Media, translated words and Covid-19 -The Asian Age

Fighting against Covid 19 is the global top priority in media coverage at this moment. In Bangladesh all the television channels are telecasting many special programs along with regular news presentations everyday. A few hours earlier a Nepali friend shared a newspaper article, i.e. published in the Nepali language.  My friend has written a caption about that article.

I read the first paragraph's translation with google translator and came to know the article is about the challenges of understanding the recent terms about Corona virus for the mass people of Nepal. I read the whole article and found one striking sentence, "the elderly people are asking, what is lock-down?" I have been comprehending the question with my country's illiterate or low educated mass people as well.

I have been watching 4/5 private TV channels as well as the state-run TV Bangladesh Television or BTV. I have found one good discussion on BTV recently where the anchor was talking slowly with detailed explanation of the tems 'Cooraintaine, Lock-down, isolation, social distance' and so on. I was really questioning myself why all the media are using all these English words?

Today the Nepali article helped me to understand that in their country they are also watching the same helpless situation among the elderly and illiterate mass people. These two countries' situation maybe similar with many more other countries where English is not the first language of those countries. So, the awareness programs taken by both governemnt and private media may consider alternative native words to fight the pandemic "Corona Attack".

The other ignored side by the media is disability-friendly news presentation. In Bangladesh only the BTV news is presented with sign language interpretation. But I have no idea whether the technicians of TV news producers consult or not with the technical team about the ratio of screen image for the main news presenter and the sign language interpreter of the screen?

Because many of my hearing and speech impaired friends said that the sign language interpreter's part is too small comparing with the whole screen of the TV.

At least our government TV channel is presenting disabilitiy friendly news, thanks to the BTV authority. In case of private TV channels almost all channels present news with commercial breaks. Along with those intervals all the TV news is presented with 2/3 layers of scrolling both vertically and horizontally.

As an activist of the disability movement in Bangladesh I wholeheartedly request all TV channel authorities to present the news without such two to four/five scrolls and using the captions of the sentences of the main news presenter. It will help worldwide hearing impaired viewers to understand the news.

I started my discussion about the urgency of native words for understanding the Corona situation and raising awareness. If the world really wants to fight against this pandemic we need to make holistic awareness happen. Right to information cannot be ensured if information is unable to be understood by the mass people. Language should not be used as a means of "class discrimination" during the war against pandemics.

English as well as other foreign languages are being used by the upper class af any country. It is an invisible class conflict globally. For example, in my country I have seen many elite people talking in English within the family when in front of the support staff or low educated relatives in order to avoid them.

This is how many elite people proves in their daily life that they are more upper class than the native language speakers. In the current war, we do not need any arms to fight, we just need the awareness information to be made as simple as possible for the most cornered persons of every country in this world.

In such a situation, the use of difficult words or foreign words will not be understood by many of our illiterate, old, indigenous or other socially marginalised groups of people. If we really have the utopia that our world will be free from this virus then all the countries whould use these words in their native language as well as with disability-friendly dessemination ways.

TV channels need to be more sensitive in order to have the news reach the most marginalized community's viewers. Will they lose many advertisements if they stop all scrolling for advertisements and use the captions of the news presenters on all channels? At least the global TV channels like BBC, CNN and others should start first and create examples for country-based private channels. We hope a kinder world will now emerge.  

The writer is a researcher
and social activist