<\/strong>There are many problems and challenges in Nepal’s media sector. Despite the quantitative growth, there has been no qualitative growth and the mass media sector has started to feel alienated from the general public. The debate on changes in the entire communication policy and law has begun. Although the Mass Communication Policy 2073 is currently in implementation in Nepal, it is felt that it cannot solve the existing problems in the changing context. The rewriting, amendment or revision of the mass communication policy has become more timely in the backdrop of the new political forces coming to power in the country after the recently concluded elections to the House of Representatives. Not only this, there has been a drastic change in the media and attitude of mass media worldwide in the days since the policy was issued. Naturally, Nepal is no exception. In some cases, it has been felt that the provisions of this policy are not sufficient to address the prevailing media trends. <\/p>\n After the promulgation of the Constitution of Nepal 2072, a high-level committee was formed under the coordination of Kashiraj Dahal to give suggestions regarding the preparation of Mass Communications Policy on January 23, 2015 through the then Communications and Information Technology Ministerial-level decision.<\/p>\n The committee submitted its recommendations to the government on July 19, 2016. Based on this suggestion, the Council of Ministers had issued the Mass Communication Policy, 2073 BS on July 23, 2016. The Government of Nepal had approved the Work Detail Report only on January 3, 2016. It seems that the Mass Communication Policy, 2073 was issued even before the work detail report was approved. As a result, the necessary things could not be included in the sections of the Mass Communication Policy 2073. Although clause 3.6.3 of the policy mentions provincial and local print and community media, other issues are not clear. Although the report of the high-level advisory committee has suggested setting up the National Mass Communications Authority as a regulatory body related to mass communications, forming the Public Service Broadcaster Nepal, establishing the Advertisement Council and reforming the role and structure of the Press Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mass Communication Policy has come in the initial phase of the implementation of federalism. The report of the high-level commission formed four months after the promulgation of the constitution of Nepal had submitted its report on July 5, 2073 BS after the promulgation of the constitution. At that time, the work to be done by the state and local level was not certain and the government was working to expand the work. It is clear that the policy has not been able to outline coordination and cooperation among the three tiers of government as the Cabinet approved the work detail report only after 6 months of the endorsement of the policy. On this basis, it is important to acknowledge that some problems have arisen due to the mismatch between this policy and the detailed report. <\/p>\n Although the preamble of the policy talks about strengthening the federal democratic republic, it is clear that the policy is not in line with the federal, provincial and local level structure.<\/p>\n Although 2.2. of the Basic Policy talks about mutual cooperative relations between the federal units, it is not clear what that would look like. 3.6.3 of the policy has the heading of provincial, local or community print media, but the complaint that the policy has not given clear guidelines in this regard cannot be considered unnatural. Overall, it has been 10 years since the Mass Communication Policy was promulgated. In the decade since the policy was issued, there have been drastic changes in the media sector. Massive changes in technology have affected the media sector worldwide. As mentioned above, Nepal cannot be an exception. The Internet and social media have become indispensable mediums in the field of mass communication. The nature of one-way news dissemination has changed not only to a two-way but to multilateral interactive. With the change in the sources of news, there is a possibility of displacing the traditional media with digital media. <\/p>\n The Mass Communications Policy, 2073 states that necessary legal provisions will be made for the establishment of bodies such as the National Mass Communications Authority as per the need, including the documentation of mass media, license, proportional distribution of government advertisements, mediation in labor disputes of working journalists, employees and workers, regulation and institutional development, television signal and production, distribution permission, renewal, regulation and technical monitoring.<\/p>\n It was mentioned. Though the draft of the bill has been prepared for the purpose, it has not been tabled in the parliament yet. <\/p>\n The Mass Communication Policy, 2073 BS states that the Press Council would be developed as an independent, autonomous and competent body to monitor the code of conduct in the journalism sector and hear complaints related to the violation of the code of conduct.<\/p>\n \u0964 <\/p>\n The policy states that the Press Council shall be made capable by formulating laws to make arrangements for mediation by listening to both the parties on the basis of complaints or self-information of the concerned parties regarding the violation of the code of conduct.<\/p>\n Although it has been a long time since the Media Council Bill was tabled in the parliament for this purpose, there has been no proper progress in this regard. It remains to be seen how the newly formed House of Representatives will take this bill, which is under consideration in the last parliament.\u00a0<\/p>\n The policy states that the National Mass Communication Training Academy would be established to enhance and update the skills of journalists through mass media studies, research and training to make the journalism profession professional and dignified.<\/p>\n In order to increase the presence of all castes and all communities in the Nepali news media, the Foundation had also mentioned to run the necessary programs to make the newsroom inclusive by involving socially and culturally backward women, Dalits, indigenous nationalities, Madhesi, Tharu, Muslim, oppressed class, backward class, minority, marginalized and differently-abled persons in the journalism profession. In some cases, the draft of the bill could not even be made in the past. On this basis, it can be said that no work has been done satisfactorily so far regarding this institution. <\/p>\n The policy of preservation and exhibition of materials used in the field of information and communication, collection and promotion of old equipment, materials and publications in this sector and establishment of Nepal Communications Museum and Study Academy for study and research in the field of mass communication has not been fulfilled.<\/p>\n The Rastriya Samachar Samiti (RSS) has been found to have done some important work in this direction. RSS has been operating a media archive since January 2080 with the objective of preserving the materials used there in the past and has also published a book titled ‘Anubhav and Anubhuti’ by collecting the experiences of the retired employees working there. <\/p>\n Overall, the preliminary work to be done in accordance with the Mass Communication Policy, 2073 is yet to be done and there has been a change in technology and public taste, so it seems appropriate to make a new policy by reviewing the policy. It is difficult to address the existing problems seen with the existing mass communication policy at a time when it is necessary to formulate additional policies to protect local and domestic media and to take steps to prevent the ill effects of foreign media and social networks. In such a situation, it can be considered that the policy needs a comprehensive review. Let us hope that the new government with the mandate will take necessary initiatives in this direction.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jha, former central president of the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) and former chairman of the Advertising Board, Humagain is a member of the high-level committee formed to give suggestions on mass communication policy, 2073 BS. ) <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are many problems and challenges in Nepal’s media sector. Despite the quantitative growth, there has been no qualitative growth and the mass media sector has started to feel alienated from the general public. The debate on changes in the entire communication policy and law has begun. Although the Mass Communication Policy 2073 is currentlyContinue reading “Mass communication policy needs to be reviewed”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":86577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-samachar-en"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/photo_02879f50.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86591,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86590\/revisions\/86591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/media\/86577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}