Development efforts in Nepal and Media

Development efforts in Nepal and Media

Periodic plans and media in Nepal

Development, government, and press in Nepal

Current development communication scenario in Nepal

"With the overthrow of the Ranas, Nepal was ill prepared to meet the challenge of development shared by Third World countries after the Second World War. What it did not share with many of these countries were the positive legacies of past colonialism. Nepal had little sense of the outside world, no infrastructure to support development, and no trained manpower resources. Various foreign governments were willing to provide aid, but there was no effective indigenous administration available to determine the country's needs, accept and distribute this aid. Nepal was actually able to spend only less than sixty-five per cent of the total allocated development budgets during the first five year plan period of 1956-61."

Dor Bahadur Bista, Fatalism and Development, Nepal's struggle for Modernization

The first newspaper in Nepal, The Gorakhapatra, was established in 1901 AD. Even the Broadcasting began in the country in 1951 with the establishment of the government-owned and operated Radio Nepal. However the Kingdom was not entered in the age of planned development by the time.

Nepal started planned development in 2013 B.S. The First Five-year plan (1956-61) allocated about 576 million for development expenditures. Transportation and communication received top priority with over 36 percent of the budget allocations. The attempt continued under various names in several successive plan-periods. Nine periodic plans including one-three-year plan have already been implemented so far. Now we are running in Tenth Five years plan. The ongoing plan has emphasized the role of communication for the betterment of daily life of the common people.

It was about three decades ago, Communication was introduced with high priority in the periodic plan. It was during fourth five years plan of 2027-2032 B.S or 1971-73 A D. The plan had emphasized transportation and Communication. The government prioritized the agenda for the development of transport and communication and 125.20 cores were allocated for the purpose. During the same plan the government came up with a national Communications plan (NCP) to improve communication in the government and corporate sectors. The NCP became a part of the nation's five-year plan and served to strengthen the country's communication infrastructure.

In fact, a national communication policy had began to emerge after the overthrow of the autocratic Rana regime in 1951.In the decade that followed, professional organizations such as the Nepal Journalists Association, private news agencies, the Nepal Sambad Samiti, and the Sagarmatha Sambad Samiti emerged, and the government appointed the first press commission. The government recognized the need for using communication strategies to achieve national development goals. Thus, it set up a ministry of information and broadcasting.

It is noteworthy, that by the 1980s the government had not clear idea about the role of mass media in national development. Even though it had been allocating budget for the transportation and communication. It was continued during the fifth five year plan of 2032-2037 too.

The years following the 1980s brought about a communications explosion in Nepal. During this period, television and computers heralded a new era, marked by modern by modern way of working and living in households and offices. Around this time, some well-to-do families in Kathmandu and other urban areas of Terrain developed an interest in watching Indian television channels.

During the period political awareness spread to a significant level. It started to interfere in the policy making process. And that was possible due to the media, which played a role of medium of dilouge.Changes in press laws in 1981 fostered the development of small, weekly tabloids, which multiplied more than four-fold from about 90 to 400, in just two years. The private-sector press criticized the authoritarian political system. In the 1980s, this press exposed the increasing corruption in the government and brought attention to the discontent.

Role of communications had not linked properly with development by the1980s.Eventhough, establishment of Radio Nepal and publication of newspapers during this time played a significant role to create political and social awareness in public. During the period from the 1950s till the 1970s, Nepal relied on traditional system of mass communications for the limited access to information. It was during the Sixth Plan period (2037-2042) or (1980-1985) that the feasibility studies on TV broadcasting in Nepal was conducted.

Steps were initiated in 1983 towards establishing a TV channel in Nepal in accordance with the concept of "Communications for Development." In January 1985, Nepal Television project was established under the then Ministry of Communications. In February 1986, NTV project converted in to a corporation.

Sixth plan aimed at improving the existing means of communication for developing a conducive environment for social and economic development. It further planned to develop the communication facilities in such a way that it would enhance the national unity and integrity as well as maintain a positive image of Nepal and the Nepali around the world. It also had an ambition of providing at least the basic means of communication to all parts of the country. It believed that the best use of the means of communication would be to use it for the promotion and preservation of the art and culture of the nation.

The Eighth plan recognized communication as a means to ensure the people's right to know. It aimed to develop the media sector as an important infrastructure for the development of the nation. It further aimed to make means of communication reach the rural areas. Efforts were to be made to make the communication sector economically and financially independent. During the period government improved the broadcasting condition of Radio Nepal and planned to introduce Frequency Modulation (FM) broadcasting system from the private sector. Total of 5770.0 million was spent in the information and communication in the Eighth plan period. During the plan, the strategy to provide common type of communication service to the commoners had adopted and ensures balanced development of various means of communication.

However there is still some sort of lacking regarding the coordination among the government, media and development efforts in the country. The Ninth Plan that was completed in the fiscal year 2058-59 had mentioned the communication. But it could not do anything substantial in the area. This plan stressed on the high priority to the proper development and expansion of the information and the communication sector with the objectives of extending the communication services to the rural areas throughout the country, expanding required communication system for the required infrastructure, assisting in increasing the economic growth rate while mobilizing the communication sector, alleviating poverty which still remain a serious challenge to the nation, and eradicating social backwardness.

The Tenth plan, the third planned document after the restoration of democracy or the first plan in the 21 century is underway at present. It had commenced in the year 2059-60 with such aims:

• Encouraging private sectors for development and promotion of information technology sector in order to eradicate poverty.
• Developing sustainable and competitive information technology by using modern technology in the rural area.
• Introducing new development programmes in information technology for socio-economic development.

Just before the beginning of the Tenth plan Nepal had the following scenario in the Human Development front:

Literacy: 49.2 %

Primary School enrolment: 80.4%

Longevity: 61.9 years

Maternal Mortality: 415 per lac

Total Fertility: 4.1 %

Population Growth: 2.25 %

Delivery Service by trained hand: 13.0 %

Drinking water: 71.61

Human Development Index: 0.466

Communication facilities in Nepal are also very poor. According to the UNDP Human Development Report, 2003 the country is in 143 rank of HDI. Telephone, Cellular phone and Internet are available for 13.0, 1 and 2.6 per thousand people respectively. Same condition is prevailing regarding the mass communication.

Use of information technology by the media is one of the significant developments in Nepal after the advent of democratic political system in 1990. But the flow of information as well as availability of the media throughout the country is still unbalanced. According to the latest data from Press Council Nepal, number of registered newspaper is 1620. Among them 26 percent is regular. And distribution of these newspapers is 70, 15, 9, 4 and 2 for the mid, eastern, western, mid western and far west respectively. Among the 52 of lisence holders, 42 FM are operating throughout the country. Total of 7 TV are presenting Nepali programmes.

One should be able to see an intensification of an overall trend without denying a past for it. Underdevelopment in Nepal, therefore, has a long history whose roots lie in the continuous, if uneven, process of peripheralization. If it was the world capitalist power, the British Empire, under whose ausices peripheralization and underdevelopment marched ahead before 1947, the Indian dominant alliance has been the immediate motive force in this process in the more recent past as well as at present. (Mishra 110)

In nutshell, there is still a room for coordinated role of media and the government for the development awareness and efforts. As Willbur Scharmme development is impossible without the right to information of the people, we have miles to go to achieve such noble goal.

Works Cited:

Mishra, Chaitanya. Development and Underdevelopment: A Preliminary Sociological Perspective. In James F. Fisher (Ed) Occasional Papers in Sociology and Anthropology vol 1. Kathmandu: Central Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology TU, 1987.

Development Journalism in India

Development Journalism started in India with the beginning of this new arena of the mass communication. Wilbur Schramm was also involved in India during the initial days of development communication. Schramme's international activities in the 1950s and 1960s took him to India too. In 1964, he headed a team of experts who were invited by the Indian government to advice on developing the infrastructure for mass media communication in India. The Indian Institute of Mass Communications was established in Delhi in 1965 with his recommendation. The Institute has been imparting knowledge and skills on development journalism to the participants from across the third world.

Television began in India as a UNESCO supported educational project in 1959, and grew very slowly in the 1960s.

There is a long tradition of Development Journalism in India. P. Sainath compailed a book" Everybody loves a good drought" in 1996 based on a series of reports he filed for the Times of India from some of the country's poorest districts. The book, compilation of ten development stories won thirteen awards.

The Press Institute of India, an NGO working for media has been publishing GRASSROOTS, a rural newspaper.

Sensitizing the Media for Development Issues:

‘Development Journalism’ focuses on the needs of the poor, the deprived, and the marginalized and emphasizes their effective participation in developmental planning. Or to say it slightly elaborately, this kind of journalism motivates the active participation of the affected people and advocating for their interests, in place of the views of the policy makers and the planners i.e. the government.

For last 10 years Charkha has been functioning with this concept of journalism as its model. It has to extent succeeded in generating an interest among a section of media persons towards people’s issues. But on the whole, the scene still persists where the mainstream media is not sufficiently focusing grassroots people’s initiatives and movements. It is for this reason; activists of mass movements and organizations have initiated efforts for making an interface possible between mass media and such organizations. One illustrious example and fruit of such interface is the Narmada Bachao Andolan. This movement has assumed a nation wide interest not for the reason that it symbolizes people’s fight against mega dams, but because it could and is still using mass media in a better and effective way for highlighting itself in the public eye.

There was a time when media would reach to movements for reporting it. But unfortunately now, activists have to do two things simultaneously- carry on with their movements and write news reports about them and also take those reports to newspaper offices for favor of publication. The sorcerers of the mainstream media don’t make any efforts on their own to lend their ears to the stirrings and upsurges at the grassroots level. Consequently, in situations where activists are yet to learn to find a place for their issues, failures and successes in the mainstream media, these remain confined only to their immediate local surroundings and don’t reach to a wider audience or readership. Charkha is a modest initiative in making an interface possible between action at the grassroots level and the mainstream media; an effort for ‘spinning action into words’.

Charakha claims that it try to making bridges between people’s issues and the media. If they are left with no time to reach down to the issues; we can take these to them. To put it more clearly, we want media’s centralized power to be decentralized.

Charkha is precisely working for this kind of decentralization of media and is trying to do it at various levels. Charkha starts from the Panchayat level. In Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, U.P., Jharkhand, Uttranchal and Bihar, we conduct Writing Workshops at the tehsil and state levels in which social activists related to Panchayat Raj & Self- governance are given information about media. For evolving panchayat level media we train these activists in preparing wall newspapers and also in writing reports etc. for newspapers panchayat related issues. Local editors and journalists are also invited to these workshops so that they could familiarize themselves with the ground realities of a village and in future are willing to include these issues in their papers. Charkha also conducts Media Workshops for journalists and free lancers in which the roles of media and people’s issues are the focal point of discussion. Social activists are given information about the internal constitution of the media, its way of functioning, pressures on it and its responsibilities; while media persons get an opportunity for developing a deeper understanding of people’s issues. In the light of the experiences Charakha have gained in last ten years reveal that though successes on this path are very difficult to achieve, but not impossible.

Localized Approaches to Development Communication

The relationship between communication and development can be broadly categorized in two types:

a) Macro societal level

b) Micro level

Macro societal level studies examine the co-relation between existence or availability of mass media institutions and various indices of development. Lerner, Schramm and other communication theorists found high correlation between media participation and such indices of development as organization, literacy and political participation.

A UNESCO study (UNESCO, Mass Media in Developing Countries, Reports and Papers in Mass Communication, 1961, Paris) found that indicators of national development such as per capita income, literacy, urbanization and industrialization were correlated with indicators of a well-developed media infrastructure (e.g. newspaper consumption per person, daily newspaper circulation per 100 persons, cinema seats per 100 persons and number of radio sets per 100 persons.) The development of mass media was clearly related to other developments in the country.

All the studies provide direct support to the view that a modern mass media system is an important part of social overhead capital of development.

Mircolevel studies examine the co-relation between media exposer and modernization variables. Communication scholars have found significant interrelationship between communication variables and modernization variables. It is argued that information of certain kind awakens appetite for new things and new ways of doing things and mass communication produces demonstration effect.

Other scholars have expressed that mere availability of any kind of mass media is not likely to be useful for innovative changes; the information transmitted through media must be functionally and locally relevant and relates to patterns of content presented to the audience. Information is perceived as useful, it is applicable, timely and specific in given situation.

The importance of localized communication approach is emphasized. Grass roots-based, people-centered participatory development strategies that emerged in the 1970s proposed a completely different notion of cultural change distinct from the West to East diffusion of modern ideas via the mass media suggested by well-intentioned US academics. Brazilian educator Paulo Freire outlined a new methodology that had illiterate adults participating actively in the transformation of their world.

In Freire's proposed pedagogy of the oppressed, the teacher (or media producer) is no longer the authority, but a learner-cum-teacher: someone who both learns and teaches in dialogue with other fellow learners-teachers. The dialog-based message design process proposed in this book tries to approximate the Freirean ideal.

The development programmes must be local to meet the local needs which vary widely in differing regions and sub-regions in large developing countries as there is plurality of cultures and languages.

Communication scholars argue that a localized approach would enable the communicator to design messages which will be relevant in terms of utility, timeliness, applicability, specificity, etc.The localized media approach would tailor message for local conditions. Such an approach can overcome the constraints of infra-structural reasons and facilitate two-way communication by allowing greater involvement and participation of the audience in the communication process. 

Development Journalism in Third World

Cultural Globalization or Cultural Imperialism:

In Latin America, a school of thought defined the failure of Third World development in terms of dependency. Dependency theory viewed the world as a single system and found "imperial centers", notably the United States, which controlled the flow of goods, services, and capital between themselves and nations on the periphery of the system. Economic development at the periphery, which included most of the Third World, was used to strengthen the dominance of the center nations and to maintain the peripheral nation's position of dependence.

In this theory which sees Communication as Imperialism, twentieth century multinational of transnational corporations (MNCs or TNCs) performed the same functions as eighteen and nineteenth century imperial armies. It was the MNCs and TNCs that came, saw, and conquered through the manipulation of wants, needs, and desires and made the Third World believe that development could come only through the continuation of the existing global system.

Because dependency theory argued that domination was maintained through persuasion rather than armies, mass media or communication. TNCs-were especially important. The articulation of a cultural/information imperialism component of dependency theory was the work of a North American, Herbert Schiller. His explanation of cultural domination in the early 1970s spread from his home base at the University of California at San Diego to universities, development centers, and occasionally even government offices at around the world. His influence seemed to expand even as American economy and military power declined in the 1970s because he argued that the West, especially the United States, was all-powerful in information, the coin of the new information age, and that information was increasingly the business of the MNC's and Tic's.

Dependency theory and its corollaries also relieved people and Third World governments from responsibility for their actions. Why were "Dallas" and Disney cartoons as popular in the Third World as they were in the United States? Not because of the universal appeal of fantasy programming, but because the communication TNCs first created the demand for it, then sold the programs to satisfy the demand. Why did Third World countries rely so heavily on the Western news agencies? Not because the Western agency files were fast, reliable, and interesting, but because the TNCs that controlled the news prevented the development of alternative organizations to challenge their hegemony.

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 Communication

Development means development of the bottom 50 percent of a country.

Mohammed Yunus, Founder of the Grameen Bank, Bangaladesh.

Development communication has been defined in several ways by economic development experts, sociologists, and communication experts. The terminology development communication originated in Asia, the definitions given by the communication experts of this region gained currency. Still definitions differ from region to region depending on the definers view of development. Nora Quebral defined development communication as the art and science of human communication applied to the speedy transformation of a country from poverty to a dynamic and social equality and the larger fulfillment of human potential. Development communication, the all-encompassing term, is occasionally very widely defined as "the discipline and practice of communication in the context of developing countries."

Development communication is concerned with the role of communication in social change. Development communication grew out of the field of agricultural communication. The term was coined to include under it apart from agricultural development, other areas of national development such as population, nutrition, health, education, housing and employment etc.Since all these areas require communication input development communication was considered an appropriate term to describe the scope, direction, structure of the discipline.

Srinivas R. Melkote and H. Leslie Steeves states " The second half of 20th century brought a tradition of communication research and practice geared toward Third World development needs, an area that has come to be known as development communication."

In 1950s and 1960s research on communication and development was conducted on third world people and societies for achieving policy objectives of the US government. Third world people were objects to be molded in whatever shape desired by the western policy makers.

Development communication is described as the systematic use of communication in support of national developmet.The individuals who conceived development communication/journalism in 1960s believed that there should be better trained and informed economic specialists among the communicators, since national development depends on economic growth, to cover fully, impartially and simply the numerous problems of developing nations.

Development communication needs and expectations are subjective categories. There are three sets of problem related to it:

• Behavior orientations with respect to all media (radio, TV, Cinema, press, oral channels)
• Affective orientations with regard to the major national development and communications expectations, needs and constraints and possibilities.
• Cognitive orientations with respect to major national development and communication strategies and policies.

The assumption is that future is built as a result of interactions between people and socio-economic and technological possiblilities.Once we gain a deeper understanding of the directions of change, we may define with greater measure of confidence our feasible region of action.

Development communication has to deal with two types of audience:

·         The communicators comprising development bureaucracy, media practitioners and professionals

·         The people-the audience who can be informed and uninformed, educated , semi-literate and literate.

The effectiveness of the development communication depends on the type and kind of audience, image of development bureaucracy and the interpretation of media practitioners which affect the interpretations of communication and its persuasive efficacy.

Wilbur Schramm was one of the first to recognize that communication could play an important role in the national development of the third world countries. He believed that mass media could better the lives of people by supplementing the information resource and exposing people for learning opportunities.

Schramm's conceptualization of the interaction between mass communication and development became the focus of many development programmes. Developments in communication were brought about by the economic, social and political evolution and vice-versa. He advocated the use of big and little media or a combination of both according to the development task, the targeted audience and the resources available.

The development communication model that Schramm proposed in the 1960s had limited success in third world countries. Bullet theory of communication and trickle-down development theory did not work. Development scholars in the 1970s and 1980s recognized and agreed with Schramm's assertion that group activity at the village level is important for village development, bottom-up and horizontal communication  among villagers is as important as top-down communication from the central government to the villagers.

The general role of Devcom is to create the human environment necessary for development to succeed. The specific concept of development communication identified it with information, education and communication.

Devcom is purposive, goal-directed, educative and always associated with some programme for desirable planned change. It is action-oriented since it helps people in gaining better control over their environments by the use of appropriate technology for communication.Devcom negotiates to change attitudes towards development rather than to convert and persuade. It either supports a component approach to development programmes as advocated later by the development practitioners and theorists.

Development communicatin(DC) is the study of social change brought about by the application of communication research, theory, and technologies to bring about development. Development is defined as a widely participatory process of 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 people through their gaining greater control over their environment. For example, DC promotes social changes leading to improved nutritioin, family planning, better health, higher literacy, and improved agricultural production in developing countries by means of more effective communication. The experts seeking to bring about this type of social change are typically different culturally from the people receiving the development assistance, so heterophily is involved. Histories of DC are Mowlana and Wilson's (1990) The Passing of Modernity, Roger's (1976, 1989) reviews, and Schramm's (1964) Mass Media and National Development. The scholarly study of development began in the 1950, about the same time as Intercultural Communication, as nations in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa ended political colonialization by European countries and sought to improve their socioeconomic conditions. The highest priority for these new nations was development, raising incomes and levels of living for rural and urban poor people. (Gudykunst & Mody 10)

Prerequisites of Devcom:

• Human and localized approach to communication rather than abstract and centralized
• Credibility and role of communication links for development-both media and interpersonal links
• Access to communication.

Participatory theories on development criticized the modernization paradigm on the grounds that it promoted a top-down, ethnocentric and paternalistic view of development. They argued that the diffusion model proposed a conception of development associated with a Western vision of progress. Development communication was informed by a theory that “became a science of producing effective messages”. After decades of interventions, the failure to address poverty and other structural problems in the Third World needed to be explained on the faulty theoretical premises of the programs. Any intervention that was focused on improving messages to better reach individuals or only change behavior was, by definition, unable to implement social change.

Development theories also criticized traditional approaches for having been designed and executed in the capital cities by local elites with guidance and direction from foreign specialists. Local people were not involved in preparing and instrumenting development interventions. Interventions basically conceived of local residents as passive receivers of decisions made outside of their communities, and in many cases, instrumented ill-conceived plans to achieve development. Governments decided what was best for agricultural populations, for example, without giving them a sense of ownership in the systems that were introduced.

Development Threshold and Development Gap

Human and localized approach suggests communication efforts tailored to the needs and psychological dispositions of people and the development threshold of people. That means the entrance or the beginning of the development should be as per the local perception.

There is a need to bridge the Communication gap between the technical specialists with expertise in specific areas of knowledge (such as health, agriculture and literacy) and potential users. So that they could utilize such knowledge and its specific applications to improve the performance.

Socio-Economic Benefits Gap

Knowledge Gap

Communication Gap

More and more development theorists and practitioners are being convinced that "development threshold" is significant for development communication. This concept suggests being receptive to development to a certain point. For example, there is a marked difference between the development threshold of rural and urban society, between elites and masses, men and women within the urban and rural society. These differences in the threshold are termed as "development gap". Development gap is identified with socio-economic gap, Knowledge gap and communication gap. Development gap suggests that people in different development thresholds need different development communication handling for effective development. The development-gap hypothesis is that patterns of communication which may lead the have-nots away from the mainstream of development thus creating gap between the haves and have-nots.

Communication Perspective on Development

In the context of development, fundamental purpose of human communication is to understand the reality in order to achieve goals and select other subsequent goals. Thus understanding and mutual understanding is fundamental to the process of communication itself. A circular communication is necessary at all levels with several loops of feedback and feed-forward to arrive at mutual understanding. A development communication model is based on the communication patterns for development discussion information and feedback, about the development programmes, problems and needs and the relationship among these communication links. (Various mass media channels are feasible communication links for the IEC-information, education & communication function of Devcom.)

No national consensus or individual change can take place without dialogue:

a) Within groups of people with homogeneous needs,

b) Between groups of people with different needs, and

c) Between the public and planners (e.g. government agencies, private voluntary organizations) claiming to meet their needs.

This implies horizontal communication within and between groups in which people are organized (e.g. women's groups, caste groups, religious groups).This implies vertical, bottom-up, people-to-planner information flows on needs, priorities, and preferred modes of meeting them. And it also includes top-down, planner-to-people information flows in response to community information they receive. Information has to keep flowing three ways in a never-ending spiral as it were, first horizontally and then up, and then back down, continuously, and on a variety of issues. The dialogue at each loop or circle of the spiral may sometimes it may not. But the spiral-shaped system must keep information flowing constantly if national development is to be broad-based and self-sustaining.

Communications perspective on development defines development as the construction of particulars set of relationships, roles and patterns of actions and communication as the process by which those are created.

The strategy of defining certain human behavior as not communicative orients development of communication strategists and practitioners into unproductive lines of thought and action.

That a great many of actions people perform are caused by social conditions over which people have no control and a great deal of what people do to one another is not the result of conscious, knowledge or choice. Social action always occurs in the context of unacknowledged constraints and unintended consequences.

Analysis of development from communication perspective indicates that many social actions not defined as communication are communication for development efforts. For instance, direct action such as building roads, enacting legislation to break up exploitative linkages and message transmission through mass media and interpersonal chhanels.These three express and reconstitutes the social reality of the actors in Development communication situation.

Communications perspective on development defines communication not as a category of acts but as a perspective from which to look at any given act. Everything that one does or does not do can be looked at as having message value from the communication perspective; human actions are seen as a process by which persons collectively maintain and create social reality by drawing on the resources of their social reality and from the practices in which they are engaged with others. The communication perspective allows interpretative and critical analysis and improved communication.

International development theorists and practitioners have conceptualized development from various perspectives such as:

Social change

Modernization

Progress

Alternations in life-styles

But all the perspectives have encompassed 'growth'-the economic growth, viz industrialization and agrarian growth; social growth, viz structural and value changes.

The perspectives have changed not only due to Paradigmatic changes but also due to global changes in:

Social setting

Economy

Polity (The form or process of government)

Technology

Communications

These perspectives have changed the concept of development, how to do development and why the development successes do not proportionate with the development efforts of the developing countries.

The development issues and sub-issues are directly related to developing countries but they are also the major concerns and involvement of developed countries. Thus development is envisioned as the interdependent efforts of both developing and developed countries. Communication is significant component in how to do development effectively.

The Origins of Newspapers in Nepal

The Origins of Newspapers

The history of newspapers is an often-dramatic chapter of the human experience going back some five centuries. In Renaissance Europe handwritten newsletters circulated privately among merchants, passing along information about everything from wars and economic conditions to social customs and "human interest" features. The first printed forerunners of the newspaper appeared in Germany in the late 1400's in the form of news pamphlets or broadsides, often highly sensationalized in content. Some of the most famous of these report the atrocities against Germans in Transylvania perpetrated by a sadistic veovod named Vlad Tsepes Drakul, who became the Count Dracula of later folklore.

In the English-speaking world, the earliest predecessors of the newspaper were corantos, small news pamphlets produced only when some event worthy of notice occurred. The first successively published title was The Weekly Newes of 1622. It was followed in the 1640's and 1650's by a plethora of different titles in the similar newsbook format. The first true newspaper in English was the London Gazette of 1666. For a generation it was the only officially sanctioned newspaper, though many periodical titles were in print by the century's end.

Beginnings in America

In America the first newspaper appeared in Boston in 1690, entitled Publick Occurrences. Published without authority, it was immediately suppressed, its publisher arrested, and all copies were destroyed. Indeed, it remained
forgotten until 1845 when the only known surviving example was discovered in the British Library. The first successful newspaper was the Boston News-Letter, begun by postmaster John Campbell in 1704. Although it was heavily subsidized by the colonial government the experiment was a near-failure, with very limited circulation. Two more papers made their appearance in the 1720's, in Philadelphia and New York, and the Fourth
Estate slowly became established on the new continent. By the eve of the Revolutionary War, some two dozen papers were issued at all the colonies, although Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania would remain the centers of American printing for many years. Articles in colonial papers, brilliantly conceived by revolutionary propagandists, were a major force that influenced public opinion in America from reconciliation with England
to full political independence.

At war's end in 1783 there were forty-three newspapers in print. The press played a vital role in the affairs of the new nation; many more newspapers were started, representing all shades of political opinion. The no holds barred style of early journalism, much of it libelous by modern standards,
reflected the rough and tumble political life of the republic as rival factions jostled for power. The ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791 at last guaranteed of freedom of the press, and America's newspapers began to take on a central role in national affairs. Growth continued in every
state. By 1814 there were 346 newspapers. In the Jacksonian populist 1830's, advances in printing and papermaking technology led to an explosion of
newspaper growth, the emergence of the "Penny Press"; it was now possible to produce a newspaper that could be sold for just a cent a copy. Previously,
newspapers were the province of the wealthy, literate minority. The price of a year's subscription, usually over a full week's pay for a laborer, had to be paid in full and "invariably in advance." This sudden availability of
cheap, interesting reading material was a significant stimulus to the achievement of the nearly universal literacy now taken for granted in America.

The Industrial Revolution

The industrial revolution, as it transformed all aspects of American life and society, dramatically affected newspapers. Both the numbers of papers and their paid circulations continued to rise. The 1850 census catalogued 2,526 titles. In the 1850's powerful, giant presses appeared, able to print ten thousand complete papers per hour. At this time the first "pictorial" weekly newspapers emerged; they featured for the first time extensive illustrations of events in the news, as woodcut engravings made from correspondents' sketches or taken from that new invention, the photograph.
During the Civil War the unprecedented demand for timely, accurate news reporting transformed American journalism into a dynamic, hardhitting force in the national life. Reporters, called "specials," became the darlings of
the public and the idols of youngsters everywhere. Many accounts of battles turned in by these intrepid adventurers stand today as the definitive histories of their subjects.
Newspaper growth continued unabated in the postwar years. An astounding 11,314 different papers were recorded in the 1880 census. By the 1890's the first circulation figures of a million copies per issue were recorded
(ironically, these newspapers are now quite rare due to the atrocious quality of cheap paper then in use, and to great losses in World War II era paper drives) At this period appeared the features of the modern newspaper,
bold "banner" headlines, extensive use of illustrations, "funny pages," plus expanded coverage of organized sporting events. The rise of "yellow journalism" also marks this era. Hearst could truthfully boast that his newspapers manufactured the public clamor for war on Spain in 1898. This is also the age of media consolidation, as many independent newspapers were swallowed up into powerful "chains"; with regrettable consequences for a once fearless and incorruptible press, many were reduced to vehicles for the distribution of the particular views of their owners, and so remained, without competing papers to challenge their viewpoints. By the 1910's, all the essential features of the recognizably modern newspaper had emerged. In
our time, radio and television have gradually supplanted newspapers as the nation's primary information sources, so it may be difficult initially to appreciate the role that newspapers have played in our history.

 The news has at one point or another played a part in every one of our lives. Whether it is a weather report giving flash-flood warnings, information on presidential campaigns, or an obituary citing the death of a television personality, we crave it. Until the recent development and affluence of the Internet as a news source, newspapers have globally been
the primary source of current events. Having become part of a daily routine in most lives, little is known of the immense history this learning tool holds.
The story begins some five centuries ago in Europe. Here, merchants would distribute newsletters written by hand containing information regarding the weather, economic conditions, wars and human-interest stories. Although this was the first known form of distributed written information, the country accredited with the creation of the first newspaper is Germany. In the late fifteenth century, a cross between a brochure and a pamphlet was dispersed
among the people, the text containing highly sensationalized stories along with description of the current news events.
America, however, was a step behind. Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestick, was the first newspaper published in America. Printed by Richard Pierce, and edited by Benjamin Harris, the first copy issued on September 25, 1690 would also be the last. It filled only 3 sheets of paper measuring six by ten inches, the equivalent of filling half of the front page of a newspaper today (14" x 23"). The paper had intended to be issued once a month.
The sudden discontinuation of Publick Occurrences would mean the last news offered to Americans for the next few years. Instead, newspapers published in London were read even though the "first true newspaper in English was the London Gazette, published four years later in 1666.
Fourteen years later, back in America, John Campbell, a bookseller appointed Postmaster of Boston, became the editor of the Boston News-Letter. The first issue was dated Monday, April 17 to Monday April 24, 1704 and contained only one advertisement. This was produced weekly and continued to be so even when William Brooker was appointed Postmaster to replace Campbell. Campbell refused to authorize the use of the title "News-Letter" to anyone else so Brooker called his newspaper the "Boston Gazette". Seven months later, Philip Musgrave was awarded the position of Postmaster in Boston and replaced Brooker. At this time, James Franklin, the printer of the Gazette, was also replaced. He wanted to start his own newspaper even though friends and family dissuaded him from doing so by telling him that Boston already
had a sufficient number of newspapers (2) and a third could not survive.
Despite this, Franklin went ahead and published his own newspaper, the New England Courant. The first issue was printed on August 19, 1721 making it the fourth newspaper published in America.
When James Franklin published an editorial criticizing the government, he was sent to prison. James' 13 year old brother and apprentice, Ben, took over the work of laying type, printing, and delivery of the issues. Six
months later, James Franklin was forbidden to publish any more newspapers so the masthead now carried the name "Ben Franklin" as editor and publisher. Ben, now legally free of being an apprentice, and having a dislike for his brother James, ran away to New York and later to Philadelphia. The New England Courant kept publishing issues claiming Ben Franklin was editor and publisher until 1726 without anyone being the wiser.
The fact that newspapers had been so scarce in Europe, America, and many other continents is due to many factors. To find a literate man was no easy task after Europe was emerging from the black age. Paper was extremely
expensive, and hard to come across, and the task of printing was long and laborious. The latter was still a problem even with the invention of the printing press in 1436.
A 39-year-old Johann Gutenberg came up with a printing method, where, by arranging stamps displaying the letters of the alphabet, one could construct a page of literature to be copied numerous times. This became known as the
Gutenberg Press, one of the greater inventions the fifteenth century held. Although a giant improvement from hand copying, this method still required the rearrangement of the letters each time a new page was to be printed.
In the early 1800's the development of continuous rolls of paper enhanced the original Gutenberg Press as did a steam-powered press and a way to use iron instead of wood for building presses. This added efficiency of printing
made the prices of printed goods more reasonable hence the term "penny press". This phrase originated when newspaperman Benjamin Day dropped the  price of his New York Sun to a penny a copy in 1833. Historians have accredited the "penny press" as the first true mass medium.
Another advancement in the history of printing was the origin of Linotype, a method of creating movable type by machine instead of by hand. This was introduced in 1884 and marked a significant leap in production speed. In
terms of the use of computers in the field of printing, especially newspapers, the progression is unbelievable. From the first daisy-wheel and dot matrix "impact" printers to common use of the non-impact printers: ink-jet, laser and thermal-transfer, printing presses are on the brink of becoming a thing of the past.
The big question regarding what the future holds for the old-fashioned newspaper is whether or not it will be overcome by the use of the Internet. Studies show that from 1992 to 1997, the weekly hours of using the Internet
has increased from 1.8 hours, to 9.1. Although the evidence is convincing that in the future the use of computers will obliterate that of newspapers, sometimes the tangible aspect is too great to give up for a color monitor.
You may be convinced that there's no better way to relax than with some black coffee and the front page. Or perhaps up-to-the-minute updates on top stories are more your interest. All we can say is: To each his own, but
always keep an open mind.

In the context of Nepal

The first media publication in Nepali language was "GORKHA BHARAT JEEVAN". It was published from Banaras. Main initiative was taken by the great intellectual Moti Ram Bhatta, editor was Ram Krishna Burma. It was monthly magazine , based

Journalism and Sports Journalism

Journalism is a discipline of gathering, writing and reporting news, and more broadly it includes the process of editing and presenting the news articles. Journalism applies to various media, including but not limited to newspapers, magazines, radio, and television.

While under pressure to be the first to publish their stories, news media organizations—each adhering to its own standards of accuracy, quality, and style—usually edit and proofread their reports prior to publication. Many news organizations claim proud traditions of holding government officials and institutions accountable to the public, while media critics have raised questions about holding the press itself accountable.
The digitalization of news production and the diffusion capabilities of the internet are challenging the traditional journalistic professional culture.
The concept of participatory or citizen journalism proposes that amateur reporters can actually produce their own stories either inside or outside professional media outlets, and thus end the monopoly the press holds over information production. Among different field of sports journalism is also one. Sports journalism covers many aspects of human athletic competition, and is an integral part of most journalism products, including newspapers, magazines, and radio and television news broadcasts. While some critics don't consider sports journalism to be true journalism, the prominence of sports in Western culture has justified the attention of journalists to not just the competitive events of sports, but also to athletes and the business of sports.
Sports journalism in many countries have traditionally been written in a looser, more creative and more opinionated tone than traditional
journalistic writing; the emphases on accuracy and underlying fairness is still a part of sports journalism. An emphasis on the accurate description of statistical performances of athletes is also an important part of sports journalism.

Introduction to Sports Journalism in Nepal

History of Nepalese sports journalism is not too long. Without hesitation we can say that Nepalese sports journalism was started from the irregular sports news published in Gorkhapatra. But sports news were given less priority as compare to political, social or human-interest news. Likewise after the restoration of democracy in 2007 B.S newspaper used to give negligible place fort he sports news. In 2014 first sport newspaper was published. Mahindra Shrestha was the publisher of "Sporting Times". Unfortunately that newspaper could not run for long period of time. In 2018 Shyam Kc published "Sportsman". But this newspaper was unable to continue for long time. In 2024 "Rangashala" came it the market. Rajendra Bahadur Shrestha was the publisher. Similarly like other sports newspaper this paper publication was halted. Behind the discontinuation of sports newspaper there was only one reason.

Lack of economic resources was the main cause for stoppage of sports newspaper. At that time advertising and market were limited.

For the publication of news paper supreme governing body of sport National Sports Council (NSC) also had put effort. It published "Khel ra Kheladi" and "Khelkud ra Nayajewan" . But these papers also could not sustain for long period of time. They were closed. Although NSC doesn't has resources problem but why it was unable to give continuity to these papers seems to be un logical.

In 2037 Subodh Giri published "Khel Jagat". Although it was irregular, its journey continued till 2043. In 2048 Chitiz Arun Shrestha published "Sports Nepal". 

Although there is no cut throat competition but no sports newspaper could run long time. Main reason behind this is mismanagement and economical constraints. This newspaper basically published national and international news. They also published interview and introduction of players, coaches and sports personnel.

Oldest newspaer "Gorkhapatra" started publishing sports new since 2007 B.S. But sports news catches the gear after the establishement of Rastriya Samachar Samiti (RSS) in 2018. Real development of sports journalism occurred in Nepal after the change in political system in 2046. This change paved the way for the establishment of media houses. Change have played a vital role on the development of sports journalism in a well thought way.

Establishment of Annapurana Post National Daily

Annapurna Post National Daily, a leading newspaper is published from Kathmandu. It was started as Tabliod daily at the beginning from 1 May 2001.  It merged into News Media Private Limited and it was converted into broadsheet daily from 12 December 2002. Its sole objective is to inform and entertain the public through the varied topics and new taste.

Working environment is very healthy in this daily. According to Mr. Shree Acharaya, Managing editor of the daily the organization organizes the professional trainings and provides other incentives to its staffers and journalists. It is perhaps the first national daily in Nepal which has adapted diverse multimedia uses in its day to day publications.  The paper is lead and run by the experienced and energetic professional team. The Organizational structure of the daily can be drawn as follows:

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.