It is a fact that in an age of fast-growing and fast-evolving media dimensions, either the government of Pakistan or a business firm, sooner or later, will have to set up a university dedicated to the media sciences and arts only. For we know now that the paradigm shift from traditional media to new media, and the media ecology perpetually taking place are to be studied quite keenly, wisely and critically if we are to live in todays world.
We are a nation of about 180 million human beings. If we look at the proportion of media to population of our country, we find that we are lagging far behind as compared to the modern world. India progressed in media industry and IT industry by leaps and bounds. It is only because of paying heed to the media industry that Indian film industry has become the largest film industry in the world.
We lack scholars and analysts in the media be it the production of films or presentation of news. We have not started studying the media dynamics scientifically till date. If we had developed a vibrant but sane and intelligent media industry supervised by the media scientists, we could have set up a new front against the war on terror and other menaces facing our country. In other words, the dream of living in an informed Pakistan could be materialised by producing the people who have technically, culturally and intellectually sound approach toward studying the media ecology, alternative, social, new media, development journalism, media management, film, TV, radio, theatre productions, brain reprogramming, media consumption, and media effects.
The times ahead will prove that only the knowledge-economies would survive on the globe. And we know that knowledge is the processed form of information, as information is the processed form of data. Therefore, we need to share, analyse, process and spread information in order to turn Pakistan into a knowledge economy.
Some people have really worked hard for this goal in the country. The leading name is Dr Mughees-ud-Din Sheikh, the former dean of Social and Behavioural Sciences, at the Punjab University. He envisioned such a media university way before his retirement. But we could not benefit ourselves from his vision. Conforming to the maxim it is never too late, we could make this dream come true even now and reward the efforts of people like him.
AHMAD HAMMAD
Lahore
