Media and Public Culture: Media Whitewashing

In: Media and public culture: proceedings of the Second International Seminar on Bhutan Studies. Thimphu, Centre for Bhutan Studies 2007, pp. 208-245 . ISBN 99936-14-41-6

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Abstract

Today in Bhutan we can no longer see children and young ones gathered around their family elders listening to stories and fables, or many elders on their favourite pastimes like Khuru, Dego, Sogsum and Jidhum, which were prominent about one and a half decades ago. Rather we see, most of the time, families gathered around a TV show with a conflict over channels, women fighting for Indian serials and children for the cartoon network. The catchy chat topics of those characters in TV serials are ruling their conversations in most of the places…and many Bhutanese folk dress up like some American Yanks…singing like western pop singers. Is it a gift of media? Or is it a threat brought in by it? Whatsoever, this change in the social behaviour of transplanting a new culture is attributed to media. If the country and the people in Bhutan are concerned by this changing scenario and if it is not taken care of at such a pace, Bhutan will not take long to join the rest of the world in a homogenous cultural society. Our forefathers' legacy inherited by our nation from centuries now needs to be underpinned by using the positive aspects of the media. This paper 'Media Whitewashing', at first takes an in depth view of the experiences of media within the country in the context of cultural trends and assesses the development of the Bhutanese media today and its messages. Then analyzing the impacts on our society, it attempts to shed light on these symbols to assess the relationship between the media culture and Bhutanese culture — and tries to elucidate on the suggested remedies so as to turn the strength of media to our benefit.