeshi channels. It has to offer you contents from every corner of life. At 8:30 a.m. it would air health-related show where doctors would advise about food behaviour. Then right after the political news, they would bring the politicians or analysts. There are lots of things to learn from all these. See, India is also like us, very similar life stories. For instance, a girl from Kolkata is found dead in Pune, and suddenly I started searching where Pune is located in India. Everyone would not take interest in this kind of news, but I have interest in history and politics. It is fascinating to learn how the political tension, negotiation and contradictions move on between the state of West Bengal and the central government of India. The prevalent interest of local audiences in Bangladesh for Indian politics is quite evident across the country. It is a usual trend to take interest in the political and economic updates of India by the political analysts and individuals close to the centre, including policymakers, intellectuals, elites, businesspeople and civil society representatives. But people living far from the centre also sincerely take part in the discussion and debate about Indian politics by way of viewing television news and generating discourses. These viewers are barely a part of the political decision making, and some of them have no active political participation other than casting their votes. It is a more compelling factor that they often point out the inferiority of Bangladeshi political culture in comparison to the Indian one while watching the news and/or discussing issues in reference to the news. 91

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In Mustakim’s view, ‘Indian politics theke onek kichu shekhar achhe, ora je khoborgula deye, sheigula theke bujhar aar vabar onek bishoy achhe’ (There is a lot to learn from Indian politics, one can think deeply about news on the Indian channels). He explained the difference of political culture in his view between India and Bangladesh while giving some examples as to how the Indian prime minister greets on Sonia Gandhi’s birthday despite the Congress party criticizing the demonetization issue or how the leaders from both the party in power and the opposition attend national events although sometimes Rahul Gandhi (opposition leader) is detained by the police. In contrast, as he states, the oppositional political chiefs in Bangladesh hardly see each other’s face. The tendency of juxtaposing Indian politics with Bangladeshi is common among the viewers from across the cities. The 24 Ghanta channel is not as popular in Dhaka or the surrounding localities as it is in Nilphamari, Khulna and Chittagong. Viewers of this channel in various localities do not pay as much consideration to the Bangladeshi round-the-clock news channels as they regard the 24 Ghanta channel as the exclusive news broadcaster. For some avid news viewers, the old channels are still trusted over the newly emerged round-the-clock channels. Retired teacher Anisur Rahman has been a fan of Ekushey TV since 2001. After a long period off the air, it resumed transmission in 2006. Anisur Rahman still prefers to follow Ekushey News although a considerable number of 24/7 news channels have emerged with more potential for telecasting news and current affairs. His daily viewing list includes ATN Bangla, Channel I, ETV and Desh TV, which preceded the news-based channels in terms of beginning their transmission. However, he mentions that when some big incident happens and there is live coverage, he goes for the live telecast instead of the regular news bulletin. The news-based channels are always in the leading position in terms of live broadcasting. Anisur Rahman tunes in to these channels, and while he remembers some of the names of these young channels, he does not give them special preference in his news viewing routine. In his words, ‘Ghuriye firiye shobgulai dekhi, test kori, jokhon jeta valo lage, kono ta fixed nai’ (I try back and forth all of them, change the channel every time for a better one while watching; there is nothing fixed rather it depends on the mood). Some viewers make a conscious decision to watch news-based channels. These young news-based channels attracted the rural viewers towards watching news on TV. But, the everyday news viewing of the rural viewers does not depend only on the 24/7 news channels, as they shift from one to another, and in the favourites list, the mixed channels (entertainment and news) remain at the top. While responding about their preferred Bangladeshi channels, a good number of viewers expressed their frustration at not being able to see channels they used to like. One is Diganta TV, as the government authority suspended its transmission in 2013 with an allegation of providing distorted information. This was a mixed channel that used to telecast entertainment 92

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shows and news bulletins. Sahjahan, an avid viewer of television who lives in Chittagong and teaches in a private university, states: Diganta TV used to telecast some news reports which all other channels would not show. It was not liked by the government that is why they shut it down. During the political turmoil in 2013, it used to broadcast live from different spots, but the government found it threatening. We used to watch Diganta and Islamic TV those days. The government found both of these television channels dissenting and hence turned them off with an allegation that they misinformed people about a particular mass gathering by Hefazat-e-Islam, an Islamic group in Dhaka. A considerable number of viewers from urban locations mention the CSB News channel, which was in operation only for three months in 2006. The rural viewers, however, hardly know about this channel due to its limited reach during 2006. People in the countryside started getting electricity and satellite connections from 2010 onwards; they became familiar with the daylong news and entertainment programmes on Bangladeshi channels. From 2012 to 2014, the attraction towards television news was at its peak, but people were not necessarily tuning exclusively to the 24/7 news channels. The viewers were found glued to the channels that were not proclaimed as news based but transmitted live news and hourly news bulletins. In the town, where viewers do make this distinction of 24/7 news and mixed channels, they also switch to old, not exclusively news-based channels for verification of news. A handful of viewers, mainly located in the cities and hardly in rural areas, are aware of this distinction and make a conscious choice of subscribing to news channels. But otherwise, among viewers across urban and rural locations, the boundary is blurred between mixed and news channels when it comes to judging the merit of news.

Television news, everyday life and female viewers As an avid viewer of television news stated, ‘Khawa-Ghum hobe na jodi TV na dekhi, aar khobor na dekhle toh khabar ai hojom hobe na’ (It would be difficult to eat and sleep without watching television; and without the news, I won’t be able to digest my food). The practice of viewing television has changed over time; particularly in the household, the trend has changed dramatically. As informed by Anisur Rahman, his wife has also begun to take an interest in news viewing, unlike in the past. In the past, his wife was chiefly a consumer of TV serials or movies and barely watched news. Even the housemaid follows what is going on in the country and the updates on television. After the advent of various news-based channels, the trend of viewing news has changed notably. The tendency of tuning on the news during lunch hours 20 years back was never the case in family viewing. But now, watching 93

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news on TV at the lunch hour has become preferable in the family viewing practice. The evening has not lost its supremacy as the traditional time for watching news, although the lunch hour and the late-night news hour have become popular among news viewers. The reference point of BBC and VOA radio for news is still active among viewers. That timing, which is 7:30–8:30 p.m., has been taken as the peak hours for television news. Although today almost all news channels have hourly live news bulletins starting from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m., major interest is in the evening bulletin. Working men in news viewers in the family watch late-night news bulletins. Abu Hasan is one of them, and his routine is to start with the 8 a.m. bulletin and go through the headlines before leaving the house, and after coming back, he finds his wife and sister watching other programmes. He waits until 10 p.m. and then turns on the news channels for the latest updates. He works in an insurance company and is also a social activist. He believes that it is pertinent to know about what is happening in the country and what are the political developments. Hence, he tries to follow the news despite his busy daily routine. Some households in the town have installed two TV sets to avoid a clash of preferences. One is meant for news and sports, and another is for the female members to watch TV soaps. This might give the impression that the female viewers in the family only watch TV serials. But women also watch news in the households, and this trend has become quite pronounced after the rise of news-based channels in the country. Perhaps news and entertainment have coincided for the larger interests of the viewers. In 2013, after the collapse of a multistoried building known as Rana Plaza that housed readymade garment factories, intensive female viewership of news television was visible. Over 1,000 people, including a lot of women, died in the collapse.9 This news highlighted a global issue. In the villages of Nilphamari, women who previously went to nearby households to watch only serials were now interested in the latest news updates. Rahamat, who works in a local government office and is a resident of the village of Palashbari, informs that in 2013 only their household in that neighbourhood had a television with a cable connection where people used to come for watching TV. Usually women used to come around 6 to 8 p.m. to watch serials. However, after the incident of the building collapse, the women came and asked to tune in to the news on the television. Previously female viewers were almost a muted group as they hardly expressed any interest towards TV channels while male members became addicted to news since the beginning of 2013 due to the volatile political situation in the country.10 But as soon as the Rana Plaza incident took place, the female members from the neighbourhood started taking an interest in the news over serials on television. In urban households, some women viewers tune in to the news channels during the commercial break while watching serials. There is a conscious effort 94

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to get updates about national and international issues. Another tendency is to tune in to news channels while working in the kitchen or doing other household chores because they want to watch their preferred serials or other entertainment programmes exclusively without any interruption. However, the major trend of women viewership of news is from the kitchen while the male members tune in to news channels. In households, members watch news usually during the lunch and dinner hours, and thus the female members automatically become viewers (mostly listeners) of news as in most cases they are serving food at the time. Understanding the household dynamics is vital to get a sense about the viewing practice and media communication in domestic spheres. In their attempt to develop a model for domestic communication, Morley and Silverstone (1990) suggested to engage with the household dynamics of the individuals and their positionality. It is useful to agree with Morley (2003 [1992]: 157) that the ‘context of viewing’ is important along with the ‘object of viewing’. But Morley’s simple analysis about gendered family viewing does not fit for the current context, as he argued that, due to their sense of domestic responsibility, women are distracted viewers and are not able to feel the freedom of viewing as ‘none of the women in any of the families uses a remote-control device regularly’ (Morley 2003 [1992]: 147). Morley’s study among the families of south London in 1985 evidence a traditional sex-role stereotypes in terms of viewing television in the family. Quite different practices are found in the case of Bangladesh during the close examination of household TV viewing and the gender role. Males often discuss their helplessness as they do not get a chance to watch their preferred channels due to the craze of their wives and daughters for Indian serials. However, there are cases of male members taking over the remote-control device to watch news, which is as ‘important’ and ‘significant’ compared with entertainment shows. The pertinent questions to be raised then are: How does gender dynamics work in terms of viewing television news? What about women viewership of news? Anjali Kundu, a 46-year-old housemaker from Nilphamari, told me she does not watch news on television. She has taught in a primary school for the last 13 years. While explaining her television viewing practice, she emphasized the serials and entertainment shows on Indian channels. She also mentions that she used to watch entertainment programmes and TV dramas on Bangladeshi channels. But now, for her, those have become ‘rubbish’ and ‘non-consumable’. To provide a reason of her claim, she mentions that the shallowness of the dialogues, the dullness of the entertainment shows and the poor making and acting of Bangla natok (dramas) are unbearable if watched for longer durations. Moreover, she claims that some dramas on Bangladeshi channels have become too ‘unsocial’ (the literal translation of what she says is o-samajik, but it means to say very explicit and bold). These dramas are o-samajik to her because they are all about romance, love affairs, breakups and social media addiction, which are ‘teaching how to cheat, 95

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love and have affairs’. She believes these didactic and preachy dramas on Bangladeshi channels might negatively affect her daughter, who is pursuing her undergraduate. Even though Indian serials are sometimes way too bold compared to the Bangladeshi natok, she does not have a problem with her daughter glued to those serials. What made her justify this position is a mindset that even if some ‘unsocial’ things are being projected in Indian serials, those would not be able to affect their day-to-day life. The situations depicted in Indian serials are relatively far away from the social context of Bangladesh. But things being screened on the Bangladeshi channels are based on the same social context they live in and hence have the potential to directly affect youngsters. While talking about her daughter’s security and safety, she references a sensational case that happened in 2013 when an adolescent girl, Oishee, allegedly killed her parents at their residence in Dhaka. The media picked this news as a top story, and the follow-up stories were covered by all the news channels. Once she referred to the case of Oishee, I asked her how she got to know about this case. Then she told me that she follows the news from the puja ghar (prayer room), which is adjacent to the drawing room where the television is kept. She opened up about her engagement with news channels during the volatile period in 2013–2014 when news about political turmoil and atrocities against minorities used to come on TV. Anjali did not mention the genre of news programmes when asked about the content she watches on TV because news viewing is not a routine practice for her. Rather, she occasionally tunes in to news channels by herself and most of the time remains a passive or distant viewer. The tendency of not mentioning news programmes in the list of programmes watched on television is almost common among the female viewers. But in terms of actions related to news viewing, they stand ahead of male viewers as they are more active and use the information gathered from news programmes. Clues of female viewership of TV news are widely present in the small towns of Bangladesh, but in a random encounter people confidently refuted it. But by exploring their everyday life and practices, one could easily find evidence of how female viewership of news and current affairs is growing. A student from the University of Dhaka who was visiting his home in Nilphamari during the vacation told me, ‘You know my mother, I think, she watches television news more than me. She even knows what is happening in Dhaka city although I live there and am usually unaware of the latest incidents in Dhaka. She would call me and say there has been an accident in Mirpur, or a student agitation is going on in Shahbag Square. Most of the times, I get to know about the incidents that occur in the country first from my mother. She calls me and says that she gets to know about a particular incident from the television news or live coverage’. My interaction with his mother, Sadia Jahan, enabled me to engage with more female viewers and their source of interest in television news. As she states: 96

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It is very important to keep yourself updated if your kids are away from home. When I used to take my daughter to the music school some of her friends’ mothers used to inquire about my son as they knew that my son is studying at Dhaka University. They used to know the incidents which take place in the Dhaka city. It was during 2012–2013 when my son had just entered the university, and those female friends used to tell me about the strikes, volatile political events happening in the capital. Since that time I started following the news on TV. It is very crucial to know what all is happening, and it is my responsibility to alert my child. Interaction with other female viewers in the town and elsewhere followed by the conversations mentioned previously, which I got from Sadia Jahan, clearly indicate that the women in families have developed a certain interest in news. Rafia Rahman, a non-governmental organization worker who lives in Nilphamari, informed me that her mother-in-law watches the main bulletin of news channels almost every day. She states: After my marriage when I came in this family, there used to be a satellite connection. My father-in-law used to watch news bulletins in the evening. That time Channel I and ATN Bangla news were very popular. I found that my mother-in-law also watched news with full attention. My father-in-law passed away in 2006; he was a retired government official, my mother-in-law is a retired primary school teacher. After my father-in-law passed away, she was not very regular in watching television news for a year or so. But again since 2007– 2008, she used to follow all the channels for news bulletin in the evening. That time NTV, RTV, Diganta TV and Channel 1 used to cover new and exciting issues in their news. My mother-in-law spent at least two to three hours watching news on TV and this practice has continued over the last five to six years. Every day new channels are being launched, so now there is no particular channel in the priority list for viewing news. She tunes into whichever channel she finds interesting and informative and then changes if she does not enjoy it. Rafia, however, does not follow the television news on an everyday basis, but whenever she finds something exciting she tries to follow up on the story of that particular event. She mentioned the case of a four-year-old child trapped deep inside an abandoned pipe and the sensational rescue operation in December 2014 in Dhaka. She shared the memory of that sleepless night and how the whole family passed the night in front of the television set: We spent the whole time watching news; we did not cook that night, ate whatever was available. Since evening we sat in front of the tele97

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vision. There was a rescue operation going on. My mother-in-law went for Namaz and prayed for the kid to be rescued safely. I was also praying while watching TV. After a point, my husband slept off, but we continued watching to know what was happening to the child trapped there. It is sad that the rescue operation was officially over and they announced that the child, Jihad, was not there, while the volunteers found his dead body the next morning. It is imperative to point out the interest of audiences in TV news to underline the inherent meanings of these statements. The news is about some incidents that are factual and take place in the real world in diverse locations with different people. Thus, they can relate those cases to their everyday life and fill such news stories with due implications. Rafia’s daughter was four years old in 2014, during Jihad’s rescue operation After the Jihad event, Rafia is cautious about her daughter, and she asked the school if there were any danger zones in the playground. Jihad’s incident was mentioned by other female viewers of the vicinity in Nilphamari as well as other localities of the country. However, the female viewers from rural areas did not mention Jihad’s case with significance; rather, for them, the building collapse of the garment factory remains a fresh memory. Sheuli, a young girl and a resident of the village of Khokshabari located around 12 kilometres away from Nilphamari, was in class nine in 2013 when Rana Plaza collapsed. She used to go to a neighbour’s house to watch TV. Her mother never used to like her going to someone else’s house and being addicted to TV. Back then they couldn’t afford a TV, although Sheuli enjoyed watching films and serials. Her father is a shopkeeper in the local market, and her mother looks after the household and livestock. When her mother realized the television channels were giving live updates about the Rana Plaza collapse and rescue operation, she also started going to the neighbour’s house although she had always been against it. Sheuli’s mother, Rahima Begum, heard that one of her nieces used to work in a garment factory located in the collapsed building. She had no other option but to go and watch TV at her neighbour’s house to get updates about the rescue operation. That was the triggering moment for Rahima Begum to become a regular viewer of television. Rahima and her daughter Sheuli both started going to the neighbour’s house in 2013 after the Rana Plaza collapse. There have been several cases when Rahima’s husband, Momin Mia, objected to them going to someone else’s house to watch television. However, as a consequence, Momin bought a TV set and installed it in their house. The television was brought to their house in the first week of June 2013, and Momin decided to take it to the shop afterwards. He took the television from the home and installed it in his shop in August 2013. His daughter was very unhappy and tried resisting but finally lost on the grounds that she should not get addicted to television as she had to prepare for her tenth 98

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grade exam. Momin’s wife also gave up watching news once the routine news on the Rana Plaza collapse was over. After the TV was installed at Momin’s shop, public gathering increased there due to its presence. In December 2013, when the Rana Plaza case had almost faded, he brought the television back home due to the volatile situation and political tensions related to the national election of 2014 as well as the political discussion around the television at his shop. Sheuli goes to a women’s college, pursuing her bachelor in arts, and regularly follows the news at least once a day. She states the importance of television for informative purposes and that it enables her to be aware of things happening around the country and abroad. She also shares news and updates with her friends about education and other relevant issues she gets to know from the news. Female viewership of television news is not static but rather has multiple aspects depending on age, profession, status in the family, role in the household and sociodemographic background. Sometimes it is intentional, but mostly it is implied; at times it is purposive, but often it is passive. The tendency of educated working women across the country to subscribe to news-based television channels has grown notably in recent years.

Communication, information and youth viewership Sheuli has friends, some of whom are about to finish their graduation and post-graduation and some of whom are working professionals. One of them, Biplob Talukdar, is practicing law in the local district court. Biplob shares the informative role of television in his everyday life. He states: We are youth, and students come together and discuss various social issues. I have seen that news benefits us a lot. Especially television news and live coverage has brought a revolution in the transmission of information. I read the newspaper regularly as I go to the court and spend time in town, but some of my friends come from rural areas. They haven’t subscribed to any newspaper, but they are regular viewers of television news. They also share information about contemporary issues which they get from TV news. For instance, the other day we were discussing the Rohingya issue, which is a burning issue. So we all follow the updates which come on TV. Though television news is very brief and there is a lack of depth, but still, we get quick information. Lack of depth in TV news reports easily caught viewers’ eyes, and they pointed it out quite vividly. But interest in television news by young viewers remains significant in the viewing culture of television when compared with the tendency of watching television news a decade back. Youth viewers 99

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indicate that the news channels and their efforts to deliver live coverage attracted them, which can be understood from the following statement of Masuma: We have a colour television since 2005, before that we had a blackand-white television which ran on batteries as there was no electricity in our locality. During those days of using battery for television, we used to watch Bangla Cinema, cricket match and some magazine programmes on TV. There used to be the 8 p.m. news on BTV which was followed by some entertainment programmes. So we used to tune on the television at around 7 p.m., but we never used to watch the news very seriously. We got the colour television in 2005 and the dish line [cable connection] in 2012. Before dish [satellite] channels, we used to watch BTV, BTV World and some Indian channels which used to come for free. But after the dish line, things changed a lot. I realized there was interesting news on Bangladeshi channels such as Independent, ATN News, Diganta, Somoy News, so many channels and different types of programmes. Any time of the day one could watch news! Some of the significant events which I got to know from news on television are: the blogger issue on Shahbag, then the Oishee case where a young girl killed her parents, the Rana Plaza building collapse, train accident on Jamuna bridge, terrorist attacks and many more. Not only me, my friends also got to learn about all these events through television. Masuma lives in a village adjacent to Nilphamari, and her friend circle includes youngsters from the surrounding localities of the town. In diverse ways, they all have mentioned the significance of live news coverage, which grew widely since 2010–2011 in the competitive market of 24/7 news making. Youth living in the capital city make this point more lucid. With this deep interest in TV news, expectations from journalists rose, too. The variation, frequency and presentation style of the news channels have contributed to attract youth viewers. Information gathering, possessing and sharing remains crucial for youth. The urge to participate in the knowledge and information world worked as a source of inspiration. It is important to note the initiative of the Awami League, the party that came into power in 2009 and continued for its third term and initiated to transform Bangladesh into ‘digital Bangladesh’. Since 2008, the party has continued its campaign to form an information society in Bangladesh to stimulate hope for a rightsbased social development and political accountability with resilience. Youth voters massively supported the Awami League for advancing society driven by information and communication technology. The project, digital Bangladesh, caters to the ‘information capital’ and pushes forward the rapid development of communication media in Bangladesh, and the reach of satellite 100

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television and electricity into the marginal areas of the country is part of that (Bhuiyan 2013). The thriving appearance of 24/7 news channels with a promise to bring advanced technology and newness in visual communication pulled the urban youth viewers while live coverage from multiple spots and news coverage of multiple issues other than governmental events encouraged youth from across the country to subscribe to satellite channels for news viewing.

News channels and the making of a place The practice of viewing TV is not monolithic. It has been undergoing dynamic changes, as expressed in the following: It reminds me of those days in the year 2000 when there was only one television in the neighbouring village and we used to go there like an assembly to watch Alif Laila at night which used to come after the 8 p.m. BTV news. Similar assembly of people we have seen during the volatile period in 2013. People from my locality got together to go to Amtali Bazar where satellite connection was available. A crowd of viewers gathering to watch news was a very new thing for me because an assembly of people going to some other location to watch television was witnessed only in 2000. In 2005 the first television set was bought in my village and that household used to be crowded by people on Fridays for watching Bangla Cinema. After a point, they used to lock the door and didn’t allow neighbours to view TV, and as a consequence, few other households also bought television. By 2010 the tension between neighbours due to watching television was almost resolved as many of the households had a television set. But the volatile situation of 2013 made the villagers excited to watch news with the crowd attending the locations of dish channels’ availability. This statement by Shofikul Islam, a young serviceman from the village of Bhabankuri under the Union Parishad of Palashbari, presents the shift in viewing practice in a locality over time. Importantly, the statement indicates the revival of a particular practice of going to watch television in groups. But there is a clear distinction between the earlier practice of viewing and the recent one. Earlier, entertainment was the main source of enthusiasm that brought together a procession of viewers to the neighbouring village, and the sought-after content was Alif Laila, a monthly entertainment show Ittyadi on BTV and the weekly Bengali films on Friday. Now it is news for which people go to a particular place, such as the shops and small marketplaces around their vicinity. Earlier there was the tension of getting access to the TV room of a neighbour, which depended on the kindness of the owner of 101

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the television. But, now with the burgeoning news channels and an evolving trend of news viewing, people have no such tendency of watching alone by locking the door from inside, which was a case for watching films. In the rural neighbourhood, there used to be a massive crowd at the household with TV set for watching films and entertainment shows. Therefore, sometimes the owners of such households had to restrict people. But there is no mass gathering at household for news viewers. At the same time, people who have interest in news too like to watch togather with others with whom they can engage in discussion. Soon after the arrival of the satellite connection to the Amtali Bazar, the place became a hub for watching the news. A television set there since 2012 provided BTV and Indian national channels. Two shops had DVD players for watching films. But those shops never allowed a crowd in front of their stores for the films, but a crowd is there now for viewing news. Rashidul Islam, a college student who teaches in a local coaching centre, informs: On the DVD player they used to play Bangla movies and dramas all day, but those were only for their own consumption. In the evening when old people got together in the market then sometimes the shopkeepers changed the position of the television set and turned it towards the viewers standing outside the shop. Karim chacha [Karim Mia] and Badal da [Badal Chandra] were the first to get a satellite connection in their shop in mid-2013. In the initial days, they were not used to making it visible to the public as the television screen could only be visible from inside the shop. After a month or so they had to make it visible for the public, and finally the television sets were positioned in such a manner that people standing outside could watch. This change has happened before my eyes for both of the shops. My interactions with Karim Mia and Badal Chandra unravel the dynamic change of a place in response to viewing patterns and the transformation of viewing practice. Both of them run their own grocery shops in Amtali Bazar. On a winter evening in November 2016, Karim’s shop was crowded by middle-aged and older people who might or might not be regular buyer of groceries from his store. When I arrived, everyone was busy watching the Star Jalsha serial Rakhi-Bondhon. Karim informed me that these days he made the TV visible for the public in the evening from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. He bought the television in 2012 and got a cable connection in May 2013. He recalls the incidents from 2013; young and middle-aged people used to come to his shop during the daytime and request the news channels. The flow of individuals started increasing day by day at his shop – not as customers but as viewers. By October, he installed the television set on the outer counter so the viewers could watch it more easily. He used to watch 102

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Star Jalsha and the Star Movies channel, especially Star Movies for films, but during those days, people used to come and force him to tune in to the news channels. He mentions: The viewers who used to come to my shop to watch television know better than me about the channel and the number button of the remote-control device to set the desired channel. The viewers used to come from far away and insist me to tune on 12, 13 or 18 number on remote control where the news channels are set. After a point, may be around November, any time of the day – morning, lunchtime, evening – it was full of people in front of my shop watching news. In December during the volatile period, they continued till late in the night that made me close the store very late. This avid viewership mellowed after the 2014 national elections – to be more specific by March and April of 2014. Viewers stopped demanding news channels at Karim’s shop, and it turned into a crowd for watching Indian TV serials. A similar kind of transformation has happened to Badal Chandra’s store. He had a black-and-white TV in his household that used to run on batteries, and on Fridays the neighbouring viewers would assemble at his place for a Bangla movie. But in 2011, when he got the electricity connection at his shop, the TV set was brought there. However, on Thursday nights he had to bring it back to the house for watching films with his family the next day.11 By 2012 he got the electricity connection at his home as well, so bought a new colour TV for his shop, and he had a satellite connection installed in 2013. He was entirely unaware of news-based channels, but young people who used to go to the towns came to his shop and asked to tune in to those channels. By the end of 2013, he installed a television box inside his shop. The practice of viewing news aided in making a viewing place after the arrival of new channels in Bangladesh since 2009–2010. There are locations like Amtali Bazar in other parts of the district where the practice of television viewing aided in making a place. These public viewing places are also sites for multiple discussions, deliberations and generating opinions. This way of making a place through TV news-viewing practice is quite similar to the markets, shops and tea stalls in towns. The capital city and other big cities offered a slightly different feature in terms of making a place via TV viewing culture. Offices and restaurants are distinct sites for metropolitan cities where people started following news channels, hourly bulletins and live coverage after the arrival of news-based channels. In some cases, shopping malls in metropolitan cities offered such locations, but they would be limited to people from that mall only. A television set was installed in the office room of a government official in 2012 in the city of Chittagong. This particular department provides a 103

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major service for citizens.12 At the end of 2011, a requisition for a television set was forwarded, and the TV was installed in March 2012. The official said the information and everyday updates are very crucial for them. Hence, television is an integral part of their official work. He particularly mentioned breaking news, scrolls and updates broadcast by news channels. This particular trend of ‘breaking news’ became hugely popular and created a sensation with the arrival of news channels. News-based channels joined in a competition to air the updates and came up with different versions of breaking news, with diverse nomenclature, such as ei matro pawa (literally means received just now), shoddo shonbad (latest news), taja khobor (live news), just now, breaking and breaking news. Indicating the frequency of news updates and variations in terms of content, the official stated: Monitoring television is part of my office duty. There were several events where after watching news we contacted the central office and then took rapid action. Otherwise, the process of implementation and operations are slow due to gaps in communication. There are several incidents that came to our notice due to television news coverage. These days, people call up television channels before informing us, so we also follow the channels. This claim about the role of television might appear overestimating and too generalized. But given the persistent tendency of tuning in to news channels in offices, from the ministry to private and local originations, one has to acknowledge the rise and changing roles of the 24/7 private news channels in the country. In addition, there have been cases when the concerned authorities received information about accidents and many other incidents via breaking news, updates and live coverage by television channels. When it comes to the point of making a place in relation to viewing television, there are examples of business offices where people meet and keep their eyes on the news. In markets and malls in cities, the insiders of the shopping centre would gather at a shop where television is available. Unlike in rural settings, people in urban locations are not so comfortable with viewers from outside crowding the store for television viewing. Nevertheless, during exciting events such as a cricket match, these locations also get crowded by viewers. It has also been observed that during some events telecast live in the news channels, people in urban locations were getting together to watch live coverage. The shops and public locations in small towns are not averse to allowing viewers to come and watch television. Ashraf Uddin runs an electronic shop in the municipality market of Nilphamari. At two distinct times in a day, his store is attended by news viewers. The first round of gathering starts at 12 p.m. and continues until 2:30 p.m., and the second round starts after the Maghrib namaz (prayer time in the evening). However, in between, people from other shops come to him and ask to tune in to the news. A small cluster 104

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of people often gather in from of his store to watch news bulletins or get live cricket updates. This crowd includes viewers who are not necessarily part of the market but come to the shop just to spend time. Abuzar Ahmed is one of the visitors who comes to watch television at Ashraf Uddin’s shop. He is a municipality contactor and resides near the municipality market. He has a colour television at his house, and in his office a television is on throughout the office hours. But still he comes to watch television at this market, and he explained the reason: Here we can chat while watching and also you need company of like-minded people to share and discuss news. At night time, I go through all the news bulletins and talk shows once before sleeping at home. But the discussion happens here only where I meet other viewers. Engagement with television news is not an exclusive factor of viewing at home or viewing in public; rather, it undercuts both and besides news viewing includes debates and discussion even when people are not watching news and are merely bringing references from those.

Conclusion: ‘Bazaar Geile Silver Carp, TV Khuille Hasinar Baap’ The phrase ‘Bazaar Geile Silver Carp, TV Khuille Hasinar Baap’ (the Silver Carp fish dominates the market, and the father of Sheikh Hasina dominates the TV screen) is a joke made out of the present nature of television in Bangladesh by viewers from the northern part of the country. Initially, I heard this from one paanwala. After a two-hour interview, one of the respondents took me to a paan shop as he wanted to have one. As soon as we reached the shop, he asked the paanwala about his opinion of television. The paanwala responded, ‘Mui aar ki koim bahe! Mainshe kose, naki “Bazaarot Geile Silver Carp, TV Khuille Hasinar Baap!”’ (What else I would say, mister! People are only saying that ‘the Silver Carp fish dominates the market, and the father of Sheikh Hasina dominates the TV screen!’). I was surprised by the joke he made and the fact that other customers there took it lightly and broke into laughter. The joke was not only about the nature of television programme; it also mentions the father of the nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who is the father of current prime minister of the country, Sheikh Hasina. In the contemporary sociopolitical climate of Bangladesh, different individuals have been punished on the allegation of cracking a joke or making any derogatory remark or act that could be perceived as disgraceful to the father of the nation.13 It seemed to me that these people were not informed of the consequences of making a remark related to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib. It also made me recall the local trend of calling Sheikh Hasina 105

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‘Shekher Beti’ (the daughter of Sheikh Mujib), which has never been considered offensive but rather has a sense of familiarity and closeness attached. Because the aged people experienced the leadership of Sheikh Mujib, for them, Sheikh Hasina’s appearance as a political leader is perceived more in relation to her father than her personal charisma. But, in the present scenario, when the viewers have addressed the name of Sheikh Mujib in relation to his daughter’s name, ‘Hasinar Baap’ (the father of Sheikh Hasina), there is a slight agony attached. Precisely that anguish would consume the excessive representation of government matters on TV news. The remark of ‘Hasinar Baap’ is not directly to mention the father of the nation; rather, it is fraught with a desperate and disproportionate nature of the publicity of the ruling party on the television; in the respondent’s words, ‘Khobort khali omare kotha koy, khali omare kotha!’ (There is only their [government/ruling party] stories on the television news, full of their news!). The aforementioned joke was commonly found among the viewers of television news in the northern region of Bangladesh and indicates the discomfort and annoyance of the people toward the dominance of the ruling party on the television screen. It is worth mentioning here that in post-independent Bangladesh, during the Bangabandhu’s regime, BTV officials took a bold decision to not broadcast the archived voice recording of his iconic speeches following the national radio – Bangladesh Betar. They were able to convince him, arguing that recurrent appearances on the TV screen would make people switch from the national broadcaster and that such publicity might turn against his popularity and personal charisma (Chowdhury 2016). The viewers of television news in Bangladesh are active in judging, overt in expressing their opinion and capable enough to accept and reject a channel and thereof content. They categorically point out the errors journalists make, make fun when the TV reporters fumble while on live TV and react to the presentation of news that is biased or distorted in their view. A great section of rural viewers do not yet consider TV reporters ‘journalists’; for them only the people who work on the newspaper are sangbadik (journalist) and the broadcast journalists are known as the people who read news on TV (TV te khobor pore/koy). To substantiate these reactions, responses, anger and boredom, it is important to juxtapose these cases with the news-making practices that follow in the next chapter.

Notes 1 According to Geertz (1973), by definition ethnography is ‘thick description’ and is associated with symbolic actions and interpretations. The meaning behind any action, the social significance of that particular act and the interpretative relations among the communicators are crucial for thick description. 2 Question paper leak has become a major public concern in Bangladesh. Particularly, since 2014, in all public exams from University admission to the primary level and board exams, frequent cases of question paper leak have been reported.

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3 4 5

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However, the government and authorities were denying such allegations, the students had organized public demonstration against such a misconduct and demanded proper inquiry and solution to the ‘scam’. Narayanganj is a city adjacent to the capital, Dhaka, and a centre for shipping and industry. It is also a politically vibrant city in the country. Towheed Feroze,“‘Pakhi’ Dress, Three Deaths, and a Divoce”, Dhaka Tribune, 17 August 2014. Available at www.dhakatribune.com/opinion/op-ed/2014/08/17/ pakhi-dress-three-deaths-and-a-divorce/ (last accessed 4 October 2020). The New Age.“Now Husband Commits Suicide Over Pakhi Dress (Desk Report)’, The New Age, Bangladesh, 29 July 2014. Available at http://archive.newagebd. net/35564/now-husband-commits-suicide-over-pakhi-dress/ (last accessed 4 October 2020). The Independent. “HC Rejects Writ Petition for Banning Airing of Star Jalsha, Plusz Zee Bangla (Independent Online Desk)”, The Independent, Bangladesh, 29 July 2017. Available at www.theindependentbd.com/post/78450 (last accessed 4 October 2020). See, The Daily Sun, “Cultural Imperialism in Bangladesh (Feature Story)”, The Daily Sun, Bangladesh, 15 May 2015. Available at www.daily-sun.com/arcprint/ details/45377/Cultural-Imperialism-in-Bangladesh/2015-05-15 (last accessed 4 October 2020). Translated by author from the speech in Bengali by Maulana Amir Hamza in an Islamic gathering in Cumilla, Bangladesh, that was viewed and shared widely on various YouTube channels. For more, see Subir Mustafa, “Bangladesh Building Collapse: How Many Still Missing?” BBC News Asia, 10 May 2013. Available at www.bbc.com/news/worldasia-22483914; Jason Burke, “Rana Plaza: One Year on from the Bangladesh Factory Disaster”, The Guardian, 19 April 2014. Available at www.theguardian. com/world/2014/apr/19/rana-plaza-bangladesh-one-year-on (last accessed 4 October 2020). The overall political scenario was volatile at that time due to protest mobilization by the opposition political fronts demanding a non-party interim caretaker government for running the election and a nationwide protest movement organized by Islamic parties (led by Jamaat-e-Islami) challenging the trial for war criminals and related political conflicts. Friday (as well as Saturday) is a weekly day off in Bangladesh. The specifications of the office have not been provided due to a request for anonymity. Several cases have been reported where individuals were accused of defaming the father of nation, and in due course they have been arrested. There were cases not only about the allegation of making any derogatory statements, but also charges were filed against the teachers for comparing Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman with a local Union Parishad chairman in the exam paper. There is a persistent threat of sedition charges if alleged to defame the father of the nation. See, for instance, The Daily Star, “13 Teachers Sent to Jail: They Face Lawsuit Over Defaming Bangabandhu (Staff Correspodent, Chittagong)”, The Daily Star, 24 August 2017. Available at www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/13-teachersland-jail-1453237 (last accessed 4 October 2020).

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5 NEWSROOM Culture and politics of news making

The news we receive on any given day is not as much unpredictable as much journalistic mythology would have us believe. Rather, the doings of the world are tamed to meet the needs of a production system in many aspects bureaucratically organized. —Philip Schlesinger, Putting Reality Together (1978: 47)

In continuation of the ethnographic stitching of narratives in the previous chapter, the discussion in this chapter dwells on the ethnographic details of the newsroom. This entails referencing inside and outside media facilities. All Bangladeshi satellite channels are based in the capital city of Dhaka. The Karwan Bazar area, the heart of the city, is popularly known as the hub of media houses and is where most of the TV stations are located. However, in recent times, offices are being set up in other parts of the city as technology for better connectivity has been introduced. No matter where the office is located, the journalists can send live feeds from afar without being bothered by the terrible traffic in Dhaka.1 The television channel under ethnographic investigation is located near the Karwan Bazar area. Babul Mama’s tea stall is located right opposite and down from the multistoried building of the TV channel and is often acessed by news professionals to pass time and chitchat with colleagues over a cigarette and tea. The car drivers of the channel also spend their leisure time at these roadside tea stalls, parking their cars on the street. The cars stickered with the logo and design of the television company occupy the street despite the building having a parking lot. The place has turned into an informal office of the transport coordinator of the channel from where he allots the vehicles to the reporters. In one such encounter at Babul Mama’s tea stall, a reporter came downstairs and got into his allotted car to collect news and shared the information that the monthly reporters’ meeting was going on. A while later, a group of reporters came down and asked for kora cha (tea with a strong flavour): Babul Mama, pati kora kore cha den, matha ta dhore gelo meeting kore (Babul Uncle, please give us strong-flavoured tea, we have a headache after 108

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the meeting). Subsequently, they were joined by a few more reporters who had also attended the meeting, and it seemed that all of a sudden, the tea stall turned into an extension of the meeting hall where the real session had begun. The discussion at the tea stall made it evident that they could barely utter anything in the meeting and hence were speaking out here over tea and cigarettes. Working journalists raised several points related to their professional advancement and job satisfaction that were not being taken into consideration by the key officials. The policymakers and key officials of the TV channel have their own share of concerns related to broadcasting and business. Overall, the people engaged in making television news suffer from sheer dissatisfaction and distress. This chapter endeavours to reveal the news-makers’ practices. Elsewhere Anderson (2011: 152) hinted at the dramatic shift of the physical as well as literal walls of the newsroom. It is pertinent to look at those transformations taking place inside the newsroom and outside the walls. The ethnographic explorations at the site of news making require a concentrated observation of the rituals in a newsroom along with the conscious effort to understand the nexus that operates in the journalistic ecosystem.2 Hence, it is necessary to emphasize the locations where reporters go for collecting news; the places where TV people get together and gossip; the boardroom from where the supreme decisions are made, disseminated and imposed; and many other corners of a television channel office where opinions are being made but do not get enough attention to be aired. This chapter also reflects on the perception of news-making people regarding the viewers who are the receivers of news content.

Ethnography in the newsroom and beyond There are multiple creative ways to conduct ethnographic explorations in a newsroom leading to the social and anthropological approaches to media. Ida Willig (2012) provides an overview of newsroom ethnographies conducted from 1970 and with a new wave in the 21st century. In order to emphasize the routinized activities and organizational patterns, the newsroom ethnography sometimes fail to comprehend the complexities of structure and practices. Therefore, a comprehensive framework is required to capture the overall aspects of the news-making culture. Willig (2012) emphasizes Bourdieu’s conceptual ground to bring the field perspective and seeks an analytic framework within reflexive sociology.3 Willig illustrates the case of a Danish TV newsroom ethnography and explains how one can analyze the perspectives of the journalistic field, news habitus and newsroom capital while studying the journalistic practice within and beyond the newsroom.4 On the other hand, Gillárová et al. (2014) aimed at applying visual ethnography to analyze the journalistic environment in studying the Czech newsroom. To conduct her investigation on news making in global India, Udupa (2015) took her fieldwork beyond the newsrooms located in 109

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Bangalore and ‘moved with news narratives around the city, following the people who made, remade and enacted them in a changing urban milieu’ (2015: 23). She found that people’s everyday life and politics are interconnected to the media narratives. Multiple aspects of social life and an overabundance of events provide oxygen to the institutional and cultural system of media to survive in the wake of a burgeoning news media. Thus, it is vital to pay attention to those multiple factors, the internal and external indicators and the diverse locations related to the urban news-making culture. Batabyal (2012) conducted detailed ethnographic research on the sites of television news production of Star News and Star Ananda to understand the dynamics of news making in India. His prior engagement with television journalism helped him get access to some extent but also provided a challenge of balancing between a participant and an observer. However, the objective for his study was straightforward: to comprehend the cultural milieu of news making in India by unearthing the inside stories from newsrooms. The present ethnography does not put forth an exclusive approach towards newsroom culture. It places the viewpoints of the audiences before the news-making professionals. The practices and everyday lives of journalists are not seen disconnected from the abundance of audiences’ opinions and viewing practices. The viewers’ observations on television production in the locations of television viewing remained operative enough while encountering the everyday lives and practices of journalists. The approach of the current ethnography is to discern the possible intrerface between audiences and news-making professionals. Therefore, on the one hand, the presence and influence of audiences in the process of news making has been identified; on the other hand, attention has been paid to the interplays of the structures, practices and reactions. This initiative offers more than to ‘shed light on the routines, values, and professional practices of journalists’ (WahlJorgensen 2010: 21). Leading journalists, officials and policymakers of news content are based in urban-centric media houses. The locational hierarchy between professionals based in the central offices of Dhaka and those working in the regional, district and local offices to gather news becomes more complicated with issues related to job benefits, working hours and division of labour. WahlJorgensen (2010) pointed out the limitation of newsroom-centric research, which tends to become elite focused and further begins to neglect marginalized journalistic practices. Thus, for an anthropological perspective of news and journalism, it is imperative to be reflexive, move beyond the newsroom centricity and look toward ‘sociopolitical locations, networks, and multicited approaches’ (Wittel 2000: 8, referred by Wahl-Jorgensen 2010: 34). The possible interaction between viewers and producers of television news arguably constitutes the ground for conceptualizing media culture. These 110

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interactions have sociocultural and political undercurrents and due implications in the politics of news making that become more prominent when the ideological preferences, value orientations, social locations and historical backgrounds of news professionals are considered. Apart from all these, some external forces from beyond the newsroom can function as news determinants. Batabyal (2012), in his study about these forces, pointed out these technological, capitalist, political/ideological and cultural (national cultural values) forces as well as the force of the sources and circumstances within which journalists collect news (2012: 10). But in the current discussion, the presence of audiences and the forces of viewing culture in making television news remain more vital. Can the viewers’ opinions be reflected in the practices of news making? What are the ways audiences are acknowledged by media people? Where is the viewer positioned in the priority level of making and presenting news? Who are the viewers in the eyes of people working at news channels in the country? All these questions remain a crucial backdrop to the explorations in the news-making environment.

Everyday life in a TV newsroom: concerns and dissatisfactions Various questions are raised when analyzing life in a newsroom. Some of these are: What are the major concerns in a television newsroom in Bangladesh? How does the newsroom wake up, and when does it go to sleep? Or does the newsroom of a round-the-clock satellite channel ever sleep? How does the newsroom get information, and how does it react to an event? What is the life cycle of a particular news story that is broadcast on satellite channels? What are the aspects that can be imagined through explorations of politics and the culture of news making? All these questions are crucial to engage with the people working in newsroom settings and to observe the ‘politics and culture’ of news making on television.5 A reciprocal interaction sustained with various forms of manipulation over the content, style and agenda accelerate the politics of news making. The culture of news making can be understood from Bourdieu’s (2005) viewpoint of a ‘journalistic field’ where news products are shaped by the negotiating dynamic between journalists and related agents. For him, individuals from different relative fields are agents or representatives of their respective fields; hence, when one agent is having any interaction with any other agent, basically one field is talking to the other field. In that way, the reciprocal interaction between the journalistic (TV reporter), political (politician) and social scientific (analyst/sociologist) fields helps form the content of news. In order to understand the culture of news making, we may also refer to Carey’s (1989) call for a ritual view of communication, which allows one to engage with the symbolic process instead of the technical and mechanical one. What is field for Bourdieu are forms and symbolic systems for Carey. For Carey, it 111

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is the human mind and its continuous efforts to create, constitute, name and rename the realities of our existing social life. In brief, the culture of news making may enable one to examine the emotions that are created in the process of making a story and the interactions of the reporters with respondents and subjects of news in the field. It also allows one to understand the interrelations between the employees in newsroom settings and the procedural journey of a particular news story from the moment of its appearance before the journalists to its derived meaning by the viewers who watch it on TV. The newsroom is a busy location that usually becomes lively from 7 a.m. onwards when reporters start moving out for news coverage and transmission of fresh live news bulletins begins. On special occasions and days when crucial events occurr overnight, people in the newsroom make an effort to telecast live news bulletins non-stop – in the true sense of 24/7. Otherwise, the live news telecast continues until 1 a.m. and then the newsroom operates at a slow pace with very few journalists. The story of a newsroom is all about coordination, conflict, compromise, connectivity and productive chaos. Coordination between the input and output departments helps the newsroom operate smoothly and successfully. The input department, which collects and delivers the news content to the newsroom, conflicts with the output department, which is tasked with processing and broadcasting news. Before every bulletin, there are issues with getting the reporter ready to go live and ensuring he is prepared with his content. Reporters standing at distant spots have to go through several layers of commands from the newsroom and fulfil the requirements of the news editors and officials in charge. The reporters who frequently go live from different locations and cover the daily events and political stories raise concerns about an ‘insensible’ response and directions from the newsroom. The first concern is primarily the lack of empathy from the people sitting in the newsroom with respect to the ground-level constraints the reporters have to face. The other crucial complaint is about the inadequacy of technical support while working in the field. Apart from these, the most crucial thing they feel is an exercise of power and misconduct (distortion) of the news by the newsroom authorities. The mistreatment of news content remains a common concern for journalists who cover stories from the field based in the central office or bureau office and the local correspondents. Their major concern is that the ideas and angles of a particular news content provided by them may be modified by the high officials of the newsroom. As field reporters, what they see and feel at the spot where events take place often gets distorted due to office policy and some external interruption. The reporters are compelled to make the final report for on-air broadcast based on the guidelines and expectations of the office. The journalists feel that altering the news content as per the commands and expectations of the officials hinders the main facts and gist of the event. This instigates a conflict between the journalists and the news editors that sometimes determines the relations 112

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between the two and leads to a personal level of favouring or disfavouring a certain journalist. Some journalists complain that certain news editors are biased to a selected set of reporters and hence favour the reports they collect irrespective of the news value of the contents. Reporters who wish to maintain a good relationship with the news officials have to compromise and respectfully follow the guidelines coming from the upper ranks. Field-based journalists are the primary agents who have to compromise on news quality in the cycle of collecting, making and delivering news. They address all kinds of directions and accommodate news as per the office policy. These directives range from which events to cover or ignore to how a particular event should be narrated to how to visualize an event according to the style and mechanism of presentation and propaganda followed by the news channel. The journalists who work in the bureau offices are more affected by these factors. They work in a closely related news environment where they are easily approached by higher authorities and senior journalists. Sometimes, due to the station’s policy about a particular case, an individual journalist has to encounter the relevant authorities or can be summoned by government agencies, police or political leaders. The Chittagong bureau chief of one news-based channel6 shares his experience about how he managed to save himself from a life-threatening situation in 2013. In the midst of a mass mobilization by the Hefazat-e-Islam in April 2013, the particular channel was accused of running propaganda against them.7 As a consequence, the reporter was threatened by the activists and supporters of the protesting group in Chittagong. Journalists also complain that sometimes superiors from the newsroom suggest not stating the facts even though evidence is available on crime and murder cases. Instead, they recommend stating facts according to the officials and law and order authorities. This situation arises as the superiors sitting in the newsroom maintain another kind of bargaining and negotiation with the authorities. The reporters bargain with the news editor to allow them more duration for narrating the story but are always advised to make the story denser. The news editor bargains with the marketing department to allot them more time for the bulletin while commercials always take away slots from news. Another level of bargaining takes place between the news bulletin in-charge and his or her superiors, who principally control the news. Mostly the news editors and editors-in-charge seek final approval and advice from the head of the news and the managing director depending on their availability and engagement with the newsroom. If the editors are thoughtful, serious and proactive in thinking through the news content while making the bulletin, they often bargain with their superiors about selection of headlines, prioritizing content and using styles of presentation they feel are appropriate. Otherwise, some news editors surrender their journalistic principles to appease their superiors while making the news bulletins. In this case, hardly any chaos or conflict takes place in the newsroom. 113

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Gossip: a journalistic practice The television newsroom and news-making environment is an ideal location for a sheer amount of gossip. Everyday gossip is an integral part of the news-making ecology as it keeps the system alive. Employees of a news channel gossip on diverse issues ranging from global and local politics and the extra-marital relationships of celebrities to issues related to the personal lives and intimacies of office colleagues. To make a loose distinction, these can be divided into journalistic gossip and ordinary gossip. A modest way of considering journalistic gossip is as sharing so-called privileged information about absent subjects wherein ordinary gossip includes mostly issues of private affairs of a third party common to the gossipers. This also consists of dissatisfaction, anger and resistance towards the authority, primarily the immediate superiors and employers. This type of gossip unfolds the prevailing concerns of news-making people in a detailed manner. They also indicate the issues and ideas that operate in the lives of television professionals. The most favoured topics for employees of a news channel are the professional status, job security, status and benefits gained by other colleagues working in the same or in a different television station. There is a varied range of concerns and questions that guide gossip among television news professionals: What is the current status of their channel in terms of editorial policy, financial viability and policy towards employees in comparison to other channels? Which colleague of the channel is getting more preference from the bosses? What is happening in the professional and personal lives of people they know from different media houses? Along with all these aspects, private affairs like extra-marital relationships, intimate and sexual affairs and drug addiction of acquaintances from within and beyond the station constitute ordinary gossip. Three brief instances of newsroom interactions may provide an idea about the possible ways to initiate and generate gossip. The first conversation was initiated on a duly sensitive assumptive story about a failed attempt to assassinate the prime minister. Nobody discloses any specific source, but the story is referred to different authorities, and multiple versions about how the plot was set and how it failed are added. Some versions state that at the last minute the prime minister was rescued and saved by a special security force. Some add that an unsuccessful coup by the military was behind the assassination attempt. The gossip continues, adding multiple narratives and possible interlinks to current sociopolitical developments. Some provide the version that a prominent political figure who was pre-informed about the attempt did not expose it and has now gone behind the scenes or has gone abroad for treatment. Some conclude that the media is not providing news updates about his health condition because he is now not favoured by the prime minister. Such gossip continued moving in diverse directions with multiple fabrications adding many layers. However, the beginning of the gossip was

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not entirely imaginative and fictitious because such talks did occur in different political forums, mostly those of the opposition parties. When the journalists opt for this as an object of gossip, they don’t plan to further conduct any investigative journalism given the sensitivity and added assumptions towards the case. The second case of gossip occurred in a smoking zone of a news channel where a newsroom editor asked the crime reporter from his office about the love affair of a key police department official with a prominent film starlet. The crime reporter also provided him with some aspects he had learned from another session of gossip among the journalists outside the office. Other reporters also contributed by saying that the actress was dating a senior minister’s nephew while having an intimate and romantic relationship with the police officer. The food for all this gossip is sometimes provided by underground or unpopular news portals and Facebook-based news platforms. There are similar kinds of topics that newsroom people and journalists share and discuss among themselves while working in the newsroom, passing leisure time, eating or travelling to news spots. The third case to be presented briefly here is about workplace gossip relating to a young news reporter who was launched as an anchor to present news bulletins. In different sets of conversations, newsroom editors, producers and other professionals spread the gossip by providing their own assumptions. Some believed it was the outcome of an intimate relationship between the particular presenter and the in-charge of TV anchors. Some further added that they saw them together, spending a longer time in the office or going out to shopping malls. There is no end to these sorts of gossip, which are notorious in contributing to the character assassination of individuals ranging from colleagues of a similar rank to superiors and people from other fields. Journalistic gossip is manifold in nature while the topics are loosely or fully relevant to the news. Kathryn Bell’s (2003) anthropological outlook about the gossip of political journalists acknowledges the interaction between colleagues that enables them to find a news source and regular gossip partner at once. As she argues, In one way, gossip allows journalists to grapple with the competing versions of themselves which they must present on a daily basis. . . . Gossiping can be a form of showmanship, through which journalists perform their access to the inner world of political life. Yet gossip, particularly about politicians, can also bring journalists together as they draw a collective line between We and They. (Bell 2003: 15) Political development is one aspect of journalistic gossip, although there are many more, ranging from crime, security and law and order development to the culture and entertainment sector – whatever comes under the range of news content. For instance, the brutal killing of seven citizens in the town of

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Narayangang on the outskirts of Dhaka created a nationwide sensation in 2013. Journalists discussed it among themselves, talked to the investigation officials and probed the case. Through gossip, they exchanged their own ‘assumptions’ about the facts and developed discourses. When a news source is located outside the city, journalists from the central offices in Dhaka go to the location and exchange information with local correspondents. They come back to the office and disseminate new discourses. Over time, various narratives and discourses of the murder revolved around the news-making ecology, but the television report stated only the on-record statements that came from officials (investigation officers, police and legal bodies). However, the making of discourses and prolonged gossip continues among journalists. Journalists exchange their information with peers and working companions about issues of national security, insurgency, crimes, corruption and political updates. The content of gossip is mainly combined with facts and rumours and is not placed in the furnished news report prepared for transmission. In a way, there is a close relationship between gossip and journalistic assumptions. Journalists develop an inherent urge to get updates about issues happening around them. This urge leads them to probe deeper into things and develop a discourse with bits of facts and bits of assumptions. The gossip in which they take part on an everyday basis in various locations of the news-making environment enables them to develop those assumptions. It is indeed a recurring process where participation in gossip gives them confidence to assume and form a discourse that they deliver into gossip again. It also helps in boosting up the journalistic instinct. In a nutshell, the culture of gossip helps them be updated about happenings and anticipate new storylines.

Events, news content and decision making Many local journalists have pointed out a particular approach indulged in by television channels while covering and telecasting processions and mobilizations organized by Islamic groups. Most news-based channels were apprehensive to cover Islamic protests and mobilizations in the initial days. One key point is the inherent agenda of highlighting a sense of secularism towards which they hold themselves accountable. When the channels began in 2010–2011, they were reluctant to cover and telecast regular Islamic protests and mobilizations that used to take place every Jumma prayer day, Friday, to keep their secular nature intact. This was sometimes deliberate avoidance due to the publicity and persuasion of the Islamic groups. Here the news media have a tendency to judge groups and their actions from a political viewpoint, which is often considered as opposite to the secular outlook of Bangladesh. This inconsiderate (and inadequate, in a way) attention on many occasions is coupled with politically loaded narratives and biased statements while broadcasting these events. Some journalists working at the field level believe that propaganda hype inclined towards the secularist notion 116

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by the majority of the channels in turn disseminated an anti-Islamic impression. This is the viewpoint mainly perceived by journalists who work at the local level, but the central, elite-based urban journalists often tend to associate them with the ‘progressive’ front of the nation and hence consciously or unconsciously express negligence towards Islamic bodies and actions. However, the proponents and policymakers of the channels claim there is no confrontation with the Islamic religion, but political maximization of Islam has been disputed on different occasions. The portrayal of extremism in media has often been associated with Islam, which adds another dimension to this friction. The channels are bound to state if the security agencies found any terrorist activities related to ‘Islamic extremism’. As they disseminate this kind of information, television channels are disputed as ‘the agents of an anti-Islamic front’ by Islamic groups and organizations. The war crime trial8 and its consequences also added complexity to this. In 2013, there was overwhelming coverage of the protest driven by youth bloggers in Shahbag that backed the war crime trial.9 In reaction to the youth activists of Shahbag was a countrywide agitation by Islamic groups led by Jamaat-e-Islam and Hefazat-e-Islam, but television professionals did not treat them the same. The agitations led by the Islamic groups were dominantly violent, and a further representation on television with some added commentary and ‘negative’ judgement made the supporters of these Islamic groups perceive the biased nature of the TV channels. In May 2013, in an attempt to occupy the heart of Dhaka, Hefazat-e-Islam activists attacked a few journalists. The Hefazat activists disputed the role and actions of television media in promoting the Shahbag incident, whose activists, according to them, were ‘atheists’ and ‘enemies of Islam’. They also pointed at some biased commentaries made by journalists. Some complained that television reporters provided fragmented information about the protest mobilization organized by Islamic organizations. Some journalists agreed and stated that they had to follow the official commands. It is imperative to state that the government was anxious during this type of protest mobilization by the Islamic groups, and the television officials were also under pressure. Television coverage presented a visual representation of the violent activities along with continuous commentaries and adverse statements from different speakers. The combined telecasting of portraying the Islamist groups as violent and anti-national made the Hefazat activists perceive the media as their enemy. After some incidents of attack and encountering threats from Islamic groups, the channels became sensible as well as careful about covering their events. They have paid special attention to cover protests organized by Islamic groups and also have allocated space for their processions and activities. In the midst of this, countrywide violence and atrocities remained unreported by most news channels. The district correspondents from some of these affected districts shared their discomfort and grief on the fact that the 117

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newsroom consciously trashed those reports. The data collected from the newsroom manifests that from June 2012 to December 2013, approximately 120 local news stories on the atrocities against minorities were reported, out of which only 15–20 were telecast. During 2012–2013 in a particular newsroom, 83% of the reports on these issues were trashed. Reports on burning Hindu temples and attacks on minorities were deliberately ignored, citing the reason that broadcasting such events might instigate communal violence. That was the justification given by the decision makers in the newsroom whereas in reality the regulatory authorities had instructed the channels not to telecast such violence and turmoil. The regulatory authorities do not have to explain or give a reason; however, they always mention ‘peace and security’ as one of the major reasons for controlling the broadcasts. At the end of 2013, just before the parliamentary elections, the countrywide violence and atrocities turned ferocious and were almost overlooked by news-based channels.10 There used to be a one-minute report that provided a compiled overview of countrywide violence. That report used to be placed in the middle of a bulletin or at the end while the top places were taken by the rhetoric of central political leaders. Many local correspondents informed that it was crucial when viewers from the localities started complaining about the news. These viewers expressed their objection that although they were living in a volatile environment, the television news barely reflected that reality. From there to the pathways of the parliamentary election in January 2014, the television channels kept failing to meet the expectations of the viewers. The sociopolitical conditions in which they were living were not reflected in the television news they used to depend upon. During the parliamentary election and afterwards, the channels were still abiding by the instructions from the ruling party and the government. The main opposition along with its allies did not participate in the election in 2014, and the polling continued in the midst of a countrywide strike called by this opposition alliance. The channels broadcast the strike and the overall situation, but the viewers found a compromising tone in the presentation of news. Their dissatisfaction was primarily about the ‘censored coverage’ of the countrywide turmoil and the protest mobilization against the elections. The television channels were not keen to deploy adequate efforts on the polling day to bring out reports on violence, tensions and conflicts from across the country. Live coverage from the polling centres was mainly based in Dhaka city. The countrywide election news and conflict came in the form of a compiled story of two minutes. Almost 80% of the news was based in Dhaka and political reactions from the centre. Some of the top headlines of the 2 p.m. bulletin on election day were: Polling Continues in the Midst of Strike and Blockade High Security Deployed Countrywide Polling Abandoned in 143 Centres 118

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Shattered Violence in Many Places to Resist Polling Presiding Officer Was Hit to Death in Thakurgaon, Total 12 Death Reported! While there were election controversies and contestations, according to the viewers, the television channels kept themselves safe and aided the status quo by not raising any questions. Some channels broadcast reports questioning the stability and validity of elections that were duly disputed and unattended by the main opposition. But such news vanished once it became clear that the ruling party would come back to power. The news channels limited their duty by covering protests and press briefings by the opposition party. Some viewers who belong to the opposition political parties believed the television channels portrayed only the violent side of the election day protests. In their view, the media did not portray the real picture of the protests where mass arrests, threats and torture by law enforcers took place both before and after the election, in turn proving its biased and controlled nature. The opposition parties often question the neutrality and freedom of expression of the channels. They claim the news media are prescribed and highly controlled by the government agencies. In the course of time, the newsrooms became more obligated towards the government as the balance of power collapsed and the ruling party expressed its supremacy. On the poll anniversary in January 2015,11 a particular television channel broadcast the speech of Tareque Rahman – the son of Khaleda Zia and a vital leader of the opposition party BNP who had taken political asylum in London. The managing director and other key officials of the channel faced judicial punishment, and there was an unofficial blackout of the channel for a certain period.12 Following that, all the channels became extra careful about content that might upset the government. One of the senior officials from a news-based channel said, ‘Now we don’t take any responsibility, we wait and see if other channels are going live with any speech or events of the opposition leaders, then only we move on’. Since all the channels have an understanding among themselves to follow directions from regulatory authorities and not collectively take a stand against the regulation imposed by the government, it is possible to note a massive decline of interest in these news-based channels among viewers. People working in the newsroom are well aware of the situation, and some believe these controlled conditions of news making have led to the downfall of viewership. A senior news editor shares her viewpoint: There are so many issues which people want to know, but due to political pressure we cannot go into details of all those issues. For instance, a popular mayor of Dhaka city is hospitalized in London and people are interested in knowing about the updates on him. We are just giving brief information but not making any detailed story 119

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on the same as there is a rumour that he is in the black book of the ruling government and there are other stories around it. This is the same political figure who was being referred to in gossip about the failed assassination attempt on the prime minister, and assumptive stories have stated that the prime minister is not pleased with his activities.13 This reveals that somewhere there is a sublime interrelation among gossip, public imagination, expectations and news making. When asked about the constraints and reasons behind the fall of viewership, an assignment editor of the news channel reflected on the lack of overall planning, skillful execution and sincerity. He went on to explain: What are we covering every day? If you see our daily planning, it is filled up with the talks and events by major political parties, the prime minister, ministers and some ‘press-club based’ events.14 If any minister cuts the ribbon anywhere, we have to send a camera and reporter. We could have used these resources in making some crucial news stories, bringing some serious public issues into focus. Detailed reporting on social issues, public-related issues are insufficient. Similar concerns have been raised by another senior reporter: While the viewers are interested in knowing about corruption and mishandling of funds for Padma bridge, we are showing how many spans are being constructed. There are instructions from the government to show the progress of this construction on a regular basis. So we have allotted a special reporter to do so, while we should actually be working on public demands.15 Beyond these issues of political control and censorship are other professional constraints encountered by the reporters and newsroom editors. According to one key official of a news channel, the excessive and pointless live coverage by news channels has discredited the value of this connectivity. The news-based channels came up with a technological advantage of connectivity to provide live coverage from locations at any time. But some of the journalists believe there is an unmindful use of that technological edge. They also pointed out the lack of skill and efficiency of the reporters to deliver live reports from a distant spot. A continuous presentation of live events that are silly at times, combined with bad reporting and lack of fluency and ‘smartness’, has led the viewers to stop watching news channels. The dissatisfaction of not gaining modest viewership and the constraints on their journalistic freedom and responsibility add to the frustration journalists face at the professional level. Among various departments in the 120

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newsroom, there is a sharp confrontation between working journalists and the key authorities who own and/or run the channel. The employees claim that it is difficult to find journalists who are competent enough to make excellent reports that are of public interest. According to them, journalists today are not able to develop substantial sources and gather materials to make vital reports. However, working journalists believe the office authorities keep them under pressure and in control, which never enables them to grow. Their concerns of job security and payrolls are also vital. However, some reporters who consider themselves dedicated and passionate journalists assess the current conditions with disgust and frustration. Some are looking for an exit while believing that nothing worthy and meaningful can be done in this profession. Some decided to continue as mere wage earners like another ordinary profession instead of taking their work as an artful responsibility to speak for the people. One such, Mizanur Rahman Khabir, comments on the current trend of this profession and television journalism as a career: It is an alternative to tuition work for them who are now joining television channels. The bachelor students come to join this profession just right after their final exam or even while studying to find an earning source. What kind of journalistic effort can be expected from them? They remain busy browsing jobs on the office computer. Some of them wait until they get a government or lucrative nongovernmental job. Those who continue to stay are the ones who could not find any suitable job. Some are so self-obsessed, they are just crazy to come on the TV screen and that is their ultimate goal. Serious effort to evolve as a sincere journalist is thoroughly missing in the booming television media market today! Despite all the dissatisfaction, anger and constraints of working in a private satellite channel in Bangladesh, some professionals emphasize the interdependence between the viewers and the producers. Some are concerned about the possible interaction with audiences and hence are creative, thoughtful and active towards ongoing social issues. To them, correspondence with audiences is only possible if the television reporter thinks like a journalist and not like an employee of a news channel or from the point of view of the channel’s policy.

The priorities and paradoxes of news making The ethnographic accounts on the practices of news making in 24/7 news channels in Bangladesh is fraught with a wide range of gossip, tussle between the two sections of news collection and production, thriving to sustain in the market and the discontent of the employees. The people 121

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who run news channels always stress profit maximization on the one hand and keeping the station safe from the threat of being shut down on the other hand. The anxiety of getting shut down has become commonplace over time for the owners and directors of television channels in Bangladesh. Between 2009 and 2016, eight news-based channels begun their official broadcasting, and by the year 2017, there were at least 40 television channels in the country.16 All these channels more or less suffer from the phobia of getting warned by regulatory bodies. But it is not simply a matter of control and command as there are multiple aspects of censorship and selfcensorship. From time to time, the channels encounter verbal (informal) directives from different regulatory and governmental agencies. There is also fear among newsroom officials of the channel getting shut down, and there have already been such cases. A senior journalist who has been running a television news team for the last two decades expressed such anxieties. In his view, any silly mistake can destroy everything, and one has to be very careful while running a television channel. He has experienced three cases of shutdown and has realized how damaging it is to the profession. Shutdowns lead to plans and dreams being wiped out and hundreds of employees losing their jobs overnight. After this experience, he has become more careful and doesn’t want to make any mistakes that will allow the regulatory authorities to raise any questions. This cautiousness and extra-sensitivity have made him put some restrictions on his peers and other journalists who are engaged in everyday news making. What is the content; which events live and for how long; what are the headlines; who is the guest in the news and talk shows – all these aspects are closely monitored and guided by him. Even the terms, prose and statements are carefully refined by him, and nothing is broadcast without his knowledge, especially political content. Such restrictive behaviour has made the employees unhappy although they have internalized it as far as the channel’s survival and their job security are concerned. In the everyday life of news making, the reporters and news editors express their discomfort about not being able to telecast the detailed story and truth they know because compromise wins over the values of journalism. Senior journalists who have achieved much higher ranks develop that consciousness to compromise and suffer less from the dilemma. The conflict between telling the truth and surrendering to the authorities makes budding journalists suffer more. These agitated feelings among dedicated journalists are expressed in various forms in their everyday lives and mostly among themselves. Due to job insecurity, their arguments and bargaining with the higher officials related to broadcasting a news story do not go past a certain point. While there is evidence of arguments within the newsroom, confrontation beyond media houses – between television people and government agencies – is 122

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also evident. The growing capability to broadcast live from multiple locations prompted a new confrontation within and beyond the television stations. Prior to 2010 there was an unofficial restriction on telecasting anything live from the assemblies and activities of the opposition political party. In 2011–2012 the news-based channels used to send the live device with their reporting unit to get the feed (footage) well in advance. But at the time there was no practice of live telecasting those assemblies or events. In some cases, the channels used to go for ‘reporter live’, where the journalist gave a briefing of the updates but didn’t allow opposition leaders to speak live. At the end of 2012, the news-based channels gradually started telecasting the live speech and events of opposition leaders. This attempt to live telecast the speeches and events of the opposition parties had to be balanced with live coverage of the events of the party in power. The directors of news channels strongly regulate the duration of the telecast, as the length of the live coverage of the opposition party could never exceed the length of the live coverage of the party in power. The content related to the opposition party activism should not take up more than two minutes in the news. But on 11 March 2013, there was an incident of detaining the top leaders of the opposition party from post-demonstration violence in Nayapaltan, Dhaka. The live telecast continued throughout the police raid of the party’s central office and the event of arresting the leaders. This sudden decision to extend an unlimited live telecast of an event related to the opposition party created anxiety among the policymakers of the channel. But the official who backed this live telecast justified it and fought with his colleagues by bringing up the viewers’ interest. As he explains: My senior colleague was very much against the decision to continue the live telecast. But it appeared to me that people would never move their eyes from this event. I fought with him and went to the PCR [production control room] and took a strong stand to continue the live streaming from that spot. Later on, we had to face questions from the government but we told them there was pressure from the viewers, we could also show them that people were glued to our channel for that live coverage. Eventually, we could also convince the government authorities for live telecasting of the events from opposition political wings which the viewers would like to watch. The reference to viewers and public demand remains crucial to justify the content or coverage of particular events. It is paradoxical to bring audiences’ reference by the news professionals when they need, otherwise there is barely a consideration of the public demand in everyday news-making practices. Rather, the news-making practice continues by obeying the office 123

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policy, which is directed and shaped by different external forces. Hence, it is imperative to examine who the forces are that regulate the news on television media.

Who controls the news? ‘Sometimes I feel the government sits on the ground floor of our office. The constraints and controls become too extreme at times!’ This reaction from one senior news editor of a news-based satellite channel indicates the depth of control and censorship in the mediascape of Bangladesh. She has worked in the news departments of three different television channels. The initial one was a news and entertainment mixed channel, and the other two were 24-hour news channels. She expresses her dissatisfaction towards the insensitive directions and controls are imposed by the owners and high-ranked officials of the channel. The directions that are non-journalistic in nature she considers ‘insensitive’. As news editors, they have to deal with these non-journalistic directions even if there is no logical cause. The editor, Shumee Shahabuddin, feels the current channel she has worked for over the last seven years is comparatively better than the previous two organizations where she worked. One vital reason for this is that professional journalists are on the driving seat of this channel even though the funding comes from industrialists/big businesses. The financer of the channel has never tried to control the content and style of the television. But there are other forces that are active in controlling and manipulating. These agencies actively monitor the content and presentation of the channels and guide the owners of the channel from time to time. The agencies and external forces that contribute to controlling and censoring news can be divided into two groups. The first group can be considered the politico-regulatory authority, and the second group can be put into the category of interventionist forces. Both work as pressure groups, but the fundamental difference is the approach of news-making people towards them. There is a growing phobia towards the first group of authorities, who hold power and influence to regulate and restrict the broadcast of any channel. There is hardly any ability for the channel administrators to refuse the commands of these politico-regulatory forces. On the other hand, with the second group it is primarily a matter of compromise and collaboration where not fear but finance matters. The interventionist forces are not a threat in terms of regulation and telecasting but a threat to the business of a channel. This group includes advertising agencies, national and multinational companies, governmental institutions and bodies, law-enforcement authorities, political parties and leaders and so on. For example, there may be a request from the police

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department to telecast their annual meeting on a channel; the television channel cannot easily deny given the cooperative and collaborative relationship between the two, although the news value of the event might not be high. Similarly, an advertising company may want the television channel to not telecast any report that may harm its business since the channel benefits from the company. Hence the report is trashed. Television channels negotiate with these sets of forces in different capabilities both to gain financial benefit and to avail administrative support. Here both parties maintain a win-win situation; the advertising companies continue feeding the channel and the channel does not screen anything that harms the image of the companies. The channel may choose to not upset the police department by carrying a news report that goes against the department while the police provide sources for new stories and co-operate with the channel to access these events. In such cases, the channel administrators are not bound to follow the instructions; rather, the instructions are disseminated in the manner of a ‘request’ that depends on how much influence and intervention the television professionals want to allow on their news. The politico-regulatory bodies, on the other hand, make one-way commands, and the channel administrators have to be extra careful to follow them. The regulatory bodies can dispute the content at any time, and TV professionals can hardly argue with them. On closer examination of the situation, there are three particular bodies of external forces that instruct, control and closely monitor the satellite television news making in Bangladesh, as stated by the respondents engaged in news making. The first body is the intelligence unit of the military – DGFI (Directorate General of Forces Intelligence) – and the spokesman of the military – ISPR (Inter-Service Public Relations). The second and third bodies are the prime minister’s office and the ministry of information. One senior news editor stated, If the instructions are from the ministry of information then we take them lightly, we try to follow the directions from the prime minister’s office but try to improvise them as well, but a command from cantonment leads to immediate action and no arguments apply on that. Shumee Shahabuddin shares a similar narrative; according to her, bosses react strangely when they get directions from these external forces. In her words, ‘known faces turn unknown, unpredictable’. These directions and commands come directly to the key officials of a channel and then disseminate to the newsroom. People working in the newsroom learn about these interventions and pressures from the central desk, which is composed of news editors. After getting directions from the managing director, the CEO

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and the head of news, the news editors take further steps to modify the news. There is a modest relationship between the heads and the news editors of a channel, but sometimes the newsroom witnesses some heated conversations mostly due to pressure and directions from these external forces. As Shumee Shahabuddin narrated, Our managing director himself is a journalist, he understands news value, but when he advises us to undermine some important news, then we understand it is due to the pressure from external bodies. For instance, during the recent floods in the countryside, the visuals were impactful and ‘newsworthy’. The flood issue was our priority and at the top of the headlines and suddenly one day our managing director intervened and said, ‘Why make it so crucial?’ That was the first indication we got that he has received some directions from the authorities. Later, we were asked to emphasize on the government’s efforts of providing relief support to the victims. After a while, the MD again suggested not to prioritize the flood issue and keep it lower in the list of headlines. These directions clearly indicated that the government wanted to suppress the issue. These are still decent ways the bosses would communicate to us. But when he would speak in a bold-yelling voice instructing us to stop telecasting a particular news with a reminder, ‘I am the MD who is commanding you!’ then we get a sense that this has come either from the army or any top-ranked official from the prime minister’s office. There are several cases where the person in charge of a particular news story has received a show-cause letter from the office because the telecast news was disputed by the regulatory forces. This is a convenient way to abide by the directions received from the regulatory bodies. By sending a showcause letter in such cases, the supreme authorities of the channel convey that they are not responsible for the ‘unwanted’ mistake made by the employee; rather, they have already warned the particular employee who has done the ‘damage’. In most cases those employees believe they have not done anything against their journalistic training. But considering the larger constraints of media and job security, they hardly make a big issue out of the punishments they receive. The key officials often receive calls and are summoned by the regulatory bodies. They have to attend those meetings if a major ‘mistake’ has happened or if the monitoring bodies want to guide regarding something crucial. Generally, the key officials are not comfortable with sharing their interactions and correspondence with the intelligence unit of the military with their colleagues and employees. However, after observing the daily routine of news making and after some intensive conversations with 126

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key officials, it became evident that almost every second day there is a phone call from these external bodies and at least once a month the key officials have to meet them in person. It is, however, the leadership skill, strength and experience of the officials of a channel that determine how much of these pressures and regulations they disseminate to their working journalists. Table 5.1 provides a glimpse of the external pressure and nexus of control over the news-making practice in Bangladesh. Over a period of time, experienced journalists develop an understanding that they have to adjust according to the system. Taking the external pressure, command and anxiety in the newsroom into consideration, they internalize a tendency to not state everything they see and experience. A crime reporter shares his views on the reality, complexity and practice of on-spot reporting. He mentions the terrorist attack at Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan and its aftermath in 2016.17 In his view, after the Gulshan attack coverage, it became too difficult for journalists to present anything without the consent of the regulatory authorities. The news-based channels were telecasting live from the spot and included some crucial moments of the attack and the rescue operation that went on throughout the night. The prime minister heavily criticized this fact and raised her objections. As a consequence, key officials of the television channels had reported to the regulatory authorities and explained their reasons for the non-stop live

External Agencies That Control and Influence Television News Politico-Regulatory Authority

Interventionist Forces

Intelligence agencies of military

Financer, advertising agencies, commercial providers

Prime minister’s office

State machinery (law enforcers, governmental divisions and directories)

Information ministry (and BTRC – Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission)

Different ministries and the ministers

Political leaders and parties Elite groups From the top to bottom is indicator of the degree of control

Table 5.1 External forces for controlling TV news in Bangladesh. Source: Author

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telecast of the event. This was quite threatening for the channels, and the agencies have warned the television people to be more careful next time. In the words of a crime reporter, Following the Gulshan Terrorist Attack, the newsroom became quite cautious. Our channel was broadcasting live for a longer time from that spot. Sensitive visuals and narrations were presented hence the regulatory authorities threatened us. Though they did not directly clarify on how to cover such events but there were instructions to be careful while reporting similar kind of events. There were several occasions of anti-terrorist operation or rescue operations run by the law-enforcers in the post-Gulshan time when we telecasted live. But we remained very cautious and did not bring out the all-encompassing factor of the rescue operations, rather narrated the story according to the law-enforcers’ statement. There were several cases where the things might have been explained in a different way bringing the factual evidence, but we were bound by our constraints. This statement by Omar Faroque, the crime reporter of a news-based channel, reminds me of one of my respondents from Nilphamari who expressed his dissatisfaction with a similar event. He apparently realized that the reporters were not questioning the authorities on the rescue operation run by the law enforcers. Audiences can also figure out the power equation and the ability of journalists to telecast all aspects of such events. Over a period of time, they started avoiding such news as they found no merit in it. This can be a clue to the possible interaction between news making and viewing. Also, this discussion about the role and presence of external forces in news-making practice should not be considered an end of the story. In the everyday practice of news making, there are journalistic interventions, selfreflections and the sublime participation of audiences, and the following discussion sheds light on this.

On agenda setting and agenda stories Numerous scholarly engagements have conceptualized the forms and effects of media agenda setting. Manheim and Albritton (1984) and Manheim (1987) argued for a theory of agenda setting that moves beyond the idea of the media as the primary causal agent. They prefer a systematic definition that promotes agenda setting as a process in which the media, the public and political agendas interact with one another and with their mutual external environment. Media agenda setting is often seen in relation to the public and policy agendas. They indicate that information flows in and around the journalists and their actions of selecting, synthesizing and disseminating 128

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information. The crucial point in their study is that it is not only media who solely controls the process of agenda setting, but there are interlinked forces and external actors who can manipulate the process. This is pertinent in anticipating the role of viewers as well as other muted groups who are not prominently visible in the central mechanism of television news making. Television agenda setting, in particular, has been explored in relation to its viewers, as David Hill (1985) hinted on the interactions and the reciprocal dynamic between television news and audiences in his survey study.According to him, while the success of agenda setting depends on the prior knowledge and motivations of the viewers, the traits of viewing and the characteristic of viewers also have immense power to influence the agenda setting. The term agenda setting used in the everyday practice of television media people does not render intellectual validity and sensitivity; however, it might reflect complexity and functional vivacity. Mentions of agenda in everyday newsroom practice have two possible indications that do not have adverse connotations. By the use of agenda, newsroom practitioners first mean the larger policy to follow in covering news events – for instance, an election, a particular social movement, a massive accident, financial misdeeds, corruption and so on. The other and more ascribed way of using the term is to refer to the content and issues to be highlighted and covered with a special effort called agenda story. In the day-to-day life of television news making, reference to agenda story is frequent, and hence it is required to elaborate the patterns, perspectives and processes. Before officially broadcasting news, the channels plan a stock of news reports during the formation of the reporting team. These stories are categorized as evergreen stories, agenda stories and special stories. Usually, the head of news prepares the list of evergreen stories, agenda stories and special stories. Evergreen stories are based on some topics that are not time-sensitive and don’t depend on the current events, rather highlight soft and slow aspects aiming to broadcast on holidays or weekends. Agenda stories involve two or more reports from different angles on a selected topic. Basically, taking a single issue as the agenda and analyzing it from multiple aspects makes it an agenda story. An initial list of 20 issues selected to be agenda stories was developed by the team leaders of the news section of Jamuna Television in 2009. The reporters started working on it but due to some political issues the regulatory authority terminated the broadcast and the official transmission was delayed. The same set of TV professionals formed Somoy Television in 2010. Before launching the news bulletin, the journalists of this channel started preparing some agenda reports based on a list of around 30 agendas with multiple angles.18 Reporters were assigned to cover agenda stories before the channel became publicly available. As the channel started broadcasting its bulletins, a major slot was given to agenda stories. There used to be news reports from other divisional cities in relation to the topic of the agenda. During the initial days, 129

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Table 5.2 Agenda reports of TV channels. Jamuna TV Agenda Stories (in 2009)

Somoy TV Agenda Stories (from 2010 onwards)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Crime and crime control Drug addiction Coaching business Health service Consumer rights Judiciary system Environmental disaster Waste management Poverty alleviation Child marriage Pollution Baby food Child labour Road accident Traffic jam Roads and highways Power supply Garment industry Labour rights Microbusinesses

Crime control initiatives Drug addiction Coaching business Public health service Consumer rights Judiciary and legal hazard Climate change Urban waste management Poverty alleviation programmes Child marriage Pollution Child labour Road accident Traffic jam Garment industry Entrepreneurship Foreign remittance Food adulteration Digitalization Youth and IT Education system Decentralization Population growth Social security House rent Disability River erosion Co-operatives Student politics Entrepreneurship

Source: Author

the bulletins were designed to give preference to agenda stories. But as the channel started getting exposure, daily events started taking over agenda reports. Daily events news includes various occurrences, events, accidents, meetings, protests, statements, inaugurations and so on. One of the reporters complained, Earlier our channel used to show promotional ads for agenda reports. There used to be special branding before and on the day of broadcasting the reports on the bulletin saying ‘stay tuned’. But the bulletins are slowly taken over by the political news; which leaders have gone where, cut ribbons and deliver some speeches, all these 130

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became important. Gradually the agenda stories were getting less importance and were pushed towards the bottom of the rundown. The rundown is a content outline for a bulletin formulated with a set of reports chronologically ordered for broadcast. It begins with the top headlines and then the stories are placed according to importance and themes such as national news, business segment, international segment and sports segment. Various cases of underrepresentation of agenda reports in the news bulletin have also been pointed out by a few journalists. This could also be due to frustration over their reports not getting enough emphasis. In addition to the agenda reports, news reporters can also create a special package (a complete news report). The types of special reports include the evergreen package on any ‘soft issue’ ready to be telecast at any time, a single story on contemporary sociopolitical issues and a post-incident follow-up story. While the agenda requires a similar kind of two or more packages, the special story can be telecast as a single report. As a common practice in the newsroom, the reporters express their ideas and interest in making a special report. Otherwise, the editors and chief reporter more often suggest ideas and topics for a special report and its possible content and focus. TV reporters believe agenda stories and special reports enable them to speak on behalf of the people. For instance, one of them claimed that whenever he pointed out something in regard to public suffering or burning social issues to his superiors in the office, it got approval for a report. The gas supply crisis in the Mirpur area of Dhaka is one such case that he experienced as a resident of that locality and immediately carried out an investigative report on the same. Traffic jams in the capital, urban housing crisis, problems in electricity and gas supply, public transport, price hikes – all these are regular topics for special reports. The primary sources of the special stories are reporters’ observation and contacts. Sometimes their acquaintances inform them about a significant issue or subject that might have ‘news value’. One such case is when a reporter was informed by his relative about the street of a particular locality of Dhaka that had overflowed with drainage water. Other sources of special stories are contacts working in various governmental institutes who inform journalists about upcoming policies, acts, laws or decisions before they are announced officially. The reporters create a report using that information and clues from their sources. On political issues, the office bosses mainly suggest and approve the concept and content of special stories. Topics such as homes for the elderly or acid attack survivors are included in the list of special reports due to the interest of individual reporters. In most cases, if a particular journalist is familiar with an organization or people who are working on those social service sectors, they take up the topic and make a news report. Sometimes these kinds of social issues are selected because they coincide with ongoing social movements and 131

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sociocultural transformations. Reports on topics like divorce, gender issues, beggars, childhood and adolescent crises are often considered to resonate with contemporary issues. Table 5.3 provides a glimpse into the content and subjects of special stories prepared for broadcasting in a news-based channel. A single news channel has a stock of around 60 special stories ready to be telecast that are solely produced by the reporters based in the central office of Dhaka. In addition, at due intervals the local correspondents keep preparing special reports. The lived experience of journalists enables them to generate ideas for news reports. Journalist Arefin Salman, a young reporter, went to see a doctor in the Out Patient Department of Dhaka Medical College because he was suffering from a seasonal flu. There, he experienced a disorganized environment and inadequacy of doctors and staff that led to inconvenience for the patients. He proposed to work on a special report on the outdoor medical service in Dhaka and got approval from the office. As ordinary citizens moving around in social settings, journalists also face these kinds of public concerns, but they cannot always pursue them for news reports. One primary concern is the requirement of visuals perceived as the ‘inherent’ constraint of broadcast reporting by journalists. As an observer, a print media journalist can take up an issue for reporting whereas the broadcast journalist requires visuals and interviews recorded on his camera. The preferred format for any television report requires the mandatory inclusion of comments by the competent authority. Hence, the reporter needs to have a clear plan along with the investment of a considerable amount of time and effort to find all the required interviewees and visuals. Another dilemma reporters suffer is the newsworthiness of everyday concerns and encounters. Newsrooms are not a very liberal sphere for junior reporters to propose anything easily. Most times it is the seniors and bosses who decide the newsworthiness of a topic and propose it for a special report. This top-down approach of suggesting the subjects for special news reports is not appreciated by many journalists. According to them, the high-profile people in the newsroom are away from the everyday life of the masses due to their round-the-clock office work and busy lifestyle. Hence, it is difficult for them to propose ideas that connect with the masses. To connect peripheral and marginal viewers, the channels also broadcast issues relevant to rural communities, farmers and village society. Ideas and proposals for special reports are invited from district and divisional correspondents. From those proposals, the in-charge approves the reports to be made at the local level. This is a regular process where the local correspondents keep the channel updated regarding the burgeoning issues in the peripheries of the country. However, in most channels the tendency is to prioritize the centre – the Dhaka-based events. Special reports from district-level news sources barely get space in the main bulletins while a dedicated bulletin is allocated in the 24/7 news channels for local news reports. Table 5.4 includes the types of subjects for news reports coming from the local level. 132

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Dhaka Lake Vaccination

Private university

Source: Author

Post-flood suffering in Paddy cultivation in Flood affected Local bridge Rohingya flow and the Kurigram district Gaibandha agriculture consequences in Cox’s Bazar Rice price hike in Festival preparation in the Shrimp price fall in Fisherman community Risky school building in Rangpur Nilphamari district the Bagerhat district and their demands Jessore District-level park Folk music practice among Rice price market in Floating health unit Sunamganj school-level moral the working class Chittagong campaign Local cultural festivals

Topics for Special Reports from the District Level (August–November 2017, Somoy Television)

Dead body Dhaka entry points transportation Traffic sergeant health Serial attacks Medical expansion African diamonds

Psychological health

New municipality wards Divorce Holding tax Street food Construction workers Public transport

Quality of Cricket League gambling question papers Election Commission Seasonal fruits Transgender ID card law Child psychology Health services Street children Student life Opposition party School admission ministers Student politics

Indigenous groups New electoral constituency Question paper leak

Table 5.4 Subject matter of special news reports from district/divisional level.

Source: Author

Wings of the ruling party

Hijacking Archeological site of Dhaka Roads and highway repair University admissions crisis Child development Death cases

Topics of Special Reports (2017, Somoy Television)

Table 5.3 Subject matter of special reports for TV channel.

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All these topics that aid in developing content for television news are sourced in society, in the everydayness of cultural, political and economic practices. The journalists located in certain sociocultural and geo-political locations bring these concerns into the news and formulate media discourse. As social agents, they are bound to realize the burgeoning concerns of the current social settings, and as the agents of corporate media they need some content to deliver for making a news product. This dual role and positionality are not always confronting but can find a mutual ground in the process of emphasizing social and public concerns in mainstream media. Journalists go to the market and encounter price hikes, they travel by public transport and feel public sufferings and people from different occupational backgrounds come to them and complain about various issues. A great number of television news reports are produced from the personal, experiential and ideological interventions of the journalists. In addition, they capture the events and incidents taking place in the social realm and developments in the realms of politics, bureaucracy, policymaking and law. Many other issues also come to the attention of journalists. But, along with all these sources, audiences also contribute to the making of television news via multiple ways of viewing the news, reflecting on the news and getting connected with news professionals.

The audience’s role in news making The owners and higher authorities who run the channel straightforwardly convey that the role of viewers is very minor in making news. They are very frank in stating that ‘it is the ballgame of big players, and we do whatever is needed, the viewers are nominal characters’. It is clear to some of the key functionaries of television news media that the claim of upholding viewers’ interest is nothing but rhetoric. It can be seen as an honest confession of how they see it in terms of major and minor policy formation, the everyday operation of the newsroom and periodic innovation in news broadcasting. There is a customary practice of referring to audiences at every level of actions and innovations. Dorshok khabe literally means the ‘viewers would consume this’ to state that a particular content and pattern would be well received by the viewers, who remain canonical in the news-making practice of television. This trend of referring to the viewers in their conversation aids in their claims to represent them and their interests during news making. The discourse of dorshok khabe can be read as a blunt as well as indecent remark towards audiences. It shows that the reporters assume the viewers are helpless and tasteless consumers who mindlessly consume whatever is served on the platter by the news channels. But the exploration among the viewers reveals that they are not only capable of criticizing and rejecting televisual products but also take the liberty to utilize television news in their preferred ways. Therefore, one finds possibilities of some sort of preference for the viewers’ interests in that phrase and examines how to consider 134

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their demands. A prolonged debate to whether the remark is humiliating or dignifying might not be productive. Rather, focusing on the ways television journalists are informed and persuaded by viewers provides insights about how audiences’ viewing practices influence the making of satellite television news in Bangladesh. Razib Rahman joined the news channel as a video journalist in 2013 after completing his bachelor in media studies and journalism from a private university in Dhaka. According to him, ‘The viewers of Bangladesh have no knowledge about visuals. They don’t have anything to say about the angles, zoom, focus, colour and overall operation of the camera. They are happy with whatever we can provide’. His opinion was not very convincing as the exploration among the audiences reveals their explicit engagement with television news. Eventually, the interaction with other camerapersons brings diverse viewpoints and indicates the flawed nature of Razib’s notion about viewers. A senior cameraman who has been working in television since the late 1990s believes that university trained camerapersons are more concerned about aesthetics than context.19 However, one can say that the young video journalist’s observation cannot be fully disputed because the viewers do not always take a close look at the technical formation of angles and visual aspects of television content, but that does not mean the viewers have nothing to say about visuals. It is evident from the experiences of working camerapersons that the viewers are capable of suggesting changes in the visual form and expressing their visual requirements. This can be substantiated through the experience of Omar Faruk, a television news professional. He has been working as a cameraperson in television for 12 years and has been mostly engaged in field-level report coverage. He shared his experience from 2005 while he was covering a political mob during an armed conflict: I did not have a television set at my house those days and sometimes I used to watch news in the next-door neighbour’s home. His name is Halim bhai. Coincidently during that volatile situation when I was in the middle of the crowd, capturing the scene with my camera, Halim bhai found me. He was there as a participant of the mobilization and told me to operate the camera from a nearby footover bridge. Generally, we tend to capture events from a close distance, but he suggested to go there not only because of my safety, but he particularly mentioned that visuals of this kind from the top would be more lucrative. According to him, the top shots would provide clarity. Then I went up and captured the moments of conflict and violence with great detailing. I earned compliments from my office for this, and following the event, during political clashes and violent situations, I try to find out a place to get some top shots. Apart from this appreciation for that day’s coverage, my neighbour and some other viewers told me that though the visuals were good, 135

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but detailed actions were not very clear as the close views were missing. I realized the technical limitation of this technique and realized that I would need a zoom lens for that. Later we tried overcoming that by acquiring cameras having more handy lenses and enhanced zoom which can cover extreme close shots with clear details. The technical adequacy of a channel certainly depends on its overall planning and financial solvency, but somehow the tastes and demands of the viewers work to instigate decisions about the equipment to be purchased. Similar experiences have been shared by other camerapersons such as Mintu, who covers political news and from time to time goes to the rural areas to record visuals for special stories. He has been covering live events as well for the last seven years. On his live shows, people from different localities share discomforts and demands that they take care of in future telecasts. When we go to cover some events and people see us having tea or relaxing before the shooting begins, they approach us and share their views. These views comprise both complaints and compliments. A lot of times, they tell us about our live coverage as we have been live streaming all the major events since the last five years. I have been listening to them and trying to implement their demands. Most of them have the complaint that we don’t show details while covering live from a spot. They point out that we fix the camera on the reporter who is narrating the incident. But as viewers they are looking for much more than what we offer them in the name of live. According to Mintu, eventually the pattern of live coverage has changed, and he himself has tried to improvise a lot. He claims to keep the viewers’ opinions in mind and later tried to bring about those changes while covering live events. He explains that it is the channel’s policy to use three to four cameras to cover a live event. This decision to use more than one camera during live coverage is indirectly influenced by the viewers and reinforces the thought that the policymakers keep the expectations of the viewers in mind. These expectations are disseminated via journalists who move around public places, carry back field experiences to the newsroom and engage in discussions among television professionals on different occasions. Journalists are part of society, and they learn from their social settings. The primary correspondents who make the news report are more responsive to social needs. They claim to keep their eyes and ears open all the time. In a loose sense, it can be said that the content is to some extent determined by the viewers because the imagination of the journalists is largely shaped by society, which is composed of different sets of viewers. It is imperative to examine the everyday life and working experience of journalists to make this argument more prudent. 136

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Figure 5.1 Broadcast journalists at work: Interviewing people at their doorsteps. Source: Courtesy of Sahidul Islam Hira

According to Nancy Nilima, social surroundings provide her food for thought and content can be found in everyday life. She believes that her thought process has been shaped by society and that, as a journalist, it is also important to feel the pulse of the current society. She has been working as a television journalist for six years and covers news related to politics, education, culture and other daily events. In her view, the public provides various facets of a report even though the popular notion is that journalists and other internal-external forces decide everything. She shares an example of the occasion of mother language day, which gave her ideas for news reports. In Bangladesh, Bengali Language Movement Day is one of the most significant national day of the country and is annually celebrated on 21 February to remember the martyrs of the mother language movement of 21 February 1952. While Nancy was at the event, a few people explained the lack of publicity about the proponents and key leaders of the movement. This concern of her respondents made her think of working on the life and works of the living legends of the language movement. Sometimes it is not only the instigating factor but also the information provided about something crucial for society that is unknown to journalists. During social gatherings on the national day, observations, conversations and sharing added to the journalists’ knowledge. 137

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Similarly, Nancy got clues for another story through one of her relatives. The story was about an educational institute that was forcing school students to pay extra money for coaching classes. This issue later became a crucial investigative news report and led other television journalists to work on stories that uncovered similar kinds of misconduct by many educational institutes. Similarly, Mizanur Rahman Khabir shares his experience of how audiences guide him to deliver reports in a detailed manner. He mostly covers issues related to public suffering and has been working as a television journalist for the last eight years. He reported on drainage management by the WASA (Water and Sewer Authority) in Dhaka and recalls when the audiences of that particular locality informed him that the causal problem was not addressed in his report. Taking into consideration the viewers’ response and suggestions, he made further reports pointing to WASA’s carelessness of not providing a deep cleaning. Such reports create pressure, and WASA later tried to solve the problem by introducing remote-controlled underwater cameras to find waste under the deep drainage water, which was successful. Clearly journalists get story ideas for news reports while travelling in public locations, interacting with rickshaw pullers, having discussions in tea stalls and travelling on public transport. Other evidence confirms the viewers’ influence on the making of television news. The chief reporter, who is in charge of the coverage plan and assigning reporters to cover events, asserts that consideration of viewers’ taste and demands remains crucial in deciding the content and events to be covered. He says that the concern for TRP (television rating point) is primarily based on public-related issues audiences always look for. In everyday planning of a news channel’s coverage, new topics are included precisely to meet audience demand. There is clear pressure from political groups and external forces to allocate certain space, but the pressure from audiences is not explicit. The TRP is one of the key points for the sustainability, success and progress of a channel, and audiences play a decisive role in gaining considerable TRP. In senior reporter Omar Faroque’s words, ‘The moment we think of our TRP we basically focus on the viewers and their demands; it entirely depends on viewership. So we need to emphasize on what would make them happy, what might be their demand in the present context and what are the burgeoning issues with them’. In addition to moving around in public locations and listening to public conversations, social media remains a vital medium to learn about viewers’ interests. While the audiences’ preferences remain prominent at the back of a journalist’s mind implicitly, in some explicit ways they play a crucial role in determining the operational developments and workings of the newsroom. There is evidence of viewers calling the news channel to complain, suggest and propose their opinions. Television professionals have many times made changes and modified their programmes in acknowledgement of those recommendations, complaints and suggestions. In 2015 there was a series of news reports on the killing of a child that exemplified the explicit role of viewers in news making for television. From 138

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July 2015 the series of gruesome child killings remained as the lead news on private satellite channels. In five weeks, four boys were killed in the country, as reported in the media.20 The curiosity at this time was why it had become priority coverage21 but was not a priority in 2014 when 350 children were killed throughout the year.22 Even in 2012 I was informed about a brutal murder of a ten-year-old child in Dhaka that was not reported despite local people informing television media. Primary observations and conversations with television journalists provide more clues regarding the combined effort to construct news. The first child of the series was killed in Sylhet on 8 July 2015, but television media began to report it after three days when the video clip of the brutality went viral on social media.23 After telecasting the first case of child murder and relevant public protests, television channels received information from different localities about other killings. The television channels started prioritizing child-killing incidents as lead news in their bulletins. One newsroom editor informed, ‘Earlier, we used to get updates on child killing from our district correspondents, but we barely valued those as news. Now it has become very significant because it is the hot issue and public demand’. Another crime reporter explained, ‘Nowadays, after the child-killing cases, I am getting frequent calls from people regarding child abuse, torturing and even killing’. Similarly, the case of a child, Jihad, who was trapped in a deep tube well in Dhaka in December 2014 created a huge sensation countrywide that made the viewers proactive in leading the media.24 Primarily the newsroom people experienced wide-ranging viewership of that event and became quite active in covering the follow-up stories. Right after Jihad’s incident, newsrooms used to get frequent phone calls and journalists used to get information about children who had fallen into wells, ponds and other water bodies while playing. Such news is generally trashed in the newsroom, and the district correspondents stopped sending such reports. But after Jihad’s event revealed the audiences’ interest in such news, the newsroom became alert and positive to any such ‘sensational’ incidents of a child missing, trapped or fallen into a body of water. A senior news editor claims to be the representative of the viewers and believes she sees from the standpoint of the audience while making the bulletin. Acknowledging the control and power exercise of the politico-financer bodies, she states, ‘Though there are those powerful external forces, but as a media house we don’t have any chance to undermine the audiences, in some way or the other top officials have to internalize the viewers’ way of thinking’. This ‘viewers’ way of thinking’ to her is to comprehend and acknowledge contemporary tastes and demands in terms of viewing television. The massive viewership of Indian TV serials is not unrecognized by the television professionals of Bangladesh. They are quite aware of the viewers’ interest in family issues and personal affairs that centrally compose the content of television serials. This inclination towards television serials provokes the news channels to manufacture news stories in a dramatic 139

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manner that will appeal to viewers. In the newsroom, the news-making authorities emphasize family issues and at the same time are worried about them due to ethical concerns. The consideration of ethics and cautiousness about the social impact of the personal and family issues made some of the news editors dismiss this sort of news from telecasting. But in recent times, senior officials and bosses insist they pick up those issues and make the broadcast sensational. One such incident of a husband killed by his wife was endorsed as a top news report by the decision makers of the channel. The office learned about the incident from a Dhaka Medical College correspondent and made a brief report showing the visuals from the hospital. But the managing director of the channel instructed the newsroom to get details from the family and investigate the case further by going to the spot of the killing. A reporter was assigned to the case, and the news report tried to touch on some behind-the-scenes stories. The report was incorporated into the main bulletin, but the managing director again interfered and suggested promoting it as the top news of the bulletin. According to the managing director, viewers would appreciate the family story and personal affairs over political issues. The reason for picking the story and prioritizing it is not due to the merit of the case or responsibility to society but to address public demand. Random stories of a wife killed by her husband or vice versa, a son and mother or daughter and father murdered in their households, or a suicide used to be treated with average emphasis. Often such incidents were trashed because they were not national issues and did not fit into the larger interest. But in recent times, the consideration of such news is notable as far as public demand is concerned. The news editors claim that they think like the viewers while making a news bulletin and that is how television becomes a mirror of the society. This claim of television being a mirror of the society, as well as the society being influenced by television, requires an elaboration with theoretical insights, as presented in the following chapters.

Conclusion Journalists and professionals engaged in the television newsroom have addressed the presence and role of audiences in the news-making practice. However, the everyday practice of the newsrooms reveals that other external forces also have a great influence over media. It is also imperative to consider the tendency among some professionals to assume that viewers are ‘dumb’ and that their demands are ‘absurd’. According to them, there is no point in listening and considering what viewers think, like and demand. But this discussion shows that this trend of considering the viewers as ‘foolish’ does not prevail as a dominant factor in the inner workings of news making. Further, it enables us to see the trend and symptom of news-making professionals and television authorities into three levels, as seen in Figure 5.2. 140

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Figure 5.2 Trends of acknowledging the audience by TV professionals.

 The news-making professionals acknowledge that the viewers are central. They are the guiding force on how to go about making a report. According to this viewpoint, whatever happens in the news-making ecology, the primary concern and agent is the 3rd Trend audience (maybe they are important in the back of our minds).

 One section of the professionals think that the viewers are ‘ignorant’ about the technicalities of news-making and the other section believes that the viewers are not logical and sensible enough and hence there is no point in thinking about and 2nd Trend listening to the viewers.

1st Trend

 In everyday newsroom practice professionals don’t acknowledge the viewers on a serious note but use them to justify the content and their style of presentation (saying that viewers would like it or that it’s the viewers’ demand).

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The first trend is just to address the viewers for the sake of referring to them while the second trend is to hold a conclusive judgement about the viewers as ‘immature’. Some professionals from this section believe that television should not reflect what the viewers want to see but rather should shape their tastes according to what they think is important. The third trend indicates the audiences’ presence with due effect in the news-making practice. However, it is pertinent to understand that giving preference to audiences is not always a sympathetic act, as already discussed. It might be partly to succeed financially by becoming popular and partly to disseminate propaganda among a large number of viewers. The head of news of a 24/7 news channel asserts that he waits for pressure from viewers in some sensitive cases. Otherwise, as a television channel, it is sometimes difficult to televise such cases given the dynamics of power and politics. But the viewers provide them with the strength to carry on broadcasting such cases. According to him, the rape case of college student and cultural activist Tonu in Cumilla in 2016 was one such case where the viewers’ demand enabled them to take up the issue.25 The dead body of the raped girl was found in the vicinity of Cumilla cantonment, the permanent military station and residential section of personnel of Bangladesh Army. Given the fact of sensitivity regarding the military, the news story did not receive enough focus on television media. But as soon as social media was filled with criticisms and demands for justice, the television channels came into the scene with force to cover and broadcast the protest and related events. It is obvious that no channel wants to lose the credibility and trust of the viewers, and this understanding leads them to broadcast issues that are pressing even if the regulatory authorities might pose objections. It is often the case that the channels are patronized and empowered by some political and interest groups. But when it comes to broadcasting news, all of them try to express an unbiased viewpoint. The audiences, on the other hand, always read the news from their own politico-social standpoint no matter how much neutrality the media tries to claim or express. The interface appears more vibrantly with the interplay of representation and reception, circulation and demand and the politics of news making and audiences’ meaning making.

Notes 1 Complaints about the terrible traffic in Dhaka have been raised with analytic data and reports. But there is no hope of it getting better; instead, it is becoming more stressful. For example, see, Jody Rosen, “The Bangladeshi Traffic Jam That Never Ends (The New York Times Style Magazine)”, New York Times, 23 September 2016. Available at www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/t-magazine/travel/ dhaka-bangladesh-traffic.html (last accessed 5 October 2020). 2 While conducting ethnographic research on journalism practices in Philadelphia, Anderson opted for the ecosystemic approach, which helped him explore events

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3

4

5

6 7 8

9

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beyond the limited site of the newsroom. According to him, the news or journalistic ecosystem is a broader network that includes various practices, production routines, organizational structures and authorities of news making, and he states that the ‘newsroom can no longer be viewed in isolation from the media ecosystem that surrounds it’ (2011: 160). Bourdieu developed the theory of social fields where the field is considered an analytical space where structure and agency are situated in a relational way. Power relations, internal and external struggles for autonomy and play are integral parts of the organization of social fields. (For further details see Bourdieu 1989, 1990; Hilgers and Mangez 2015.) It is an invitation to enable a critical, reflexive and relational approach to newsroom ethnography. Willig defines the ‘journalistic field’ as the game of journalistic practice while the specific way of playing the news game is ‘journalistic habitus’ and ‘journalistic capitals’ are the resources the media people use in the game. Leon Sigal (1973) unravels the politics of news making through a comparative study of two newsrooms in Washington, DC: the New York Times and the Washington Post. For him, the internal complexities and inner workings of news reporting are crucial in comprehending the politics of news making, which includes the symbiotic relationship between the journalists and state authorities (Sigal 1973). Name not disclosed due to request for anonymity. The Islamic group Hefazat-e-Islam organized a countrywide agitation in response to the youth blogger–driven social movement in 2013 demanding the punishment of ‘atheists’ and ‘defamers of Islam’. Bangladesh set up the International Crime Tribunal in 2009 to prosecute the alleged war criminals of the country’s 1971 liberation war. As the activities progressed, a number of political figures associated with Islamic political parties, mainly Jamaat-e-Islam, were arrested and prosecuted. The political environment of the country became volatile due to anti-trial agitation by political activists. The countrywide violence took a daunting shape in 2013. In February 2013, youth and bloggers brought out a larger protest to ensure capital punishment for the war criminals, and their platform for protest was popularized as the Shahbag movement. The next chapter will discuss this in detail. (For further details, see Roy 2018b.) Regarding the intensity and duration of the violence, many reports from human rights bodies and international news agencies can be referenced. One such can be accessed here: Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK),“Violence Against Religious Minorities | 2013 Overview,”8 January 2014,www.askbd.org/ask/2014/01/08/violence-hinducommunity-2013-overview/ (last accessed January 2018). To mark the first anniversary of national election 2014 (5 January), both the mainstream parties had announced counter political events and activities. An arrest warrant was issued against the chairman and two journalists of that particular channel on the allegation of broadcasting a ‘fabricated and provocative’ speech by BNP senior vice chairman Tarique Rahman. Also, the high court has banned all broadcasting of his statements and speeches. See Star Online Report, “Tarique, 2 Journos Face Arrest Warrant in Sedition Case”, The Daily Star, 23 October 2017. Available at www.thedailystar.net/politics/bnp-senior-vice-chairmantarique-rahman-2-journos-face-arrest-warrant-sedition-case-1480585; Staff Correspondent, “High Court Bans Tarique Rahman’s Speeches, Statements in Bangladesh”, bdnews24.com, 7 January 2015. Available at https://bdnews24. com/bangladesh/2015/01/07/high-court-bans-tarique-rahman-s-speechesstatements-in-bangladesh (last accessed 23 January 2018).

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13 This political figure passed away in November 2017.The prime minister expressed sympathy for the family, and eventually the gossip did not move too far. 14 The press club in Dhaka is a popular hub for professional bodies, social groups, political parties and even individuals to hold protests, express resistance, organize meetings, human chain (line of people linking hands to protest demonstration) and raise their demands. Every day something is happening there. Hence, it has become a usual location for journalists to collect news under the category of ‘daily events’ or ‘the day’s events’. 15 In June 2012, the World Bank scrapped the loan to build the Padma bridge – a bridge over the Padma River to connect the southern region of the country to its centre – saying that a ‘corruption conspiracy’ had been found. After cancelling the credit of $1.2 billion, the government took it as a challenge and discarded the help from World Bank. Later, the anti-corruption commission of the country found no one guilty in their probe report while the Canadian court also found no proof of conspiracy. The construction is in progress, and the government expresses its success in achieving development goals by pointing at the visibility of the Padma bridge. See The Daily Star, “Canada Court Finds No Proof of Padma Bridge Bribery Conspiracy,” 15 February 2017, www.thedailystar.net/world/ north-america/canada-court-finds-no-proof-padma-bridge-graft-conspiracy1359397 (last accessed 12 January 2018). 16 The details are provided in Chapters 2 and 3. 17 On the night of 1 July 2016, a group of militants took some foreigners and locals hostage. The troops ran a rescue operation, and all 5 militants were killed. In total, 20 hostages and 2 police officers were killed by the militants. For details, see BBC, “Bangladesh Siege: Twenty Killed at Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka,” 2 July 2016, www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36692613 (last accessed 17 January 2018). 18 There were a common set of team leaders in both the channels who were in CSB news too, the first news-based private channel in Bangladesh. Such familiarity with news channels helped in the planning of agenda stories and making a stock of news stories. 19 The institutionalization of media studies in Bangladesh is a new trend that fulfils the needs of the media market by offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees on relevant subjects. The cameramen who started working for the channels before 2010 barely received any disciplinary knowledge but have learned through diploma or in-person training. 20 Available at Farid Ahmed and Ralph Ellis,“4th Bangladeshi Boy Attacked, Killed,” CNN, 19 August 2015, http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/18/asia/bangladesh-boysdeaths/ (last accessed 15 November 2015). 21 Since July 2015 all the television channels in the country have been treating issues of child killing in prominent news headlines and providing updates in their bulletins. 22 According to a statistic by Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF), a nongovernment organization concerned with child rights; reported in the Daily Star, “Bangladesh’s Child Killing Rate Goes up Alarmingly,” 8 August 2015, www. thedailystar.net/frontpage/alarming-rise-child-killing-123472 (last accessed 25 October 2015). 23 A 28-minute video clip of the brutal torture by the perpetrators created a firestorm on social media. That shocking video clip showed the boy being beaten to death. After strong online activism and reactions by social media users and the availability of footage from the viral clip, television media considered it news. 24 Jihad’s case was discussed in the previous chapter.

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25 Tonu, a bachelor’s degree second-year student and theatre activist from the Cumilla district, was found dead at Cumilla Mainamati Cantonment on 20 March 2016. The murder sparked a huge public outcry countrywide and led to allegations that the powerful authorities diverted the case to save the culprits. Initially the protestors suspected a rape, but the forensic department found no evidence of rape and no clear cause of her death. For details see The Daily Star, “Tonu Murder,” www. thedailystar.net/tags/tonu-murder (last accessed 24 December 2017).

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6 SOCIAL MOBILIZATION AND THE ROLE OF MEDIA

And most important of all, there is no subject of public interest – politics, news, education, religion, science, sports – that does not find its way to television. Which means that all public understanding of these subjects is shaped by the biases of television. Television is the command center in subtler ways as well. —Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985: 78)

Protests and politics of transformation need a more nuanced approach than the conventional readings of them in the social sciences. This is particularly true in relation to mass media. Political transformations and mediated social movements are integrally connected in Bangladesh. They add significant dimension to the development of media culture, primarily with regard to television news. Understand this requires moving beyond a unilinear perspective. It means we ought not to read a simple causal correlation between social mobilization and the role of media. This chapter underlines the interactive dynamics between media and the public – between news professionals and viewers – in the wake of mediated social movements and politicocultural transformations. The practices of viewing and making news also generate certain transformative junctures within the larger sociopolitical context. The discussions in the previous chapters elucidated such possibilities. Those sociocultural processes and transformations of social practices, with regard to media, become instrumental in comprehending the television media culture. In the history of Bangladesh and its glorious liberation movement of 1971, radio broadcasting added a crucial dimension of public engagement, enabling mediated sociopolitical transformation. Radio news broadcasting in then East Pakistan was highly controlled by the rulers of Pakistan to suppress the public outcry and political aspiration of Bengalis.At the outset of the liberation movement, in October 1970, Pakistan Television Service and Radio Pakistan had to offer slots to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the then chief of the Awami League, to

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speak in a ‘political broadcast’ programme (Majumdar 1972). Sheikh Mujib criticized the monopolization of broadcasting media by the powerful and took the opportunity to motivate the Bengali people for the struggle for freedom. However, the Dhaka Radio Centre was run as a part of Radio Pakistan during the war and hence could not usher in the social movement. The freedom fighters had to opt for an alternative radio centre (the Kalurghat transmission centre in Chittagong) to broadcast the declaration of independence and spread the mass calling on behalf of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to join the liberation war. While that announcement remains iconic for the people of Bangladesh, thereafter the freedom fighters continued motivating the masses from a covert wartime radio broadcasting: Swadhin Bangla Betar (Wartime Radio of Bangladesh). As the broadcasting mouthpiece of the Bangladesh government in exile, this radio station reached out to guerrilla fighters, freedom forces and the public with inspirational content and information. Such initiatives contributed significantly in generating public engagement with media reflecting sociopolitical changes. In the post-independence period, national radio and television broadcasting channels could not offer a scope for mediated movement as they mainly performed as orators of the government and disseminators of information. Bangladesh Television (BTV)’s news broadcasting provided the people with political updates along with selected information about protest movements but could not facilitate any mediated mobilization.

The Shahbag protest and the role of television1 With the rise of news-based satellite channels in Bangladesh, the form and content of social protests took a new turn. Various protest mobilizations by youth and other social groups have been shaped in relation to the media. These mediated social movements in Bangladesh have a distinct nature and potential. In the contemporary political field of Bangladesh, the emergence of youth protest in Shahbag in Dhaka demanding the death penalty for the war criminals of 1971 remains crucial. In 2013, the Shahbag movement primarily operated with the assistance of online media and social media activism. But a broader and much deeper view of the development and transformation of this protest enables a view of the overall contribution of a variety of media – in particular, a combined effort of traditional and social media. The persuasive role of television news among the people ‘offline’2 was notable as the round-the-clock news channels took the lead in disseminating the jovial outlook and dramatic expression of Shahbag by deploying their up-to-date technology and skills to cover the event. Overall, the outstanding and extraordinary media coverage helped the Shahbag movement become popular overnight. The blessings of television channels enabled Shahbag activists to mobilize massive support from across the cities and local towns. The respondents who had attended the event addressed the

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role of television and print media through which they were informed and inspired to join Shahbag. However, from the very first day of the protest, an extensive glorification through highlighting the event as lead news on television channels spread the essence of Shahbag nationwide (Roy 2018b, 2019). The youth activists occupied Shahbag, a busy intersection in the capital city of Dhaka, during their protest and utilized the media to propagate their message. This is one of the protests in the recent political history of Bangladesh where over weeks the streets were blocked and turned into a stage to perform and communicate. In the protest’s course of development, the protestors were blessed by the government and law-enforcement groups. But the theatrical incidents at the onset of protest solicit a much closer look and deeper engagement. On the very first afternoon, bloggers and online activists gathered at the main gate of the National Museum located a hundred metres away from the Shahbag intersection in Dhaka. Their human chain randomly transformed into an occupancy of the road. During that haphazard and incidental situation, some journalists were insistent and influenced the activists to sit in the street for a more ‘newsy’ image or visual. This provides a hint of the persuasive modalities of the advent of a movement and the influences of media practices. The burgeoning television news had contributed to publicize the ‘bloggers’ protest as ‘atheist’ intervention, which was unintended. The main adversaries of Shahbag had called the youth protestors ‘atheist’, and this was widely publicized through newspapers and television media. The juxtaposition of these two terms, bloggers and atheist, repeatedly appeared in the traditional media and in the news bulletins in reference to Shahbag. Some people were not familiar with the term blogger before Shahbag, and the meaning was translated either as ‘those who demand the death penalty of war criminals/ those who have gathered at Shahbag’ or ‘those who are atheists/those who humiliate Islam and defame Prophet Muhammad’.3 The rise of 24/7 news channels and the Shahbag protests as a popular youth movement happened simultaneously. The main adversary of the protest, Hefazat-e-Islam (literally means the protector of Islam) – a platform of Islamic activists – highly condemned the role of television channels in ‘glorifying’ the Shahbag protests. They also threatened some of the roundthe-clock news channels for promoting and broadcasting the youth protest.4 Similarly, the youth protestors also prohibited media, who according to them had been transmitting ‘negative news’ about the protest. The protest movement allowed the media houses to reflect on their nature, objectives and inclinations as it has triggered the questions of identity, nationalism and justice. These protests were an extensive event that helped assess the technical capability and ideological clarity of the media companies. The event opened up a ground for competition for the channels on how to adapt in a non-stop live broadcasting situation. The news channels especially put effort into this process of learning to broadcast every sequence of the development 148

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of the protest movement. Another major shift in the media was evident in its self-censored reporting about the judiciary. Mass media have always been very careful in reporting something that might challenge the court’s verdict (Mishbah 2013; Mohaiemen 2013). The Shahbag protest itself commenced by opposing the judgement of the court. In the initial stage, some television channels suffered anxiety regarding the coverage style due to the given proscription against airing news related to the judiciary.5 However, the flow and intensity of the Shahbag protest brought a breakthrough in this matter and inspired the channels to perform beyond the given ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’ framework ordained by the state. This scenario allows for exploration of the scheme of mediation in the context of youth protests. This helps in exploring the interactive dynamics of media, democracy and nationality. The media platforms took this opportunity to criticize conventional politics in the same vein as the youth protest. In reference to the protest, the mainstream media expressed their critical stand on political roguery and asked for a violence-free alternative politics. In this wake, some media houses expressed discomfort towards the youth protest, questioning its political agenda by terming as a ‘petty political drama’. To underline the transition of media practice to mediation, it is imperative to propose that the appearance and actions of this social movement marked a major shift in the development of mainstream mass media in the country. The media industry appraises, improvises and accelerates with changing political and cultural dimensions, and in the case of Bangladesh this happened in the context of the youth protest and the post-Shahbag milieu. However, it is not an absolute event of a happy marriage between the new social movement and mass communication media. Rather, it is imperative to examine further the roles of social media and traditional mass media in the wake of a kind of social movement and countermovement.6

TV news and mediated social mobilizations In the post-Shahbag milieu, different groups brought out protests and aimed at gaining success by acquiring the assistance of news-based channels. The protestors realized that social media might help them spread the word and gain support but that only television could serve as a prime medium for them to communicate to the authorities. According to them, the power of live coverage and being telecast on TV news bulletins could create pressure on the respective authority by reaching them quicker. In 2015, a group of private university students protesting for ‘NO VAT’7 in education in Dhaka assaulted a television reporter. According to them, he was not providing ‘appropriate’ information about the protest. Some of the activists told me that they had been following the coverage on the news channel and were dissatisfied with the manner in which it was broadcast. They accused the reporter, saying that ‘his TV channel aired some reports in 149

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the last two days which were not proper, valid and in support of the movement’. Such a reaction from the students made me wonder why television news was being followed by student activists who were avid social media users and used sites like Facebook for organizing the protest. I found that the student protestors tried maximizing the news broadcasting option for putting forth their demands. They wrote ‘NO VAT’ on a private car with permanent spray paint and also shouted particular slogans whenever they saw a TV camera around. Activists directly addressed the prime minister or the finance minister on cameras regarding their demands. The protesters deemed fast and furious coverage on television channels as more impactful and instrumental. Arguably, the state machineries and authorities responded to the televised reports more earnestly. Some of the youth respondents, who were part of the aforesaid protest, also led the agitation against the responsible authority on the question paper leak of higher secondary level examination in 2014. That protest was mainly mobilized using Facebook and other social networking sites. But the youth leaders realized that there was a need for proper coverage on television media so their voice could reach the education ministers and other concerned authorities. They didn’t carry on their ultimate agitation until the arrival of television journalists, and their final declaration and demands were only raised when television camera were present. For example, private university students asking for the withdrawal of VAT called for a gathering at the Press Club in Dhaka on 13 September 2015. At the end of their protest, they were supposed to declare their next level of movement for reporters and photographers from newspapers, online news portals and news agencies. But the leaders were reluctant to announce their upcoming agenda and events in the absence of the television media. One of the student leaders stated, Television coverage is important because it is quick, they would break the news by displaying it on news scroll being flashed and eventually it would come to their bulletin. Sometimes, they broadcast live coverage of the events. Our voice reaches so quickly to the authorities via television news, which is why we prefer television media over others. This statement underscores a positive outlook towards 24/7 news channels. It also provides an indication about expectations from the television channels. The performative acts and actions in front of the television camera as elaborated prior indicate the influence of a visual communication medium in shaping a protest mobilization. This is not merely an influence of news television to be examined through the media-impact framework. Instead, this condition requires a holistic framework of interactive practices that helps in understanding the combined efforts by media and the public. It is the 150

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Figure 6.1 News channels have paid special attention to provide live updates of mobilization to audiences. Source: Courtesy of Kakoli Prodhan

interface that arguably can be conceptualized as media culture, which has elements of manipulating audiences with the dominant encoding while at the same time empowering individuals to challenge the dominant meanings and deriving pleasure by subverting the media message as per their perspective.

Mediated social practice and public events Furthermore, media-driven social movements and the evidence of how media and the public protests co-create the culture of protest can be looked at from the lens of politics of representation, too. A critical approach towards the politics of representation reveals the tensions and contradictions behind the representation of various sociocultural, religious and political developments. Media has an inherent character of reproducing and stimulating discourses that can be understood through examination of the televised key events. According to Hammer and Kellner (2009: XXX–XXXII), media makes the people more sensitive towards politics and power relationships, which are connected to media production and circulation. This is what we can deem media culture – a combined effort of the subjects and the media practice. In order to sustain the mediation process, television media culture shapes the social forms and reproduces the sociocultural relations. 151

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In the recent sociopolitical climate of Bangladesh, there is various evidence to show that it was not only the Shahbag protestors who were manipulating the media, but the TV channels were also manipulating the protest movement. While the television channels were solely enjoying their supremacy in (making news, deciding content and presenting forms) representing the protest movements by the private university students in Dhaka, the protestors were pressuring them on the way particular issues had to be captured. Such practices allow us to think about the active role of audiences and participants in making of television news. While popular readings of media impact tell us the contribution of constant media circulation in growing crime rate in the society, the empirical evidences under study provide alternative viewpoints. We have seen that various crime– for instance, child killing in Bangladesh – were only acknowledged as news content once the television people became convinced of the ‘news value’ of the incidents. The public, who are alternatively television viewers, also play a crucial role in the process of measuring that ‘news value’ and participate, directly or indirectly, in the different layers of the process of news making. The sensational incident where the child named Jihad fell into an abandoned tube well in Dhaka can be brought up to make the point more comprehensive. During this incident, the audience did not get a clear picture from the government as the rescue operation was carried out by the respective bodies and the government representatives provided official statements that expressed doubt that the child had fallen into the hole. On the contrary, locals and the parents of the child confirmed the accident. The media coverage of the whole event was greatly occupied and guided by the multiple narratives and actions of the local people. The television channels received information about the incident from the local people and reached the spot prior to the rescue teams. At midnight, the official rescue operations ended by stating that there was no sign of the child and then leaving the place. The locals, though, had not lost hope, and they continued the rescue operation, which was captured by the reporters who were still waiting there with their television camera and kept providing updates on public action around the place. The TV cameras followed the local people who continued the search until the morning, when they found Jihad’s dead body and the television channels chose to go for a live telecast. This case provides a glimpse of how audiences can guide the news-making process and contribute to the construction and representation of news. After the arrival of news-based channels, the trend of ordinary and enthusiastic viewers informing TV channels about the latest incidents, accidents, conflicts, clashes and any circumstances has become frequent and popular. Sometimes informers have a vested interest to call the media to cover a certain incident, but in most cases the information is genuine and the channels can telecast it in their bulletins. People were motivated to deliver news content to the channels because these news-based channels started covering a wide range of issues, unlike the traditional mixed (entertainment) channels. 152

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Viewers make an effort to collect the hotline numbers of various news channels, and sometimes reporters also share their contact numbers with the viewers with the intention of getting news from the locals. These news providers do not get recognition from the channels and do not have any journalistic affiliation. The motivation is not simply to exercise citizen journalism, where ordinary citizens act as journalists and contribute to the information flow.8 There is a strong sense of utilizing the flourishing round-the-clock channels. In case of any sudden incident, people opt to call the television channels, anticipating larger and quicker publicity. This dynamic of public engagement and dependence on television news media will be discussed further. In 2017, tenth grade girls from a government school of Nilphamari came into the street protesting against the school administration over the suicide of one of their classmates. This enigmatic rally caught the attention of the people in town because a culture of tenth grade students protesting in the street is not usual given the traditional social setup of the small town. The girls blocked the road and stopped vehicles and used slogans to raise their demands. They demanded justice for their classmate, who according to them was forced to commit suicide due to the humiliation of the teachers and the decision of the administration to fail her in the final exam. To continue their assertive attitude, the schoolgirls suddenly brought colourful poster paper and marker pens and started writing their demands while occupying the street. They managed to get candles and held them in one hand and the hand-written posters in the other hand while making a human chain. The whole act gave me déjà vu for the moment. I felt as if I was standing in Shahbag Circle and got a vision of the youth bloggers protest in February 2013. The actions performed by the schoolgirls in Nilphamari were matching frame to frame with the Shahbag protest. The way schoolgirls maintained the gaze of public and communicated their demands gave an impression of imitation and adoption of popular protest demonestations by the youth and students in Dhaka. Soon the local journalists came with television cameras and began collecting news. My interaction and in-depth investigation among the protestors enabled an extended visit to their households, where I spoke to their parents and examined the multiple precursors and outcomes of the event that helped me learn about the role of 24/7 news television and viewing practice in greater detail. During the interaction, various facets of the reach of news channels emerged. It was interesting how the schoolgirls referred to the earlier television news broadcasts of protests from different districts that demanded justice. The girls explained how the style and form of their protest was similar to the university students’ protests in Dhaka. It can also be said that since the advent of news-based private satellite channels in Bangladesh, the frequency of telecasting news about student protests demanding justice against ‘rapists’ 153

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and ‘murderers’ from various localities has increased. The respondents from Nilphamari referred to the news coverage of the rape and killing of Tonu, a 19-year-old student from the Cumilla district in March 2016, that led to a countrywide protest demanding justice for Tonu. It is pertinent to note that the manner in which protests are held, including blockades on the streets and lighting candles to put forward demands, are not solely copied from a similar protest movement but are performed as a symbolic stimulus circulated through the mediated social system. The visual appeal of the actions – fire, blockade, clash, wearing black masks, inscriptions on posters and decorations from a protest, a candlelight march and so on – have been manifested, multiplied and featured by television channels. It is probably the ‘exhibition and curatorial function’ of television that, according to Jonathan Bignell (2005: 284), is associated to pedagogy. Presenting the example of broadcasting Beckett’s play on television, he argued that the materials are pre-existing and television is just a platform for display. Sometimes the producers of broadcasting media opt for the curatorial function to educate viewers. But the ethnography of television in Bangladesh reveals that the intention of educating and feeding is not a monolithic function

Figure 6.2 The protest agitation by tenth grade students in Nilphamari, 5 November 2017. Source: Author

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along a linear scheme. Rather, the news broadcasters are guided by multiple factors to capture, categorize and telecast diverse forms of visuals.

TV news, social networking sites and fake news The enchantment towards TV news, coupled with its effort to bring issues to the forefront and provide live coverage of events, began to fade away. Viewers raised their dissatisfaction by pointing to the nature of reporting, which in their opinion helps retain the status quo. Some of the allegations posed by the viewers against the TV news media led to it being labelled as ‘pro-government’, an ‘appeaser of the power party’ and ‘controlled media’. As a consequence, they turned to the social media platforms made accessible by the internet to disseminate their concerns. Social media platforms enabled individuals and groups to express their opinions, disseminate information and cultivate support for various causes. No wonder such attempts made the mediascapes of Bangladesh much more ambiguous and precarious, presenting issues like fake news, rumours, virality and vitriol. On 29 July 2018, a speeding bus ran over a group of students and killed two of them. Soon after, the students began protesting and demanding road safety along with capital punishment for the responsible driver. Due to the spread of their protest and demands through social media, students from many other schools soon came out to the streets and showed their solidarity. Death and injury due to road accidents are everyday phenomena in Bangladesh. Citizens, along with many other rights activists’ organizations, have raised their concerns in this regard, but few measures have been taken by the authorities. However, in this instance the blocking of streets and the boycotting of classes by students in the capital city and other towns continued. The guardians of these protesting students allowed them to attend and freely participate in the protest, judging the genuine nature of their demands. Some even came out to the streets to show their solidarity and support. Despite traditional media such as TV, newspapers and online news portals covering the event with due updates, dissemination of information was quite vibrant over social media. Student protestors took over the streets of Dhaka and performed the role of traffic police as a symbolic protest as to how road safety could be assured. They started taking up roles such as that of traffic police and began controlling the streets. The government tried convincing them to go back with promises of fulfilling their demands, but the student protestors continued their protest. Eventually, the law-enforcement authorities took a hard line while political activists from the party in power were faced with accusations of threatening and attacking the protestors and journalists. There was a sense of mistrust among the viewers towards the coverage of real scenarios by the channels on the one hand, but on the other hand, there were few instances of attacks and assaults by groups of masked mobsters on the journalists who were 155

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on duty covering the protest. Consequentially, the social media platforms became popular and eventually were flooded with provocative, purposive and fabricated news imageries that were a mixture of real and fake, factual and fictitious. These digital media rumours took the protest to an extreme level of conflict and violence that eventually led to unintended consequences. During the protest, many provocative posts and live messages were circulated to stimulate the crowd. Some of these were alleged as false and fabricated. For example, a girl went live on Facebook and claimed that she had been raped and harassed by members of the student front of the party in power. Similar rumours and visuals were also disseminated online to provoke people. A film actress appeared on Facebook live and spread the message of student protestors being brutally attacked and injured. In the meantime, university students and protestors who were already demanding reform of the reservation system in government jobs joined the protest for road safety. Within a week of the mobilization of the protest, the situation became volatile due to conflict among students, police and a masked mob of attackers, who charged the media and the protestors. Regulatory and law-enforcement bodies began to arrest the people accused of spreading rumours online. A globally acclaimed photographer and professor, an actress and many other online activists were criticized. Eventually, the police also hunted down university students by charging them with disseminating provocative information and rumourmongering through their social media activism. Mainstream media including the news channels spoke out against fake news and the spread of digital rumours. But it appears that the passion to like and share provocative content online, its multiplicity and the overall spread and speed of the same are beyond the control of mainstream media. In the wake of digital media triumphing over mainstream broadcast media, the news professionals of Bangladesh have accepted the fact they could not fulfil the demand of audiences (Abdullah 2017). Virality as an inherent feature of social networking sites greatly contributed to its popularity. The availability of infinite and uncensored visuals made it more appealing to them. Facebook and YouTube appear as the most preferred sites for social media users to access detailed news and visuals. Virality and visuals have contributed to switch the viewers to digital platforms while commercial ambitions, self-censorship and obedience to rulers made the TV channels lose viewership. Freedom of choice and desire for detailed information caused TV news viewers to shift to internet-based media platforms. Round-the-clock news channels brought live coverage from event spots along with various innovative programmes to provide visuals, information and added analysis. But the viewers have identified a loss of information in the live coverage and a lack of depth in the news stories. Visuals are also heavily edited and censored in the news bulletins. Hence, the remote control no longer sufficed as their key to freedom of viewing. Smartphones became handier and more preferable to access information 156

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and visuals. Social media platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, became an conducive zone for expected content. As a consequence, YouTube soon turned into an archive platform for watching the news and talk shows. Viewers have started subscribing to their preferred channels to get selected content. With growing viewership in the digital domain, there has been a creative initiative by youth to open up different channels on YouTube to provide news and views, including Bangla TV.com, On-Line News 360, BD Viral News, Bangla Talk Show, Bangla TV Network, News Affairs, BD Talkshow Media, Boss Saifur, Somoy Osomoy, Media News Bangla, Latest News Bangla, Bangla News Talk and Unknown True Facts, BD Views Infotainment, Bangla News 71, Bangla Info Tube, Trendz Now and WOW Bangladesh TV. This list of YouTube channels can be expanded with other varieties of content and genres of videos. A good number of such YouTube channels deal with news content and greatly contribute to the spread of fake news. To gaining more viewership and subscriptions, they sensationalize news with added spices and saucy thumbnails. Sometimes the content is mainly copied from mainstream news media but the presentation is twisted and tempered to gain more views. Conspiracy theory and politically motivated assumptions also contribute to generate another dimension of fake news. Some former journalists and individuals overt and covertly are part of such information dissemination. One such channel, Bangla InfoTube, is run and managed by TV reporter Sahed Alam. Some of his acclaimed news reports broadcast in the 24-hour news channel were uploaded and received great viewership on that platform. The channel became a sensation once he migrated to the United States and started posting commentaries on Bangladeshi politics. Along with his opinion and discussion, the propositions and provocations presented in the channel carry conspiracy theories about Bangladeshi power structures. Titles, taglines, covers and thumbnail of such YouTube videos are mostly sensitive and often contribute to virality and fake news. Some of the titles are as follows: Construction of Padma Bridge: Need of Human Head! Really! Padma Bridge and Rumour Facts! How Long Sheikh Hasina Can Sustain in Power? BNP Will Kill One Lac People? Sheikh Hasia Apologizes Donald Trump Is in Trouble? Assassination Plan to Hasina vs Suicidal Plan for Khaleda? Sheikh Hasia Started Crying Such trends have compelled the news channels to adopt internet-based platforms. Since 2012–2013 some round-the-clock channels have started uploading their news bulletins on YouTube and eventually started YouTube live streaming. YouTube live streaming allowed the viewers to engage and 157

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express their opinions in the comment sections, enabling the possibility of an alternative domain for public discussion. Since the beginning, the news channels had social media handles on Facebook and Twitter, but those had not been utilized for news dissemination. Channels used to have dedicated web pages that served as extensions of the TV news reports in text and image formats. Low traffic to the web pages made the channels invest more energy and effort to the social networking sites. They employed a new set of professionals and set up a dedicated wing to look after the official Facebook page and YouTube channel. An automated interfaced Twitter handler has also been activated, but given popularity and trends, the major focus has been on YouTube and Facebook. Live streaming of the bulletins and other news shows on their official Facebook pages has gained much popularity over time. The news-based private channels of Bangladesh are not yet fully pervaded by the like, share and subscribe craze but rather are slowly incorporating the digital platforms. The hashtag trend has not been emulated and celebrated by newsroom anchors and reporters. Nevertheless, a majority of the policymakers of news channels have started emphasizing social networking sites as the web versions have begun to generate revenue for them. As a consequence, they have made a deliberate attempt to make the web versions of their stories and shows more catchy, sensational and spicy.

Conclusion It is too early to qualify the hype of social media circulation, virality and vitriol as an ultimate degeneration of television news because the viewers still go back to the TV news channels as an authentic source of information. Various enthusiastic individuals, bloggers, YouTubers and social media activists offer various opinions and judgements. But the TV channels, as mainstream media and technically accredited agencies, have access to information and the potential to gather official updates in contrast to social media circulation. Hence, the audiences and protestors and disseminators of protest-related information had to turn on TV news to receive updates about the standpoints of the government, security officials and ministers as well as news updates about the trial, remand and bail of the alleged rumourmongers. In the wake of the road-safety protest, as discussed prior, the reaction of a responsible minister (who is known as the leader of the transport union and a sympathizer of the drivers) who was accused of playing down the seriousness of the accident because he smiled on news camera while responding to the journalists further provoked the protestors. Taking this micro event into consideration, it is not too farfetched to argue that television news continued providing the people with discursive elements that were not necessarily anecdotes of social media virality and fake news. Similarly, by looking at the micro practices of making fake news on social media platforms by misusing 158

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TV channels, one can realize the trust factors attached to mainstream media in opposition to the social media platforms. In some cases of spreading fake news on social media, the fragmented visual elements are created by fabricating the mainstream news channel’s screenshots and logos. Spread of fake breaking news in the name of a news channel works much faster among the public. While such attempts have been made to misuse the perceived ‘authenticity’ of news channels to disseminate fake news, it is perhaps not the case that the channels are pristine and perfect with their news broadcasting. There have been cases of TV channels flushing news updates and breaking some news without verifying and hence ending up contributing to the craze of fake news. A hype of alternative media or new media has been dominantly occupying the mediated practices of contemporary Bangladesh. TV news professionals as well as viewers often encounter the tension between old and new media. The arrival of a diverse set of internet-based platforms as new media might have pushed the satellite news channels under the category of prematurely old. It is imperative to note that the homegrown 24/7 news channels are not that old in the context of Bangladesh, although they carry a lineage of traditional mass media as television.

Notes 1 Some parts of this chapter appeared previously in Ratan Kumar Roy, 2019, ‘Online Activism, Social Movements and Mediated Politics in Contemporary Bangladesh’, Society and Culture in South Asia, Vol. 5 (2): 193–215, reproduced with permission. 2 I have dealt with the dynamics of online and offline politics of protest elsewhere; see Pathak and Roy (2017). This shows the important role of social media in the Shahbag protest while leaving a significant scope of mediation in the offline world. 3 This view is mainly shaped by the news being published (and broadcast) about the Shahbag movement and the reactions to it. The normative identities of the bloggers who write in blogospheres and other social media platforms are overshadowed by their activism on the one hand and the charge against them of being ‘atheist’ on the other hand. As the anti-Shahbag front termed them ‘anti-Islamic’, so the youth bloggers associated with Shahbag had been bluntly labelled as atheist. For further details see Roy (2018b). 4 In this regard, various media houses and journalists started receiving threats a week after the Shahbag protests started. The threats and fear became more crucial in May 2013 when Hefazat-e-Islam called a public gathering at Dhaka. On 5 May 2013, anti-Shahbag activists assaulted, harassed and attacked a few journalists covering their event. These included a female journalist who was chased by the Hefazat activists. 5 As per the Contempt of Court Act 1926, which has been replaced by the Contempt of Court Act 2013, the media has to maintain limits while criticizing or commenting on the judiciary. See Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs Division, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, “Laws of Bangladesh,” http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/ (last accessed 15 April 2016).

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6 I was aware of the conceptual pitfalls in calling it a movement in the conventional sense that prevails in a large part of the social sciences. However, it is a new variety of mobilization. This is beyond the purview of this work, and hence I have refrained from a detailed discussion. For more discussion on movement and countermovement, see McCarthy and Zald (1977: 12–18). 7 In July 2015, private university students, including those from medical and engineering universities, protested against the imposition of a 7.5% tax on tuition fees. In September, they created a blockade in the street and asked for a complete withdrawal of tax on education. The protest movement became popular as the ‘NO VAT’ movement. 8 In the case of Bangladesh, citizen journalism is often associated and acknowledged in the domain of new media viz. online-based news portals.

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If we think in terms of the ‘space’ in which ‘public sphering’ gets done, we can readily see that while the media constitute much of this space (as discursive, semiotic space), the space of the public sphere is – and must be – larger than that of media representations. It must also include sociocultural interaction. —Peter Dahlgren, Television and the Public Sphere (2000 [1995]: 18)

Public engagement with television news unfolds various facades of resistance, reification and contradictions. The act of viewing television news amounts to playing with discourses, creating counternarratives and constructing an ample amount of meanings. The localized public viewing of television news underlines the power of viewing and challenges the autonomy of representation and the self-righteousness of TV news. An ethnography of television must address the power of audiences to decipher and defy the partial, intentional, sanitized and politically motivated news and talk shows on private channels. In order to comprehend the publics and public spheres in relation to media and communication, it is imperative to emphasize the idea of publicity. The aspect of publicity that operates at the core of the public sphere should be examined in relation to communication process, sociopolitical context and popular participation (Rajagopal 2009). In other words, publicity that is ‘at once performative, affective and cognitive’ enables a political condition where formation of the public takes place in relation to media practices (Udupa and McDowell 2017: 5). Therefore, an exploration of localized public spheres in the wake of newer mediated practices requires addressing the sociocultural context, the politics of viewing and showing and the process of becoming a political subject. The culture and practice framework is instrumental in grasping such a multifarious mediated condition. The framework of culture and practice is informed by the cultural economy approach developed by Fiske (2011, 2013 [1989]). With the rise of newsbased private channels, there has been a concern with corporate aggression

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and market control. In Fiske’s view, the financial economy approach considers television as an agent of homogenization and authority to disseminate singularity. In opposition, the culture economy approach emphasizes the modes and moments of viewing that can challenge the centrality of television text and enable its multiplicity. This approach helps one to move beyond the ‘media effect’ and ‘culture industry’ schools (Stevenson 2002). Informed by the preceding chapters, this chapter turns to the public, its sphere, in the context of television news in Bangladesh. Live talk shows are significant content for news-based channels that enable the possibility of a new public sphere. In a popular sense, one may acknowledge that on-screen talk shows serve as a platform that opens up ground for the off-screen public sphere; it allows one to locate the public sphere beyond the screen. The present book highlights local viewers’ engagement with news, talk shows and other news contents. Deciphering the power exercise of the audiences and judgement on the political biases of the shows and its hosts, this chapters also reveals TV hosts’ painstaking efforts to maintain a non-partisan and neutral position. The viewers at the viewing sites have an adverse view of these television talk shows. According to them, these talk shows are ‘useless’, ‘worthless’ and ‘monotonous’. But they are also enthralled and animated watching them. The viewers browse through the news channels and check these talk shows to see if there is a ‘preferable’ or ‘interesting’ topic being discussed that matches their expectation. They look for speakers who are ‘straightforward’ and logical in terms of criticizing the status quo. If it gets dramatic during some crucial events in Bangladesh, the viewers succumb to talk shows’ various perspectives. The political talks and discussions among people in the marketplace, in tea stalls and at different gatherings in towns and villages are informed and initiated by television news and talk shows. Hence, there are constant references to news and TV talk shows in viewers’ conversations. These public debates and discussions in relation to television news and talk shows in a way generate localized public opinion, providing the grounding to constitute a localized public sphere beyond the television screen. It is indeed a public sphere with a melodramatic nature since the emotional currents often take precedent over logic and arguments. This chapter juxtaposes case and practices of news viewing and making in the 24/7 news channels to locate and conceptualize the public. The following discussion sheds lights on the emergence of political subjects, the public sphere and modalities of publicity in the interface of news making and audience viewing practices in Bangladesh.

People’s voice on TV news: an equivocal practice Audiences from diverse backgrounds and locations raise a common allegation against the television people that ‘what they record and collect is 162

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never telecast completely but is edited according to the channel’s wish’. The recorded reactions or opinions would not be telecast if they didn’t suit the channel. They also believe the channels don’t have the courage to screen statements that are in their view an ‘unpleasant truth’. This indicates a complexity in telecasting the public voice on television news. Also, it is pertinent to ask what constitutes a public for the media and who presents the voice of the people. Journalists go to different sets of people to record their viewpoints on a given topic and hold the primary authority to edit and use this in their news reports. Other higher officials in the newsroom also take the lead on selecting and censoring the recorded opinions of people on sensitive issues. There are two formats to make people audible in television news reports other than interviewing them on live shows. One is SOT (sound on tape), which is usually an interview or sound bite of a speaker with an average duration of 15–20 seconds; the other is vox pop (voice of the people), which is generally the reaction of public and needs to have a length of 6–10 seconds. In practice, the opinions of elite intellectuals and statements of political leaders along with individuals in certain positions have appeared in the format of SOT. Reactions on various issues from ordinary people are placed as vox pop, and the speakers are not introduced with a name and designation but with some generic category such as farmer, buyer, passer-by, driver, witness and so on. In cases of political speeches and statements, the editorial body decides the length and subject matter. They record long-duration comments, statements or speeches of these individuals, of which selected parts would be telecast as decided in the newsroom after collective consultation among the reporter, the news editor and other superiors. In practice, the sensitivity of telecasting the political leaders’ statements is maintained in the newsroom by actually timing the audio clips. One television reporter who covers the political news says, The direction was given to us that, if Sheikh Hasina’s [prime minister and Awami Legaue chief] speech goes for one minute, then Khaleda Zia’s (opposition leader and BNP chairperson) speech would also be closer to one minute, whereas other leaders from both the parties would not get more than 25–40 seconds. But yes, the length of opposition leader’s sound bite would never supersede the leaders of ruling party. The authority usually does not pay much attention to the public voices regarding non-political issues that come in the form of vox pop. But in terms of public reactions to political matters, they express a serious concern. Therefore, the people who are chosen to talk about politics are the crucial factor. Generally, random people’s viewpoints are not considered in television news on issues of politics; rather, there is a set of elite intellectuals who have the authority to deliver opinions. The burgeoning question is who determines 163

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and how is it decided which issues need public reaction. In the television news-making practice, the voices of public are captured to substantiate the storyline that is preset by the journalists. For instance, a reporter who has gone to a locality for making a story of river erosion and its consequences requires two or three vox pop from locals who say something along the lines of the report. The locals in many cases may have explained something else or introduced a different angle, but the journalist needs an affirmative statement from different voices to justify the argument of his/her report. This tendency of collecting vox pop in support of the storyline is quite common among TV journalists as in most of the cases they go out to collect report materials with a clear storyline. One senior reporter shares, It often occurs that people say something different which we are not looking for, and they would be excited to express that only. Sometimes, when they reply to the relevant question, the response does not match the storyline of the report we are making. They bring out different perspectives, but in a two-minute story, we cannot accommodate all aspects and diverse viewpoints. Sometimes they just bluff and say things which are not reasonable to carry on, so we just trash them! The decision to edit, trash or promote is regulated by different authorities working in a television channel. Sometimes there are practices of putting words into the speaker’s mouth to maintain coherence with the top line and storyline of a report. For instance, a reporter went to make a story about waterlogging in a marginal locality and was collecting statement of people about their sufferings and concerns. The people from that locality were narrating their everyday struggle and the history and issues. But, for television news, the reporter needed a crisp bite, a punch line, not the narration. Television is a medium of briefness where descriptive accounts are not useful. Thus, the reporter told her respondents to say on camera, ‘Due to waterlogging our life is under threat and we are suffering terribly’ and ‘We want a quick solution of this problem, the authorities should look at the issue’. It is the power of the television camera or the public fascination towards it that enables journalists to make people speak in a certain way just repeating words as directed. The camerapersons are also very efficient in making people speak in a desired manner. Generally, the journalist and the cameraperson discuss the storyline and the focus of the report prior to the shooting. While shooting the cameraperson also tries to ensure that the statement captured is worth presenting. Sometimes the speakers are asked to deliver their opinion a second time to confirm the newsworthiness and appropriate expression of the ‘sound bite’. Hence, most of the reporters keep searching for people who are fluent, bold and not camera shy. The boldest statements that are captured can be edited and/or deleted, but if the respondents are not at all camera friendly and are unable to speak in front of the camera, it frustrates the 164

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journalists. They always look for powerful sound bites because the SOT and vox pops are major elements of a story and are influential in selling the final product: ‘a news report’. Over time, the viewers of television news have also learned the ‘dramatic’ way of speaking in front of the television camera. The increasing number of television channels and TV’s phenomenal participation in the visual world feed into this learning process. The reach of the television camera into every corner of the country, which is a contribution of the news-based channels, aids in bringing familiarity and comfortability with this visual technology to speakers from all sectors of society. Avid news viewers eventually grasp the way of delivering comments on TV camera by seeing the bulletins. They realize and learn that if the statement does not sound crucial and bold, it might not be telecast. Hence, they internalize the way of delivering that is dramatic, with a flow of speech using some compelling terms such as affected, sufferings, corruption, life-threatening and so on. The practices of television news making and viewing enable the viewers to develop knowledge concerning the inner workings of journalism while the journalists also become aware of public consciousness on politics through collecting and telecasting vox pop. One working journalist says, People are now very active and explicit, they say it on our face that we would not broadcast the comments that we would record. It happens quite often when we go to cover special stories or some public issue; while interviewing the locals, some of them from the crowd would say that we are just collecting views but will screen whatever would suit to us. This realization leads broadcast journalists to think and reflect on this public perception while covering various news stories. In some cases, they intimate people with a prior remark that it might not be possible to telecast the whole statement. Sometimes they share the storyline with the respondents and explain their idea of the report as well as the expectations. They tell them that there might be several crucial factors about the issue but that this time the angle is pre-decided and hence a statement is required on the same. These approaches in other way can be seen as enabling factors towards ‘humanist’ and ‘ethically sensitive’ journalism. Monju, a cameraperson from a news-based channel, shared his experience of how people in the localities reacted while asked for an interview. He has been working in TV channels for the last 12 years and has visited different corners of the country with his camera to collect visuals and public voices. In his view, the transformation in practice after the arrival of round-the-clock news channel was dramatic: In 2004–2005 I used to go to rural areas for covering special stories. People used to talk about so many things; we used to get the time 165

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and comfort of taking interviews satisfactorily. During that time it was possible that the people who were interviewed might not even see their statements on the TV screen because of no access to satellite TV and in some cases electricity. When in the present days I go to those localities, it seems that people have access to our channels. I have been working with the news-based channel for the last seven years. Even with this channel, when I used to go among people in 2010–2011, the people were keen to present their reactions. Over time, things have changed, as people found out that we collect their reactions but show it according to our wish, and sometimes we don’t even telecast their interviews! Now whenever they find us seeking their opinion, they react and encounter boldly! Sometimes the reporters with me would keep asking questions from the respondents, but I don’t capture and discourage him from prolonging the interview because it was evident that the responder was getting irritated at various points, and they raise their voice while I am recording peoples’ reaction. Those incidents led me not to bother the public too much. This statement is an indication as to how the individuals of the news-making domain are interconnected at the ground level and the possible ways viewers can influence back. A few more conversations with reporters and camerapersons would supplement this tendency of interaction between audiences and news professionals. A young television journalist, Noor-Un-Nahar Weely, told me her reporting style has changed over time and now she focuses on the facts although her earlier reports were vox pop centric. She is a Dhaka-based reporter who has been working for a channel for the last nine years. Her husband is a crime reporter from another news-based channel. Both of them are enthusiastic journalists and take responsibility while making new stories, bringing out ideas for special reports. She has been confronted by people while reporting on the weekly market prices and traffic jams. People often used to respond, ‘You media people are responsible for the price hike’. Especially in the initial days of her reporting career, people tended to complain about the hike in the price of food and daily commodities. Things have changed now from 2009 to 2010 in the way people considered TV reporters on spot. As she explains, many channels go to the market and report on the price hike of goods of daily need, but people see no change in the market. Over time, people found the presence of media people and television cameras irritating. This realization made Noor-Un-Nahar choose a selective interview of the customers in the market. Now she collects opinions from a limited number of people and narrates the story based on facts. She further narrates how a similar tendency can be seen in the case of traffic jams. Continuous efforts by television news channels to criticize the 166

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terrible traffic in Dhaka have hardly produced any visible change. When the reporters go to the street with their microphone and camera, people get irritated and express their anger. Moreover, there are external pressures not to probe certain issues that go against the ruling party. For instance, a senior news editor from a news-based channel states, Whenever the prime minister’s convoy moves in the city, the traffic becomes unbearable; when the president also comes out at the same time, the whole traffic system collapses. But we are told not to show the public suffering in the street due to VIP movements. There is a new flyover that has been inaugurated recently, and on the day of its inaugration, it witnessed terrible traffic jam. But we were told not to present the reality. Hence, our report was telecasted with a forged angle that says the visitors who gathered to see the flyover have caused the jam. We have only screened selective comments from people who were there to see the new flyover. A similar experience was shared by Noor-Un-Nahar, who was told by the boss of her office to interview people who would say they came to see the flyover. Coming back to the point of the people’s voice in television news, it is imperative to look at the shift in practice and the current trend of satellite news channels in the country. Earlier, particularly until 2009–2010, there was a tendency of approaching ordinary people and asking for their comments on current national issues. But over a period of time, this practice has taken a different form. One senior journalist who holds a supreme position in a newsroom states, If a strike was called by the opposition, we used to send our camera to the field to collect public reaction on the same. But soon after we realized that these reactions are either for or against the issue [strike]. In a way that gives an impression that our station is operating with some biases while we want to express by taking a neutral role. Hence we began to take expert opinion on the same or we go without having an opinion and just state the facts. The same thing happened in the matter of annual budget. These days, we don’t go to the streets looking for the reaction of general people on the occasion of any policy change or political transformation. One should not take the shift of this trend as a simple realization of people’s opinions as ‘vague’ and an attempt to maintain the neutrality of a channel. The source of this change can also be a threat from regulatory bodies, superior authorities and the ruling parties. The instructions of performing with fidelity so as not to harm the status quo coupled with the fear of being 167

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shut down urges the channels to be ‘unbiased’. It is obvious that the regulators wish to dominate the screen, but it is the television professionals who try hard to maintain a neutral and balanced opinion on screen. As a consequence, news professionals started looking for speakers among the urban intellectual educated elite class who could represent the common people – the citizens. No wonder the domain of elite intellectuals who began serving the news channels by providing ‘expert opinions’ is not liberated from partisan loyality. The urge to maintain a ‘balanced screen’ comes from the perception of television professionals that ‘people otherwise might shift their eyes from the channel’. Here the presence of people – or ‘ordinary people’ who are imagined as the audiences – remains influential in guiding television people to formulate decisions and determine their policies. It can be otherwise argued that the references and preferences of people, in this case, are random, loose and just an approximate claim. But, looking at the undercurrents and micro-level interactions between the television professionals and the audiences in multiple layers of the news-making practice, it is difficult to dismiss the active role and presence of viewers in the construction of news. The public reactions are displaced with the opinions of experts on television channels. The discomfort with ‘directness’ and ‘for/ against’ kinds of expressions of the public persuaded the shift in practice. Television professionals have found a comfort zone in a rising civil society based in the universities and intellectual circles of the urban landscapes mostly located in the capital city of Dhaka. The issue of ‘directness’ has been resolved somewhat with the crafted manner of articulation by the elite ‘experts’, but the concern of ‘for/against’ is sustained by the news channel with diligence. The news-making people still consider it to be a prime concern to balance ‘expert opinions’ on their TV screen. In practice, this concern to balance revolves around the bi-partisan culture of the nation. Most of the time, it is reduced to spokespersons from the power party and the main opposition party. However, in recent years, there has been a modification and radical shift in forming alliances in both the political camps, but the channels prefer the speakers from the main party. In the cases of political reports and talk shows, the channels expect to get speakers who are expressively for or against something.

News visuals and the public The equivocal nature of presenting the people’s voice in television news is manifold. It can be challenged as a vague practice of using people’s reactions to fulfil a vested agenda. Individual journalists are concerned about such debates related to incorporating public voices in the news reports and look for alternative methods. Noor-Un-Nahar says that she is now less bothered about public reactions and more interested in visuals while making a report. In a visually effective news report, people are probably not speaking directly 168

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on the television camera, but their demands can be well articulated through the ways facts are analyzed in a news report. According to her, ‘Visuals are powerful because they can express problems in great detail. So now I emphasize more on visuals to narrate a story; it reduces the tension of troubling people on the street as well as the pressure from higher authorities to cut down certain voices’. This aspect of depending on visuals for expressing the ‘desired story’ is neither free from constraints nor a trouble-free alternative. Censorship and control are imposed on the use of visuals in the news channels. Moreover, visuals can be used for ‘directing’ as well and ‘misdirecting’ the attention of spectators (Brighenti 2010). The television camera, through its power to make something visible to the world, can be manipulative at times. On the one hand, the regulatory bodies can imply censorship, and on the other hand, the same authorities can opt for the visual power of television media for disseminating purposive information. For example, on 11 March 2013, when the leaders of the opposition party were arrested, the reporters who were covering the incident from Nayapaltan in Dhaka stated that they had to visually emphasize the scene of recovering a handmade bomb from the same location. Although the bomb was not the focus of the live coverage and the on-spot journalists had no clue where it came from and how the police disarmed it, the superiors from the newsroom directed the on-site reporter to show more and more visuals of the recovery of the bomb from the party’s office. Because the dominant visuals of arresting and dragging the high-profile leaders of the opposition party were contributing to build a narrative of one-sided oppression and assault by the law enforcer, the attempt by the decision makers was a purposive one to neutralize the whole event and express the unbiased character of the channel. Similarly, in May 2013, on the occasion of Hefazat-e-Islam, the Hefazat protestors occupied the intersection of roads known as Shapla Chattar (Water Lily Circle) in Dhaka. In this case, the television channels were blamed for telecasting selected footage. Law-enforcement bodies ran an armed operation to remove the activists from the street on midnight of 5 May. Viewers from different localities as well as the activists of Hefazat complained that the news channels did not telecast the real scenario. There had been some allegations of massacre and killing that night, and the whole incident put pressure on the government as well as the progressive fronts of the country.1 On that occasion, the channels did broadcast news about the protest mobilization and at the same time some violent activism by the protestors. To portray the violent nature and questionable character of the politically motivated Islamic group, the channels emphasized some visuals. The visuals of burned books written in Arabic, allegedly the holy Quran, were highly projected by the channels. The protestors burned some roadside book stalls and took shelter in the national mosque in Dhaka while confronting the police force. The channels visualized the symbols that could be presented 169

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to dispute the acts of the Islamic protestors without having any statement ‘against’ them. The ‘frame in’ and ‘frame out’ mechanism of the visuality was pertinent in comprehending this overall visual aspect of the television news making. Framing is an inherent mechanism of visualization; in Brighenti’s view: . . . framing creates a fundamental partitioning between visible and invisible events, as well as visible and invisible people and facts. Through the same and single act, something is framed in and something is framed out. (2010: 82) The ambiguity of audio-visuals is not much different than photographs particularly while opting to examine the interaction between social and media practices. Not only from the viewpoint of framing, but also in terms of quality, which serves as evidence and an authentication element, audio-visuals remain complicated.2 Despite all these controls and external restrictions, television professionals can always decide what and how they want to capture and present as a fact. Susan Sontag (2003) also raised a related concern in recounting the experience of war photography. Representation can be indicative of glorification of the fighters and can also assert victimization. The television camera has the technological capability to capture and represent a minor damage on the highways as a terrible one. Lower angle shots from a camera can make small holes and broken roads appear as too damaged and dangerous. This is to say that television channels can manipulate and play with visuals to significantly portray a public concern and other times to deceive the public. They also co-opt the power of visuals to fight against control and censorship. On the other hand, the visuals of private news broadcasting added a new facet to publicity where the public feel empowered by news visuals, turn critical at their briefness and sometimes twist them for further use.

The public and reflections of TV professionals The promotional video of a talk show hosted by the head of news of Somoy Television is pivotal in revealing the reflective character of the channel towards the public. The aforementioned official of the channel conceptualizes most of the promotions and teasers. The particular show hosted by him, titled Somoy Sanglap (The Time Dialogue), came in 2013 on top of the channel’s leading talk show, Sampadakiya (The Editorial). Sampadakiya was hosted by the CEO and eventually other senior editors and reporters of the channel while the show Somoy Sanglap was solely hosted by the head of news. This daily show ended in 2017 after completing 1,367 episodes. The promotions for this show were shot in a boat carrying passengers discussing 170

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among themselves that television talk shows are useless as they do not value public concerns. In the next scene, they figure out who the TV personality is who runs the show. He is travelling in the same boat and listening to their disenchantment towards television talk shows. He then turns into the camera and says, ‘The mass media was supposed to be the platform of the mass people; but how much space they could manage to get in this media? Somoy Sanglap would speak on behalf of the mass people. Stay tuned to us at 8 p.m. every day!’ The head of news of Somoy Television has been vocal about public engagement with news bulletins and emphasizing public concerns on TV news. He accepts the fact that viewers are unhappy with monotonous talk shows. The aforementioned promotional advertisement is in one way an outcome of that viewpoint that admits the viewers’ dissatisfaction with the television talk shows. On the other hand, this is nothing more than to demonstrate the reflective character of the channel because it is difficult to claim that the particular talk show has been able to satisfy the viewers’ demand. The host of the show claims, In our show the voice of the masses is getting reflected. But then it is all our perception. In my show Somoy Sanglap, I am trying to bring forth the issues of people’s concern; for instance, health issues, price hike, agriculture, problems of the farmers and all. Though we are not bringing the stakeholders in person, but in the shows, we are raising concerns on behalf of the masses. When asked how reasonable and credible is the claim ‘on behalf of’, he replied, ‘That is very tricky! It is questionable that how truly we can speak on behalf of them’. This interaction also provides a sense of media people being reflective upon the practice of making news and their trend of claiming to be the mouthpieces of the masses. The aforementioned promotional video is just one hint of such reflective nature of television media, and more similar kinds of advertisements can be found. The sense of reflexivity, which is primarily a matter of looking back at things, being self-critical and thinking analytically about actions, can be found among some of the officials holding different high positions in news channels. These news professionals mainly came into television from journalistic backgrounds, although there are some cases where the channels are controlled by people from non-journalistic backgrounds. This reflexivity is subjected to the commercial advancement of the channel. The picture is crystal clear that whatever they do in reference to and with due claim to reach to the public is mainly to gain popularity and eventually see ‘business success’. So launching something new to appeal to the people’s taste is in turn seeking a new strategy for gaining viewership as a channel and succeeding in the market. Journalists who run television are very clear about the product value of news and views shows. Having a clear 171

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knowledge about the marketing policy of the news channel, they attempt to grasp some of the public concerns. However, the public concerns featured by television media are not a benevolent or innocent attempt but rather have its constraints and politics attached. A chief news editor from a news-based channel says, We are concerned about what public expects to see on television because they do judge whether a particular channel is capable of fulfilling their needs. The public issues are of course crucial because that would help us in gaining more popularity, which in turn would ensure the business stability of the channel. His point is very valid and practical in the sense that advertising agencies would be more generous to the channels that help them gain a more extensive viewership. Content related to public concerns is pertinent in this regard. The question then arises of whether television news is nothing other than a commercial product. Are media professionals simply manipulating people and fooling them to achieve their commercial goals? Are the interactions between viewers and news professionals worthless in the context of a dominant corporate capitalism of television media? All these questions remain vital in exploring the mediated public sphere in Bangladesh.

Talk shows and public interaction The talk shows on private satellite channels, including the 24/7-news channels, have offered a platform to generate views and opinions and are consumed with a mixed reaction. The viewers are profoundly informed and influenced by their political position while they comment, express their likes and dislikes about the talk shows and judge the hosts of the shows. Dislike towards the hosts of a talk show is expressed in various derogatory forms, sometimes bringing in the gender identity and other times the religious identity of the anchors. People’s likes and dislikes towards talk shows influence the subscription of channels. For instance, if a viewer doesn’t like a host or any of the shows of a channel, he would be apprehensive to tune in to that particular channel. But it has been also observed that likes and dislikes shaped by a political ideology do not remain so rigid during discussions of non-political issues. Certain viewers consider some channels and their talk shows politically motivated and thus despise them. But I found them watching the talk shows on that TV channel when the topic was not related to politics or the speakers were of their choice. I met viewers of talk shows during their participation in public gatherings and discussions. These gatherings mostly take place in the afternoons in clubs, offices, tea stalls, restaurants and some selected locations in the town and village markets. They bring out issues from recent happenings and speak 172

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with reference to the TV talk shows. They fill the discussions with information they would have heard in talk shows the previous night or even some time earlier. In more intensive interactions, it is found that their participation in these discussions is informed by the talk shows and TV news. Talk shows are not only being referred to in public discussions, but they have a great role in making drawing/living rooms politically active. There are households, especially single families, where television talk shows are a source of political discussion. On a winter evening in Dalim Barman’s living room, a talk show was running on the TV. Two political analysts were speaking in the show and talking about the election, the political situation and democracy in the country. My eyes got stuck on an old poster of a lion with a cold look with the inscription ‘no politics please!’ Dalim, who has been an assistant professor of economics in a local college for the last 15 years, never used to like politics or any kind of political involvement. But the air of his living room turns dense with politics through debates on the television talk shows in which Dalim enthusiastically partakes as a viewer while the framed poster of the lion on the wall indicates the prohibition of political discussion. Dalim was a routine viewer of the talk shows and followed political debates with attention. He likes to listen to the arguments of some of the selected political analysts and experts. He subscribed and stuck to shows and channels where those selected speakers were invited. This tendency of being glued to political talk shows made the room full of political noise and was provocative enough to undo the apolitical nature of the drawing/living room. Instead, the practice of individual viewers sitting in his drawing room and engaging in politically expressive talk shows gives an impression of the creation of a new political space. There is a general dissatisfaction expressed by the respondents who are viewers of talk shows about the missing arguments from the speakers that they expect and the crucial questions that would have been posed to the speakers. They get agitated at times while sitting in front of the TV set as to ‘why the person is not raising that particular point’ or ‘why the host is not asking the person about that particular issue’. The scenario is dramatic enough as the viewers assume the role of participants, although they are located in the drawing room and not the studio of the channel. It has also been observed that when such expected points are raised or discussed, the viewers express satisfaction. The viewers’ body languages, actions and reactions while watching the talk shows are also significant to be considered. When the debate is at its peak, viewers light a cigarette and move their bodies, sit with a focused posture, increase the volume or possess the remote control. This seriousness and dedication to watch talk shows has drastically reduced over time. Since 2016 viewers have started turning their eyes from political talk shows, and some viewers consider these shows as ‘good-for-nothing’. This particular statement is to express their perception 173

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of talk shows as being ineffective to bring about any political change. As they have experienced, everything continues according to the will of the government, and there is no response at all on the different opinions. Some believe there is a case of muzzling dissent, which is why, over time, a few bold and argumentative speakers who used to provide constructive criticism have now become very careful and cautious. The viewers have also figured out that some of the popular speakers who have criticized the government and the ruling party are no longer invited on talk shows. Due to this, some of the viewers subscribed to YouTube channels and used their mobile phones to watch some selected talk shows. One such viewer, an older person, told me his reason for preferring YouTube as a platform: Here I listen to whoever I want to, unlike on television where mostly the flatterers of the government appear. People who argue logically are hardly there on talk shows. Their presence is generally limited in talk shows and I might have missed those on the television’s live telecast. So, on YouTube, there are channels where I can find those shows. Over time, television viewers have become very selective about watching talk shows; at the same time, they have become quite apprehensive about quality with the overabundance of this genre. To express his opinion about television programmes on news channels, Kajal Adhikari said, I have heard that in Dhaka, there are some ‘talkers’ who come by themselves every evening near the TV station. They get prepared on their own with make-up and wait to get a call from the TV channel. They are not invited but make themselves available to the channels if there is a requirement of a guest for the show. These people have taken it as their profession, and they are available on demand. He did not wait for my response to this and did not ask for an affirmation even after knowing my familiarity with the TV channel. He stated this as if it was a sure fact. The other two viewers accompanying us, Monirul Islam and Bari Siddique, smiled at it but did not consider the statement as entirely a joke. Instead, they also added their understanding on the talk show culture of contemporary television. Monirul Islam said, ‘My body does not permit me to watch these talk shows, I actually cannot digest’. He meant to say that the timing and nature of the talk shows does not suit his health. It is observed that in small towns and villages, people do not like to watch discussion at night time as most households stop watching TV by 11 p.m. The public gatherings for watching news and talk shows are over by 10:30 p.m. in Nilphamari and by 9 p.m. in the surrounding rural bazars. Monirul explained to me that at night before sleeping, he does not find it healthy to listen to ‘quarrels’ and insensitive 174

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debates. For him, these ‘verbal fights’ are not at all constructive and do not bring any change to his life. This idea of the inability of the talk shows to bring change has been expressed by Bari Siddique, who is a follower of the political party in opposition (Bangladesh Nationalist Party). In Bari’s view, the uncountable number of talk shows, several heavyweights and bold critiques of the government have not been able to bring any change. He said, Sheikh Hasina [prime minister of Bangladesh] does not give any damn about these speakers. Various pertinent issues had been raised on these talk shows, and so much criticism had happened before the 2014 election, but still, the one-party election took place as per her wish only. Some supporters and sympathizers of the opposition political parties raised similar concerns as Bari. In their views, the particular speakers and analysts are no long called by the television channels who used to talk logical and important issues that might discredit the government. In an adda – a place located in Nilphamari consisting of diverse set of viewers such as teachers, journalists, servicepersons and retired officials – one of the discussions took the following course: Viewer 1: The government now restricts all these talk shows. It has no charm like before! Viewer 2: I heard that there is a list of guests that has been given to the TV channels from the Information Ministry. They have been directed to call only those selected speakers. Viewer 3: Yes, I also heard that, and those who used to speak well they have been suspended, for instance, Manna [Mahmudur Rahman Manna is a political leader who has been accused of conspiring against the government], Asif Nazrul [a professor at Dhaka University and a political analyst often considered a critic of the government]. Viewer 4: No, but Asif Nazrul does come to the talk shows, maybe the frequency has reduced. Actually, who cares about all these things? Now people hardly watch these talk shows. These days talk shows are not only tok [in Bengali means sour and is pronounced the same as talk], it has become tita as well [in Bengali tita means bitter]. Viewer 5: Yes, but the Ekattor Channel had one female news anchor, now she has come to a new channel, umm, yes, X [the name of the anchor], she is very, well, articulate as a host. Viewer 1: Oh no, don’t talk about her, she is such a —! These are the — of the government! I can’t take her at all! [abusive terms] Viewer 3: Y [journalist and talk show host from another news channel] is another, she has a tendency of offending the guests. But good that she would not shout, but there are ladies who would just bark. 175

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Viewer 4: K’s [a male host from a third news-based channel] talk show is better than all these, he conducts it with an impartial approach. Viewer 5: Yes, but no matter whatever you say and how much you discuss, it is the prime minister who has already termed these talk show goers as thieves of the midnight. Viewer 1: Vai, her ministers and party leaders also come every day on the talk shows, what about that? The prime minister of Bangladesh started expressing her disregard towards the talk shows and the speakers who used to criticize the conduct of the government in 2011–2012 when a considerable number of talk shows became available to the viewers due to the arrival of news channels.3 Earlier there was only a countable number of talk shows popularly subscribed to by viewers who were mainly urban audiences. The news and entertainment mixed channels used to present those talk shows before the boom of the 24/7 news channels. Soon after the news-based private channels came in, the number of shows, the frequency of telecasting and access to viewers amplified dramatically. The burgeoning numbers of talk shows began to provide cues and clues to the viewers to generate political discourses and discussions in varied sociopolitical locations of viewing television.

Local viewers and a localized form of public The localized public spheres are constituted in diverse locations of television viewing where people engage in activities of taking pleasure, generating meanings from news, resisting the given and dominant meaning, carrying information and sharing opinions during a public interaction.4 It is localized in character because of the inherent settings of locally set public opinion, worldview, perception, orientation and creation of cultural and political meaning in the line of that local distinctness. The supporting instances and cases have been discussed in the ethnographic chapters. It is plural in nature because of the variations of formations, the diverse set of topics and issues and the multiplicity of implementations and interpretations. Friedland et al. (2007) emphasized the empirically identifiable publics in conceptualizing the local public sphere where the forms of actions receive prominence and attention is turned to the process and consequence of public formation rather than getting stuck on arguing over the nature of the public sphere. But there is a pressing concern about the power and consequence of public deliberation as the ‘public discussion is downgraded into publicity’ by assuming a refeudalization of the public sphere in the mediated social system (Livingstone 2005: 27). In the broader domain of the media and communication circuit, there are multiple challenges that include the tensions between journalists and regulatory bodies; anxieties and resistance in regard to control and censorship; 176

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competing interests of ideology, politics, economy, aesthetics and professionalism; and the interpretative capability and multiplicity of the ‘decoders’. According to Livingstone (2005), due to these complexities, it is difficult to argue that the dominance of media is crude and one-sided. Rather, it is important to open up the ground for a possible interaction between the state and the citizens. The localized public sphere in the context of television news viewing and generating discourses in multiple public domains manifests as audiences engage in political debates and discussions in reference to news. This form of public spheres is different from the traditional, Habermasian normative rational public sphere.5 This is primarily due to the transient nature of normativity, which changes as per the participants’ personal and political interest. The distinction of the local public sphere in Bangladesh also arises from the collapse of rational and non-rational in the face of competing interests, emotional involvements and manipulations of the newsroom. An overly dramatic appearance of this public sphere solicits a departure from conventional understanding. Emotions of anger, affection, hope, frustration and anxiety in public reveal how individuals collapse the private and public realm with media content. Peter Dahlgren (2000 [1995]) hinted at a similar aspect by emphasizing the ‘sociocultural interactions’ and ‘semiotic and discursive space’ generated in relation to television viewing. He argued for a dimension of the public sphere that allows the multiplicity of the spaces and acknowledges the interactive dynamic between television and its viewers: This dimension takes us into the realm of people’s encounters and discussions with each other, with their collective sense making and their cultural practices. The process and setting of media reception are also part of this dimension of interaction: the interface between media and its audiences. . . . Even if television in many cases is a totally individual affair, the experiences gained from viewing are carried over into social interaction. And where viewing is a social activity, done together with others, talk about the programming can take place simultaneously with the transmission as well as directly afterwards. (2000 [1995]: 18) Even the private sphere of viewing, such as the drawing room, turns political with the active engagement of the viewer with TV talk shows. In Dahlgren’s view such an act of reception is crucial for ‘mediated publicness’ where ‘the talk about public matters may begin’ (2000 [1995]: 18). Similar empirical findings are presented by Madianou (2005) from an ethnographic investigation among the news audiences of Athens where the ‘news consumption emerged as a multi-faceted process that transcends the public-private divide’ (2005: 109). In the Indian context, Saeed (2013) investigates what should 177

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be the ideal relationship between the news media and the public. Focusing on television news, she identified four key elements – power, citizenship, public knowledge and criticality – in ensuring the media’s role in the triangle ‘democracy-media-development’ (Saeed 2013: 6). Two fundamental aspects related to the public sphere need to be discussed in this regard. First, it is a matter of concern whether the media-related social practices and viewing culture are empowered to be acknowledged as a public sphere. Second is how we can identify and credit the audiences at multiple locations of viewing as ‘public’. Studies in European contexts indicated different aspects of public ranging from ‘the public of ceremonial television’ to the ‘pretend publics’ (Dayan 2001). In Dayan’s view the public in relation to television is either an ‘incidentally television public’ or an ‘almost public’; it has to be qualified to claim as a ‘television public’. Nevertheless, the viewers or spectators of television are part of any group or community that is not divorced from the ‘public’. The emergence of news-based private channels in Bangladesh creates urban cultural and political elites. The empirical narratives suggest that viewing of television has brought about diverse sets of publics, including the urban elite as well as those away from the urban epicentres. This localized public viewing and diverse set of audiences can create an alternative public sphere, arguably a television public,6 in Bangladesh. The question of power relation and role in decision making becomes significant in the wake of audiences’ participation in the viewing culture (Carpentier 2011; Jenkins 2006). The mediation of public matters through television broadcasting and discussion of sociopolitical issues in relation to TV news allow the audiences to overcome a rigid position. Their participation in the mediated culture and engagement with television news enables them to become the public, citizen, consumer, mass and crowd at once. It is tricky to judge their role and the effect of their participation in decision making and the power game and similarly the validity of a localized public sphere. But it is helpful in this regard to follow Fraser (1990) and emphasize the discursive nature of interpublic relations. She proposed the ‘subaltern counterpublics’ that enable parallel discursive spaces to constitute and disseminate counterdiscourses. Taking a cue from Eley (1987), she articulated the nature of contestation and the multiplicity of diverse publics in stratified society. In a highly stratified society, it is pertinent to ask how much scope private television media leaves for a critical-autonomous public sphere to emerge in the face of market forces and state control. Loyalty towards corporate machinery and government authorities may not allow the television media to transform as an influential discursive space. But it might not be just towards the localized nature of viewing culture if we are to discard the possibility of formulating an alternative mediated public sphere. This is because the public domains of viewing television news remain significant for the interactive dynamics among audience, television and the state. In these 178

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locations audiences come together and use (in terms of viewing, discussing and referring) the television media. The conceptual framework of comprehending the localized public sphere is based on the interactive dynamics among the media, the audience and the public discourses. The present study attempted to bridge the gap between normative knowledge and empirical findings in comprehending the mediated public sphere.7 This new form of mediated public sphere is arguably embedded in everyday practice and is localized in nature (Couldry et al. 2009). In different local social settings, audiences have been bringing their own patterns of resistance and challenges to the mediated texts of television news and talk shows. Their worldview, socio-cultural-religious belongingness, political standpoint and ways of interpretation are the major guiding forces in generating views in relation to television media circulation. It is not only the commercial interest and dissemination of power that dominate but also the orientation and interpretation of the viewers that contribute in the construction of meanings. They discuss cricket politics in reference to the news of the women’s world cup; on the occasion of polling coverage, they initiate a discussion about the power and freedom of television media; when resistance operations against extremist groups are telecast, they judge the transparency and accountability of the government and law-enforcement bodies. In different localities, depending on the sociocultural context, the viewers initiate public discussion that is not merely the act of information generating but also a process of deliberation that eventually aids in empowering the discursive domain. These discursive domains are not divorced from the centre from where the news is being produced and telecast. For instance, various channels have started incorporating viewers’ opinions, questions and comments on live talk shows. The research associate8 of a live talk show stated that initially they used to get calls from viewers on the office landlines. The viewers used to express their observations, complaints and questions regarding the shows. This was one of the inciting factors to introduce a ‘hotline number’ for the viewers to get connected on live shows and ask their questions directly to the speakers. Apart from this, many channels flash social media comments and queries on the screen during live talk shows. There is certainly gatekeeping by the television producers in the form of shortlisting and censoring the questions and opinions received from the viewers. By controlling this while taking commercial and institutional interests into consideration, it is difficult to champion the role of television news and talk shows as productive for the autonomous and democratic discursive space for the public. The formation and deliberation of localized public spheres cannot be judged by looking at what is being televised. Rather it is the process, actions and continuation of the public interactions in relation to television viewing that help in constituting multiple forms of public spheres.9 179

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Conclusion: public and non-public According to Virginia Nightingale, ‘Broadcast television has become perhaps the only environment (outside the polling booth) where most people experience a sense of connection to the public sphere’ (2009: 185). But given the assumption that television disseminates purposive information to create passive subjects and consumers rather than citizens, it is perhaps natural for skepticism and apprehension to be triggered towards the mediated public sphere. The commercialization of the media in the age of corporate capitalism has been considered a dominant factor, and there is a persistent idea that media ‘provides what sells rather than what informs and enables public discussion’ (Butsch 2009: 8). Ethnographic insights drawn in this book encourage readers to disagree with such hasty assumptions dominant in the political-economy approach. Rather, it portrays how audiences no longer remain mere consumers but evolve as active agents of public discussion as citizens. Taking the arguments of this book forward, one may attempt to further examine how this localized public sphere at the site of television news viewing can challenge this mistaken understanding. To add another dimension to it, departing from an abstract and theoretically captivated public can lead to the attainment of a deeper understanding of public engagement with television. The television public can be considered as cultural publics where the everyday life of the ordinary people and their interactions with television media come into play in (re)forming social structures (Farmer 2013; Lunt 2009). Again for Frank Farmer (2013), ‘cultural publics’ can be seen as social formations where preferences are given to the cultural quality and practices of the public by making a smooth correspondence between public aspects and cultural inquiry. Within the scope of this discussion, what remains at the core is the ‘public’ requires further conceptual probing. It is indeed pertinent to delve deeper into the contemporary debates on conceptual categories of full public, almost public and even non-public (Katz and Dayan 2012). Non-public as a conceptual category is provocative and productive for understanding the practices and role of audiences. It can be seen as a default designation but not as a reverse concept to the public (Bonaccorsi 2012; Jacobi and Luckerhoff 2012). There is a trend of attaching certain negative qualities to define non-public – that is, invisible (in public), incompetent (of seeking and gaining attention from others) and incapable (of forming opinion) – in opposition to the public who would be visible, appear in public, raise demands and make points in order to be recognized. One of the reasons behind such an unfertile split becoming dominant is the careless separation of culture and life (Bonaccorsi 2012). Rather, it is crucial to examine cultural life as a broader unit and define culture as the way of life. This enables a view of public engagement with television not simply from a consumer-culture or impact-influence framework but from a communication viewpoint

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where multiple dynamics, sociopolitics, subjective agencies and negotiating strategies are in play collectively. Public opinion generated as a consequence of television news viewing forms mediated public spheres in the locations of watching and discussing TV content. These add value to the cultural life of the people and at once supplement the political mediation and expression. In the ultimate analysis, as way of a provocation, it is possible to consider television public, which is in turn mediated public, as a non-public that ‘can be viewed as much as political mediation as a sociological one, a necessary component of an “order of initiatives” that not only identifies the targeted population, but also proposes an interpretation of the public space in which the cultural institution is implicated’ (Banaccorsi 2012: 25). The role of TV audiences in creating discourses and their overall practice of turning playful in relation to media helps reveal the potential of the non-public. This consideration of audiences as non-public is an attempt to subvert the dominant trend of downplaying and undermining mediated public as partial public or proto-public and not acknowledging as it as full public or political public. As Dayan (2005a, 2005b) points out, the mediated public (audiences) remains invisible until a systematic investigation is initiated. The television public can be politically influential and socially impactful regardless of their categorization as public or non-public. The preceding discussion flags an interactive dynamic among media, politics and the public that requires deeper scrutiny into South Asian mediascapes.

Notes 1 For details see, BBC, “Clashes Over Bangladesh Protest Leave 27 Dead”, BBC News Asia, 6 May 2013. Available at www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-22423815 (last accessed 5 October 2020). 2 Scholarly interventions to understand the complexity of photographs and the making of visuals are helpful in understanding the problematic of videography. John Tagg’s The Burden of Representation (1988), Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida (1981), Christopher Pinney’s Photography and Anthropology (2011) and Susan Sontag’s On Photography (1990 [1977]) remain insightful to comprehend the complexities to a great extent. 3 See, bdnews24.com, “Talk Shows Just Sour: Hasina (News Report)”, bdnews24. com, 1 October 2011. Available at https://bdnews24.com/politics/2011/10/01/talkshows-just-sour-hasina; bdnews24.com, “PM Censures Media for ‘Bogus’ News (News Report)”, bdnews24.com, 2 June 2012. Available at https://bdnews24.com/ politics/2012/06/02/pm-censures-media-for-bogus-news (last accessed 28 May 2018). 4 Some parts of the discussion in this section have previously appeared in Ratan Kumar Roy, 2020, ‘Emergence of a “New Public Sphere” in Bangladesh: The Interactive Dynamics between News Television, Citizens and the State’, Visual Studies, Vol. 35 (1): 65–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2020.1731323, and are reproduced with permission. 5 Habermas argues for a normative crux for the communicative actions where the citizens are able to participate and deliberate in the rational and democratic system.

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6

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In The Structural Transformation of Public Sphere (1989), he illustrates a decline (or transformation) of the bourgeois public sphere that was formed in seventeenthand eighteenth-century Europe based on the critical and rational dialogues. He has been critical of the state’s manipulation of media and communication to corrupt the public sphere. Precisely the normative ground for Habermas’s conception of the public sphere acquires a rationalization of power and authority (Benson 2009; Eley and Calhoun 1992). In discursive spaces, a rational communication needs to be carried on among sincere and critical individuals. The discursive equality can be achieved by gaining the autonomy from the state and corporates (see Habermas 1989, 1992; Susen 2011). Daniel Dayan himself offered that clue to engage with the viewers and their discussion in relation to television, saying, ‘It is not, therefore, in front of television sets that we have to go for looking publics’ (2001: 757). The conversations among the viewers are crucial in a given context and eventually form public opinion with due ‘sociability’ and ‘performance’ in relation to the news television (Dayan 2001; Gamson et al. 1992). Couldry et al. observe that ‘the decades-long debate on media and the public sphere has primarily been normative, rather than empirical, in character’ (2009: 28). Further, Wessler and Schultz (2009) raised the need of future research in minimizing the gap between normative knowledge and empirical findings. In the initial days, there were only producers assigned to make all arrangements for broadcasting talk shows; after the news-based channels flourished in the market, the channels began to recruit people for a research unit that could help the news team and talk shows by providing the elements related to public interest and contemporary sociopolitical aspects. Adoption of a singular form of the public sphere proposed by Habermas does not help in this regard. Nancy Fraser (1990, 2007) attempted to rethink the public sphere by inviting readers to examine the merit of multiple publics. It remains helpful to conceptualize the viewing public in multiple locations in this study.

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8 TELEVISION MEDIA CULTURE Hujug and the myth of happenings

The television-as-culture is a crucial part of the social dynamics by which the social structure maintains itself in a constant process of production and reproduction: meaning, popular pleasures, and their circulation are therefore part and parcel of this social structure. —John Fiske, Television Culture (2011 [1987]: 1)

The ethnography of television news making and viewing paves the way to conceptualizing the television media culture in Bangladesh. The exploration of an interactive dynamic between the making and viewing of television news enables us to argue that television media culture is a case of ‘collective dissatisfaction’ and ‘mutual disregard’, some of the argumentative propositions developed in the preceding chapters. However, the ethnographic accounts provide deeper insights about meanings and practices. Hence, the alleged audience’s disenchantment with news television is a little more complex than it appears at the outset. The interface of the news making and news viewing unfolds a set of practices that are the outcomes of collective desires, actions and performances. The collective force of the viewers and producers of television news co-creates social norms and patterns and leads to social transformation. Conceptually this ethnography concentrates on culture and practice. Taking a cue from Sherry Ortner (2006), it critically engages with social practice theory, which unfolds the role of social subject (agency) and structure (the world). Practice is a central key that constitutes both agency and the world. While concentrating on culture, practice and the processes of reproduction, the interplay between agency, power and history becomes crucial. In order to comprehend the process of shaping agency and its response to the structure, Bourdieu (2005) emphasized the concept of field. According to him, through the concept of field one can make sense of the scientific construction of social objects. Bourdieu also provides insight about the journalistic field that, in his term, is subjected to the market trial. For

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him, television has a de facto monopoly on public imagination. The present study does not undermine the commercial and ideological aspect of media. But it opts for a wider lens to concentrate more on the everydayness of communication practice. It builds the conceptual ground by exploring the transformations in the social settings on the one hand and media practices on the other. The previous chapters presented evidence of possible interaction between the television media and its viewers. The impetus of social anthropology to understand the interrelation between the individual and society made the central ground to focus on media, culture and society. If we are to understand media as an extension of man and particularly television as a medium in transition, first we have to focus on the manifold psychic and social consequences and then attempt to examine the complex sociocultural practices in relation to media. McLuhan (1964) attempted to understand media as extension of man that helped in shaping and formatting the human relation and association in society. Williams’s (1974) consideration of television as a modern technological and cultural form remains significant in understanding the dynamic between public perception and broadcast transmission. To extend the knowledge of television in the contemporary world, Ouellette (2013) viewed television as a medium of transition that passed through some major historical phases. For instance, in the context of the United States, the development of the cultural form of television has been explored at three conjunctures: mass television (1940s–1970s), niche television (1970s–1990s) and post-television (2000s–present). Bangladesh lacks serious scholarly engagement in mapping the public culture and television while scholarship on South Asian television media culture remains neglected in the serious disciplinary domains (Punathambekar and Kumar 2014). Scholars have been operating with multiple cursors to locate the emergence and development of television in South Asia: from modernity to nation building, post-colonial agenda to neoliberal aspiration, public service broadcasting to aspects of public culture, state control to marketdriven production, developmentalist orientation to participatory approach. Within the complex trope, the challenge has been to locate the cultural resources television has provided to the public and the social forces that have evolved to structure public life in South Asia (Punathambekar and Kumar 2014). Anthropological intervention in media is primarily grounded in understanding the local and making sense of social dynamics. Multiple factors of socioeconomic and politico-cultural developments are interrelated with the rise of satellite television, ranging from privatization to new market and labour expansion to cross-border and cross-cultural sharing. To unravel that new social configuration against the backdrop of television news making and audiences’ viewing culture of Bangladesh, this chapter presents significant perspectives drawn from the empirical intervention. 184

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Interactive dynamic between making and viewing The guiding question in this ethnographic inquiry is not simply what news means to everyone; instead, it is what everyone does with the news or televised content (Bird 2003, 2010). Depending on the socioeconomic backgrounds of the subjects, there are variations in patterns, habituation of consuming news and reflecting upon it. The hermeneutics of viewers’ engagement with television media challenge the dominant role of media texts (content). Conventionally, media power has been imagined as a vital scheme in understanding the mediated society. Television has been considered an institutional and technological force with a potential impact on the sociocultural world. But this book, based on ethnographic insights, offers something more than the linear progression of the producing, circulating and receiving activities of media communication and technology. It questions the dominant role of media manipulation to go unchallenged because it is not a simple case of media saturation. Rather, in the case of Bangladesh, the viewing of television news unfolds a very complex set of social practices. The manifold ways of engaging with television, from representations to making sense, indicate a distinct nature of viewership. This viewership is an expression of the cultural taste and desires of the nation. Nevertheless, the institutional force of media often tends to dispute the demands, choices and taste of the viewers and thus deems it fit to control and channelize the viewership. Television professionals perceive the viewers as ‘mindless’ and ‘tasteless’. The colloquial phrase they often use to depict viewers is gulli maren dorshoker, meaning ‘audiences are useless, just forget about them’. This attitude underlines a possible gap between the two interactive domains of receiver and sender. In the view of journalists, the audiences are unable to differentiate between the good and the bad and sometimes prefer obscene material on TV. In this context the media professionals consider themselves as responsible authorities to decide for the viewers and feed them ‘consumable’ content. This tendency of taking responsibility on behalf of the viewers is evidently common at the site of news making. It gives an impression that there is an all-encompassing power exercised by media production with the producers in the dominating role. This also leads to an understanding of media producers’ supremacy and authority in selection of content, circulation of selected content and reproduction of ideologies. Overall, the hegemony of media representation appeared as a dominant category. This impression of power and supremacy becomes more vivid when journalists often express that the viewers don’t have the capacity to judge. This power and supremacy of journalists appears irreversible when they think audiences are not literate enough to be critical. But the present ethnographic engagement and in-depth study of the viewers and producers of Bangladeshi news channels enables seeing beyond this power-impact formula. Instead of applying the

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power-hegemony framework, this study found it imperative to identify the case as a ‘gap in understanding’ (or ephemeral miscommunication). Chapter 5 provided various cases and instances of journalistic perceptions about the audience. There are many sociopolitical undercurrents of the media professionals’ disregard for viewers, but primarily it is derived from two major sources inherent in the profession of journalism. The first is their experience of working in the media world and closely handling the content and media objects. The skill and knowledge of the journalistic field prompt them to conceive a viewpoint that viewers are ‘ignorant’ and ‘worthless’. Second, their access to information and connection with the information sources enable them to undermine the viewers’ perspective, which in turn makes them feel superior. Journalists are assigned to collect first-hand information from the state machineries and other sources and to disseminate that for the general public. This professional position and perceived superiority help them in constructing a notion about the influence of media on viewers. But the viewers also hold the power of responding back to the media productions by denouncing the validity of the information, pointing out the superficiality of the content and simply shifting their viewership. Therefore, this study concentrates on the interface between viewership and television media production. Metaphorically, the news-based television media culture in Bangladesh can be seen as a plain bridge of interaction. At times some of the slabs might be missing, creating a gap, but it is not simply a one-way road to televised media content. The moment one tries to turn it into a one-way communication by abandoning the bridge, or if the bridge is damaged, television loses its viewers. Thus, to succeed in the media world with a successful media communication, one has to always take care of the bridge and renovate it from time to time if it’s is visibly affected. This point of interaction between the viewers and the television media producers owes to a certain sociopolitical backdrop.

Operation hujug: collective endeavour for hype and rumours The efforts of television journalists and viewers to contribute to the trend of social movement and mobilization in the contemporary sociopolitical landscape of Bangladesh are remarkable, as revealed in Chapter 6. There is also a common trend among the television media participants to endorse and accelerate the rumours to a great extent. They do so by participating in gossips and living with the hype. The proliferation of Chinese whispers, gully banters and informal-freewheeling chitchats plays a significant role in the media practice. Such are the building blocks that aid in crafting stories. The nature of rumours that circulate around the news television practice is distinct in the case of Bangladesh. This trend is known in the vernacular 186

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language as hujug, which literally means rumour. But the usage is actually meant to express hype. In the context of television news, it can be better understood as mania or craze for a certain issue that guides media circulation. The actual word for rumour in Bangla is gujob. In a broader sense, such televised materials as characterized by gujob and hujug come closer to what we know as fake news. However, one has to see the concrete process and practice underlying the construction of fake news, which could help in understanding the nature and scope of the alleged fakeness, so to say! According to the media practitioners in Bangladesh, the news channels often tend to put the viewers into a hujug by creating content that popularizes a hoax piece of information or adds different shades to a particular news story. In other words, there could be a true story that requires a presentation, style and construction that may have nothing to do with truth. At times, a news story may be entirely untrue in the sense that it may not have a correspondence with reality. However, due to the way it is presented, it may appear true. There are two clear reasons behind the tendency of creating such rage. One is to gain publicity by attracting viewers. The second is the inadequacy of content for 24/7 news broadcasting. According to some media critics, the 24/7 news channels are not creative enough to bring out new content and hence end up endorsing rumours or fake news. Some also complain about the excessiveness of the news-based television channels. Due to the lack of skilled and competent manpower, the TV media industry is grappling with quality control. The television journalists, however, do not agree with that claim. They believe the increase in news-based broadcasting channels has enabled a democratic practice and made the market more competitive. However, it cannot be denied that soon after the arrival of news-based private channels, the competition was no longer fair; it had instead taken a vicious shape. The race to become the first to break a story and flash the breaking news on a highlighted band with a red-coloured pop-up on the screen led the 24/7 news channels into this ‘ugly’ practice. Some of the leading journalists of the news channels in Bangladesh expressed their discomfort with this craze. According to the media participants, the trend of breaking news used to have value, but this has declined over the years. Now anything and everything can become breaking news for television channels that fail to distinguish between news of quality and usual news that is portrayed as ‘breaking’. One channel blindly follows the other ones. One newsroom suddenly turns overactive as the editors in charge become hyper after seeing breaking news on the screen of other TV channels. There have been several cases when the newsroom kept pressuring and overpowering reporters to deliver breaking news as a response to other channels. According to the reporters who were present on the spot when they got a call from their office to deliver breaking news, some channels flashed the news without verification or confirmation. The competition between the various channels forces the newsroom editors and the in-charge to get hyped by the 187

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unauthentic breaking news and start pressuring the reporters on the ground. This practice leads to a trend of delivering hearsay and unverified news to the office due to the mindset of broadcasting the news first. Furthermore, the idea of hujug cannot be fully captured by the term rumours but rather refers to a trend on the television news by which the media participants get hyper and carried away. It creates a condition where a particular story can become so overwhelming that it controls the media circulation. Sometimes it is news about the rape or killing of a child and sometimes a husband killing his wife or vice versa. The viewers contribute to this mania by delivering stories to the news channels from time to time. The news-making people also keep creating hujug, one after another, by highlighting particular news as crucial at a certain point of time, and preferring something else at other times. Hence, it is not pertinent to associate the factor of hujug with a generic understanding of rumour that is commonly considered fake news (gujob in Bangla). Rather, the hujug that accelerates the news television in Bangladesh can be best understood as Rabindranath Tagore defined it (Tagore 2005 [1909]). In Tagore’s (2005 [1909]) view, four basics are needed for something to be defined as hujug.1 Primarily it has to be a subject that might not be deep but is extremely flashy; second, it has to be associated with dancing and making one dance. Third, hujug requires the involvement of the masses and collective tumult; it cannot be attained by a single person. The fourth principle is more than spreading news, it is creating a hype and sensation; it is not necessary how crucial the fact is. In the context of news making, it can be considered a trend of taking up a particular event and shading it with multiple colours that might not have depth as such. The practice of harping on the same event constantly and getting hyper while making the viewers also go crazy is like dancing and making others dance. The operating of hujug helps create a climate of significance even when there is none. In one instance, when earthquake-related news came on TV to inform about some affected buildings in the city, viewers began calling the channels claiming to have found more tilted buildings in their vicinities. However, it was found that those buildings were affected due to construction-related faults, not an earthquake, but the news inspired viewers to call the television reporters. Overall, satellite television news succeeds through a combination of liveliness, sensation and the way news is presented, thus making hujug an inherent component of the media culture. Television news has to create sensation every time and keep alive a particular event in order to sustain the hype. Therefore, liveliness and newness are crucial. The viewers also add to the trend by keeping the talk going about and around the topic that is opted for the making of hujug. The age-old proverb Hujuge Banglai (Bengalis go by the hype) fits into the television news media culture where the news-making professionals and the viewers collectively promote and persist the hujug. The events and incidents appear on television 188

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news in an episodic way in a never-ending continuum. The attack on minority Buddhists follows the social movement (in 2012),2 the building collapse follows the workers’ protest (in 2013), political unrest follows crime and killing (in 2013–2015), the atrocity against Hindu minorities follows the terrorist threat (in 2015–2016), the Islamic terrorist attack follows the anti-terror operation (in 2016–2017), corruption follows the arrest rage (in 2016–2018), the question paper leak follows unrest in the education system (2017–2018). One cannot say that things do not happen in the real world, but the focus of television news is to present events in an animated way, maintaining a proper sequence that creates a vibe of sequential and episodic circumstances in the sociopolitical world. For instance, if a murder case has been reported to the newsroom, the news-making people try to explore one or two similar kinds of incidents, which otherwise might not have been pursued, and classify them together to create a headline. Similarly, if a minority village has been attacked by hooligans, the newsroom tries to explore news with similar elements. The news channels attempt to build a sequence of events that would be accompanied by protest mobilizations, reactions and actions by different groups and the government. This classification, combining and collecting supporting news for a particular event, is a vital practice in the television newsroom. It is associated with the effort of finding the best stories, selecting the headlines and picking the hot news of the day at a news-based television channel. A particular event or issue is factual, maybe it has always been, but television gives an extra-ordinariness to the event. TV professionals make some news content burning by adding a momentous with or without a clear intention. For example, the issue of child marriage has always been a case with some statistical rise and fall. If a television channel takes it up as an agenda for the day, they try to present some related news stories, connecting relevant speakers on the live show, and at night they have a dedicated talk show on the same. This effort by television news channels to craft top news with special preference and present it with sensation and significance has been aided by the liveliness and now-ness of the broadcast media. A host of perspectives are involved in making sense of this process and practice. Bignell (2010) provides insight about the temporality and presenttense reality of television media in relation with the visual representation of facts. This visuality along with the linguistic deliberation in the presenttense form enables the medium to create feelings of ‘current-ness’. Further, taking a cue from Henri Bergson, Herren (2007: 13) refers to the ‘television’s capacity to make the dead seem “live”’. Jeffrey Sconce associated it with the ghostly nature of television broadcasting by examining how the entities appeared with visible form but not having any material substance (2000: 126). More aptly, Bignell argued that ‘its metaphysics of presence is predicted on absence’ because ‘what television shows is necessarily something that is elsewhere, and which has already taken place’ (2010: 126). The events and incidents of rape, child killing, atrocities, corruption, political 189

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unrest, protest, terrors and many other sociopolitical, religious and cultural issues are taking place in society. But the animated representation of the events in a sequential manner and the added significance in television news not only makes the incidents ‘current’ but also ‘lively’ and ‘pressing’ to society. The viewing culture enables the ‘elsewhere-ness’ of television news to alter into the ‘here and now-ness’. Viewers absorb the television content and constitute diverse discourses in the way of contributing to the hujug and participating in the hype. They justify the present-ness, significance and liveliness of news content through the viewing practice. They are the real agents with the special capacity of giving rebirth to dead events. The reincarnation of events takes place in the viewing process where the audiences take the content from the television screen and give a social meaning to it. An incident takes place in the real world somewhere else and sometime in the past, but television news brings it to the present through the technological and cultural process of synthesizing the visuals and storytelling to make it alive and important. But the reincarnation process is not yet complete. Manufacturing and representing the events on the television screen does not complete the process of giving a new life to the ‘already occurred’ fact. It only becomes successful when audiences watch, discuss and utilize it. And that is why it is important to consider what viewers do with television viewing and television news. This ethnographic exploration found that viewers from distant towns were excited and started talking among themselves while watching a television news story about an earthquake in Dhaka. As mentioned in an earlier chapter, after watching television news about political conflict and violence in the capital city, a mother from a small village called her son who was studying there. The clash took place on a certain day and the news had been broadcast that particular evening, but the mother, as a viewer of TV news broadcasting the event, gave social life to that news by talking about it, sharing her anxiety with the family members and neighbours and calling her son every other evening to ensure his safety. Giving social life to a news story can also be comprehended by the incident of Jihad falling into a deep tube well and the rescue operation that not only took away the sleep of thousands of viewer but also caused female viewers to become cautious about abandoned drains and holes in their vicinities. They became vigilant about their schoolchildren. However, it is not necessary for viewers to take an action-oriented step; they can contribute to making a news story meaningful and significant and ensuring its now-ness by initiating a discussion and sharing it in their everyday social world.

Media rituals: social practices and the myth of happenings The larger practice of hujug sustains a somewhat mythicized version of newsworthy incidents – in Bengali terminology, ‘happenings’. Everyone in 190

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Bangladesh seems to greet with an exclamatory curiosity, such as ‘What is happening?’ (Khobor Ki?/Ki Hocche?/Ki Ghotona?). This is a confluence of culture and practice whereby folks ask not for mere events and incidents. Instead, they aspire to elicit from each other something in the currency of gossip, rumours or informal and emoted discussions. Incidentally, Bengali ‘happenings’ coincide with television news content. The qualitative depth and cultural meaning of such a condition can be understood by engaging with Fredric Jameson, who indicates a ‘cultural turn’ in examining the media in the context of late consumer capitalism. The disappearance of a sense of history is the deeper logic of this late consumer capital that helps one slowly forget the past and live in a perpetual present. According to Jameson, ‘The informational function of the media would thus be to help us forget, to serve as the very agent and mechanisms for our historical amnesia’ (1998: 20). He also indicates that overexpanding television media has been married to the capital market. He claims that it is imperative to state that cultural production and consumption cannot be separated from the larger commodity system and the economy of late capitalism, but there is a need to involve the realm of cultural production in order to comprehend finance capital. Elsewhere Jameson (1991: 71) refers to boredom, a recurrent issue the present investigation encountered among the viewers of television news. In Jameson’s view, boredom, a minor reaction of viewers to televisuals, can be credited as ‘defense mechanism or avoidance behavior’ that was not taken seriously by the Freudian or Marxist traditions (Jameson 1991). To understand the niches of cultural practices and actions towards television viewing, one has to bring out a comprehensive and micro-macro framework that can accommodate top-down and bottom-up approaches together. Social practice theory comes in handy in order to develop a micro-macro framework. The social practice theory provides a conceptual ground to understand the ‘production of social subjects through practice in the world, and of the production of the world itself through practice’ (Ortner 2006: 16). The television news-making practice and viewing culture has provided ample elements to comprehend the dialectic relations between social structure and agency.3 It is pertinent to argue that the television as a form – its representation and systems of manipulation – is not a unique structure where the viewing process simply feeds into and helps in reproducing the dominant forms. Instead, it is the practices of the viewers and the television professionals in a given cultural context that are collectively at work in shaping the structure of the media system. However, in theorizing media as practice, Nick Couldry proposed to opt for a wider lens that can capture, along with culture, the ‘whole range of practices in which media consumption and media-related talk is embedded’ (2004: 121). In order to theorize media as a practice, it is imperative to ask, ‘What range of practices are oriented to media and what is the role of media-oriented practices in ordering the other 191

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practices?’ (Couldry 2004: 129) The advent of 24/7 news television in Bangladesh, the ever-buzzing live feeds from the spot and the viewing culture in different locations show not only a transformation in people’s everyday lives but also negotiation and modification in the web of media production. The pertinent questions to be raised in this wake are: How does television as a widely rendered media in the county contribute to the social system. How do the practices of making and viewing television news complicate the social order? After the arrival of 24/7 news television, is there any kind of change in framing and patterning the actions of the media participants? All these questions urge us to apply the perspective of ‘media rituals’ in deciphering this link between media and the social order. According to Roy Rappaport (1999: 24, cited in Couldry 2004), ritual is ‘the performance of more or less invariant sequence of formal acts and utterance not entirely encoded by the performers’. In classic anthropology, framing and patterning of action are considered significant components of conceptualizing ritual.4 Couldry develops the concept of media ritual by pointing at the actions (what people do in relation to media) rather than the ideas (text). He defines media rituals as the ‘formalized actions organized around key media-related categories or patterns’ (2004: 25). It remains a challenge for anthropologists to make a connection between media rituals and the social world. Couldry found media rituals as a key to unlock the structured patterns of media (society) where we live and that we accept (reject as well, as the present research unearthed among the viewers of television) on everyday basis. As he argues, if, for Durkheim (1995), the totem is the perpetual force for social life, then today, television is also the ‘abiding element of social life’ and through the actions and practices of television ‘we are connected every day to the wider social world’ (2004: 7). Towards this, he provides clue as to how media rituals, through a framing process, add social significance to media celebrities and create the social categories of ‘people in media’ and ‘people not in media’ (Couldry 2004: 27). Nevertheless, he did not provide any empirical evidence to elaborate these categories (Couldry 2004: 147). The previous chapters presented the trend of making such distinction and reinforcing the special status that ‘people in media’ are ‘something more (special)’ than the ordinary. This special attention is not only applicable to media personalities (individuals), it is true for the facts and events from the social settings we live in. It is a process of making things central to social life. In order to comprehend that process, we need to extend the critical aspect of media rituals developed by Couldry, which concentrated on the ‘the myth of mediated centre’, with empirical elements. It is a prominent centre of our social system. Media-related factors bolster and validate the centralization process. Media’s mystification is closely linked to that centralization process, and thus the overall media practices add a powerful dimension to frame the centre. The present study unearths the process of how television media generates 192

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discourses and develops categories (media content). For instance, a child falling into a pond or some abandoned hole and dying can never become a crucial case until the media takes it up and adds sensation to the whole story. Many such events have been taken up by the television channels and thus gained importance. All of a sudden, the channels started taking child-killing cases seriously, and it became a buzzing issue. Road accidents are common in the country and have led to various social and public concerns. But it is only when television media picks up these issues, presents them with special attention, arranges talk shows around them and adds analytic reports that these issues gain prominence. Eventually it appears that road accidents are increasingly dangerous in the country, as if this is something new! This is one way for the media to obtain the ‘centre’ – by validating some social events and issues as central and pivotal. The occurrence in the real world is not sufficient to be noticed unless it is projected on television. Another way to comprehend the myth of a mediated centre is related to the people and the social acts they present on television to be promoted into the centre. An example might help in deciphering this point. Popular Dhallywood actress Apu Biswas appeared on a television live show on 10 April 2017 and revealed that she is married to co-actor Shakib Khan.5 The duo had dominated the silver screen of the country for a long time. She also disclosed that they have a baby boy and that Shakib Khan is not agreeing to take responsibly as a husband and father even though they have been married since 2008. The news spread like wildfire and soon became a sensation, not only in the domain of media but also in the realm of social life. The decision of Apu Biswas to appear on a 24/7 news channel and reveal her conjugal crisis, and in response Shakib Khan coming on TV shows to state his position, aptly indicates the power of media in the larger social structure forcing it towards the centre, hence legitimizing the central role of media. This legitimization process of establishing the media as the centre of the social system has been continued by many other sociopolitical practices and the engagement of viewers (media participants in general and social agents in conception). Here, too, we can see the collective attempts by the audiences and news-making professionals to legitimize media as the core of the social system. On one hand, the audiences opt for television channels to get information about the most crucial happenings at the national and international levels. On the other hand, TV journalists engage in capturing all aspects of social life and transmitting them through the screen. Hence, taking the context of making and viewing culture in relation to round-theclock news channels in Bangladesh, I argue that there is a new myth that persists in the media rituals – the myth of happenings. This myth makes us believe that an event, accident or occurrence is for real since TV depicts it. The practices and actions in relation to television news viewing and commenting, getting hyper and living with sensation, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a routinized action of collecting, formatting and 193

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representing every bit of socioeconomic and religio-political issues in news bulletins, creates a persistent truth to be lived and believed – happenings. The media-based social collectivities are shaped and transformed around the myth of happenings. Looking at the everyday lives of the professionals of news channels, it is evident that they have internalized a pattern of living with the quasi-metaphysical charm of happenings in the society, ranging from a local quarrel to a major change in national policy. It has become so integral to their existence that they develop a feelings of belonging into the plethora of nicely packaged presentations of events as seemingly more than events – ‘happenings’. In turn, the everyday life of the viewers of television news is marked by the enchantment and abundance of ‘happenings’, and at due intervals they like to switch on the television or ask other viewers about ‘what all is happening’. The answer is not just another event; it is a particular variety of incidents that are capable of becoming news.

Conclusion: the cultural logic of media practices The privatized satellite news media and their corporate culture prompt consideration of the political economy of media in Bangladesh. The aspects of political economy remain significant in exploring the public and popular culture in relation to media (Golding and Murdock 1991; Mosco 1996). Murdock and Golding (2016) replied to Paul Dwyer’s assessment of the ‘poverty of political economy’ to theorize media production. Dwyer (2015) pointed out the limitations of frameworks based on a ‘political economy of communication’ to generate a convincing theory. According to him the political economy of communication has a tendency to overemphasize the role of mass media as the ‘first and foremost industrial and commercial organization which produces and distributes commodities’ (Murdock and Golding 1973: 205 cited in Dwyer 2015: 988–989). The debates between the aforementioned media scholars might have discontinued as Murdock and Golding (2016) reiterated that ‘political economy alone cannot provide the basis for a theory of media production’ (Dwyer 2015: 1000 cited in Murdock and Golding 2016: 768). But this is a never-ending dialogue between media scholars, where one group would prefer to look at the structure and actions of capitalism and the other would emphasize the sociocultural dynamics (Peck 2006). For a productive analysis, it is pertinent to opt for both at once or not place one in opposition to the other.6 Andaleeb and Rahman (2015: 172) indicated a persistent ‘dialectic coexistence of commercialization and social role’ in examining the intersection of market-oriented journalism and perceived credibility of television news in Bangladesh. In order to comprehend the cases and instances examined in the ethnographic investigation, there has been an emphasis on both the aspects of the structure of media institutions and the social dynamics of media practices. However, the core concentration was on the cultural domain of the production and 194

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consumption of media while aiming at locating the cultural logic of mediarelated social practices. Perpetuating a holistic approach to engage with the micro-cultural dynamics, this study reveals the peculiarities and cultural logic of viewing in a particular social context. For instance, in the remote localities of rural Bangladesh, a clear hierarchic composition is maintained by the viewers. The owner of a tiny household cum tea stall conveys a special respect to a certain section of viewers who have come to watch television. This particular site of viewing satellite television is located in a remote village that can be reached by a mud-base road either by walking across the paddy field or bicycling along the rail line. The household where the television is set up is composed of three rooms. Two rooms are in the inner part, and one room is at the outer front of the house. The outer room has been converted into a tea stall, where they allow people to watch television. The television set is installed in the adjacent room, which is located in the inner section, and the screen is directed towards the outer room, making a window-like hole. Different sets of people used to come there and watch television with due attention. From 6 to 9 p.m., the crowd gathered there consisted of mainly the viewers of Indian drama serials. Viewers from all age groups ranging from schoolchildren to the aged people of the village came to watch TV. Hospitality is not offered to everybody who comes there but to a certain group of people whom they consider educated, respectable and influential. The owners used to offer a chair or leave their bed for guests to sit and watch television. People who used to come particularly for watching news bulletins were treated special as it was an indication of their superiority in opposition to those who came to watch soap operas or general entertainment shows. These viewing locations are not only sites of examining social status and hierarchy but also fraught with various localized ways of meaning making. Avid viewers of Indian serials and many other entertainment shows offered through the satellite channels seemed to inhabit a different world. News and current affairs and crucial political and economic developments at the national level do not attract them; instead, they like to continue living in a fantasy world of televisual dramatic sensation. They have particular ways of perceiving things that are capable of denouncing any dominant discourse. For instance, when a left party member stuck a poster with standing Lenin’s image at a viewing site, the viewers perceived it as one of the gods. The viewing location was composed of people of diverse age and gender from mainly Hindu rural areas. On the fence of the room where viewers gather to watch television, a few more posters of Lord Krishna and other Hindu gods and goddesses were displayed. In their primary perception, Lenin had been mistaken as one of the gods (Figure 8.1). It is not hard to estimate that individuals have their own framework of reading towards televisuals, either ‘factual’ news or ‘fictitious’ stories. Cultural orientation and framework of reading a televisual text (content) have 195

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Figure 8.1 In a rural television viewing location, Lenin’s poster is on the wall in alignment with posters of other Hindu deities. Source: Author

to be acknowledged in order to understand the cultural logic of media practices. It requires us to rethink about some of the very basic questions related to practice, action and culture newly (Ortner 1984, 1997). This case of the reading of a poster by a set of rural people might have no pertinent relation to the making and viewing of television. But it reveals that people have their own ways of perceiving things and their worldview empowers them to deploy that agency in depicting and making meaning out of a given text or image because, time and again, they bring their own aspects towards the representations of news, views and other televisuals in television media. Thus, it is pertinent to go back to these cultural locations and capture the logic behind their social practices. In the broader aspect, it helps make sense of the interplay between agency and structure. If one argues that there is a distinct cultural logic of localized media practices, there must be a historical trajectory of that practice. The claim for a ‘local’ has to also acknowledge its inherent and practical limitations as it is a category constituted by internal and external politics. One has to understand the process of localizations with its conditions of mobility and 196

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globalized fluidity. In the age of global cultural flow, the viewers of television have gained a quality of multiple dwelling, which in Scannell’s view is ‘possibilities of being: of being in two places at once’ (1996: 91). How is the consumption of WWE in the locations of public viewing at an exclusively Bengali-speaking sociolinguistic setting local in nature? How long can the global character of a National Geography documentary sustain interest with its global feature when its Bengali-dubbed version is widely watched by local viewers? These questions remain significant in dealing with the categories of globalization vis-à-vis the localization. Suffice it to say that the framework of television media culture indicates a comprehensive hybridity in the trend and fluidity of the practice. To put it in other words, the local is not an intact category; rather, it is liberal when the globalized forms are not dominant and daunting. It is also not a sudden addiction of the local viewers towards ‘alien’ wrestling television game shows. For instance, boxing shows on a fuzzy-screened television were the central point of attraction during the initial days for the viewers of TV in Nilphamari. Those days, the stations aired boxing matches featuring Muhammad Ali, a heavyweight champion of the 1960s and 1970s. Boxer Ali’s popularity was so high among the viewers that the then president of Bangladesh invited him to Bangladesh and offered him citizenship with a passport. Upon his arrival in 1978, Bangladesh Television (BTV) widely telecast the symbolic boxing match between Muhammad Ali and a 12-year-old local boxer along with other activities.7 The viewers who remember the arrival of television in Bangladesh have mentioned the boxing of Muhammad Ali without any extra effort of recall. Taking into consideration the evidence of viewing familiarity with boxing in the early age of television in the country, the avidity towards wrestling shows among audiences today in a localized context should not be considered an abrupt and ahistorical social (media) event. Similar historical trajectories can be drawn in relation to the mediated social movements in Bangladesh. The symbolic expressions and actions of the protestors on the streets have been captured and telecast reasonably by the news-based channels. Clues for expression and symbolic articulation are present in the history of social movements. For instance, the visual appeal of Nur Hossain’s protest for democracy in 1987 against the autocratic ruler remained powerful and popular among the protestors and politically active individuals of Bangladesh. Nur Hossain, a political activist, was shot dead by the police while protesting in Dhaka’s street with the slogans ‘Down with Autocracy’ written on his chest and ‘Let Democracy be Free’ on his back. With the arrival of television media and its association with the protest movements, similar protest elements have multiplied and repeatedly reappeared. This is to suggest that the arrival of news-based television in the country has made the political field more vibrant at the site of audiences’ viewing as people get to engage with political details in everyday social life. 197

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After politics, the prime television content is violence and suspense, which are also part of the Bangladeshi version of political culture. The volatile political culture, which is composed of strikes, fires, bombings, arrests, attacks and battles between the rivalling forces or between the police and protestors, is at the top of the news content for television. The most vital and explicit visuals are highly appreciated and featured by the channels, which term them ‘money shots’. The viewers are not interested in political news that is without tension, violent political protest and suspense. When the political environment is stable and calm, the news-making professionals try to find alternative content that can suffice for the lack. The alternative content is filled with suspenseful news, sensational stories, mysterious murders and killings, deadly accidents and vendetta and so on. Viewers’ persistent preferences for sensational issues and events, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, television professionals’ effort to deliver attractive visuals and exciting analysis, are crucial for television media culture. The cultural logic of making and viewing television news thus sustains an interface of media professionals and viewers and accelerates television media practices.

Notes 1 In his essays on phonetics (1909), Tagore tried to find a considerable definition of the vernacular term hujug. The version discussed was been translated by the author from the original text in Bengali. 2 After the attack on Buddhist monasteries in Ramu (Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh), there was a social protest in Dhaka to condemn the violence. 3 In Ortner’s view, this theory is capable of unearthing the ‘dialectical synthesis of the opposition between “structure” (or the social world as constitute) and “agency” (or the interested practice of the real people)’ (2006: 16). 4 Following Durkheim (1912), many anthropologists, including Goffman (1975), Victor Turner (1977), Mary Douglas (1984), emphasized framing as an integral component of ritual action. 5 See, The Daily Star. “I Married Shakib Khan in 2008, Reveals Apu Biswas, Shakib to Accept Son, Not Apu – TV interview (Staff Correspondent)”, The Daily Star, 12 April 2017. Available at www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/shakib-khan-marriedme-1389424 (last accessed 22 April 2018). 6 Moreover, in a recent deliberation, Graham Murdock highlights this misconception of considering political economy of media as a distinct from of analysis in opposition to cultural aspects and vice versa. He also emphasizes the need of ethnographic engagement to develop a holistic understanding of media culture, politics, systems and practices. Keynote address by Graham Murdock at IAMCRIndia Webinar Series on Media and Communication Research, 5 August 2020. 7 Available at The Daily Star,‘Muhammed Ali: A Citizen of Bangladesh,” 9 June 2016, www.thedailystar.net/shout/echoes/muhammad-ali-citizen-bangladesh-1236751 (last accessed 6 January 2018).

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9 CONCLUSION The said, unsaid and yet to be said

News may help to empower and transform – or to oppose and obfuscate. Either way, news and journalism play a significant role in the construction and maintenance of culture at the local and global levels, and anthropologists have a place in interpreting that role. —S. Elizabeth Bird, The Anthropology of News and Journalism (2010: 18)

In the final analysis, news television in Bangladesh deems their audiences to be consumers and citizens at once. As elaborated in the previous chapters of this book, dissemination of information entails ‘happenings’ and hujug. In various formats such as news and talk shows, television journalism undertakes a pedagogic approach to the audiences, chiseling critical citizens out of presumably blind consumers. The story of ups and downs from newsroom to beats of reporting, however, reveal frictions and fragments. This is at both ends, in the process of making and presenting as well as in the viewing of news. Any linear conclusion seems difficult after delving into the ethnography presented in this book. One cannot restrict the audiences under a frozen category of ‘suppressed’ or as blind consumers or supremely ennobled citizens either. Similarly, professionals in the world of news making face admittedly constraints of various kinds. Yet it is not so simple as the total disappearance of the journalists’ agency. Hence, the impact-influence model of examining television media appears invalid in the context of television in Bangladesh. The approach to conceptualize the television media culture in the context of news making and audience viewing, on the other hand, enables engagement with the local texts and contexts, forms and performative, medium and messages, production and consumption and so on. The book elaborates on the forms and processes of mass media’s contribution to the social system in the wake of the television news practices of Bangladesh. In doing so, there has been a consideration of media, culture and society as the unit of study in the anthropology of mass media. 199

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Given the thickness of thick descriptions, arguments and analysis in the book, drawing a finite conclusion becomes a challenge. Yet, to conclude, it is imperative to say what remained largely unsaid due to the predominance of what was said in the chapters. The conclusion is a modest way forward, in a succinct sense, in developing an anthropology of mass media that can see not only the interrelation between news television and people but also between television and democracy. Of course, this will be fraught with reiteration of some of the major themes and understandings that emerged in this book. In this way, the concluding discussion puts the subtexts in the foreground without losing sight of the texts riddled with footnotes.

Democracy and politics of TV news This ethnographic study explored the layers of interactions of the viewers with television news that engender a dynamic media culture. As a mere commodity, television news might be unable to disseminate objective and factual information for the masses. But it can still be credited with ensuring the discursive possibilities in a progressive democracy. On some other occasion, it would be worthwhile to judge whether the democracy of Bangladesh is progressive or regressive. The news broadcasting media and its politics, however, allow us to comprehend the features of transformative democracy.1 To make the concept of transformative democracy explicit here, I refer to Mark Warren (1996), who precisely argued for three interrelated possibilities in this regard. Democracy transforms the relational exhaustiveness and provides a new social ground; it cultivates autonomy in individuals and develops the institutional authority, which is pluralized in nature (Warren 1996: 254). To another social thinker, Ulrich Beck (2000a), the key question for the paradigm of the second age of modernity is not the transformation of democracy but ‘what transformations do society and politics undergo in the course of the transition from national to cosmopolitan society and politics?’ (Beck 2000a: 91). From the year 2000, the television media of Bangladesh has entered into a new era of broadcasting news programmes on private channels, popularly conceived as ‘news and current affairs’. One could consider this particular turn in media advancement either as usual or as a ‘cutting edge’ event for the media industry. However, it becomes an influential as well as an extraordinary transition only if situated into the complex political and socioeconomic development. There is a growing concern of television media turning into an industry rather than a service and extending its promise towards commercial profit maximization. Thus it is pertinent to assess television journalism’s ‘foundational pillar of democracy’ (Curren 2011). Moreover, there might be varied understandings of democracy, including what the American writer and cultural critic H. L. Mencken believed: ‘Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage’ (1949: 621). Some media-pessimistic 200

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cultural critics may echo Mencken and say television is the technological and cultural mechanism of making people go crazy with the ‘idiot box’ (Alam 2013). The pioneer TV personality of Bangladesh, Mustafa Monwar, once termed TV the ‘box of pleasure’ in reference to the magical box while today it has often been considered an ‘idiot box’ (Sagor 2014). Nevertheless, alternative viewpoints acknowledge the constructive role of television and perceive it as the box of development.2 The present book offers a fresh perspective to see the transformative role of television as it has aided in the multiplicity of the protest mobilizations and participated in political civic lives. Hence, the interrelation of television and democracy in the wake of 24/7 broadcast news culture reveals both the performative nature of the circus from the monkey cage and the multiple conditions of the spectatorship. It should not be forgotten that the spectators have significant ways to interact with the ‘magical-idiot box’. John Fiske, as an alternative viewpoint on television viewing and the process of democratization, revers to ‘television’s semiotic democracy’ (Fiske 2011 [1987]); the semiotic democracy of television enables the viewers to be playful, extract the pleasure and thus open up the discursive possibilities and practices of the viewers. The play and pleasure shall be read in relation to television representation and reception. The popular notion about the mediated world often creates a binary between representation and real that is, for news television, between news (factual) and fiction (fictional). The play is the actions of the viewers to upset the binary and become creative and resistive. To Fiske (2011 [1987]: 238), ‘Power of play involves the power to play with the boundary between the representation and the real’. Pleasure is another sociocultural by-product inherent in the media culture because television is a ‘producerly medium’ that essentially depends on its viewers to produce diverse meanings rather than the limited meaning given by the news-making people (Fiske 2011 [1987]: 241). As Fiske continues, A better explanation of the pleasures of television lies in understanding it as a text of contestation which contains forces of closure and of openness and which allows viewers to make meanings that are subculturally pertinent to them, but which are made in resistance to the forces of closure in the text, just as their subcultural identity is maintained in resistance to the ideological forces of homogenization. Fiske (2011 [1987]: 238) The television media can produce playful pleasure and centralized pleasure. The playful one is active pleasure, and the centralized one is conformist; thus, playful pleasure enables more democracy, heterogeneity, multiplicity and divergence in power. This playfulness of television is considered the sign of semiotic democracy that allows the media participants to produce diverse 201

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meanings and the viewers to draw pleasure. This is not farfetched in the character of the television media culture of Bangladesh and thus uses the discursive power of meaning making, which involves television producers and audiences. The concept of democracy may be ‘customary’ or ‘ritual’ for the people and polity. In practice, it consists of a complex connotation in both the mainstream political culture and the socioinstitutional system (Castoriadis 1997). There has been an overwhelming trend of establishing correlation between democracy, polity and economy, arguing ‘democracy is the precondition of development and good governance’ (Repnik and Mohs 1992: 30). This is not merely a theoretical argument of political science, but it also became the political endeavour and a popular anticipation in the context of Bangladesh. Hence the concept of democracy came to be perceived from two points of view: a levelled playing field for all political groups and parties to exercise their activities and a liberal environment in general to reflect the freedom of expression and thoughts. Against this backdrop, the private channels began their journey in the country, as manifest in the history of media. However, the moot question is how democratically the television channels can cover and telecast news while the professionals have complained about the control and everyday interference from the government and regulatory authorities from its inception. Television news media is popularly acknowledged as the fourth pillar of democracy (Mohaiemen 2013; Schultz 1998). But it may frustrate many who would stress the persistent trend of news television where the journalists and newsroom officials are living with the fear of control and the anxiety of getting shut down. Television’s contribution in a flourishing democracy would appear next to nothing if one takes into consideration the conditions in which the media houses are grappling with censorship, maintaining balance, compromising and keeping everyone happy. But consideration of television news media as the key to transformative democracy can enable the discovery of an alternative viewpoint. Keeping in mind the technological aspect and the social response of television news media, the private broadcasting news channels can be favoured as one of the keys for transformative democracy in Bangladesh. Within its limited ability, the television news media reflects an institutional rigour and strength, especially with its capability of audiovisual communication. This assumes private television media is an institutional mechanism that is able to gain ‘trust’ and remain ‘contestable’. This media has played a crucial role in cultivating the autonomy of individuals, which may be considered in terms of the audience’s autonomous choice of perceiving the meaning of televised reports. So, in a political sense, the television news media helped in developing the self-capacity and consciousness of individuals to take decisions and act in their social and political lives (DeLuca and Peeples 2002; Hackett and Carroll 2006). However, as a key to transformative democracy, the news channels played the most important role in generating a new social ground. The examples 202

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of political talk shows and news coverage of the opposition political parties on private channels can support this argument. There had been no debates in the national parliament as the main opposition party started boycotting it in the years preceding the national election in 2014. The volatile political situation and the absence of a main opposition in the election of 2014 made a conversation among the existing political fronts impossible. Political talk shows on television channels generated the platform in that complex climate where the political opponents interacted, debated and confronted each other. On the eve of the national parliamentary election of 2014, the opposition parties declared countrywide resistance by boycotting the election. Their procession, activities and meetings were restricted by the law-enforcement bodies. In that wake, the private channels turned into a way to communicate with fellow party members and people. Live coverage of the statements of the opposition leaders became the source for listening to and watching the actions of that political group. In a performative sense, the ground generated by private channels had served the idea of transformative democracy. The live telecasts of the briefings by opposition leaders in 2013 and 2014 were considered the vital way for citizens to get updates. In the end of December 2013, Khaleda Zia, the then opposition leader, was ‘virtually house arrested’ and delivered a video message to the television channels to broadcast her desire to attend the March for Democracy planned on 29 December same year. The event aimed at generating a large public gathering in Dhaka to force the government to cancel the parliamentary election scheduled on 5 January 2014. On the day of the March for Democracy, Khaleda Zia tried to come out of her house and leave for the party headquarters to address the marchers, but the police restricted her movement at the main gate of her house. That particular event of her conversation with the policewomen and her address to the government and the public was broadcast live on the television channels. The news channels enabled the citizens to get access to the information. But the polling day and post-polling coverage by the channels became questionable and disappointed many viewers. Audiences as well as professionals in the newsroom articulated their discomfort with the pattern of telecasting the parliamentary election news. As the same party continued in power, the television channels had hardly any choice but to entertain their whims and political ambitions. Thus, in recent times, the news channels have become more cautious to telecast public meetings, press briefing and other news coverage of the opposition political parties. The liberty to telecast live events and the speech of the opposition leaders became squeezed in many ways. According to the television journalists, initially there were directions not to telecast the live speeches of Khaleda Zia. Signal jammers have recently been installed by government agents. So, despite a technical arrangement to broadcast from the spot of the journalists, their central office has not been able to live telecast many events. Restrictions of these kinds are certainly not commendable for democratic 203

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practices and thus provide doubt about democratic media spheres. Similar hints of control were evident in the case of the terrorist attack at the Holey Artisan café at Gulshan, Dhaka, in 2016. The newsroom professionals have informed about the restrictions and control they face when covering issues of terrorism, extremism and rescue operations in the post-Gulshan milieu. But this did not necessarily convince audiences to consume what was presented to them. Viewers question this type of news coverage with due criticism, counternarratives and rejection. Their assertions, criticism and rejection in the viewing locations enabled a discursive domain where people could talk, analyze and debate the issues that were no longer mere news items but public discourses with social life. Taking this capability of generating public discourses with sociocultural implications into consideration, it is pertinent to argue that the interactions between viewing and news-making practices can be enabling for a progressive democracy because, as ‘in a progressive democracy, news should stress its discursive constructedness’ (Fiske 2011 [1987]: 310). Further, to resonate with Warren (2002), one should not lose hope for democracy in the wake of television news media culture; however, it is bound to offer paradoxes, and thus it is pertinent to adapt some strategies.3 Given these pros and cons, it is relevant to the complex trope of media culture.

Nature and features of television media culture The combined effort of the viewers and television professionals is evident in making the news lively, important and socially significant. Similarly, their collective dissatisfaction is widely manifested in the media world of Bangladesh. The climate of television media culture is clouded with dissatisfaction, disenchantment and discomfort. The previous chapters have presented the cases and instances of conflict between content presenters and receivers, along with their due complaints against each other. It can also be examined further by deploying the dialectics of interconnections and contradictions. Collective dissatisfaction has remained a central issue with television news culture in Bangladesh. Audiences are bored with repetitive news bulletins while journalists are frustrated with their monotonous professional life. The journalists expect viewers to be sharp, conscious and amenable. In opposition, the viewers expect the news television professionals to be smart, dynamic, explicit and creative. In short, the television news-making people suffer from two major sets of anxieties. One is primarily professional and includes their prosperity, financial stability, job security and journalistic liberty. The second set of discomforts is related to the intellectual and creative realm of journalistic practice where questions of responsibility to the society and the nation and expectations from audiences and stakeholders remain crucial.

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Existential issues underneath professional journalism A return to the existential predicament of professional journalists is a point of consideration. In 2016, this led professionals from all private satellite television channels in Bangladesh to come on a single platform. Under the banner of ‘Media Unity’, they came together and raised their collective complaints against Indian channels. The main worry was an alleged cultural aggression of foreign channels and/or the foreign content dubbed in the local language by the channels, which took away a large number of commercials (ads) from the advertisement agencies. They realized the popularity of Indian serials over local television programmes and demanded a ban on ‘unauthorized’ telecasts of popular Indian channels in Bangladesh. In a protest meeting in November 2016, the owners of all television channels and the leading figures of the broadcasting media of the country asked the regulatory bodies to take immediate action to save the television industry. They wanted an exclusivity of local commercials on local television channels. In the public deliberation, the leaders did not raise any complaints against the taste and preferences of the viewers; instead, they pointed out the role of cable operators and some underground telecasters who, according to them, influenced the viewers to consume the ‘unauthorized’ Indian channels. Some of the leading figures from television channels agreed that the Bangladeshi audiences were overwhelmed by Indian serials and foreign television content. Some of them reflected on the poor quality of the content and the production constraints of Bangladeshi channels. According to them, the content made for Bangladeshi channels was of very low quality, and the television channels were barely able to secure commercials for the locally produced content. The representatives from the news channels believe that top bulletins are telecast in the evening hours when the majority of viewers watch Indian serials, which is why their rating is decreasing. However, there is a tendency in all the channels to prefer the evening bulletins. Hence, the newsroom deploys all its efforts and calibre to make the evening bulletin the best and most complete. The professionals urged rethinking this traditional consideration of counting the evening bulletin as exclusive and significant. In this context, while the owners and television channel officials are suffering from great apprehension over their business and financial stability, the working journalists and TV professionals are experiencing a different type of anxiety and discomfort. Professional stability, issues of success and salary are crucial for working journalists. There has been a competitive media market with the growing arrival of television channels, particularly after the year 2010. Working journalists and broadcast media professionals are able to compare the opportunities to bargain for their salary. Due to an uneven increase in the number of channels in the market and a limited number of skilled professionals, there has been an abnormal hike in the salary structure. Such an unregulated

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trend of privatization led to a haphazard growth of the job sector of television channels. A sudden switch of working people from one media house to another became commonplace, salaries kept fluctuating and the tension among media professionals was prolonged. Every new channel attempted to hire skilled professionals who were already leading an established channel. Hence, they offered an amount two or three times the particular employees’ current salaries so they would leave their jobs and switch. But in many such cases, after switching to a new channel, the employees faced salary cuts and had lost the option to go back to the earlier channel. The overall climate has become so uncertain that people who were not able to switch to a new channel have feeling frustrated. Some found themselves unlucky while others stayed with their respective channels to show their professional liability and expected due rewards. In some cases they neither got an opportunity to switch to a new channel nor a reward in terms of a salary hike from their present channels; thus they have turned into hopeless, fed-up and discouraged professionals. This frustration is often coupled with internal conflicts and interpersonal issues among the employees, officials and superiors in the newsroom. There have also been issues of sexual harassment, professional exploitation and increased workload that are being raised by the professionals engaged in different sections of news making in television. The second type of discomfort of television media people is duly related to the nature of the newsroom and the practice of news making for private satellite channels. There is a growing anxiety among young television journalists regarding the quality and content of the television news reports. A handful of senior journalists also consider the issue very significant for the future of broadcast journalism in Bangladesh. A group of professionals have been highly unhappy with the existing trend of television news making that restricts them from expressing viewpoints and elaborating on the facts. This is primarily due to the default constraints of the time and duration of the television news bulletin that in many ways are subjected to the market and state control. These professionals are also concerned about the responsibility of journalists towards the nation and society that, according to them, has not been able to flourish due to political and commercial control over television media. The third discomfort is towards the audiences who, according to them, are not readily literate, critical and conscious. The viewers are not ready to withdraw themselves from contributing to the hujug and are not prepared to demand their stake. Hence, the journalists become more frustrated and unsympathetic towards audiences. Journalistic autonomy: a contested feature Issues of professional success and concerns of journalistic creativity are sourced from a common ground that pertains to constraints, control and 206

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censorship in the field of journalism. It is imperative to engage with Bourdieu’s journalistic field to comprehend the internal dynamics of control and censorship (Benson and Neveu 2005). In On Television (1998) and elsewhere, he discusses the immediacy to understand the degree of autonomy. Bourdieu (2005) claims, Journalism, increasingly dominated by commercial values, expanding its domination over other fields. In other words, journalism is tending to strengthen the most heteronomous zone in each of the fields – scientific, legal, philosophical etc. . . . Journalists are caught up in structural processes which exert constraints on them such that their choices are totally preconstrained. Through these processes there is exerted a kind of overall threat for the autonomy of all the fields of cultural production, that is to say, for all the universes within which the things we attach the most value are produced – science, law and so on – including the political field, which, however heteronomous it may be, however subordinated to external constraints, has an alchemical function. (2005: 44–45) Having high expectations from journalism, Bourdieu was too harsh about television journalism. Realizing the immediacy and temporality, he compared it with clepsydra, the water clock or an ancient time-measuring device worked by the flow of water, and said, ‘You cannot do mathematics in front of a TV camera, nor sociology either. You cannot do anything there’ (Bourdieu 2005: 45). Bourdieu developed this apprehension of the television camera given the constraints of time, limited space and incompetence of elaboration, the outcomes of the control and the complexity of autonomy. But it should not be forgotten that the news television is not an independent entity or a unique ‘product of the specific logic of the journalist field’ (Marchetti 2005: 75). Instead, it is vital to understand television journalism in relation to other social spaces and actions. Working journalists from Bangladesh have raised the concern of journalistic autonomy. Although it seems that the ultimate control lies in the hand of the state authorities and the market forces that restrain journalists in the everyday exercise of freedom, the in-depth view has offered an ambiguous nature of the autonomy. Individual viewpoints in selecting the content, style of presentation and manufacturing of news are significant in this matter. The capability of reporters, the mindset of the editors, the aesthetic of the producers, the creativity and techniques of the camerapersons and the whims of the news officials are not uniform in a particular newsroom. Hence, in a given condition of ultimate autonomy from commercial and state control, the newsroom would either constitute an autonomous framework endorsed by the particular news channel where the individual professional would suffer from the same old lack of freedom 207

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or the individual ego would lead into an arbitrary (and chaotic, indeed) environment of news making. In Bourdieu’s view, ‘Autonomy can lead to an “egoistic” closing-in on the specific interests of the people engaged in the field’ (2005: 45). But he still believes that closure is important for gaining an expected freedom. The pertinent question one may need to ask on this occasion is ‘Freedom from whom?’ in the same vein as Michael Schudson (2005) asks ‘Autonomy from what?’ Pointing at the ‘own intellectual narrowness’ of journalism, he doubts if there is any mechanism to overcome that condition. He pointed at the ‘corruption of conformity’ presented by a particular group and its opinions in opposition to the corruption of the market and state control. According to him, this selfrights-oriented, group-centric ‘corruption of conformity’ is no less dangerous than the commercial and governmental restrictions (Schudson 2005: 219). He rather seeks democratic environment where journalism could seriously participate and enable a critical public sphere with due modesty: If journalism is sufficiently decentralized and varied in the viewpoints it presents; if journalists are recruited from different walks of life and promote different points of view; if journalism is institutionally self-critical in ways that guarantee variety and change in the news; if, in a word, journalism is a pluralistic institution, then journalistic autonomy may be good not only for journalists, who of course appreciate the freedom to write what they please, but good for democratic society. (Schudson 2005: 221) Schudson’s anticipation of journalistic practice to usher in democratic society appears too ideal a case that particularly refers to the historicity and practices of American and European journalism. In South Asia, we experience a more complex and critical atmosphere of journalism that grapples with control and questions of ownership. Saeed (2015) outlines a decline in quality journalism in the case of India, where the maximization of power and profit has become influential. She pointed out the nexus among political manipulators, corporates and market-oriented news outlets leading to a crisis of credibility for journalism. In Bangladesh, the idea of democracy is yet to take a stable shape although the rhetoric around the concept is overwhelming. And thus, a demand for journalistic autonomy, in particular for the television news media of the country, has to be situated in a holistic framework and considered in relation to the other sociopolitical and cultural factors. This book has made a modest effort and contribution in this direction without resolving the inherent ambiguities. This book has also made a conscious attempt to avoid simplistic and linear formulations, such as autonomy or no autonomy, freedom or no freedom, control or no control and so on.

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(Dis)enchanted viewers and desire for fantasy In the same breath, it is useful to reiterate the allegation of ‘depthlessness’ in news and its relation with the somewhat disenchanted audiences. The content of news-based channels is predominantly elitist, politics centric and impassive towards the demands of the masses. One major drawback is certainly the Dhaka-centric broadcasting culture of the 24/7 news channels. The top stories, major talk shows and agenda reports are chiefly composed of the events and respondents based in the capital city. The major constituents of the bulletins are daily events in the towns, dominantly from Dhaka; events attended by political leaders and ministers; and some token content to fill up the international, business and sports sections. The prime disenchantment of the viewers is derived from similar dialogues and political rhetoric from the leaders and ministers repeatedly telecast in the news bulletins. While dissatisfied with the repetitive and boring nature of television news programmes, the viewers have also expressed their sensibility towards the constraints of the media professionals. Some viewers are sympathetic to television journalists and acknowledge their helplessness in the wake of structural controls. Others feel agitated about the limited, partial and biased news circulation in television channels. The ethnographic accounts of the audiences show that viewers are fed up with repetitiveness. This disenchantment prevails from 2014 onwards, when the national election occurred after countrywide political turmoil and violence and the same party retained power. This factor is also evident in the statistical data of the television rating points that indicated a sudden fall of viewership, as discussed in the introductory chapter. However, no disenchantment is without the spectral presence of a case of enchantment. One instance of depthlessness on screen leads to another; one is about so-called facts and the other about so-called fiction. Fantasy is what everyone loves. According to Jack Zipes (2009), ‘It is through fantasy that we have always sought to make sense of the world, not through reason. Reason matters, but fantasy matters more’ (2009: 78). This makes sense as we encounter the blurred boundary between fiction and facts in the context of news making and television viewing practices in Bangladesh. Fantasy, associated with imagination, evokes the desire of viewers to know and see newer things as much as possible. Fantasy in another sense can be empowering and, as argued by Negt and Kluge (1993, cited in Rajagopal 2001: 338), ‘reconstructed to bring out the lineaments of alternative forms of consciousness denied articulation in the bourgeois public sphere’. The gatekeepers of news channels, however, express their anxiety about the ethical limit of fantasized visual representation. The dilemma among news professionals is quite apparent in terms of visualizing violent, bloody and ghastly content. Among audiences, there is a contradictory perspective towards visuals of dead bodies and other horrific

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images depending on their positionality of age and gender. Viewers have entered into a conducive fantasy world in the age of transcultural flow facilitated by satellite channels that is exhausted with cinematic expression, soap operas and entertainment shows (Ang 1985, 1990).

Media culture in another South Asia The media cultures in South Asia manifest their distinctions. Punathambekar and Kumar (2014) shed light on this distinctive terrain of South Asian mediascapes, pointing at the modes and models of representation vis-à-vis the desire of television viewers in the region. They propose that ‘the private is not the binary opposite of the public but is in fact crucial to and constitutive of what we define as public culture in our society’ (2014: 6). This is a point well established in this book in the context of Bangladesh, too. The investigation of the interrelation between television media and public culture in South Asia refuses to fit into the Habermasian public/private divide. Hence, scholars like Rajagopal (2001), Thussu (2007), and Roy (2014) have reiterated to shift the focus from the US–UK duopoly and emphasize territorial variety against the ‘singular universal referent of the West’. Nevertheless, there have been cases of Indian satellite channels copying the US television trend by making the news entertaining in order to capture the market and the masses (Thussu 2016). The hybridization of television media culture brings about the blurring of boundaries among news, documentary and entertainment in India. Such infotainment-led media culture was ‘visually arresting and emotionally charged’ and ‘sustains rating and keeps production cost low’ (Thussu 2016: 42). The television media culture in Bangladesh in the wake of round-the-clock news channels pronounces its distinctive nature by disagreeing with the factors that are underlined about Indian news channels. It is hard to establish that the satellite news television in Bangladesh is dominantly celebrity centric and primarily infotainment driven. Rather, there is a tendency among the media participants to consider news with due value, ethics, sincerity and seriousness. With no denial that there are excessive market and bureaucratic pressures on the private channels, in general broadcast journalists make an honest, sincere and amicable effort to contribute to the nation and for the people. There are infotainment sections in the news channels, but they are not given preference over serious national issues. The central focus has been to feature serious news and contribute to sustain a society that is resilient and information driven and a system that is accountable. As a whole, the interface of making and viewing television news has an inherent significance and the potential to shape, usher in and transform the television media culture in Bangladesh, as well as South Asia. This leads to an alternative viewpoint of South Asia. This alternative viewpoint is culturally significant and indicates the people-to-people connection in the regime 210

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of a frozen border and rigid boundaries. Instances of people becoming concerned about the politics and culture of their neighbouring nation-states in the everyday practice of television viewing are evident in this book. These practices of viewers provide a ground for imagining an alternative South Asia in the wake of media culture. This alternative imagination has been provocatively framed ‘Another South Asia’, where the prefix another has been defended and added as a creative intellectual ‘utopia’ by Pathak (2018). The relational factor of utopia and South Asia helped in departing from the monolithic and state-centric versions of the region and elucidated the culture and practice of the public. As he states, ‘South Asia, via the prefix “another”, ought to be transcendental of the modern sense of territoriality and official notion of regionalism’ (Pathak 2018: 16). This enables a conclusion on the ability of media culture in Bangladesh, although with its essential ups and downs. The national ethos of Bangladesh is typically inclusive of an anti-Pakistan mindset and motivation. The political consciousness of the nation-state has been shaped by positioning Pakistan as its chief enemy. At the same time, there has been a strong anti-Indian campaign in the realm of political conscience. But, looking at the practices related to media and the interaction of viewers with television, there appears to be a paradox in the media culture. The owners of the media houses expressed their sheer complaint against the Indian channels, but the viewers are glued to those channels in their everyday lives. The Indian channels dominated the viewership of Nilphamari before domestic satellite channels started operating. In the mid-1980s, during the arrival of television in the locality, the viewers used to receive signals of Doordarshan (DD National) channel from India and Nepal Television from Nepal free of subscription. Over time, in addition to the cinema, music and entertainment, people have started taking interest in the news and current affairs of Indian channels, as this ethnography found out in the wake of their engagement to Chobbish Ghanta, discussed in Chapter 4 in detail. This ethnographic study also established that the cable operators from Nilphamari had to bring Pakistani satellite channels such as Geo TV, PTV, ARY and Silver Screen to fulfil the viewers’ demand. This demand was from a particular set of viewers – the Urdu-speaking population known as Biharis who live in Sayedpur, a sub-district of Nilphamari.4 In the evening, instead of Bangladeshi channels, they watch Pakistani news in hopes of finding a known face or anything familiar on the screen. The first-generation migrants from Pakistan who used to follow these channels with an intimate affection are long dead. But the new generation that is settled and established in the country also carries intimacy with Pakistani media. This connection and everyday intimacy in the form of television viewing allowed for a questioning of the rigid border and nationalist expression of statecraft. Similarly, in the newsrooms of the burgeoning news channels, the presenters and style designers duly follow the Pakistani Geo News for its presentation style. 211

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There is evident replication of the hairstyles, dress patterns, appearance and other presentation-related aspects in the 24/7 news channels of the country. Apparently the channel authorities claimed to follow the stylistic manifestation of BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera, but the micro aspects are copied from the regional channels due to cultural proximity. This connection and media flow, tensions about Indo-Pak war and watching the Kolkata-based news channel over the Bangladeshi one provide a ground to imagine the fluidity of TV culture across the borders in South Asia, thus enabling an alternative imagination of the region through media culture. Truly, this seems to be the case of a media culture of ‘Another South Asia’ in which people are virtually connected without permission of the visa regimes in the strict territorial sense.

Conclusion: a way forward The emergence, role and response of news-based satellite television in Bangladesh has been an enabling factor to understand the inherent mechanism of political culture. It has helped in comprehending the interactive dynamics of the citizens with the state and politics. But it requires further investigation to unearth citizens’ interaction with the state through information and communication flow in the midst of a mediated culture. This book opens up the ground for future scholarly initiatives to theorize the political implications of individual media practices. Although the nation was born in 1971 with the testimony of democracy, politically it was only achieved after the 1990s. At the same time, the country attempted to open its market to the global world with an urge to participate in the open-market economy where neoliberal elements had due influence. The arrival of satellite television in Bangladesh was part of all these politicoeconomic developments in the post-1990s era. The broadcast journalism of private satellite channels played a significant role in enabling a public sphere and providing space to broader public issues. But this contribution is not widely acknowledged due to private TV channels’ explicit association with commercial and corporate circuits. The growth of television viewership in general and the entrance of news-based satellite channels in the market occurred together. By 2012–2013, the hype for 24/7 news channels was dominating the broadcast media environment while at the same time viewers from remote locations were getting access and attracted to this particular media platform. Taking this overall development into consideration, the book argued that television media culture in the form of news broadcasting is hosting the localized public sphere in Bangladesh. The book also flagged issues that can be taken forward for further scholarly interventions. The rise of television journalism provides a ground to engage with identity formation and nation building in Bangladesh. Televisual journalism has attempted to feature the traditions and values of the 212

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society to usher in the Bengali culture. It justifies digital innovations and corporate interventions for the promotion of tradition in Bangladesh. It ought to promote nationalism, patriotism and progressive cultural orientation. It is an unexplored subject as to how television media circulation has been aiding identity construction, inventing tradition and contributing to building nationalist values. As the world’s largest Bengali-language news television industry, it should be examined with due importance because, on the one hand, the industry is committed to uphold the national culture, and on the other hand, it seeks to be a part of the global media culture. The empirical evidence and analytic outlines of this book contributed to the argument that the television news practice in Bangladesh is ambiguously professional and commercial in character. It has not been able to become a mature and profitable business industry because it still surrenders to the whims of ownership, political ideologies and biases. It also operates with values and ethics that are often contradictory to the logic of the market economy of media. Hence, self-censorship has been a prevailing factor for the news television. Finally, this book looks forward to further study of the practices of digital news circulation and to capture the transformations of media culture in Bangladesh. This renders well for the phenomenon of the local public sphere as discussed in this ethnography of television. An area of enquiry such as this envisages a new leaf in the anthropology of media and communication in South Asia.

Notes 1 The transformative democracy needs to be situated in the context of second modernity theorized by Beck (2000a, Beck 2000b) with a concentrated framework of media circulation elaborated by Poster (1995) and extended in the argument of Hier (2008). 2 Shaik Siraj, a pioneering television journalist, in his address at the discussion on ‘Agro-Journalism: A Perspective from Bangladesh’ at Jahangir Nagar University in January 2018. 3 According to Warren, the eight guidelines are an important strategy to be adapted for progressive democracy: 1. Democracy ought to follow politics, not political institutions; 2. Opportunities for democratic participation in formal political institutions may be limited, but opportunities in society and economy are not; 3. Political association based on territory limits the scope of participation, association based on issues does not; 4. Issue- and sector-based devolution provide targets of opportunity for democratic participation; 5. The reflexive state: using law to structure democratic processes; 6. Democratizing society democratizes the state; 7. Even progressive democracy is subject to the division of labour; and 8. Democratic equality is complex equality. 4 Before the birth of Bangladesh, the Bihari migrants constituted a majority of the population of Sayedpur, but post-Bangladesh their number has declined due to various reasons, including backlash against them. But in today’s context, they are a decisive factor for elections and other developments in the town.

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Note: Bold page numbers refer to tables and page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes. Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) 29, 50, 119, 157, 163 Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF) 144n22 Bangladesh Television (BTV) 16, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 61, 62, 81, 82, 100–102 Banks, Marcus 78 Barthes, Roland 9, 10 Batabyal, Somnath 110, 111 batteries 60, 61, 100, 103 Bazaar Geile Silver Carp 105–106 Beck, Ulrich 200, 213n1 Bell, Kathryn 115 Bengali Language Movement Day 137 Bergson, Henri 189 Bignell, Jonathan 154, 189 Bird, Elizabeth 16, 20n21, 72, 73 Boellstorff, Tom 40 Bourdieu, Pierre 111, 143n3, 183, 207, 208 breaking news 38, 104, 159, 187 broadcasting: history of 22–24; lineage of 24–26; media 28, 49, 147, 154, 189, 205 bulletins 44, 46, 47, 81, 82, 112, 113, 118, 129–131, 139, 140, 150, 152

24 Ghanta 90–93 24/7 news 2, 5, 8, 28–30, 92–93, 100–101, 148, 150, 187, 192–193, 212 Abu-Lughod, Lila 16, 73, 74 agenda reports 129–131, 209 agenda setting 128–134 agenda stories 128–134 Albritton, Robert B. 128 alternative public sphere 178 Andaleeb, Syed Saad 194 Anderson, Benedict 23 Anderson, Christopher W. 109 Ang, I. 55 anthropology: of mass media 18, 199, 200; of media 2, 15, 73, 213 Appadurai, Arjun 13 Ara, Sayed Iffat 38n3 Atkinson, Paul 71 audiences 1–5, 7, 12, 73, 76, 110, 134, 138, 139, 142, 152, 162, 178, 185, 199, 204; ethnography 67, 73; reception 14; role in news making 134–140; viewing 12–13 auto-ethnography 67 avid viewers 77, 80, 87, 88, 93 Awami League 27–30, 50, 100, 146 Awami League–led government 19n17 Banaji, Shakuntala 7, 8 Bangladeshi channels 88, 89, 91, 93, 95, 96, 100, 205, 211 Bangladeshi society 8, 88 Bangladesh mediascapes 13–14

cable connections 29, 61–63, 94, 100, 102 cable operators 29, 30, 64, 87, 205, 211 camera 2, 42, 44, 132, 135, 136, 164, 165, 167, 170, 171 Cardiff, D. 22 Carey, James 111

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INDEX

channel administrators 124, 125 channels 29, 30, 32, 33, 46, 47, 54, 58, 64, 84, 92, 119, 124, 125, 157, 166, 168, 169, 171, 172 Chatterjee, P. C. 23 Chomsky, Noam 36 Chowdhury, Afsan 25 Cohen, Anthony 12 colour television 27, 28, 61, 63, 79, 100, 105 communication 99–101 concerns 111–113 Contempt of Court Act 159n5 controls 17, 124, 129, 170, 188, 209 core problem area 7 Couldry, Nick 8–10, 15, 77, 179, 182n7, 191–192 countrywide violence 117, 118 Crawley, William 24 crime 84–87 cultural critics 200, 201 cultural form 4, 8, 184 cultural life 7, 40, 180, 181 cultural logic of media practices 194, 196 cultural publics 180 cultural regulation 35, 36 culture 2, 3, 7, 8, 12–17, 111, 151, 178, 183, 184, 204, 210–213; mediated 18, 36, 178, 212; of news 36, 54, 111, 112; television viewing 76–107 Dahlgren, Peter 177 Daily Prothom Alo 42 Daily Star 42 Dayan, Daniel 181, 182n6 decision making 116–121 democracy 12, 18, 22, 173, 178, 197, 200–204, 208, 212 Dennis, Everette 10 desire 156, 203, 209, 210 Dhaka 5, 25, 26, 42, 49, 53, 96, 108, 116, 131, 132, 139, 148, 152, 153, 169 Digital Bangladesh 13, 100 dissatisfactions 111–113 Douglas, Mary 9 Durkheim, Emile 192 Dwyer, Paul 194 East Pakistan 24, 25, 146 Ekushey Television (ETV) 19n5, 29, 30, 33, 34, 42, 49, 92 Eley, Geoff 178

Elias, Akhtaruzzaman 8 entertainment channels 90–93 ethnographic research 17, 41, 72 ethnographic study 15, 17, 60, 200, 211 ethnography 15–17, 40–75, 109, 110, 154, 161, 183, 213; challenges, television 67–68; data collection and analysis 69–73; epistemological concerns 68–69; inquisitive approach to 64–67; mapping the field 41; methodological orientation 68–69; in newsroom 109–111; Nilphamari 59–61; viewing sites of television 54–59 events 116–121 everyday life 93–99; in TV newsroom 111–113 external forces 111, 124–126, 128, 138–140 Facebook 38, 150, 156–158 fake news 13, 14, 36, 155–159, 187, 188 Falzon, Marc-Anthony 66 families 55, 56, 79, 80, 88, 89, 93–95, 97, 99, 103 fantasy 195, 209, 210 Farmer, Frank 180 female viewers 56, 88, 93–99, 190 female viewership 96, 99 Ferguson, James 41 Fiske, John 161, 162, 183, 201, 204 Fraser, Nancy 178, 182n9 Friedland, L. A. 176 Geertz, Clifford 16, 106n1 Ghanta channel 90–92 Gillárová, Kateřina 109 Golding, Peter 194 gossips 74, 186 grounded theory 75n22 gujob 187, 188 Gupta, Akhil 41 Gupta, Nilanjana 56 Habermas, Jürgen 11 Hamilton, M. L. 67 Hammer, Rhonda 151 Hammersley, Martyn 71 happenings 13, 33, 58, 66, 116, 183, 190, 191, 193, 194, 199 Haq, Fahmidul 39n13 Harindranath, R. 12 Hefazat-e-Islam 143n7

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Hepp, Andreas 8 Herman, E. S. 36 Herren, G. 189 Hier, Sean P. 213n1 Hill, David 129 households 27, 28, 55–57, 61–63, 78, 79, 89, 94, 101, 102, 195 household television viewers 78, 88 hujug 13, 183–199; hype and rumours, collective endeavour 186–190 Indian channels 88, 89, 92, 95, 100, 205, 211 Indian entertainment channels 58, 87 Indian politics 91, 92 Indian TV channels 87, 88 information 99–101 interactive dynamics 9, 55, 177, 181, 183, 185; news making and viewing 185–186 interrelation, history 26–27 interventionist forces 124 Islamic groups 116, 117 Jackson, Michael 9 Jameson, Fredric 15, 191 Jensen, Klaus Bruhn 69 journalism 15, 16, 33, 35, 37, 67, 68, 73, 199, 207, 208 journalistic adda 48–49 journalistic autonomy 206–208 journalistic gossip 114–116 journalists 30, 44, 46, 49, 50, 53, 68, 110, 112, 113, 115–117, 121, 122, 132, 134, 136, 205, 206 Kaur, Raminder 36 Kellner, Douglas 7, 11, 151 Kluge, Alexander 209 Kolkata-based news channel 90, 212 Kumar, Shanti 210 Levi-Strauss, Claude 9 Lippmann, Walter 10 liveliness 188–190 live telecast 30, 92, 123, 152, 174, 203 Livingstone, Sonia M. 177 localized public spheres 10–12, 17, 161–182, 212; local viewers and public localized form 176–179 London 23, 119

Madianou, M. 177 mainstream media 38, 134, 149, 156, 158, 159 Manheim, Jarol B. 128 Mankekar, Purnima 56 Marcus, George E. 66 marginal communities 58 marketing department 47, 48, 113 mass media 4, 6, 18, 24, 146, 149, 171, 194, 199, 200 Mazzarella, William 36 McChesney, Robert Waterman 39n14 McLuhan, Marshall 2, 184 meaning-making process 7, 69 media 2, 3, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15–17, 36, 42, 77, 146, 147, 151, 184, 191–193; anthropology 2, 64, 73, 213; communication 13, 95, 185, 186; cultures 2–4, 7–8, 14, 17, 18, 34, 146, 151, 183, 188, 204, 210–213; ethnographers 72; ethnography 16, 64, 65, 73; houses 43, 46, 49, 53, 108, 114, 148, 149, 202, 206, 211; participants 3, 6, 14, 67, 74, 187, 188, 192, 193, 201, 210; professionals 1, 13, 17, 35, 49, 67, 185, 186, 198, 206, 209; rituals 9–10, 190–194 media practices 10, 12, 17, 21, 161, 170, 184, 192, 194, 196, 198; cultural logic of 194–198 mediascapes, Bangladesh 13–14, 155 mediated public 172, 178–181 mediation 21, 149, 151, 178, 181 Mehta, Nalin 75n7 Mencken, H. L. 200 metropolitan cities 57, 63, 103 Morley, David 12, 55, 65, 78, 95 multisited ethnography 65–67, 74 Murdock, Graham 194 myth 7, 9, 10, 40, 193; of happenings 183–198 national channels 61, 102 national culture 24, 213 national election 27, 99, 203, 209 Negt, Oskar 209 news: constraints and controls 124–128 news channels 30, 32, 43, 72, 85, 90–93, 113–115, 119–121, 138, 157, 159; flourishing 30–36; and making of place 101–105

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news content 116–121 news editors 44–47, 112, 113, 122, 124–126, 140 news making: audience’s role in 134–140; culture and politics of 108–145; priorities and paradoxes of 121–124; and viewing 70 news making locations 41–54; event sites 49–53; journalistic adda 48–49; local news offices 53–54; newsroom 43–47 news media 10, 28, 38, 54, 110, 116, 119, 159, 178 news reports 46, 49, 54, 125, 129, 131, 132, 136–138, 140, 168, 169 newsroom 43–48, 54, 72, 108–145, 163, 187, 189; ethnography in 109–111 newsroom editors 44, 54, 115, 120, 139, 187 newsroom ethnographies 109 newsroom professionals 44, 46–48, 54, 204 newsroom settings 72, 111, 112 news television: history and politics 21–39 news visuals 168–170 Newton, Selim Reza 36 Nightingale, Virginia 180 Nilphamari 59–64, 69, 77, 79, 82, 84, 98, 153, 154, 211; arrival of television and satellite 61–64; sounds and sights of 77–82 ‘NO VAT’ movement 149 On Television 207 opposition leaders 92, 119, 123, 163, 203 opposition parties 34, 115, 119, 123, 169, 203 ordinary gossip 114–116 orientations, theoretical and methodological 14–16 Ortner, Sherry 15, 183, 191, 196 Ouellette, Laurie 184 Page, David 24 Pakistan 25, 26, 85, 146, 211 paranoia 30–36 Pathak, Dev N. 211 political culture 12, 14, 21, 91, 92, 198, 202, 212

political economy 76, 194 political parties 28, 34, 45, 84, 119, 120, 123, 124, 175, 203 politico-regulatory authority 124 politics 8, 12, 18, 36, 37, 53, 58, 76, 83, 91, 92, 111, 142, 146, 149, 151, 163, 172, 173, 200 Poster, Mark 213n1 Potter, Simon J. 22 private channels 29, 30, 33, 37, 42, 161, 200, 202, 203, 210 private news channels 34, 37, 104 private satellite channels 30, 31–32, 34, 37, 42, 49, 55, 121, 139, 172, 206, 212 private television channels 37, 42, 49 private television media 178, 202 professional journalism 205 progressive democracy 200, 204 protest movements 147–149, 152, 154, 197 protests 14, 17, 116, 117, 119, 139, 146–149, 151, 153, 154 public 10–12, 22, 24, 26, 27, 57, 138, 146, 161, 162, 172, 176–181, 184 public culture 184, 210 public demand 10, 26, 120, 123, 139, 140 public engagement 13, 21, 24, 37, 53, 146, 153, 161, 171, 180 public events 151–155 public interactions 172, 176, 179 public interest 18, 22, 24, 35, 37, 121, 146 public locations 57, 62, 77, 88, 104, 138, 197 public opinion 6, 10, 176, 181 public reactions 163, 164, 167, 168 public service broadcasting 10, 22, 24, 184 public sphere 10–12, 161, 162, 176–180, 208, 209, 212, 213; mediated 172, 179–181 public viewing 2, 17, 21, 57, 103, 161, 178, 197; sites 57 Punathambekar, Aswin 210 Puto, Christopher P. 55 Rahman, Anis 24, 35, 194 Rajagopal, Arvind 21, 23, 161, 209, 210 Rappaport, Roy 192

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regulatory authorities 118, 119, 122, 127–129, 142, 202 regulatory bodies 25, 29, 30, 32–34, 36, 122, 125, 126, 167, 169, 176 remote locations 58, 61, 63, 212 reporters 44–47, 50, 53, 68, 108, 109, 112, 113, 120, 129, 131, 132, 164, 166 representation and reception 142, 201 rescue operation 98, 127, 128, 152, 190, 204 Reza, Shameem 39n13 round-the-clock news channels 32, 34, 147, 148, 156, 165, 193, 210 Roy, Abhijit 75n7 rumours 116, 155, 156, 186–188, 191 rural viewers 58, 92, 93, 106 Russell, Cristel Antonia 55 Saeed, Saima 177, 208 satellite channels 16, 27, 29, 42, 58, 63, 66, 101, 111, 195, 210 satellite television: political history of 28–30 Scannell, Paddy 22, 69, 197 Schudson, Michael 208 Sconce, Jeffrey 189 semiotic democracy 201 Shahabuddin, Shumee 124, 126 Shahbag 50, 96, 100, 117, 147–149, 152, 153 Shahbag protests 147–149, 153 Sigal, Leon 143n5 Silverstone, Roger 95 Siraj, Shaik 213n2 social media 138, 139, 142, 147, 149, 150, 155–159; activism 147, 156; platforms 36, 155–159; users 150, 156 social mobilizations: mediated 149–151; role of media and 146–160; TV news and 149–151 social movements 129, 147, 149, 186, 189; mediated 18, 146, 147, 197 social networking sites 36, 38, 150, 155–158 social practices 190–194; mediated 151–155 social practice theory 14, 15, 183, 191 Somoy Television 6, 16, 44, 170, 171 Somoy TV 32, 41, 44, 46, 48, 53 Sontag, Susan 170 sound bites 46, 47, 163–165 South Asia 16–18, 21, 23, 24, 184, 208, 210–213

South Asian Mediascapes 181, 210 special stories 129, 131, 132, 136, 165 Spitulnik, Debra 65 Star Jalsha 87–89, 102, 103 Star Jalsha syndrome 87–89 Tagore, Rabindranath 188 talk shows: public interaction and 172–176 television audiences 12, 74, 82 television broadcasting 14, 21, 23, 24, 32, 34, 36–38, 82, 178 television cabinet 78 television camera 50, 150, 152, 153, 164, 165, 169, 170, 207 television channels 30, 42, 104, 118, 119, 122, 125, 139, 142, 148, 150, 152, 193, 203, 205 television journalism 24, 33, 37, 53, 68, 110, 121, 199, 200, 207, 212 television journalists 49, 50, 67, 68, 71, 135, 137–139, 186, 187, 203, 209 television media 2, 3, 16–18, 26, 27, 36, 37, 150, 171, 172, 178, 179, 200 television media circulation 179, 213 television media culture 2, 7, 15–17, 183–199, 202, 204, 210, 212; desire for fantasy 209–210; disenchanted viewers 209–210; journalistic autonomy 206–208; nature and features of 204–210; professional journalism 205–206 television media practices 21, 198 television news 1–3, 6, 7, 10–12, 17, 56, 57, 81, 93–99, 106, 129, 134, 135, 162, 183, 190 television news media culture 188, 204 television newsroom 72, 111, 114, 140, 189 television professionals 14, 17, 26, 29, 30, 34, 36, 114, 117, 136, 138, 168, 170 television public 12, 178, 180, 181 television rating point (TRP) 138 television reporters 50, 117, 121, 149, 163, 188 television sets 55, 57, 60–62, 78, 79, 83, 88, 101–104 television viewership 16, 27, 64, 212 television viewing culture 76–107; mapping the viewing 82–84; news and entertainment 82–84 The Sites of Viewing 54, 82, 87

236

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transformative democracy 200, 202, 203, 213n1 Tuchman, G. 65 Turner, Victor 9 TV Broadcasting see broadcasting TV news 3, 4, 77, 78, 82, 98–100, 149, 155–159, 161–182; democracy and politics of 200–204; people’s voice on 162–168; social mobilization and 149–151 TV professionals: public and reflections of 170–172 Udupa, Sahana 109, 161 United States 22, 23, 28, 65, 184 University of Dhaka 96, 97, 175 viewership 55, 66, 69, 119, 120, 156, 157, 171, 172, 185, 186, 209, 211 viewing culture 12, 13, 76, 77, 99, 103, 178, 184, 190–193 violence 84–87 virality 14, 155–158

Wahid, Zeenat Huda 28 Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin 110 war 84–87 Warner, William Lloyd 65 Warren, Mark E. 200, 204, 213n3 watching television 56, 61, 76, 79, 80, 83, 86, 93, 101 Williams, Raymond 21, 184 Willig, Ida 109 women viewership 95 Yanow, Dvora 69 young television journalists 49, 166, 206 youth 58, 64, 99–101, 117, 147–150, 153, 157 youth protest 147–149 youth viewership 99–101 YouTube 38, 71, 156–158, 174; channels 157, 158, 174 Zee Bangla 87–89 Zipes, Jack 209

237