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India: Television Fails to Address the Concerns of the Elderly

 

Indiantelevision.com

 

 June 25, 2003


India - While television serials abound with grey-haired Baas and Babujis, these characters fail to address the concerns of the nation's elderly, according to a study by New Delhi-based media research organisation Centre for Advocacy and Research. While senior citizens find representation on television, they don't identify with the programmes, the study said.

Commissioned by the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment, the study was conducted in five cities and monitoring the viewing habits of 75 senior citizens in each place. "Our interaction with viewers clearly indicates that television has become a lifeline for the elderly," said Akhila Sivadas, the centre's executive director. "Watching television is a favourite past-time of all the respondents. Elderly people depend on television for entertainment, information and, critically, for companionship." Senior citizens watch an average of two hours to six hours of television a day, the survey found. The large majority also spent two hours to four hours reading. In fact, many people felt that children watched more television because their grandparents refused to switch off the set.

Aging people increasingly are being left alone, prompting them to seek refuge in their TV sets, Ms Sivadas reasoned. But TV programmes rarely present solutions for how the elderly could cope with this loneliness and the problems they face, she said.

The study also notes that while the popularity of soaps featuring joint families means that there are more elderly characters in television serials, the portrayal of senior citizens is rarely realistic. "The aged are portrayed as people keeping pace with time, which is not always the case," Ms Sivadas said. "Positive portrayals, though welcome, ignore the reality." The study showed that such problems as failing health and inter-generationalproblems are never addressed.

Defending the television industry, Rajesh Pavithran of Balaji Telefilms explained that programmes do not concentrate on issues that concern the elderly because television is a medium of general entertainment.

M. Suku, the national director of WPP marketing communications, added that 70 per cent of Indians are younger than 34 and television programmes reflect this. In addition, the elderly are marginalised because they do not have purchasing power.

The US has 75 million people older than 60 who are considered a huge target for consumer goods, said Sheilu Sreenivasan of Dignity Foundation. "But, it is not so here," she said.

Nevertheless, there is a need for "meaningful, intellectual dialogue on their problems", said Ms Sreenivasan.


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