Dominant Paradigm of Development

During the 1960s, the dominant paradigm influenced and guided many national development programmes. According to Rogers ( E.M. Rogers. Communication and Development : The Passing of Dominant Paradigm in E.M. Rogers(Ed.) Communication and Development: Critical Perspectives, London:Sage.) the dominant paradigm of development grew out of:

1. the industrial revolution in Europe and the United States;
2. the colonial experience in Latin America, Africa and Asia;
3. the success of the Marshall plan in Europe's post-World War II development;
4. the quantitative empiricism of North American social sciences; and
5. the capitalistic philosophy of economics and politics.

The dominant paradigm, ideally, concerned itself with what it did to the people to raise their standard of living. Thus, it emphasized growth of the economy to alleviate poverty. The essential features of the dominant paradigm were summarized by Hernandez-Ramos and Schramm (Hernandez-Ramos, P.F. & Schramm,W. Development Communication-History and Theories, in International Encyclopedia of Communications, Vol. II, New York: Oxford University Press.)as follows:

1. Industry is the prime mover of the economy. Therefore, a mojor part of investment must go into industry and what is necessary to fuel it includes raw materials, transportation and training.
2. Modern society requires more specialists than generalists within each (e.g. industry, health).
3. Public education is needed to raise the abilities of the entire workforce and encourage their participation in government. Healthcare and family planning are needed to increase the well-being of the population and curtail demand for jobs, housing and so on.
4. The profit from centrally owned and managed industry, trade and sale of manufactured goods would be expected 'to trickle down' from the centre of the system to the periphery, from industries and central markets to agricultural sector and from cities to villages.
5. In situations in which rapid development is desired, necessary information can be diffused and persuasion can occur through the mass media of promising innovations should be encouraged along with increases in productivity.

The dominant paradigm saw mass communication as a powerful and direct force to diffuse information and innovations about development issues to the masses.

New Development Paradigm:

The new development paradigm recognized many paths to development suitable to developing countries. Pluralistic in its approach, it encompassed all sections of population. The key elements of the new alternative paradigm, according to Singhal and Rogers (1989) are:

1. Greater equality in the distribution of fruits of economic growth, information, and the consequent socio-economic benefits by focusing on such weaker sections of the population as the poor, women, racial and ethnic minorities.
2. Peoples's participation, knowledge sharing and empowerment to facilitate self-help efforts by individuals, groups and communities.
3. Self-reliance and independence in development, emphasizing the potential of local resources. Self-reliance became a key concept at both national and local levels, implying that every nation, and perhaps every village, could develop in its own way.
4. Integration of traditional and modern communication systems and the use of 'little media' along with the 'big media' such as the television and the film, in order to facilitate development. (Murthy: 7-8)

Human Development Approach:

The development theories in the 1990s have increasingly become marked by post-modern concepts like human development, people-centered development, participatory development, empowerment, self-governance, good governance, poverty alleviation, sustainable development, civil society, etc. Some of these concepts have roots in the past, some have been reformulated. Still, some were invented quite recently. For example, participation has been replaced by empowerment, modernization by transformation, economic growth by economic reforms, ecodevelopment by sustainable development, basic needs by human development or human security and ethnodevelopment by social development and civil society. The failure of the dominant paradigm of development theories has simultaneously inspired global debates on alternative concepts of development. But the question is: Have these alternative concepts brought any change in reality? It is difficult to exactly say yes or no. Yet one can be sure that the debates formulated choices among the concepts.

One of such concepts can be referred to as the Right to Development. The pre-ecological, and materialistic thinking rooted in modernization theories based on maximizing productive capabilities ignored both ecological and social considerations essential to the notion of sustainable development. Taking into account the requirements of the New International Economic Order and fundamental human needs, the Right to Development was accepted by the UN as a 'third generation' of human right in the early eighties.(Bongatz & Dahal: 52-53)

Mahabub Ul Haq introduced Human Development index. He rejected the income growth notion and emphasized on the qulity of growth. It is now universally agreed that material wealth is not real wealth; the real wealth is the people themselves, that is, men and women. Development is meaningless if it does not help to raise the quality of life of the conmmon people. Thefore, human development cannot and should not be confined to the economic dimension only. It should incorporate social, cultural and political dimensions as well. (Dahal et al: 213)

Development issues and sub-issues

The focus of development has always been growth.In 1950s and 1960s the economic growth was through industrialization and modernization. But development did occur during this period for already developed societies. The trickle -down theory assumed that the benefits of industiralization and modernization will trickle down from rich and middle class to the poor.The poor will have capital gain as well as gain in knowledge and awareness from developed to developing countries. But this theory did not work as assumed. It rather created a gap between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots.The emphasis on modernization through media exposure created communication gap between the haves and have-nots because of media opportunities and media access limitations.

In the second and third development decades the development proportionate with social structural growth. Rogers and other development theorists and practitioners talked about societal changes to achieve growth, modernization and quality of life within the cultural matrix.Rogers suggested that social innovations were necessary for material innovations.

The major task was to run development projects for health, housing, employment, food, education etc. so as to provide quality of life to majority of the people.

Eradication of poverty and providing basic minimum needs to all became the main focus of development in 1980s and 1990s.In 1990s the development issues are technology for development and environmentally sustained development.

Poverty reduction is the overall focus in developing countries in 1990s.Poverty reduction is the benchmark against which performance of development is judged and assessed.

Thus development issues have varied overtime for four counts:

1.      The development definition assigned,

2.      Changing development needs of the masses,

3.      Changing world economy and technology,

4.      Politics of development

5.      Resultant supporting issues.

Throughout these development decades, the development issues have been economic, social, political and cultural growth and poverty eradication.The focus has been to give quality of life to the masses through development and communication programmes.The related sub-issues posed by development issues are:

1. Development gap between the haves and have-nots.
2. Communication gaps and information blocked.
3. Programmes of planned development.
4. Development blocked due to bureaucratization
5. Political will
6. Need for development communication and development support communication.
7. Efforts of international development organizations.
8. Flow of development and investments.

Development indicators:

Daniel Lerner says that modernization transformed the traditional societies into modern ones. Lerner in his "The Passing of Traditional Society (1958)" identified four indices for modernization -urbanization, literacy, mass media exposure and political participation. He termed mass media as 'magic multipliers' for the development.

The concept of development is laden with strong evolutionary bias; therefore concept of developmet indicators must guard against facile notions of progress. The indicators of development and communication are linear, one-dimensional, and suggestive of progress along certain predetermined sets of quantitative measures or economic and social progress. Economic growth, mass media and social growth have been the development indicators. From economic point of view, GNP has been the major indicator of development.

UNESCO's set of suggested minimal standards for mass media as development indicators are example of theoretical bias. In 1960s, they urged that every country should provide at least the following media facilities per one thsound of population: one hundred copies of daily newspapers, fifty radio sets, twenty cinema seats, and twenty television receivers. During these development decades many of the developing countries have either achieved this target or surpassed it through unevenly. But development communication has evidenced that (to UNESCO more than others) more media facilities do not necessarily mean better communication or higher standards of cultural development. Communication indicators that are insensitive to small media of transistors, radio, and cassettes, mimeographing, Xeroxing, and to traditional and interpersonal communication channels cannot capture communication and social change. The growth of big media-the broadcasting, press, cinema-satellite indicators, are the primarily government commitment to the expansion of communication infrastructure and dependent on the availability of capital.

The choice of communication indicators reflects the model of communication towards whcich society is striving consciously or unconsciously. Communication indicators thus serve as intermediate variable between development theory and development communication policy. The development theory posit empirically verifiable propositions about the nature and direction of social change. Development policy by contrast deals with 'what ought to be', rather than 'what is'. Development indicators thus serve as empirical links between these two sets of propositions. Mazid Teharanian advocates that historically irrelevant development theories often lead to wrong headed development policies and development indicators which measure the inconsequential and the symptomatic signs of misdevelopment. (Narula 7-8)

Development Vs Developmentalism:

Developmentalism is the ideology of growth marked by western ethnocentrism, which sees development essentially as accumulation of capital investments and mass production of consumer goods. Development policies derived under capitalism, socialism, or mixed economies are characterized by a growth mania. Thus the development indicators express the commodity fetichism characteristic of advance industrial societies. The engineered staples of images, ideas, feelings and opinions, packaged and delivered through media assault our sensibilities throughout with round-the-clock regularity.(Narula 8)

Dynamics of Development:

Three essential parameters for development are: political leadership, development administration and the rural and urban masses. They are the agents of development. The patterns of interaction and social realities of various agents of development are dynamics for development.

The major dynamic factor for development is 'Development effort' put by all the agents of development. Development efforts comprise development awareness, motivation for development, and participation in development. There is relationship between development awareness, discontent, motivation and feedback linkages with participation, approval and adoption of development projects.

Dysfunctions of Development:

The word dysfunction means not working normally or properly. Yosef Gotlieb, in his book Development, Environment and Global Dysfunction, 1996 accuses the conventional concepts of development and modernization of contributing to entrenched poverty, environmental degradation, and socio-political unrest.

The analysis of four development decades reveals that interaction patterns of the development agents in the developing countries created development discontents. It was prefigured by historical factors involving political leadership, development administration, and the rural, urban masses. The government's goal in developing nations for self-sustaining development that improves the material well being of the masses within a context of democratic socialism is difficult and contains some unresolved contradictory tensions.( Narula 11)

b) Development Awareness:

Parents, relatives, school teacher and community leaders are more effective in dissemination of development message and in the decision-making process than the modern means of communication. A study made by Dr. George Axinn and Mr. T Mallick in 69 small farms in Chitwan district on information flows indicated that personal visits were the biggest source of information. Visits by professionals to the farms were more frequent than any of the other information contacts reported. The data suggested that since officials from various organizations do visit the farms they could dispense verbal information, posters, charts and even printed matter. With most farms having at least one reader present, the benefits of distributing written information are potentially great. The study also pointed out that more than twice as many farms received information by letters via postal services as read newspapers or listened to the radio. It also found information flowing through the bazaars and the local tea houses. Therefore, demonstrations near the roads leading to such places, as well as posters, charts and public radio, are also promising channels of communications in the villages.(Shrestha: 8)

Development awareness addresses the question of people's awareness of development programmes in general and for specific development activities going on in the local areas or likely to be taken in the future. The general awareness is identified with interest and arousal stage, whereas specific awareness is identified with participation and adoption stage. The extent of awareness as high and low dependes on the source, content and credibility of communication links.

Larner argued that dynamic power of modernization is the ratio between rising expectations and frustrations. There has to be a balance between the ratio of wanting and getting. The achievement is equal to aspiration over frustratin. The thrust of the argument is that the dynamic power of development  lies in development awareness(rising expectations) and discontent( rising frustrations) and achievement lies in balancing the two.(Narula 26)

Development Discontent:

Development discontent is multi-dimensional. The discontentment may be with the existing communication and administrative development strategies or when the development demands of people are not fulfilled.

The assumption is that people are activated to participate when there is development awareness and development discontent. The discontent or dissatisfaction causes "psychological arousal." Psychological arousal and cognition of needs, in turn, create discontentment among the people.

Development Motivation:

Development motivation for participation is identified with the demands of the people made on the government for satisfying development needs, individual initiated and community initiated development participation and above all, the actual participation in local development activities in the past, present and the initiative to participate in the future. The degree of involvement is identified by the frequency with which people discuss development.

The low development achievement can be reduced or eliminated by factors affecting the motivation of the people. According to Uma Narula (Development Communication Theory and Practice) the motivational force in development may be the psychological arousal of the people by the development awareness and discontentment with the on-going development programmes.

Works cited:

Powell Mike. Development in Practice, Vol. 16, No. 6. November 2006, Editor-in-Chief: Deborah Eade.

Dube SC. Tradition and Development, Delhi:Vikas Publishing, 1994.

Murthy DVR. Developmental Journalism. New Delhi: Dominant Publishers, 2001.

Shrestha, Aditya Man. Conservation Communication in Nepal (With a strategy for Tarai Region), Published on own, Kathmanud: 1987.

Bongartz Heinz and Dahal Dev Raj. Development Studies Self-Help Oraganizations, NGOs and Civil Society, Nepal Foundation for Advanced Studies and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Kathmandu: 1996.

Dahal,Madan K. et al. Development Challenges for Nepal. NEFAS, Kathmandu: 2000.