By Farooq Sulehria

April 05, 2012

 Although television technology had become available by the 1930s, its mass marketing in the US and Western Europe began in the post-World War II period when it was presented as a great entertainer. It was aggressively exported to the Third World from the 1960s onwards as a great educator. Its arrival was hailed with typical phrases attributed to information and communication technologies these days. “The future is here,” prospective TV buyers were informed. “It is a democratising medium,” liberal media scholars philosophised. Most importantly, one no longer needed to go to the cinema and buy a ticket to watch a movie, because it became possible to have cinema in one’s own living room. The “idiot box” was a one-time investment but a lifetime free lunch.

 Television is no doubt a great medium, with enormous potential. However, the future-is-here euphoria soon turned out to have been cynically overoptimistic. And by the late 1970s people were glorifying the videocassette recorder as another future-is-here technological miracle. As we now know, television is not democratising. In the case of public television it is the state which decides what is suitable for broadcasting, and in case of commercial television (particularly in the US), it is the media barons.

 Nor did television deliver end of illiteracy to the Third World. Pakistan is a case in point. The PTV channel was launched in 1964 by first military dictator Gen Ayub Khan, in a bid to meet his regime’s propaganda needs ahead of the presidential election of January 2, 1965. Through the country’s only television channel Ayub Khan sought legitimacy by casting himself in the role of a great moderniser. “Investment in the media of information should be regarded as development expenditure,” he declared. Meanwhile, Ayub’s propaganda commissars were enlightening his subjects on the educative role of television.

 In 1992, PTV2 was launched, costing another Rs627, 000 million, including a Japanese grant of Rs507, 000 million. This basic investment on PTV’s development does not include the foreign exchange spent on importing media fare from Hollywood, BBC and other Western production houses. Despite the massive investment in television in the name of education, Pakistan remains largely illiterate. The little progress Pakistan has made in fighting illiteracy does not owe to the PTV.

 Similarly, the promise of a free lunch was an illusion. Television audiences were incurring hidden costs, as well as the direct costs. Firstly, the state built television broadcasting infrastructure with taxpayers’ money, and even a Pakistani not owning a television set bore the cost in some way. Secondly, investment in television sets was depreciating with every passing day. For instance, Canadian media scholar Dallas Smyth wrote that in Canada audience members spent $2.188 billion on television sets in 1976. However, the depreciated cost (including a 10-percent interest rate) was $3.9 billion for the same year. There were other hidden costs. Smyth also mentioned the $15 and $70 on power consumption and repairs by Canadian television owner.

 In Pakistan, a Rs50 license fee was imposed in 1970 on the 80,000 TV-set owners. Under the Musharraf dictatorship, a uniform amount was included in the electricity bills in the name of PTV license. Add to these costs the expenditures on accessories like antennae. In case of black-and-white TV sets, one was also seduced into buying a blue screen, on which the picture that was neither colour nor black-and-white.

 In today’s world there are online services, which are apparently free-of-cost. We talk free of charge on Skype. Facebook has networked a multimillion community. We can send electronic mails on Hotmail, Yahoo! and Google. Again, free of cost. However, what we keep forgetting is the amount we spend on owning a computer, the monthly Internet fee, computer accessories, headsets, webcams, and what not. There is an endless list of other gadgets besides the computer.

 What also remains hidden is the cost we pay as taxpayers on building and maintaining a telecommunication infrastructure necessary for our staying online. We do not count the electricity and repair costs either. Also, it is not for altruistic reasons that Skype, Facebook, Google and Yahoo! and the rest of them are providing us services free-of-cost. We are the audiences they sell to advertisers; much like commercial television virtually rents its audiences to advertisers.

 Most importantly, the making, consuming and ultimate discarding all these gadgets involve toxic ingredients. Mobiles, flat-screen TV sets, laptops and the rest constitute hazardous e-waste. This is a price humanity is paying collectively even when an overwhelming majority is not privileged enough to have access to a computer.

 Under a more equitable global system not only an entirely different culture of communication was possible but green communications too.

 The writer is a freelance contributor.

Source: The News, Islamabad

URL: http://newageislam.com/islam-and-the-media/farooq-sulehria/not-to-forget-the-expenses-on-electronic-gadgets--the-e-lunch-is-not-free/d/7011