Fall’19 CI Forum on “Conditioning” Held

The Department of Media Studies and Journalism (MSJ) of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) organized the Fall 2019 Curriculum Integration Forum on 7 November 2019 at the Chhayanaut Auditorium in Dhanmondi, Dhaka.

The theme for the Fall semester is “Conditioning”; a behavioral process whereby a response becomes more frequent or more predictable in a given environment as a result of reinforcement, with reinforcement typically being a stimulus or reward for a desired response.

The event commenced at 9.00 am with a welcome speech by the Head of Department Dr. Jude William R. Genilo, followed by the theoretical explanation of ‘Classical Conditioning: Experiments of Ivan Pavlov’ by Dr. Sarkar Barbaq Qarmal, an Assistant Professor from the MSJ department and ‘How Classical Conditioning Works in Advertising’ by Wafi Aziz Sattar, a Lecturer from the Department.

“Even when you are not hungry and you are a lover of biryani, even the mentioning of the word or a photograph or video of biryani will make you hungry. In fact any reference to the word or smell associated with it makes you hungry, despite you not actually being hungry,” said Mr. Sattar while explaining how the media uses conditioning in advertising.

The first session of the day closed with an in-house question and answer session among the students and panelists.

The second session involved a public dialogue on the topic “Have we been conditioned to accept hate speech?” The panelists for the session included Dr. Abantee Harun, Assistant Professor of the General Education Department, ULAB; Dr. Habib Md. Ali, Assistant Professor of the MSJ Department of the ULAB and guest speaker Arup Rahee, a writer, poet and artist. Rahee is also a member of Lokayoto Biddaloy. The moderator of the session was Dr. Kazi Mahmudur Rahman, Associate Professor of the MSJ, ULAB.

The rather head turning discussion touched topics such as hate crime, violence, social norms and the recent political killings in the capital of Bangladesh so far.

“Although hate speech is a part of learning process; tackling hate speech is also a learned behavior. We need to realize we live in a pluralistic society. Before blaming the nation we must blame ourselves and reflect on our actions. Freedom of Speech does not mean we can say whatever is on our mind, it comes with some invisible boundaries and in a society we must be mindful of such boundaries,” said Dr. Habib Md. Ali while responding to how hate speech is a part of learning process.

The forum came to a close with honoring the guest speaker, Arup Rahee with memento by Professor Dr. Din M. Sumon Rahman. And finally Hiya Islam, Lecturer of the MSJ department delivered a vote of thanks to all.

The Fall’19 Curriculum Integration Visual Exhibition will be held on January 4-6, 2020.