South Asia Center for Media in Development (SACMID)

South Asia Center for Media in Development (SACMID) is a Media Development Organization (MDO) fostering media development in Bangladesh as an indispensable part of tackling poverty and enabling Bangladesh attain its development vision. SACMID has developed programs which will broadly cover 2 (two) components:

Registration Status

South Asia Center for Media in Development (SACMID) was established and registered as an independent public trust with the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in 2016. The registration number is: IV-5/17. SACMID has also been registered with NGO Affairs Bureau under the provisions of ‘The Foreign Donations (Voluntary Activities) Registration Act 2016.The Registration number is: 3255.

Context to Develop Programs and Thematic Area

The media have always been entwined with public attitudes to Bangladesh. The media have a critical role to play in nation building and strengthening the cultural, political, social, economic and environmental fabric. A pluralistic and free media sector has always been needed to ensure that all voices in society are heard. Since Bangladesh is going to be the middle-income country and the space and scope of media sector is ever-widening, therefore it remains as an area of surveillance that whether the media landscape is constituted a diverse and professional landscape for making media as change catalysts.

It’s obvious that not everything shared on media is true! At this age of a vibrant media growth in Bangladesh, while there is an abundance of volume of information and media products, it is imperative that citizens learn to judge the reliability of news reports and other sources of information that is passed along their social networks and other media outlets. On the other hand current media management does not have appropriate mechanism to take care of the needs and expectations of the audience. This results distortion of facts and violations of ethical aspects in media reporting and flow of information.

Information consumers can not differentiate fake news from the truth and often they are misled and become helpless victims of dreadful issues like violent extremism, suicide and drug abuse. Obvious that the gap between the producer and the consumer is high. The concept of media literacy has emerged from the ground that it will enable the citizens(consumers) to ask questions about the information they will receive and use in a more rational and methodical way. Violation of ethics in media reporting and information flow will also be questioned by the same readers and users. An effective Media and Information Literacy (MIL) will help people develop higher-order thinking skills and critical reasoning to judge the reliability and credibility of news and information from all media: print, TV, radio or online. Thus the audience/readers are prepared to make informed decisions. Simultaneously this will make the media houses more accountable to its audience, will push them maintain quality and better ethical standard.

The concept of Media and Information Literacy is new in Bangladesh. Therefore, there is much to do. Although, our audience have some sort of awareness on and understanding of news and media, this needs to be assessed and a long-term systematic program should be developed for improving the information literacy skill of media consumers and producers. As children and youth constitute the most vital segment of the population as change makers of future Bangladesh also numbering the highest as media users, special attention has to be given on this group during designing the program.

Gender Literacy (in media): There is a time to look deep into the gender aspects of our media products. Women’s voices are less heard than those of men and issues that are of women’s concern are not or less frequently part of our media contents. However, this gender inequality in the media refers both to the content that media produce as well as the operations in the media sector itself. Since, this is a point of ignorance and a lack of systematic monitoring, these need to be addressed by applying a systematic program on Gender Literacy.