Anyone have any links to information on cultural changes in Afghanistan due to media expansion?

[F4lconF16]

Private media expansion has exploded and seems to be doing some good in Afghanistan.

Relevant passage from the New Yorker:

Moby’s entertainment programs may have an even greater impact, particularly in urban areas. The status of women in Afghanistan is being transformed by the media. Young girls watch soap operas and assert themselves at home, or refuse to wear burkas or accept arranged marriages. Tolo’s life-style shows have introduced boys and girls to modern fashions and hair styles, and to modern standards of personal hygiene. Forty per cent of Moby’s employees are women, and Mohseni believes that, when his radio and TV stations placed women on the same set with men, “the format allowed people to think a woman can have a conversation with a man. Maybe women have views. And maybe women are smart. It elevated women to an equal status with men. And it allowed men not to be so judgmental of women.”

Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, describes the tension between Mohseni’s values and those of Afghan traditionalists: “The country is highly illiterate, highly religious, and highly traditional. And Saad is appealing to and creating a new young group of people in the urban areas. There’s a brilliance to what he’s doing, but it’s also risky. It’s a drama. I can’t imagine any other country in the world where it would be played out with this much intensity.”

Relevant passage from VICE:

That's what the film is about, there are many many shows that they do. They have a really strong 24-hour news channel. It's run by young kids that cover news locally and around the world. And they're critical about the government, they do corruption stories, and it makes them very unpopular with the government which is extraordinary in a country like Afghanistan. It's called TOLO News.

They do shows like Sesame Street, which they show in many countries. But in a country like Afghanistan, because of the high illiteracy rate, a lot of the parents watch it with their kids and learn to read and spell and count. They have drama shows, police shows, action shows, they have an American Idol type of show called Afghan Star. They have a women's call-in show where women call and talk to a psychiatrist and ask questions like, “My husband beats me everyday. What should I do?” He can't give them a lot of advice because he's operating in a fundamentalist Muslim country where it's illegal to leave your husband, even if he beats you. But he tries, he listens to them and helps them.

There's a whole section in the film about women and how far women have come. A lot of women there rent apartments, they're writers, producers, editors, and 12 years ago they weren't allowed to leave the house without a relative. They couldn't get education. These women are now defying their families and not getting married. They're working, and they get a lot of criticism for it, and they're very very brave.

Anyone have more info?

[AuntPatsy]

1. Interesting and great news but I have not heard of this previously...