In the remote villages of Dang in south Gujarat, media means the writing on the wall. Literally. Like the oral tradition, this too is the preserve of our ancient system of spreading information over a small geographical area. In Dang, messages of family planning, best quality rat poison and political parties are scribbled on walls of the village store, the panchayat office and even on the chabutara where the village elders hold court in the evenings.
The medium can be paintbrushes, chalk or more primitive forms such as twigs and rough stones. The messages are contained in simple one-liners, sometimes punchy, sometimes straight. The idea is often to just spread the word instead of entertaining. Often, they're pictorial - for example the one of rat poison depicted a bottle and a dead rat - for many in our country can still not read. Chances are that you may miss the message if the 'wall' doesn't fall in your route. You may have to then depend on a fellow villager's word.
Cut through to Twitter - the 141-character microblog networking site that has taken the internet by storm. Once again the writing is on the wall and once again it is defined by space. The messages are often pictorial (where smileys are often used to depict emotions) but they are more or less straightforward. Wit and humour is favoured and sarcasm is often used as a weapon against fellow microbloggers. But the messages are clear and have to reach out to all those people who can read the wall. You track the headline-grabbers relentlessly and there may still be some you may miss. For this, you may have to fall back on your fellow blogger's page.
It is uncanny that new-age media would have any likeness to the rural medium that has existed in our country for centuries. Whereas drums were used to announce a new message or messenger in the old days, now we have a "ping" on GTalk and Yahoo! Messenger. The chalk's given way to the keypad and the wall to the screen, but most things have remained unchanged - even the reactions. It is strange that the world's most modern technology still preserves some of the world's oldest forms of communication - the pictorial smileys and photographs on Facebook for example.
We often say that the media has changed a lot and that new media (the digital forms of internet and SMS) is eating up the old forms (newspapers, books). Certainly, it has grown to an extent that it has shrunk the world into a global village. But, at the end of the day, the writing is still on the wall.
The medium can be paintbrushes, chalk or more primitive forms such as twigs and rough stones. The messages are contained in simple one-liners, sometimes punchy, sometimes straight. The idea is often to just spread the word instead of entertaining. Often, they're pictorial - for example the one of rat poison depicted a bottle and a dead rat - for many in our country can still not read. Chances are that you may miss the message if the 'wall' doesn't fall in your route. You may have to then depend on a fellow villager's word.
Cut through to Twitter - the 141-character microblog networking site that has taken the internet by storm. Once again the writing is on the wall and once again it is defined by space. The messages are often pictorial (where smileys are often used to depict emotions) but they are more or less straightforward. Wit and humour is favoured and sarcasm is often used as a weapon against fellow microbloggers. But the messages are clear and have to reach out to all those people who can read the wall. You track the headline-grabbers relentlessly and there may still be some you may miss. For this, you may have to fall back on your fellow blogger's page.It is uncanny that new-age media would have any likeness to the rural medium that has existed in our country for centuries. Whereas drums were used to announce a new message or messenger in the old days, now we have a "ping" on GTalk and Yahoo! Messenger. The chalk's given way to the keypad and the wall to the screen, but most things have remained unchanged - even the reactions. It is strange that the world's most modern technology still preserves some of the world's oldest forms of communication - the pictorial smileys and photographs on Facebook for example.
We often say that the media has changed a lot and that new media (the digital forms of internet and SMS) is eating up the old forms (newspapers, books). Certainly, it has grown to an extent that it has shrunk the world into a global village. But, at the end of the day, the writing is still on the wall.
2 comments:
Good one! Over the years, the modes of communication have changed, but the medium has pretty much remained the same. The current modes, which are within the reach of all and sundry, have definitely evolved to suit the present needs and requirements but any departure from the conventional medium of communication indeed looks impossible.
The transition from the ancient to the modern! Well written... I guess much of what we call innovation today, is only a change in the style!
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