Radio will continue to morph and adapt via mobile platforms: Arvind Singhal

Singhal, one of the main researchers behind popular edutainment show Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon, tells Shubhomoy Sikdar that communication has a central role to play in disease management

With the kind of rapid technological advancements that we have seen in the field of communication, what future do you see for a medium like radio — both conventional broadcast and community radio?

Radio will continue to morph and adapt — for instance, it will be increasingly delivered and accessed through mobile platforms, and community radio stations, in my opinion, will always have a place, especially in TV dark areas — for they are by their very nature community-owned and operated, and provide a rich local flavour.

Health has been a key area of your scholarly works. How do you see initiatives such as Ayushmaan Bharat Yojana and how can communication channels help it succeed?

Whether it is prevention, mitigation, or management of disease, or relational aspects of care, support, healing, and well-being, communication has a central role to play. It can inform, motivate, encourage the adoption of healthier and happier lifestyles through positive and realistic portrayals of what is possible — the creation of new realities!

The third season of Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (MKBKSH), a TV edutainment show, is slated for broadcast soon. What new themes will be explored this time?

The themes for the upcoming season include sanitation, cleanliness, hygiene at personal, household, and community levels. There will also be a gamut of reproductive health actions for youth and newly-married couples — from delaying marriage, to spacing children through access to a basket of contraceptive choices, including injectables. Plus, the makers have emphasised on the role of male responsibility in partnering to empower women – be it their spouse, daughter or sister.

Since the show has had a good run in the past two seasons, what have been the lessons and the tangible impacts on social attitudes vis-à-vis gender disparity? Please explain with some examples.  

The key lessons have been that for those who watch ongoing melodramatic serials such as MKBKSH, they tend to get deeply involved in the lives of the characters, their struggles, and begin to see the new choices they can make, and what the consequences of those choices could be. These impacts are more pronounced among fans of MKBKSH and are especially triggered when viewers begin to discuss the programme and characters’ dilemmas with others and begin to see how they could forge actionable paths consistent with their lived realities. 

  

There are a wealth of data and stories on the positive impact of MKBKSH (e.g. attitudinal shifts in delaying age of marriage, rejection of domestic violence, and ensuring that women are given their right to education and career options) at both the individual and community levels.  

Specifically, there are impactful stories like (1) Bundelkhand’s Ladkunwar Kushwaha who was the first girl from her village to go to college, (2) Nirma Devi of Patna who convinced her husband to use contraceptives and is now a champion for family planning, (3) the women from Bairiya in Bihar who meet every week to discuss issues of domestic violence after watching the show, and (4) the men of Chattarpur in Madhya Pradesh who now realise their responsibility in helping with household chores and taking care of children. 

Given that the access to mobile data in the country is increasingly becoming easier, how will designing the content of edutainment programmes evolve in the future and make sure that the reducing attention spans do not affect the reception?

Edutainment interventions will increasingly implement a digital transmedia strategy where one meets different audience members through different digital doorways, connecting with them in spaces that they tend to inhabit. For instance, in seasons 1 and 2, MKBKSH’s integrated voice response (IVR) system yielded 1.7 million calls from 400,000 unique callers. In Season 3, the IVRS is being leveraged to reach out to formerMKBKSH viewers promoting listenership, especially group listening and discussion, and collective actions. In a similar vein, Season 3 introduces an AI (artificial intelligence) Chatbot on the Facebook page of MKBKSH through which young audience members can interact with a bot version of the main character, on Facebook Messenger.