Prints and Screens (week 5)

As I’ve mentioned in the blog post before, television and news make up an important aspect of our social lives. The ones responsible bringing the information and entertainment into the television screens and printed papers are the television station and newspaper company. I live in the country of Malaysia, so RTM is the main television station that controls the local channels as well as Astro which provides channels that screens international shows. Meanwhile, for the newspaper industry, the local Malay language which is the most popular is Berita Harian while the most popular local English language newspaper is The Star. However, the difference in content between these two papers do exist as well as the local channels with the international English channels.

From what I observed from local television channels, RTM1, RTM2 and TV3 mostly revolves around the local language, Malay rather than English. This is apparent in the main news section like in TV3 and Malaysian dramas and shows. Even shows from overseas such as anime from Japan and shows from USA received the Malay dub, which is even more apparent nowadays. I think the reason is to enforce the use of the national language on the Malaysian citizens, which is good, but sometimes, the use of English is diminished a little, which is not that great because English is after all, the universal language. I notice that most people who watches more English-oriented channels and read more English newspapers tend to have better grasp of the language than those who confine themselves within the local channels and local language newspapers.

Another effect of the local TV station controlling the television and newspapers is the exposure of local television shows and local news. Clearly, it is important to be kept updated with current events that happen in our country. RTM and TheStar paper make sure that there will always be updates on the current news happening in our countries and also a little bit of the important events happening all over the world as well. In the Malay newspaper however, I find it focuses more on the welfare and social issues of the society in Malaysia as well as emphasized more on the celebrity gossip. It’s interesting that I find local gossip more scandalous than international celebrity gossip as interpreted by the local media. I think it is the narrow-minded thinking and mindset that we Malaysians still can’t get rid of when we report something that could affect a person’s life.

In my opinion, the local channels still have a long way to go, not just in terms of news, but also in the aspects of entertainment. However, I think it’s good that they try to instil a bit of 1Malaysia, which is a concept created to unite all the races in Malaysia. For example, having a news report in other languages fitted for certain races, like Mandarin for Chinese and Tamil for the Indians.