Role of Malaysian mass media in promoting Thirukkural

T. Perumal

Abstract

Malaysian Tamils originated from South India, being a minority group faces a lot of challenges in preserving and maintaining their identity, culture, language and literature. Both printed and electronic mass media had played an important role in maintaining Tamil language and literature in Malaysia, a multilingual and multi-cultural nation. Thirukkural is an ancient scripture in Tamil literature, was written by Thiruvalluvar is the only Tamil literary work which has gained so much importance and has seen many translations and commentaries into almost all major languages of the world (Bharathi, Sridevi, & Varshitha, , 2017). Thirukkural also is beacon and guide to life, though written millenniums ago its principles are still relevant in present day contexts and stand as an embodiment of human life (Madhusudanan & Nalini, 2015). Therefore, it is imperative that Thirukkkural need to be reinforced into the society especially among the diaspora community. Generally, diaspora countries such as Malaysia practice vaous ways to introduce Thirukkural use to local communities. Mass media especially newspapers, radio and television are the main mediums for channelling Thirukkural to audiences. Therefore, this paper aims to study the role of Tamil channels of Malaysian printed and electronic medias in promoting Thirukkural. Identifying Thirukkural related articles and programs and explaining the purpose of these publications and broadcastings are the objectives of this study. Observation and recording are the instruments used in this qualitative study. Data for this study was quoted from 4 local Tamil newspapers for two weeks. Collected data were analysed based on Mass Communication Theory that was popularized by McQuail (2010). This study discusses the effectiveness and importance of media in promoting Thirukkural especially to the younger generation. This study also helps to identify some interesting and effective methods to attract audience and indirectly cultivate the ethics from Thirukkural.

References

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