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Article 1. Nepal, Women and Media Part 2 from LADY AIR: MAKING A DOCUMENTARY IN NEPAL, by Lisa Pellegrino.
28/10/08
Women in Nepal
Traditionally, the predominant role of women has and is still as a housewife and mother, although in recent years more and more women are entering higher level education and the workforce. The situation for women is particularly difficult, with many women experiencing less opportunities and rights, lower access to education, discrimination, strong gender-based expectations and lower income and job opportunities. This discrepancy is heightened if the woman comes from a low caste and/or is from a low-socio economic background. However, things are slowly starting to change and men and women are working together to better the situation of women and society, which is what made this documentary really exciting to make!
Media in Nepal
Radio has long been the most common form of mass communication in Nepal. Despite the country’s small size, Nepal has a vast amount of radio stations, many of which are community radio stations. Television was established in the mid 80’s and today is also very popular, with cable and satellite offering access to foreign program content. The country also produces a number of newspapers and magazines, although due to high illiteracy rates, these media are more difficult to access by a large number of people.
Today, the internet has become a very popular source of entertainment and information, with the establishment of many affordable public-access cyber cafes over the past few years.
In the last 20-30 years there has been a heightened attempt to promote and celebrate Nepalese culture, language, life-style and arts and media, with people using a multitude of media mediums to achieve this. Previously, much of the popular culture and media (television, films and so forth) were from India and presented in the Hindi language. Many Nepalese people became concerned that Nepalese culture was being overshadowed by that of India and so a conscious attempt to preserve and promote Nepalese culture arose.
I found that in urban areas, commercial Media is the main and most popular form of media. However, in rural areas, community media is the main source of entertainment and information, with a greater focus on educational programs, community development, identity creation and culture preservation and celebration, compared to urban media outlets. The differences between media in urban and rural areas do not just end there. In urban areas, I found that television is the most popular source of media, followed by radio, print and the computer/internet. In rural areas, however, it appeared that radio is by far the more popular due to its affordability, impact (radio signals can travel further than television and to poorer rural areas where there is no sufficient television infrastructure) and its mobility (it can be taken into the fields, homes and along the travels of the people). Community radio was particularly popular, compared to commercial radio. Television seemed to be a close second, followed by computers/internet and print media.
Everywhere you go in Nepal you can usually hear a radio or television playing and recently, almost everywhere you go in urban and semi-rural areas; there are signs indicating the presence of internet and computer centres, computer training schools and cyber cafes.
In the next edition, The Documentary and The Maker (Background behind the documentary and the filmmaker), I will describe what the documentary is about, tell you about myself (the filmmaker) and why I choose to make this documentary………