Governments sometimes seem to forget that information and communication
technologies may not only have a direct impact on the economic development,
but also on the political organization, and socio-cultural value system of
a society. Many policy-makers seem to assume that technical and economic
progress is simply a means to an end and that it hardly affects the culture
in which it occurs. It seems as if they believe that they can achieve
Western-style progress while at the same time retain the essential parts
of their culture. This book takes a closer look at the other side of the
information highway. It wants to find out what is happening on and around
the dirt roads. It does so by looking at the problems of communication, culture
and development from different perspectives: historical and futuristic,
theoretical and applied, institutional and organizational, strategic and
methodological. Global and local, globalization and localisation, are terms
which could be used to characterize the processes of growing interconnection
and interdependence in the contemporary world. It is generated by growing
international economic, cultural and political cooperation and links, as
well as by the need to respond together to complex problems which can be
solved only on a planetary scale. The world is "shrinking" as a result of
increased human mobility, and the increasing contacts between the worlds
people, possibly with the aid of cheap and speedy travel, the telephone,
fax and the Internet. Barriers have been eased with the reduction in trade
barriers, the expansion of capital flow and the transfer of technology. However,
we lack insights into how the processes of cultural globalization and
localisation actually operate in locally defined public spheres. We consequently
also lack insights into how the global is linked to the local and how new
perceptions of the global and the local lead to adjusted (cultural) identities.
These are the issues which the 12 contributing authors of this book are trying
to get a grip on. It is available in four separate sections:
Section 1: BACK INTO THE
"A Clockwork Orange, 1984 or The Power to be"
by Carlos A. Arnaldo
Imagine a world of silence . . .
No future, but to survive in a self-created past
Immediacy of the other
Social, cultural implosion
Does television breed an impotent society?
Can media lead?
Media and peace building
"The decentering of cultural imperialism: Televisa-ion
and globo-ization in the Latin World"
by John Sinclair
What's in a word?
A bit of history
A new era of globalization
So much for the homogenization thesis
The rise of geolinguistic regions
Latin American cultural imperialism
Lessons to be learned
"Development communication in Asia"
by Chin Saik Yoon
A time of transition
Digitizing the future
Breaching of borders
Participatory media thrives in pockets
Echoing philosophies and models
A blending of three approaches
Old needs in new times
Some needs have not changed
New needs in changing times
New technologies stifle social processes
The decade ahead
A wish for the village
A wish for the city
A wish for the nation
A wish for the region
Section 2: TOP-DOWN OR
"Communication for development in a global perspective: The
role of governmental and non-governmental agencies"
by Jan Servaes
A 'Diffusion/Mechanistic' versus a 'Participatory/Organic'
The Diffusion Model
The Participatory Model
Consequences for policy-making and planning in DevCom agency work
Assessing the changes
DevCom approaches in intergovernmental and non-governmental
"UNESCO's contributions to communication, culture and
by Alan Hancock
UNESCO's mission and charter
Evolution of development communication The professional tradition
Mass media tradition
Instructional media -- Theoretical tradition
Global information flow
The International Programme for the Development of Communication
Communication planning programme
Projects and activities
Communication in the service of humanity
A free flow of information
Strengthening communication capacities
News exchanges, agencies and sources
Co-production and exchange
Development of communication technology
"Towards a human rights agenda for the 21st
by Janusz Symonides
Human rights challenges
Cultural relativism and cultural diversity
Science and technology
State responsibility for the development of human rights education
and the creation of a culture of human rights
The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action
The United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education and its Plan of
Towards a culture of human rights
All human rights for all
"New age, new challenges: Unda and its mission in
radio, television and audiovisuals"
by Victor Sunderaj
Condition of People
Section 3: PULL OR PUSH?
"Advocacy strategies for development
by Jan Servaes
Scope of advocacy
The crucial role of communication in advocacy
Advocacy for policy design and decision-making versus advocacy for policy
implementation or social mobilisation
The decision-making process in policy development
Decision-making versus decision-reaching
Decision-linked research for policy-making
Factors/forces which influence the decision-making process
Actors that influence the decision-making process
The problem-solving basis for advocacy
Dimensions of advocacy strategies
"Mass media campaigns for development: Some practical
by Anura Goonasekera
Strengths and weaknesses of media
Matching media to messages
"Tapping local cultural resources for
by Anamaria Decock
A lifetime of indigenous knowledge
From romantic use to sharpened knowledge
Participation: the key
People versus wires
Section 4: AFRICA HAS A
"Walking with Paulo Freire: Political/development communication and
alternative media in Africa"
by Temba S. B. Masilela
Insights from development communication theory and practice
The place of culture in liberation and development
Conscientization as humanising pedagogy
The limitations of Freire's intervention
Participatory communication strategies and alternative media
Propositional statements suggested by this literature
Political communication theory and the return of powerful media
Radio pluralism, ethnicity and propaganda
Propositional statements suggested by this literature
"Communication research and sustainable development in Africa:
The need for a domesticated perspective"
by Francis B. Nyamnjoh
Modernisation Theory and development in Africa
The illusion of modernization
Communication research and sustainable development
"The incongruity between basic education for all and educational
policy in Sub-Saharan Africa"
by Erik Raymaekers
What does the future look like?
The introduction of new information and communication technologies has begun
to zip through both the urban and rural areas of the so-called Third World
like a social earth quake. Throughout the developing world, satellite shuttle
dishes and the western lifestyles they project are provoking rapid changes
within the social tissue of cities and villages. Under this influence, more
than one teenager has lost his pride in the media his parents have culturally
and traditionally cherished.
Information and communication technologies are one of the most dynamic sectors
in today's world
economy. Asia, with half of the world's population and some of the most dynamic
considered as an absolute priority by most of the economic actors in this
field; especially as Asia is at the same time a consumer and a producer of
communication and information technologies.
Many governments, encouraged by the IMF and World Bank, have set up national
economic growth, in which the leading role is given to information technologies.
Obviously, these governments no longer want to drive on dirt roads but on
the information highway.
These governments seem to forget that information and communication technologies
may not only
have a direct impact on the economic development, but also on the political
organization, and socio-cultural value system of a society. As technology
is called into existence by a particular set of historical circumstances
that shape and define that technology, one must understand that set of historical
circumstances if one is to comprehend the effective relationship between
technology and society. Therefore, I don't believe in the idea that Western
technology can be borrowed without taking in Western culture at the same
time. In my opinion, science and technology are much more than the mere
instruments they were expected to be; they cannot be just borrowed or bought.
Many policy-makers seem to assume that technical and economic progress is
simply a means to an end and that it hardly affects the culture in which
it occurs. It seems as if they believe that they can achieve Western-style
progress and at the same time retain their culture and their morals or, at
the least, most of the essential parts of them.
This book is therefore taking a closer look at the other side of the information
highway. It wants to find out what is happening on and around the dirt roads.
It does so by looking at the problems of communication, culture and development
from different perspectives: historical and futuristic, theoretical and applied,
institutional and organizational, strategic and methodological. Global and
local, globalization and localisation, are terms which could be used to
characterize the processes of growing interconnection and interdependence
in the contemporary world. It is generated by growing international economic,
cultural and political cooperation and links, as well as by the need to respond
together to complex problems which can be solved only on a planetary scale.
In the economic sphere, globalization may be desirable because of the widening
and deepening of the international flow of trade, finance and information
in a single, integrated global market. The world is shrinking as a result
of increased human mobility, and the increasing contacts between the world's
people, possibly with the aid of cheap and speedy travel, the telephone,
fax and Internet. Artificial barriers have been eased with the reduction
in trade barriers, the expansion of capital flow and the transfer of technology.
However, we lack insights into how the processes of cultural globalization
and localisation actually operate in locally defined public spheres. We
consequently also lack insights into how the global is linked to the local
and how new perceptions of the global and the local lead to adjusted (cultural)
identities. It could be argued that there are in fact multiple
globalization/localisation processes at work and that consumption seems to
be the key moment. These are the issues which the contributors of this book
are trying to get a grip on.
The first set of contributions by Carlos Arnaldo, John Sinclair and Saik-Yoon
Chin offers a number of general observations on the theme of communication,
culture and development.
Arnaldo argues that wherever there are differences of ethnic origins, cultural
values, or religious beliefs, there are potential seeds of social and cultural
implosion. He believes that the electronic media, especially television,
by their globalizing effect and their immediacy, are hastening this process.
However, this process could have positive as well as negative results; it
could produce ideas and influence for intolerance and violence -- or for
understanding and peace. Therefore, he believes in the as yet untapped potential
of the mass media to act as the forum for exchanging ideas and opinions even
and especially in zones of conflict. Radio and television particularly could
be used to air public debates on the issues that separate peoples: territorial
lines, religious beliefs, cultural mores, social behaviour, aspirations for
social and economic betterment. Such media fora could contribute to consolidating
peace where basic accords have been reached and could support efforts towards
realizing such accords in countries where conflicts still hold sway; editorially
independent media could contribute to forming public opinion and ensuring
a more comprehensive understanding of events.
Sinclair's contribution supplements this view with theoretical arguments.
He contends that the pattern in which television industries developed around
the world in the 1960s gave substance to the durable critical paradigm of
'cultural imperialism', in which the USA as a nation was seen as the centre
from which the national cultures of most of the rest of the world had come
to be penetrated by the US television system and its programs. He takes the
cultural imperialism paradigm as a reference point against which to assess
both the actual changes in how cultural influences are exerted in the world,
and how they might otherwise be theorized.
On one hand, the Centre-Periphery Model of world power has been made obsolete
fundamental shifts of the last decade, and the rise of 'globalization'. This
is characterized by the eclipse of the nation-state as the basic economic,
political and socio-cultural unit of world order, and the ascendance of the
private corporation, with its power base in globalized industrialization,
trade and communication. On the other hand, the Cultural Imperialism Paradigm's
view of mass media as mechanisms of cultural 'homogenization' is now challenged
by the recent 'ethnographic' trend in empirical audience studies, and an
emergent theoretical view of culture as a form of resistance through
Furthermore, one of the blindspots of the Cultural Imperialism Paradigm was
its neglect of how
commercial television was actively embraced by indigenous entrepreneurs in
certain countries of the so-called Third World. This is found in the case
of Televisa in Mexico and TV Globo in Brazil, which now not only dominate
their respective national media markets and the program trade within the
Latin American region, but also have made incursions into certain European
markets. As well, Televisa has played a major role in the development of
the Spanish-language television industry in the USA, and in the advent of
the world's first private international satellite service, which links the
Americas with Europe. Thus, relative to the character of domestic markets
and to commercial and technological innovations, culture and language of
origin now emerge as factors of comparative advantage in building up
international markets in audiovisual products.
The strategic global positions attained by Televisa and TV Globo calls for
an analysis which takes account of the internationalization and pluralization
of cultural production centres, particularly where geo-linguistic factors
are involved, and of the variable relations between corporations and the
nation-states in which they are based.
Saik-Yoon Chin supplements these findings with data from Asia. He also broadens
the perspective by looking beyond the media situation into the communication
for development field. By so doing, Chin's article prepares the ground for
the second set of contributions by Jan Servaes, Alan Hancock, Janusz Symonides
and Victor Sunderaj.
After assessing the changes which took place in the communication for development
field, Servaes presents two communication models: a 'Diffusion/Mechanistic'
versus a 'Participatory/Organic' Communication Model. Building on both models
he then analyses the policies of a number of national and international
governmental and non-governmental agencies. The general conclusion of this
review is that no all-embracing view on communication for development is
on offer. No theory has achieved and maintained explanatory dominance. Each
of two models on development communication still does find support among
academics, policy makers, international organizations, and the general public.
In general, adopted and updated versions of the ideas upon which the
Modernisation Theory and Diffusion Model are built-economic growth, centralised
planning, top-down flows, and the belief that underdevelopment is rooted
in mainly internal causes which can be solved by external (technological)
'aid' -- are still shared by many development agencies and governments. A
revitalised modernisation and diffusion perspective in which some of the
errors of the past are acknowledged and efforts are made to deal in new ways
(as outlined in the Participatory Model) remains the dominant perspective
in practice but becomes increasingly more difficult to defend in
However, at a more applied level, several perspectives on communication for
development could be adopted and pursued.
A first perspective could be of communication as a process, often seen in
metaphor as the fabric of society. It is not confined to the media or to
messages, but to their interaction in a network of social relationships.
By extension, the reception, evaluation, and use of media messages, from
whatever source, are as important as their means of production and
A second perspective is of communications media as a mixed system of mass
communication and interpersonal channels, with mutual impact and reinforcement.
In other words, the mass media should not be seen in isolation from other
Another perspective of communications in the development process is from
an intersectoral and inter-agency concern. This view is not confined to
information or broadcasting organizations and ministries, but extends to
all sectors, and its success in influencing and sustaining development depends
to a large extent on the adequacy of mechanisms for integration and
Both Hancock and Symonidesz concentrate on the United Nations' Educational,
Cultural Organization UNESCO to further clarify and deepen the above made
observations. According to Hancock, UNESCO's interest in communication is
holistic, encompassing all aspects of the discipline -- technological, social,
political, and cultural. Clearly, the majority of UN agencies have some interest
in communication -- whether in its technical aspects (like ITU), its industrial
(like UNIDO), or in its potential contribution to specific fields of agriculture,
health, population, the work place (FAO, WHO, UNFPA, ILO). But in the case
of UNESCO, Hancock argues, the interest is more in seeing how those individual
dimensions come together, in communities and social systems, both local and
international. That is UNESCO's strength -- most probably also one reason
for the controversies into which the organization has on occasions been
Symonidesz's concern is more global and related to the issues of culture
and human rights. He wants to assess the impact of cultural globalization
on human rights. The culturally homogenizing effect of globalization, the
gradual process of adopting common values and behavioural patterns reinforces
the universality of human rights, establishes ties and linkages between various
parts of the world and helps to eliminate certain traditional practices which
may be qualified as discriminatory. However, he argues, the mixed blessings
of cultural globalization are linked with its negative consequences for the
cultural rights of vulnerable groups like persons belonging to minorities,
indigenous peoples or immigrant workers. It also undermines existing cultural
identities, weakens various ethical norms, social cohesion, as well as the
feeling of belonging and, by this, contributes to the proliferation of various
Symonidesz argues that a universal culture of human rights is a long-term
goal which can be achieved through the establishment of a comprehensive system
of education, training and public information aimed at all groups of the
population, especially women, children, minorities, indigenous people and
the disabled, embracing all levels of education. In his opinion, education
has to be seen as a cornerstone in the construction of a human rights culture.
However, it cannot be built without the participation of the communication
media which, at present, exert a predominant influence on the forging of
attitudes, judgements and values which create images and often determine
the relation to 'others', individuals, groups, religions or cultures.
Victor Sunderaj presents the viewpoints of Unda, the International Catholic
Association for Radio and Television. Unda makes efforts to be actively present
in and contribute to the forging of policies in communication, and to facilitate
the coming together of media professionals to share experiences and concerns
so that common plans of action can emerge. The main purpose of his contribution
is to address questions such as: How does an issue become a topic of public
concern and win a place on the national and political agenda? What factors
do we consider and what forces do we mobilize towards this end? What evidence
must be gathered and arguments do we develop for making a powerful case for
gaining priority and marshalling resources to tackle the problem?
The third part of the book is concerned with different communication approaches
strategies. The three contributors -- Jan Servaes, Anura Goonasekera and
Anamaria Decock --share the opinion that different kinds of problems and
situations may call for different solutions. Therefore, there is no universal
approach which can be used in all circumstances, flexibility is required
in selecting appropriate strategies.
Jan Servaes distinguishes between two fundamentally opposite strategies,
which in practice can be viewed as extremes on a continuum: a) strategies
for decision-making (top-down); and b) strategies for decision-reaching
(interactive). Therefore, he propagates either a combination of policies
or strategies, or the creation of a hybrid approach drawing on several
Goonasekera's article shows the vast disparity among Asian countries in the
available media resources. He argues that basic data on media consumption
is essential in order to plan a media campaign. In some countries, such data
is not easily available. The campaign strategist should also know the strengths
and weaknesses of the medium per se, as for example, the use of print media
presupposes a modicum of literacy among the audience. The campaign planners
should pay attention to the cost effectiveness of each medium. Some media
like television will be effective but very costly. In short, in order to
use mass media effectively the campaign should be planned on the basis of
an understanding of the issues central to the campaign, the availability
of the media and the nature of the audience for whom the media campaign is
He adds that there is one other important concern that we should pay attention
to. This is the socio-political and economic context within which a media
campaign has to be launched. The media is a subsystem within a total system
which comprises many other parts such as the bureaucracy, the market,
socio-political environment, and last but not least, the world system or
the regional systems of relations among countries. This will differ from
country to country. And the use of the media will hinge on this factor to
a great extent in some countries while it may not be that important in others.
The persons who intend to use the media should know the media laws of the
country, the regulations under which the media operate and a little bit of
'who's who' in the media. This knowledge will help to launch the campaign
quickly, without running into unanticipated obstacles.
Anamaria Decock takes a completely different position. She argues that
development is about people, not about media. Human development requires
interaction, discussion, dialogue. At the village level, traditional performers
are still potential educators. But for how long?
How strong are indigenous communication resources? How fragile? Is their
existence threatened? Will they be able to live up to a world woven into
the nets of high tech. wires? For how long will the global culture project
images which incite people to steer away in contempt from their own cultural
roots? Will the culture of the many allow one-day for safeguarding the cultures
of the few? Participation and the use of indigenous communication resources
are in her opinion the answers to these questions.
The fourth part of the book focuses on Africa. Many of the questions raised
by Decock are based on her experience in the African region. Not surprisingly
the three contributors -- Temba Masilela, Francis Nyamnjoh and Erik Raymaekers
-- contend with her claims.
The democratization processes that occurred across Africa from the late 1980s,
the most dramatic of which culminated in the April 1994 elections in South
Africa, have brought to the fore the question of the importance of political
communication, and alternative media in particular, in political change.
Masilela's contribution locates Paulo Freire in terms of his African political
contemporaries, primarily Amilcar Cabral, and in terms of his conceptualization
of the role of culture and communication in liberation and development. He
uses a reassessment of the legacy of Paulo Freire as a point of departure
to construct analytical frameworks, based upon insights from development
and political communication, for use in assessing the significance and potential
of alternative media for political change in Africa.
Nyamnjoh highlights and discusses two factors responsible for the failure
of both development communication research and development to make a positive
and sustained impact on Africa. The first factor is that the continent has
relied on a notion of development and on development agendas, that are foreign
to the bulk of its peoples both in origin and objectives, and that have not
always addressed the right issues or done so in the right manner. The second
reason is that development communication researchers have adopted research
techniques designed to answer to the needs of Western societies and which
do not always suit African cultures or societies that are in the main rural
and non-literate. This means that for most of the time communication scholars
have either been asking the wrong questions altogether or asking the right
questions to the wrong people. Nyamnjoh seeks to establish to what extent
communication researchers and the media have been willing colluders of
modernisation, trying to convince local people that this is good for them,
the right thing to do, the central value. He contends that the communication
scholars have been used most of the time, but that they have hardly had the
financial and cultural independence to set their own agendas in the service
of the African masses.
A similar argument is being developed by Erik Raymaekers. The target of universal
primary education (to be reached within an unrealistic short delay) has been
high on the agenda of most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Raymaekers attempts
to show how such an educational system, far from inducing social change and
triggering economic development, remains largely an extraneous body, and
how the excessive emphasis on qualitative expansion has pushed global and
profound educational reform, at all levels, to the background. Without such
reform he fears that prospects for human resources to contribute to economic
recovery and to carry social change to a more equitable society will remain
bleak for many years to come.
It is to be hoped that out of the diversity of insights and findings presented
in this book may emerge a policy and research agenda for the 21st Century.
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