Television effects on Bhutan and Fiji

More frightening reasons why screens are taking over our personalities.
Post Reply
Shakedown1980
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2006 3:37 pm
Location: Helsinki,Finland
Contact:

Television effects on Bhutan and Fiji

Post by Shakedown1980 » Tue Feb 14, 2006 4:38 pm

Four years ago, Bhutan, the fabled Himalayan Shangri-la, became the last nation on earth to introduce television. Suddenly a culture, barely changed in centuries, was bombarded by 46 cable channels. And all too soon came Bhutan's first crime wave - murder, fraud, drug offences. Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy report from a country crash-landing in the 21st century

But none of these developments, it seems, has made such a fundamental impact on Bhutanese life as TV. Since the April 2002 crime wave, the national newspaper, Kuensel, has called for the censoring of television (some have even suggested that foreign broadcasters, such as Star TV, be banned altogether). An editorial warns: "We are seeing for the first time broken families, school dropouts and other negative youth crimes. We are beginning to see crime associated with drug users all over the world - shoplifting, burglary and violence."

But is television really destroying this last refuge for Himalayan Buddhism, the preserve of tens of thousands of ancient books and a lifestyle that China has already obliterated over the border in Tibet? Can TV reasonably be accused of weakening spiritual values, of inciting fraud and murder among a peaceable people? Or is Bhutan's new anti-TV lobby just a cover for those in fear of change?

Television always gets the blame in the west when society undergoes convulsions, and there are always those ready with a counter argument. In Bhutan, thanks to its political and geographic isolation, and the abruptness with which its people embraced those 46 cable channels, the issue should be more clearcut. And for those of us sitting on the couch in the west, how the kingdom is affected by TV may well help to find an answer to the question that has evaded us: have we become the product of what we watch?


To read the rest of the article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2 ... 7.weekend2

and another article!

Eating disorders accompany television to Fiji, study finds
BOSTON (May 19, 1999 8:28 p.m. EDT) - Symptoms of eating disorders have increased fivefold among teenage girls on Fiji since television came to the Pacific island nation four years ago, a study found.

The year TV was widely introduced in Fiji in 1995, only 3 percent of girls reported they vomited to control their weight, according to the study by Harvard researcher Anne Becker. Three years later, 15 percent reported the behavior.

One girl in the study said the teenagers on television are "slim and very tall" and that, "We want our bodies to become like that ... so we try to lose a lot of weight."
To read the rest of the article:

http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/news/ ... -0,00.html
Last edited by TerryS on Tue Nov 01, 2011 4:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: copyright

Post Reply