Performance of Media in Pakistan in Creating Awareness about Population as an Economic Problem

Abstract

Pakistan has become the sixth largest populous country and the third largest contributor of the world. At the time of independence in 1947 it was 14th in rank with a population size of 33.5 million that has explosively grown to 180 million, with annual net growth of 30 million, making population growth the real economic problem. In context of basic most resource of water Pakistan went from surplus in 1950 to relatively abundant in 1980; water stressed by about 2010 and will be water scarcity by 2035. PEDA model analysis, with the variables of Population, Environment, Development and Agriculture has proven population as real economic problem in Pakistan. Pakistani media unfortunately been used to indoctrinate nationalistic ethos like Islamization and protect military rulers, as media was govt owned. Dilemma continued and still going on even in era of private media in the country .as private media is like a pure commercial activity, trying to share power as a political actor and gathering a repute of sensationalism. Genesis of media performance and strength as institution in Pakistan can be traced from its vital role played in the independence of country. Efforts have also been made to study factors of personal and institutional barriers that may hinder the process of bringing change in people’s mindset in favour of having fewer children. The research highlights that though media has the responsibility of representing thoughts and feelings with regard to any social problem and guide people to take steps, the Pakistani media has presented the social problems like population growth but has failed in converting the thoughts and feelings into actions. Data were analysed separately for the two groups of participants. Media experts were interviewed to obtain more in-depth information on the variables of interest. The primary data findings corroborated the results of secondary data findings. The results of the surveys indicate that both the students and media experts think that the media in Pakistan is strong. It has proved its strength time and again. Still, it has never focused on population as a problem. Failure of media performance can be gauged from the fact that a high percentage of media experts, obviously with maximum media exposure, who were interviewed, did not know the rank of Pakistan in the world population and a clear majority did not know the net growth of 30 million in already overpopulated country. Without realizing how big the issue is, they cannot pay the due attention towards this issue.