Rural Development through Community Television (Concept's International Series in Communication Education and Development-1)

The present study attempts to study the factors influencing TV Communication for rural development through community viewing.

It aims to understand the role of TV in the present-day rural life insofar as the rural development is concerned and analyses barriers involved in the communication process evolved through community TV.

The study has a nature of feedback study. The findings of the study would be useful to policy- makers and programmers.

The conventional media system and the traditional media system would not clash for developmental aspects of rural areas.

The entire scope of the study is very much needed today as we look forward to bring about the considerable change in the rural life by educating and entertaining them through the community television communication.

It mainly concentrates in the three districts of Maharashtra State Pune, Satara and Nagar.

It covers various aspects of community TV viewing from the point of view of viewers' logistics and programme impact.

The researcher has also included an experiment with superstitious themes attempted by different programmes in rural areas.

The data collected from 300 villages are classified in three different ways the village, the community TV and the viewers.

Data presented with the help of different diagrams and tables will prove an interesting and useful reading.

This is only an attempt of understanding the huge communication sphere for rural development.

Major conclusions give a positive contribution in the areas of 'viewing habit' rural viewers preferences in terms of content and suitability of timing.

It suggests that for rural areas, community TV bridges gap between the "e;media haves"e; and "e;media have nots"e;.

The findings are definitely a contribution to the knowledge on TV communication in India in particular and TV communication in general.

Considering the present heavy competition to government owned medium by Star TV, ATN, BBC, MTV, the study will be an interesting and useful for media planning as well as understanding the real power of TV for rural communication and development