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Sprinkler for CCD
An Observation on Indian Community
Communication Drought
Alekha Sachidananda Nayak
Assistant Professor
Journalism and Mass Communication
BBD University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (India)
EDUCREATION PUBLISHING
(Since 2011) www.educreation.in
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About the Author
Mr Alekha Sachidananda Nayak works as an Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication Department, BBD University, Lucknow. He has more than 5-years teaching and industry experience in the concerned subject. He has spent more than 4 years in different news channels as News Anchor, Reporter, and Program producer. Mr. Alekha has qualified NET for Assistant Professor and has contributed 6 research articles and presented 5 papers in national and international seminars. He has done his MA (Development Journalism & Electronic Communication) from Utkal University and M. Phil from Central University of Orissa. Prior to the BBD University, he has worked as an Assistant Professor in Mangalayatan University, UP and Lecturer in NIMS, Bhubaneswar.
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This Book is dedicated to
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Acknowledgement
In the completion of this book, I am grateful to a number of individuals and institutions, who have rendered valuable help to me. Though it is very difficult to name all of them here. First and foremost, I fondly remember the encouragement and guidance of Dr Pradosh Kumar Rath, Asst. Professor in the Central University of Orissa. He is my ideal and a great inspiration to me.
I am also thankful to the Management of BBD University, Lucknow, to help me in this regard. I am giving my hearty thanks to all the faculty members of Centre for Journalism and Mass Communication Studies, Central University of Orissa, Mangalayatan University, BBD University for their immense guidance.
I especially thank Prof. S.C. Jain, Prof. Pradeep Singh Siwach, Prof. Sunil Behera, Prof P. K. Jena, Prof. Ravi Prakash, Dr Pitabas Pradhan, Dr Gopal Krushna Sahu, Dr Mahendra Kumar Padhy, Mr Jaycey Vikram, Mr Anil Gupta, Mr Hemant Agrawal, Dr Suresh Chandra Nayak for valuable suggestions and concise comments on my work. Thanks to Mr Rabinshu Sharma, Mr Vinit Vishal, who have extended their support in achieving my goal. I am obliged to get my colleagues, Amila Banerjee, Priyanka Pathak, Pranjali Singh, Satish Kulshreshtha,
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Manisha Upadhaya, Afroz Yunus Khan, Mayank Jain and Manoj Saini who have motivated me through the journey.
I am grateful to my dearest friends Sanjay, Deepak and Chitta for their good wishes. My special gratitude to my dear friend Sanjay, who has given moral support and strength to me during writing this book. I am lucky to get wonderful students of Mangalayatan and BBD University for up gradation of my knowledge.
I owe a lot to my parents, my brother, Sister-in-law, Sisters and Brother-in-law who have encouraged and helped me at every stage of my personal and academic life, and longed to see this achievement come true. My Mother Mrs Kiranabala Nayak, for her affection, My father, Chandra Sekhara Nayak, for his motivation, my brother Bibekananda Nayak and sister-in-law Amita Dehuri for their moral support during the complication of this book. The love of my nephews, Gulu, Dhulia, Prince, Alex, Bless and Omm filled my life with bliss, which refreshed my researcher‟s life.
Above all, I owe it all to the Almighty God for granting me the wisdom, health, strength, patience, dedication and devotion to undertake this research task and enabling me to its completion.
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Mr Alekha Schidananda Nayak
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Preface
The Indian students of communication often complain that whatever mass communication theories and models we are discussing in the classroom are based on western ideas. They often ask me a genuine question that why do we watch our communication problems through the glass of western theorists. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong in having knowledge of others points of view. It‟s a good way to understand our problem based on others perspective. But I would say it would be better if we try to understand our communication problem based on direct observation, analysis and interpretation within our population. While discussing this topic with various academicians and working journalists they also emphasise the need of academic work on a local communication problem. This inspired me to discuss on various communication challenges, opportunities and future possibilities in third world country like INDIA. The book “Sprinkler for CCD: An Observation on Indian Community Communication Drought” is the outcome of the discussion with students, academicians and practitioners of communication in India.
Among so many communication issues, I choose one for this book. In India, people are living with family, friends and in a community. People who used to live in villages, generation after
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generation have to stay together and work together. This trend of connectedness is also supported by its cultural practices. The various festivals, folk media and their lifestyle help people to get connected to both personal and collective needs. With the passing of time this culture, medium and lifestyle also get changed. This has a certain negative impact on both personal and national interest. One may work in a multinational company or in a village farm or one can be a student, teacher or an unemployed one, but no one can escape from the aura of the modern medium. Due to the mass media, we are informed, educated and entertained but most of the people are gradually being disconnected from our own community, neighbour and collogues. This leads to the situation of community communication drought. People are getting deprived of the possibilities of collective support of a community. This book discusses the subtle consequence of modern mass medium along with the application of advanced community communication technique. The way, how the essence of Gandhian communication practices lifts up the standard of communication is also discussed in this book. The Indian approach to green community communication (GCC) can give a new dimension of to the field of communication.
For the students of communication, this book will give a new approach to understand Indian communication challenges. The people,
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who have an inclination towards the community, NGO, new media, green communication, future communication can benefit from this book. This book is an eye-opening to various debate, discussion on community communication, Gandhian communication, an amalgamation of traditional communication with the modern medium. Though this book is written in Indian perspective, concept and observation but this will be a valuable one for communicators and communication researchers outside of India too.
Mr Alekha Schidananda Nayak
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Contents List
S. No.
Content
Page
1. Acknowledgement
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2. Preface
xi
3. Chapter 1: Community Communication 01
Chapter 2: Traditional Community 13
Communication
4. Chapter 3: Community Communication 25
Drought: Cause and Consequence
5. Chapter 4: Advance Green Community 43
Communication (AGCC): Remedy for CCD
6. Chapter 5: CCD and Ethics: With Special 63
Reference to Gandhian Principle
7. Bibliography
79
8. Index
85
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Sprinkler for CCD
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Chapter 1
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Chapter – 1
Community Communication
__________________________________________________________ IntroductionCommunication is a process of exchanging information. The information can be of any idea, opinion, facts and figures. This communication potentiality of human being is one of the prime reasons for its superiority among all other species on this earth. Since the ancient time to today‟s digital days, people who are better in writing or speaking leads the society. As human beings are social beings, they want to stay together. As it is difficult to survive alone in this world, so to fulfil their physical or mental need they have to depend on other individuals. These needs of a human being are the main reasons to form any group or community. Communication develops a force, which unites people for a common interest. Similar personal interest gradually becomes the interest of the community, when people interact and identify their common needs. Therefore, communication creates community and community need communication.
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Community
When a group of people having similar interest, occupation or sharing similar environment or having a particular geographical area come in contact with one another, they develop a community. Usually, a community can refer to a social unit of any size that shares common values. A community is a medium which unites people for collective works. In a community, members may come from different industries or situations of life, but they must have one or more things in common. Bill Lee (1992) defines (Cited in Aggarwal p.1) “Community, simply as a group of people who have something in common.” As per Oxford Dictionaries, the word "community" is derived from the Old French communité which is derived from the Latin communitas (com, "with/together" + munus, "gift"), a broad term for fellowship or organised society. There may be so many factors which play a major role to connect people for a common purpose. Among them, communication is one of the important factors to connect people in a community. Communication is “any act by which one person gives to or receives information from another person about that person's needs, desires, perceptions, knowledge, or affective states.” (de Valenzuela 1992) So one can say community communication is the meaningful exchange of information, emotion or opinion within peoples of a community. A
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community is always associated with the public interaction. The importance of this public interaction is highlighted by „public sphere' concept of Habermas.
‘Public Sphere’ of Habermas and Community Communication It's a natural tendency of every living being to interact with the external world. This helps them understand their own surrounding. This understanding helps them to be adapted to the changing environment. In human society, people interact with one another for personal or collective interest. There are some occasions or places where public interaction becomes more frequent. Habermas (1962, p.51) defines the public sphere as a “society engaged in critical public debate.” Places like market complex, tea stall, temples have become a public platform to discuss various topics. Habermas (1962, p.1) described that “We call events and occasions "public" when they are open to all, in contrast to closed or exclusive affairs as when we speak of public places or public houses." These public platforms are naturally developed by people. Otherwise consciously people choose a place where they can interact and discuss the various topics. Susen (2011, p. 43) explains that “the public
sphere is composed of private individuals whose societal
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a public place, all citizens have a free access to these public spaces to assemble, associate and develop opinions on their own interest. As the public sphere of Habermas, in Indian villages, Gramsava (one of the community gathering places of Indian villages) works as a public sphere. This acts as a platform for common people. This is losing its existence with the impact of modern lifestyle. So it is essential to think a new mechanism or platform to take the position of the traditional public spheres.
When one classifies the type of community these communities may not be exclusive. Because one person may be a member of a different community. Generally, communities are identified based on local or geographical communities: villages, neighbourhoods, cities etc. But a community can be formed by a group of people who do not share the same location, but whose collective identity and sense of belonging to a community are based on something else than the place they live in.
Geographic community: In the geographical community, a group of
people live in the same geographical location. “It has physical boundaries by which make it distinct or separate, such as a river, a street.” (Aggarwal) People from a different caste, religion staying as a neighbourhood in a geographical community can also form a community.
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For example, village, ward etc. A community of neighbour also develops based on physical connectivity.
The community of interest: In groups, which are created by similar
interests, people share and defend same interests. Henri & Pudelko (2003, P 487) explains that in this types of communities “people assembled around a topic of common interest. Its members take part in the community to exchange information, to obtain answers to personal questions or problems, to improve their understanding of a subject, to share common passions.” Peoples having interest on particular ideology they can make an ideological community. When a group of people are inclined towards particular religion, political group and belief they can also develop a community.
Wood & Judikis (2002, p.12) describes that “Community can be defined as a group of people who have a sense of common propose(s) and/ or interest(s) for which they assume mutual responsibility, who acknowledge their interconnectedness.” The people of same interest may stay in the same geographical area or may spread around the globe. In the same interest community, an individual can stay for few days or may become a lifetime member. Without physical interaction to satisfy their interest people can develop interest community on the internet platform.
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Need and community: Here a question arises why people love to stay in
a community. According to Abraham Maslow “people are always motivated to satisfy their needs both at home and at work.” (Mulder, P. 2012). All the five needs of Abraham Maslow could be the motivational factor for people to get united. Physiological needs, safety needs, needs of love, affection and belongingness, needs for esteem and needs for self-actualization may the responsible factor to develop different community. So communities can be classified based on the factors responsible for community development. For example, community to satisfy the physical need, community for safety need and community for love, affection, belongingness, esteem and self-actualization
Community of identity: Sometimes people get identified by the name
and nature of the community from which they belong to. Common identifiable characteristics like language, music, religion, customs, age, gender, and sexuality are the base for a community for identity. In individual can be a part of one community as per his/her own interest or needs but in community-based on age, gender could not be changed as per own interest. Therefore, some communities could be permanent and some are temporary in nature.
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Simple Community and Complex Community
A community can be called as a simple community when it is developed based on one single factor. One or two factors for which group of individuals get separated from other people also make a different community. For example, traditionally the caste community was classified based on their nature and the types of work they do. In Bhagavata Gita, Lord Krishna while speaking to Arjuna clarifies the origin and purpose of the caste system in sanaatana dharma (Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4, Shloka 13).
cāturvarṇyaṃ mayā sṛṣṭaṃ guṇakarmavibhāgaśaḥ.
Tasya kartāramapi māṃ viddhyakartāramavyayam .. 4\-13.
The fourfold order was created by Me according to the divisions of quality and work. Though I am its creator, know me to be incapable of action or change. The four-fold order means the four varnas named - Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra were made based on their work and nature. (Bhagavad) The community which is identified based on one prime character can be called as the Simple community. Though among the members of the community, they have more than one common character but they are better known for one prime feature. For example, the community of doctors, teachers, barbers, blacksmiths, farmers etc.
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Complex Community and Community Ecosystem
A community could be a complex one when more than one factors are responsible for uniting people with a single identity. In some cases, so many simple communities are connected together to develop an ecosystem of the community. The different simple communities develop a symbiotic association with one another. So diverse verity of communities are united together to form a complex community. People having different skill or profession stay together to fulfil their different needs and form a complex community. For example, in villages, municipality, mohalla are a different group of people identified as a single community. Here people from diverse field develop a symbiotic association by helping one another.
Community Communication
Commonly communication means the exchange of information. Based on the nature of sender, receiver and medium they may be of various types. As per our need, we talk with each other, watch television, listen to the radio and use a smartphone to connect with the external world. We live with information and we grow with information. Information for a human being is just like water for fish or air for an animal. The harmonic flow of true, fresh and essential information is necessary for healthy human society. A society or a community is an outcome of human
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