Media as a Catalyst for Higher Education

Abstract

Media has long been considered as the fourth basic human need after food, shelter and clothes. It has become such an integral part of our individual, social and public life that we can‘t even think of a life without it at all. This paper endeavours to examine how we can utilize the enormous reach of media for delivering education to the masses cutting across any discrimination. This is because the authors of this paper believe that there is an unimaginably high potential for effectively carrying out such a campaign for the greater benefit of the society in the end by using media as a delivery mechanism for education. We would restrict our discussions only to the field of higher education in this paper. There is lot of potential here because today our country’s population is served by many thousands of newspapers, periodicals, hundreds of TV / Radio news and entertainment channels 24 hours a day. Only thing is that we just need to tap these resources properly for delivering the goods to the masses who matter in the ultimate analysis. Otherwise how do we justify accumulation of scientific knowledge in research laboratories and institutions because if they can’t be applied for human welfare they do not have any value at all. And it is the media which do possess the potential for doing so in the real sense of the term.

Keywords : Magic multiplier, Psychological warfare, Narrowcasting, Community Radio, Media literacy, Virtual classrooms