Television and Marital Family Discourses in Pakistan: Islamic Values and Urdu Drama Narratives

Abstract

The advancement of television in the globe has been amazing. Television has become a constant feature in the family circle over the past few years and television drama has become an important source for education, entertainment and information for billions of individuals around the globe. Television drama in Pakistan has the potential to educate and affect the people. So the question arises that the Pakistani television dramas are promoting the Islamic culture or not. The main purpose of selecting Pakistani dramas for this research is to find out that how these dramas present the marital family issues. This study focuses on Islamic values, marital family and narratives of Pakistani dramas. It is highly needed to investigate that what sort of contents are being disseminated in the name of entertainment.  In contemporary society, where divorce rate is increasing day by day, it is the need of the time to have great in-depth look of Urdu televise drama. The study concluded that the stories of almost all the Urdu dramas presented by the different channels show some confusion and rift in family relationships that lead to the marital family deterioration. Most of the schemes of these dramas are directly contrary to the spirit of Islamic teachings and beliefs. Generally, illicit relations or extramarital relations are shown in such a way that they can detract its viewers and generation is ruined in this way. All these thoughts are anti to Islamic teachings and values.