Daily soaps play an essential role in the life of Indian families. There is at least one family member in every family who regularly watches Hindi or Bengali serials. There are several TV channels and daily soaps. Channels also telecast reality shows, movies, sports, cartoons, music channels, comedy shows, dance and singing shows, besides daily soaps. A few famous channel brands include Star entertainment (Star Plus, Star Gold, Star Jalsha-Bengali,), Sony Entertainment (Sony, Sony Max,) Zee Television (Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Zee Bangla), Colors entertainment and many more.
Daily soaps have both a positive and negative impact on their audience. However, the negatives are always more influential in comparison to the positive aspects. Some shows give individuals opportunities to showcase their talents and share their knowledge—for example, the TED talk show, KBC, and many more.
How are daily soaps impacting the audience negatively?
- Daily soaps become like an addiction to their audience. Many people invest hours watching the television, avoiding their other works, also not thinking about how it is harming the health of their eyes.
- Most of the daily soaps are women-centric but in a negative manner. The leading actress is in trouble most of the time. They are portrayed as victims of torture, and the one who has to go through all the struggles possible to show on television. The audiences sometimes start adapting to those ideas and apply them to real life.
- Daily soaps portray unethical behaviour, such as extramarital affairs, mixing poison in the food and feeding it, multiple murders, violence on women, and many other types of unethical behaviours.
- Daily soaps also portray illogical aspects such as ghosts, multiple marriages, rebirth, memory loss after some accident, and gaining it back again all of a sudden without any medical relevancy and whatnot.
- Women are mostly portrayed as weak in every way possible. Most women in daily soaps show their love and affection towards the family or their spouse, meanwhile forgetting their self-respect. They are shown making all the sacrifices and making all compromises. This influences society in dominating women and giving all the power and priorities to men.
All these concepts can be negatively influential towards society. Many people count the actor or actresses as their inspiration and try to portray real life behaviours. The young children are affected the most because they consider such behaviours normal as it is being telecasted on the TV, also being watched by their family members. They cannot understand the difference between ethical and unethical at a young age if not taught by parents. Although disclaimers are shown before telecasting the episode, it mentions that it is non-fiction and other ethical components, but many people do not pay attention. If the government issues guidelines on what can be telecasted and should not be shown, it may be less negatively impactful.
