DR banarsi lal
Use of television as a powerful communication medium has no doubt to captivate the agriculture educators to harness its potential for reaching far across the nation. While it provides words with pictures and sound effect like movie, Television has the capacity to reach the largest number of people in the shortest possible time. People learn through the eyes and ears both thus, gain greater knowledge and understanding of the subject.
The boom in television industries has not only affected urban masses but the rural masses are also fascinated with this media. Now this has become one of the most important media of mass communication for rural masses. It has played a major role in transferring the latest technological know-how to the rural people. In India where the rural masses are isolated in villages, the communication is difficult and challenging, in this situation television is one of the important sources of mass media which plays a pivotal role in reaching large number of people in a very short time. Television can bring the world to our door steps within a second. This mass medium has made dissemination of news, information and entertainment possible on a scale unprecedented in human society. It is undoubtedly one of the most versatile audio-visual aids ever developed. Admittedly, this is still a new field. There is a much to be done before television achieves its full usefulness in teaching.
Television Growthin India
The television in India began modestly on September 15, 1959 by a UNESCO grant to study the use of T.V. as a medium of education, rural uplift and community development. In 1959 an experimental television programme was started to train personnel and particularly to discover what television would achieve in community development and formal education. Philips (India) demonstrated its use at an exhibition in New Delhi. The range of the transmitter was 40 kilometers and the audience comprised members of 180 tele-clubs which were provided free sets by UNESCO. The year 1961 witnessed educational television programmes on science for teachers. In the year 1965 entertainment programmes were introduced under pressure from manufacturers and the public. In the year 1967, Indian TV went into rural programmes and ‘Krishi Darshan’ programme for farmers in 80 villages tele-clubs in Delhi and Haryana were started. The year 1975-76 beamed educational programmes to villages through SITE. Commercial telecast for the first time was introduced in 1976. In 1977 terrestrial transmitters were put up at selected centres to extend television coverage. On 15th August, 1982, the national programme was inaugurated. In 1983 INSAT-IA India’s first communication satellite was placed in geostationary orbit but failed in its operation. In 1983 INSAT-IB was successfully launched in orbit by the American Shuttle Challenger. Recently government has launched a channel known as Kisan Channel specially for the farmers.
The transfer of science to rural people in India and gradual inoculation of scientific attitude in their everyday life, need to demonstrate in the language which will be understood and appreciated by the rural people. Television as an audio-visual medium of communication offers immense potential for disseminating the technological information to remote corners of the country through the nationwide TV network. Television is also considered very strong as the first stage of awareness. Apart from that, it speeds up entire process of adoption. It is considered as a credible source of information and is taken as authentic, trustworthy and prestigious medium of communication.
TV is one of the most sophisticated means of mass communication media. It serves the people by disseminating the information in areas of agriculture, national integration, health and hygienic, entertainment programmes, advertisement etc. TV is an ideal medium to convey information to illiterate and literate in urban and rural areas on whom it would have profound impact. As an instrumental device it is being used in variety of ways such as for direct teaching for supplementing formal education, for developing psychomotor skills, for adult education and for diffusion of agricultural know-how from etc. It is expected that the rural oriented TV programmes can solve the problems of inaccessibility, illiteracy and shortage of skilled persons in India.In rural development nothing is more important than the transfer of useful ideas from one person to another. The researches in agricultural sciences are of no use, unless they are communicated to the farmers in an effective manner in the shortest possible time. TV has emerged as a powerful medium of communication. Television is providing information and entertainment even to the people of far flung areas. While it provides sound, vision and movement, it can reach the largest number of people in the shortest possible time.
(The writer is: Dr. Banarsi Lal, Scientist and Head of KVK Reasi (Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology-Jammu) (SKUAST-J)