Media's Role in Social Change

I have been quite nostalgic lately. My nostalgia stems from my recent 'temporary' retirement from the media world to focus more fully on promoting socially responsible businesses. As I look back at my career and try to give myself an honest 'report card' on how well I lived up to my goal of making a positive impact on society through my media work, I can't help but to also question and explore the media industry's role in the broader context of social change. Like me, do media companies take their responsibility toward society seriously? How much impact can media really have in advancing social change? Bringing it close to home, what does it all mean for the media scene in Bangladesh?

When I first joined the publishing industry in New York, my boss gave me a piece of paper which he felt held the key to success in publishing -- “The purpose of publishing is not to make money".

"The purpose of publishing is to be of remarkable, outstanding, extraordinary, superior, notable, exciting, wonderful, sensational, marvelous, unheard of, exceptional, unprecedented, astonishing, awesome, indescribable, fabulous, fantastic, incredible, prodigious, unspeakable, phenomenal and stupendous USE, BENEFIT and SERVICE to the reader. Then it will follow, as night the day, you cannot help but make money…”

Since then, I have tried to create exceptional publications, programmes and internet outlets that provided a distinct benefit to society. However, I always struggled with the definition of 'benefit'. Was I really benefiting the society?

Economic benefit is quantifiable, but how does one really measure the social benefit created by media? Do media outlets really change people's lives? (Well, Oprah certainly does and I did work on the 'O the Oprah Magazine' deal) Do readers/viewers really know what is good for them? Should I decide what is good for them? How will this also benefit the advertisers who are actually paying the bills? When I moved to Asia, I added a few more questions to the list: do I really want to help the government get its message across to my readers? Can I pass on this information, which is a benefit to the society but will cost me my publishing license? Should I really publish this even if it means I will lose some advertisers?

The answers to many of the questions were clear-cut for me, and sticking to my guns on these issues and the ethical dilemmas surrounding them was part of the contribution I made to social change and social benefit -- at least that is what I think.

As with a lot of my colleagues in the media industry, I joined the industry because of an idealistic desire to act as an agent of social change. Throughout my media career -- at the glamorous fashion magazines in New York (yes, I had the pleasure of managing editors like the one in The Devil Wears Prada), where I had to fight tooth and nail to get minority representation on the covers; or in the restricted media world of many Asian countries, where I had to explain to the higher authorities why a 'lifestyle' magazine needed to write about human rights -- I always told myself that, albeit in a small way, I am making my own social change. The question still gnaws at me though -- how much more could I or should I have done in my positions in media?

Fast forward to the present day in Bangladesh a month from now a history-making election will take place. Instead of a media change maker, I am now a media observer. As an observer, I am at the receiving end of whatever information my media colleagues are publishing and broadcasting. I am reading a lot about the preparations for the elections, the usual squabbles between the two begums, and the caretaker government's reassurance that it will be a 'fair and clean election'. However, I am still missing the most important information -- I know next to nothing about the candidates.

Of course I know about the comings and goings of the big party honchos, but I want to know about the potential parliamentarians from every corner of the country. I want to know (as do my fellow citizens and readers/viewers) everything about them their views on economic and social policies, their personal stance on important issues, and their character. These men and women will be shaping the future of the country, and the citizens have a right to unbiased information about them. However, such information is nowhere to be found.

Gathering and disseminating information about candidates may be tedious, boring and may not make business sense to publish. (Advertisers may not be interested in advertising next to such material). However, this information needs to get to the public, and in Bangladesh, newspaper and television are the best media to get this information out.

I have been thinking about what is the most cost-effective way to get this important but monetarily non-lucrative message across and came up with an interesting solution. I would like to propose a 'win-win' solution for all the parties involved: as part of fulfilling their corporate social responsibility (CSR) duties, Bangladeshi media companies should donate their remnant space (their unused advertising space) to an unbiased third party (such as Shujon) which is dedicated to getting information out to the public about the potential member of parliament candidates. This remnant space donation should qualify for a tax rebate as the current government has already promised for CSR activities for the private sector. In a system where there is no public financing for election campaigns, I feel an initiative such as this one will be a step towards a campaign finance/information dissemination system of some kind where the media companies can play a significant role in stimulating positive social change.

In my experience, Bangladesh media are one of the relatively freer ones in Asia (albeit with potential of danger on individual level). The media companies need to use that freedom and make more of an effort to embrace their responsibility to create social benefit and change. Some outlets are already embracing this, but more needs to be done. Perhaps my media colleagues in Bangladesh are asking the same questions I asked myself before -- do the readers/viewers know what is good for them? Should I decide what is good for them? It is indeed a slippery slope. However, the election information dissemination is a no-brainer. People need this information and you, the media company can give it them while enjoying tax benefit, a clear win-win situation one does not always get.


The writer is an adjunct associate professor at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and a former media executive.

Published on November 25, 2008 in Daily Star, Bangladesh