The objective of the study was to assess the influence of brand equity characters displayed on food packaging on children’s food preferences and choices, 2 studies were conducted. Brand equity characters are developed specifically to represent a particular brand or product. Despite existing literature suggesting that promotional characters influence children’s …
Trees in the cities of the UK are feeling the cutting edge of the latest communications boom. Tree roots are being severed as cable companies dig trenches along an estimated 80 km of streets a day to feed the insatiable public appetite for new television channels. Environmental groups like the …
A celestial battle is brewing over the Indian sky. The lollipop of 150 million viewers in the country -- expected to double over the next 2 decades -- has international broadcasting firms scrambling to place satellites over the subcontinent. Everybody, from Doordarshan to Star, has plans to dominate the battle …
This month, Doordarshan's elite third channel is airing India's first comprehensive weekly programme on the environment, a repeat of which will be aired on the first channel after a fortnight. Produced by Delhi-based Miditech, it has been a year in the making. The team has trained its cameras on subjects …
TV AS a medium pays only passing tribute to the environment. Even the advent of the World Environment Day on June 5 went virtually unheralded. Doordarshan was conned into treating its long-suffering viewers to something called Prakritim Vande, subtitled Transparencies on Nature (sic), a series of paintings by Komala Varadan, …
MULTINATIONALS are having a field day on Chinese television. Ever since Robert Wang, a Chinese-American entrepreneur, persuaded the state-run China Central Television to air company profiles on its Economic Half Hour, the floodgates have opened for "infomercials". The 10-minute shows -- filmed and financed by Philip Morris Co and six …
ENERGY efficiency is the only sure route to energy sufficiency in the future, but nations are unlikely to achieve it without some hard political decisions. A brisk and informative series being aired on BBC, called Where on Earth Are We Going?, began with a programme called Energy Without End. It …
IN JANUARY, Doordarshan aired a documentary called The Green Brigade, which despite a typical Films Division tone, was informative, interesting and even balanced. It was on the Ecological Task Force (ETF) set up by the army to take up reforestation and ecological stabilisation in inhospitable regions. The ETF consists of …
World AIDS Day in early December saw a rash of programmes on the battle against the disease, with Doordarshan and the satellite channels doing their bit to publicise the enormous degree of education and mobilisation needed to meet this killer head-on. One drab discussion on Doordarshan's morning show was enlivened …
Travellers entering USA may soon be identified by their hands. The identification system, known as Inspass, provides each traveller with a card that has a nine-byte code describing the shape of their hands. Inspass uses a solid-state television camera that photographs the hand from overhead and from the side and …
WHAT SETS the BBC apart from other TV networks is the kind of subjects it chooses for its documentaries and the quality research it puts into bringing alive subjects that are considered unexciting by most commercial networks. Two very different kinds of series on computers -- Computing for the Terrified …
A TIMES poll showed 92 per cent of British citizens opposed the two-stage imposition of a value-added tax on domestic fuel and heating. Unperturbed by these figures, British chancellor Kenneth Clarke said in a television interview, that they must go ahead to help bring down the L50 billion borrowing requirement. …
A FURIOUS debate -- even one that degenerates into fisticuffs -- can offer some clear insight at the end of it. Crosstalk, a regular feature in the monthly video magazine, Newstrack, admirably puts across all aspects of a problem as well as all the personalities involved, under the spotlight on …
WHEN TECHNOLOGY, tradition and poverty combine to alter the sex ratio in India, who will point a finger and call us murderers? A foreign television network, if it is disposed to spend the time and money turning up evidence in obscure corners of the country. Last month, the BBC did …
FEMALE foeticide and infanticide are not unique to India -- they are prevalent almost globally. They were practised in ancient Greece and were prevalent among certain Arabian tribes until recently. The Yanomani Indians of Brazil still practise it. In India, female infanticide is often attributed to poverty, but the rich, …
IN THE eight or nine years she has spent building a resistance movement to the Narmada dam project, Medha Patkar has certainly learnt to state her case. And her ability in this direction was evident in Zee TV's Aap ki Adalat, where she fielded with considerable panache, host Rajat Sharma's …
EVEN WHILE Doordarshan carried a two-part documentary that indulged in Israel-bashing at prime time, the Israeli publicity machine in Delhi was getting its act together. Since diplomatic relations between the two countries have been fully established, one can expect some skillful image-building manoeuvres from a country that has perfected the …
THE FRUITS of technology are usually publicised much before they become achievable and this seems to be true of the high definition television (HDTV) -- the much-advertised new generation of television -- as well. HDTV promises sharper images and bigger screens as compared to conventional televisions and manufacturers claim it …
NEVER in recent history has the world witnessed political and strategic changes as dramatic as those seen between 1986 and 1991. In this short span, a once proud and mighty superpower has not only gone -- quite literally -- to pieces, but has joined the queue of supplicants paying obeisance …
DOORDARSHAN carries hagiographies of its political masters with more alacrity and less creativity than most TV networks. But Our Shared Future -- this year's prime time tribute to the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, on his 50th birth anniversary -- was an intelligently done, half-hour documentary on Gandhi's environmental initiatives. …
Now that Doordarshan has acquired a whole bunch of new, invisible channels, it should mean more indigenous programmes on science, environment and development. This was borne out to some extent in the first week itself, but it meant nothing in practical terms. Nobody could see the programmes unless they were …
