Small Talk, Big Issue: Development, Silence and the Elite Agenda in a Bangladeshi Newspaper

Abstract

In an examination of development issues appearing in the highest circulated mainstream English daily newspaper in Bangladesh— the Daily Star (DS)— this study discursively argues that this newspaper provided much less attention and even remained silent on development issues related to education and agriculture that are of close concern to underprivileged people. The newspaper's silence and inconsistent coverage sidelines social needs important to voiceless people. Their coverage pattern can be likened to snapshots that have no value in solving the issues. The newspaper's coverage favours the elite but dehumanizes and ignores the circumstances of underprivileged people. While problems of development need to be debated in the mass media; the DS would rather remain silent and engage in a social exclusion process that breaches the norms of development journalism. The disinterest has impacts, not only in sidelining development issues, but also in dehumanizing and excluding the circumstances of underprivileged people.