Communication - KG | Kaberi Gayen

COVID-19 and the Mass Media

Pratik Sengupta Pratik Sengupta — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 10:03:21 +0000

Social Research Group (SRG)

Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): The Impact and Role of Mass Media During the Pandemic.

Professor Kaberi Gayen outlines the role of mass media during pandemic.

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Construction of Women in the Liberation War Films of Bangladesh

Pratik Sengupta Pratik Sengupta — Sat, 12 Mar 2022 08:06:19 +0000

The focus of this paper is to understand the construction of women in the war films of Bangladesh. Analysed here are 26 full length and seven short feature films made on the Liberation War of Bangladesh (muktizuddho), the war through which Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan in 1971. The theoretical framework combined theories of representation, semiotics and feminist film. Results showed that though women had multifaceted roles in the war, like worldwide war frames, the films of Bangladesh were no exception to represent women as passive rape victims and to commercialise rape. They were never represented as freedom fighters. Whatever their roles in the films, had any woman been raped, she either had to die, become insane, or become invisible; she had never been represented as a normal human being. As the years passed by, war films of Bangladesh shows a gradual decline in the active participation of women in the war. Further interpretation has been made why such treatment was given to the women characters in the war films of Bangladesh in the light of critical theory.

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Sustaining a Regime of Low Fertility

Pratik Sengupta Pratik Sengupta — Sat, 26 Feb 2022 10:21:15 +0000

In several developing countries, notably Bangladesh, fertility rates fell dramatically in the later part of the twentieth century and have sustained at low levels. Traditional socioeconomic models do not fully explain the profile of fertility fall especially for rural areas where well-being has not sufficiently improved. This paper offers a supplementary explanation that mass media facilitated the diffusion of contraceptive knowledge, leading to an ideological shift to value small families, and social networks especially reciprocal encouragement about contraception practice among network members has helped to sustain this shift. To investigate the role of encouragement of immediate network members in their family planning behavior, data was gathered using an interview-based survey of 694 women of fertile ages in seven rural Bangladeshi villages. Findings give support to the importance of social networks in maintaining achieved low fertility levels. When there is strong reciprocal encouragement of network members about practicing contraception then using contraception is more likely. This we propose may offer an explanation to why a low fertility regime has endured in Bangladesh. From this study policy recommendations are made to sustain low fertility.

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Modelling the influence of communication on fertility behaviour of women in rural Bangladesh

Pratik Sengupta Pratik Sengupta — Sat, 26 Feb 2022 10:04:16 +0000

The total fertility rate in Bangladesh declined from 6.3 children per women in 1975 to 3.3 in 1997-1999. This decline of 48 per cent over a 25-year period occurred without a substantial improvement in socio-economic status, health conditions and other factors thought to be essential for fertility decline. In this thesis it is postulated that current fertility behaviour is a manifestation of ideational change, which has occurred through mass media and interpersonal communication channels. To investigate the influence of communication on fertility behaviour and to control for demographic and socioeconomic and cultural variables, 724 married women of reptoductive age were interviewed from six rural villages of the six administrative divisions of Bangladesh. Another village was surveyed to compare the influence of religion. Data were collected in a full network basis in that one currently married woman with at least one child from each household of the entire village was interviewed. Sociometric data along with socio-economic-cultural and family planning practice data were collected using a structured questionnaire. The data have been analysed using statistical methods to construct models of factors, which influence the total number of children a woman has and those that determine the likelihood that a woman practices family planning. The main influencing variables to explain the total number of children were found to be wife’s age, age at first child bom, number of family members, demand for male children, demand for female children, death of male children, place of giving birth, housing score, religion, equipment score, land property, FWA and information score. Whereas the influencing variables to explain the family planning practice were demand for male children, death of male children and variables connected with communication such as degree of interpersonal communication, mass media exposure, husband, Family Welfare Assistants (FWAs) and frequency of discussion with FWAs. Communication variables, especially interpersonal communication, were found to be most important in explaining family planning practice. More particularly, the dominant source of general information is relatives and friends. FWAs followed by friends and relatives are the main source of family planning information that along with husband influence fertility decisions. Hence, there was a need to ftu-ther understand the web of interactions among individuals, peer groups and opinion leaders using social network analysis. The web of communication links in which an individual exists and takes fertility decision was then modeled with the collected sociometric data. To do this, three matrices were constructed to reflect any communication link, the strength of these links and approval of family planning. Various centrality measures (in-degree, out-degree, betweenness and power), clique patterns and actors positions in the network were produced and analysed using Ucinet-6. This revealed that the actors who were not strongly connected or exist in the periphery of this web tended not to practice family planning. Also it was found that actors who overlap more than one clique are more likely to practice family planning. Variables created from the centrality measures were then added to the regression models for the total number of children and the use of family planning. In both the cases sociometric variables were found significant which ftirther enhanced the explanation of fertility behaviour of the women in rural Bangladesh. Using Structural Equation Models the direct and indirect effects of these variables were determined. Demographic, socio-economic-cultural variables were more directly associated in explaining total number of children while communication variables were directly associated in explaining family planning use, and family planning practice has a direct influence on the number of children born. Thus, as communication directly influences family planning practice it has an indirect influence on the Total Fertility Rate. From this work it is recommended that the service that was provided by the FWAs be reestablished and strengthened, husbands should be targeted in family planning motivation programmes and male contraceptive methods should be promoted. Also more motivational programmes should be incorporated in family planning programmes to create a positive image of female children and the extent of the social interaction among village women should be increased.

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Communication and contraception in rural Bangladesh

Pratik Sengupta Pratik Sengupta — Sat, 26 Feb 2022 09:43:11 +0000

This paper examines the association of communication in explaining the decision of women in rural Bangladesh to use or not to use contraception. Using survey data from villages in Bangladesh, we found that communication is an important influence on the ideational change for a smaller family norm and the practice of contraception. This is evident even when socioeconomic and cultural variables are controlled for. We recommend that to foster the use of contraception, communication factors should be given greater emphasis, especially to target husbands in the family planning program and to improve the image of female children.

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