Chapter 9, detailed outline

Milestones in Communication and National Development




I- Introduction

- This chapter explores the communication and development field.

- In this chapter the term Communication for development is used to describe the systematic use of a social system's communication resources to stimulate, promote, and support human development.

- Fraser and Restrepo- Estrada (1998) offered a comprehensive definition of communication for development: Communication for development is the use of communication processes, techniques and media to help people toward a full awareness of their situation and their options for change, to resolve conflicts, to work toward consensus , to help people plan actions for change and sustainable development, to help people acquire the knowledge and skills they need to improve their condition and that society , and to improve the effectiveness of institutions.

- Several strategies in communication are been used by community groups, national governments, regional and international organizations, and nongovernmental organizations to address the range of development challenges facing the world.

- Public awareness and information campaigns , community mobilization , folk media, social marketing , entrainment-education , and advocacy are among the dominant strategies being used to promote , support , and sustain projects aimed at agriculture , education , the environment , family planning and reproductive health, gender, equality, nutrition, and public health.

II- Post-World War II Realities

- At the end if the War II, the human condition was miserable.
- The devastation caused by the war and the consequences of colonialism challenged the international community to do something about the unacceptable state of the human condition.

- By the late 40's, humanity had a range of development challenges.

- The excitement associated with the success of the Marshall plan in the European reconstruction after War II suggested that a similar model could be applied to the conditions that existed in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Development aid became an important item on the international relations agenda, and the development project became the primary vehicle for connecting aid with the individuals who needed it.

- Development projects in the early postwar years emphasized the transfer of technologies and techniques to support industrialization. Industrialization was generally accepted as the engine driving social progress.

- Spheres of influence refer to the ability of powerful states to impose their will on other states through economic, cultural, and military means.

- The U.N has played a major role in the development of the field of communication for development.

III- What is development?

- Development is recognized as a complex, integrated, participatory process, involving stakeholders and beneficiaries and aimed at improving the overall quality of human life through improvements in a range of social sectors in an environmentally responsible manner.

- Stakeholders include national governments and politicians, international agencies such as the specialized agencies of the U.N system.

- Stakeholders have the power to help or delay the development and implementation of development projects.

- The beneficiaries are the hundreds of millions of humans who need improvement in their quality of life.

- The list of the pressing development challenges:

- Reduction and the elimination of poverty
- Provision of adequate housing
- Access the health care
- Access to lifelong education

- Development is a profound form of social change.

- Everett Rogers, described development as a widely participatory process of directed social change in a society, intended to bring about both social and material advancement including greater equality , freedom, and other valued qualities for the majority of the people through their gaining greater control over their environment.

- Development is accepted to be complex, multidimensional and dialectic process that had no universal recipe.

- According to Andrew Moemeka (2000) , communication for development has two roles; support of social change that aims for higher quality of life, social justice , and correction of the dysfunctions from early development interventions; and socialization, creating an environment in which established values that support positive social change are maintained and, further , supporting the development of attitudes and behaviors needed to create a social system that benefits all citizens.

IV- Communication for development

- Several forces have influenced the evolution of the field of communication for development: The growth of capitalism, advances in communication technology, and the ideological rivalries between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

- Of equal importance in the evolution of the field of communication for development were the influences of changing development paradigms and advances in communication theory, especially theories of mass media effects, persuasion, and behavior change.

- Most of the early theories that guided the practice of communication for development emerged out of the modernization paradigm.

- A paradigm is defined as an overarching body of thought whose core assumptions are subscribed to by all who work under its rubric.
A- Southeastern Ohio, USA: It is an example of maldevelopment and the process of underdevelopment.

- Contemporary southeastern Ohio is predominantly rural, with high levels of unemployment , high levels of physical inactivity , and substantial environment degradation.

- The concepts participatory and sustainable are central to contemporary communication for development practices.

- Participation refers to the involvement of citizens/beneficiaries in defining, designing, implementing, and evaluating development interventions.

- The term sustainable development is sued to describe an intervention whose outcomes are environmentally and culturally sound and can be continued by the community after the end of any resources that may have been provided by external agencies.

B-Turkmenistan: Communication for development inventions is also evident in the transitional societies that have emerged since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

- Turkmenistan, formerly a republic in the Soviet Union, became an independent state in 1992.

- The government sees the building of national identity and nurturing of national pride is important elements in the construction of individual and collective efficacy.

C- Eritrea: In Eritrea modern communication technologies are being used to create distance education systems aimed at improving access to formal education and the management of the economy.

VI- The Modernization Model

A- Modernization through Capitalism: At the end of WWII, two ideas contended for dominance in the discourse on development and human progress: Modernization through capitalism, and communism.

- The modernization perspective held that human society progresses in a linear fashion from traditional societies to modern systems of social organization and that they will continue to do so in an evolutionary manner.

- Traditional societies, according to modernization, tend to be oriented to maintaining a status quo dominated by approved status.

- Lack of self-efficacy, has also been identified as an attribute of traditional societies.

- A modern society on the other hand, is characterized by materialism, the dominance of capital as a form of wealth, consumerism, rational-legal authority, sub-cultural diversity, and positive evaluation of change.

- Modernization theorists argued that the process of becoming a modern society could be accelerated through the introduction of new ideas and practices.

- Modernization represents progress.

-Talcott Parsons' functionalist theory: Human society is like a biological organism, whose constituent institutions-economy, government law, religion, family and education-play key roles in maintaining the social stability required for progress in a society.

- In the advanced modern societies, progress is maintained through the increased consumption of material goods made possible by high incomes and higher standards of living.

- Walt Rostow identified four stages he considered necessary for progressing from traditional to a modern society: The pre-takeoff stage, the takeoff stage, the road to maturity, and the mass-consumption society.

- David McClelland emphasized the importance of motivated populace if society is to become modernized.

- Mass communication, especially broadcasting, was seen as a vehicle that would accelerate the behavioral and structural changes required for modernization.

B- Communism: Revolutionary socialists contended that true progress could occur only in a socialist society.

- Socialist transformation would replace inequitable economic practices with more egalitarian ones.

- In the process, the society would progress materially and spiritually, leading ultimately to withering away of the state.

- Information and communication had a special role in revolutionary socialist practice.

- The tensions between these two approaches –modernization through capitalism and progress through socialism influenced practices of communication for development within the international development community.

VII- The1980's: Development Support Communication and Project Support Communication

- The work of the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in establishing the importance of communication as a necessary ingredient in implementing development projects.

- Communication's role in this formulation was to accelerate the installation of the engines of modernization, especially the industrial infrastructure to facilitate economic growth.

A- Broadcasting: According to Lerner, broadcasting would serve as a psychic mobilizer, facilitating the modernizing process and preventing the adoption of Soviet ideology and practices.

- For Schramm, broadcasting was key in constructing national identity and national unity, and in mobilizing the society to execute the development goals designed by the political elites who dominated underdeveloped countries.

- Diffusion theory: broadcasting played an essential role in diffusion theory, by making the influential early adopters aware of the innovation.

- Broadcasting has remained central to the practice of communication for development.

B- The Dependency Critique: The critique of modernization emerged from two intellectual sources: ' one rooted in neo-Marxism , or structuralism, the other, in the extensive Latin American debate on development associated with the United Nations' economic Commission for Latin America".

- Dependency theorists demonstrated that the existing pattern of global economic relations, one dominated by the industrialized North, was contributing to the underdevelopment of the developing regions of the world.

- Dependency theorists contended that the broadcasting and other mass media systems that were put in place in the developing world to support modernization were actually undermining the possibilities of establishing equitable development.

- A phenomenon that Howard Frederick (1990) has termed development sabotage communication.

- The desires for change were articulated in UN resolution calling for a new world economic order and a new world information and communication order.

VIII- Another Development

- The new perspective on development was initially articulated by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation in Sweden and has three fundamental pillars;
1- Development should strive to eradicate poverty and satisfy basic human needs.
2- Priority should be given to self-reliant and endogenous change processes.
3- Development should be environmentally responsible.

- Further, it was recognized that the need for development did not exist only in the third world. Substantial regions of the industrialized world and the recently developed world were also in need.

IX- The World Conferences

- During the 80's and 90's, the international community organized a number of conferences that focused on the development challenges facing an interdependent world.

- Conferences focused on the environment, population and development, social development, women, and food.

- These conferences revealed that, despite marginal improvements in some sectors, the human condition continued to be unacceptable.

- The conferences reaffirmed the role of communication in the development process and called for its increased use.

X- Contemporary Strategies in Communication for Development

A- Public Awareness Campaigns: Systematically draw upon the power of the mass media, especially broadcasting, to create awareness in societies about the development intervention.

- Awareness is considered the first step in creating behavior change.

B- Social Marketing: is the application of commercial marketing ideas to promote and to deliver pro-social interventions.

- Central to the social marketing approach is harmonizing the four essential elements of the social marketing –price, product, promotion, and place.

C- Entertainment- Education; has been defined as the systematic embedding of pro-social educational messages in popular entertainment formats.
D- Advocacy: When stakeholders and beneficiaries in the development process promote the interventions by reporting on their positive experiences and benefits, the credibility of the communication increases.

- Advocacy for development does just that.

XI- Challenges in the 21st Century:

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