Global Communication Theories, Stakeholders, and Trends Thomas L.

McPhail

Development Research Traditions and Global Communication

Presented by: Muhammad Usman Saeed (13021716-018)

Introduction

The Chapter addresses

History Major approaches or theories The role of NGOs The competition for resources The CNN effect Paradigm shift underway

Paradigm of Modernization
Old Paradigm New Paradigm

Economic Focus

Policy Matters with a social and cultural lens

Objections to globalization
Post-Cold-War fear of US hegemony Aid and International policies to suit donor nation goals and not receiving nations needs and goals Ex: Area of Family Planning and Women role Benefits goes to Western nations and third world see little improvement

Development Communication
In theory it should work with other growth factors to lead poorer nations to modernization or at least semi-peripheral zone. In practice, those peripheral nations that invest in media infrastructures realized too late that these systems were bringing more foreign not local content.

Cont
Indeed some peripheral nations moved in the opposite direction with regard to their housing, environment, currency and literacy, and healthcare, particularly with the spread of AIDS.

Development Journalism
It is a media theory that encourages an engineered press a press committed to government set priorities and objectives. Totalitarian and military regimes in a number of peripheral nations follow and enforce this media theory and approach.

Core nations as sources

Major Western News Agencies such as the Associated Press, Bloomberg, Agence France Prease provide 90% news all over the world. Major Western newspaper International Radio Programming Voice of America, the BBC, Deutsche Welle. Global television news videos and reels supplied by CNN, Reuters, AP, Getty,BBC.

Cont
Television programming and feature films over two third of available global video programs comes from the United States. Major Global Advertising Agencies are based in US, Europe, or Japan.

Economic based Growth

Peripheral nations can be developed through economic assistance.

Economic based Growth

It was assumed, More the GDP, More the development of Communication systems. Limitations
Soviet Union supported Communist oriented nations. United States supported capitalist and free democracy oriented nations. Corrupt regimes, Military official, untrained bureaucrats in peripheral nations wasted aid.

Two philosophies of journalism

Western Journalists favored a free press Local Development Communication journalists followed a development journalism approach.
In practice advocacy journalism.

Communication & Development

The stages of economic growth by US economist Rostow the passing of traditional society by Denial Lerner. The diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers. Mass Media and National Development by Wilbur Schramm

Walter Rostows stages of economic growth

Stage1

Traditional Society Establishment of preconditions to takeoff Takeoff into sustained growth Drive to maturity High Mass Consumption

Stage2

Stage3

Stage4

Stage5

Criticism on Modernization
Anthony Giddens states that modernization will ultimately lead to Marshall McLuhans global village. One of the most profound effects will be that the language of the global village will be English.

Development
In summary, development has been viewed as a type of social change in which new ideas are introduced into a social system in order to produce higher per capita incomes and levels of living through modern product methods and improved social organizations. But after decades, a growing chorus of critics began to make themselves heard.

Cont
In turn some analysts shifted to non-economic explanations of development, identifying variables such as mass media exposure, telecommunications, political and social changes, social mobility, population control, along with individual psychology and commitment as preconditions for positive development and eventual modernization.

The Research Traditions

Functionalism
1930s and 1940s Commercially oriented Reflecting the marketing concerns of the consumer society In Lazarsfeld's words Administrative research Research isolated specific media purposes from overall social process.

Cont
US researchers interested to illuminate new forms of social control, persuasion or attitude change. Focus on quantitative, empirical, behavioral science methods studies were commissioned by broadcast, government agencies, foundations or large advertising agencies.

Cont
Interested in such things as Votes, purchases, attitudes, or behavior change of individuals. They had no interest in social, ideological or cultural scheme.

Structuralism
Some critics such as Herbert and Dan Schillar, Dallas Smythe, Bob McChesney and Howard Frederick, probed more deeply into the question of who communicates with whom and for what purposes. They found that the real shaper of peripheral nations communication systems and the messages they produce is media from core nations.

Cont
Communication conglomerates They use the communication industry to perpetuate certain needs, tastes, values and attitudes so as to increase profit When a peripheral nation import a communication technology, it imports an alternative way of life Communication systems define basic social arrangements of living.

Professionalism
Technocratic baggage including technicians, engineers, producers, directors, behind the scene personnel, and writers, usually are on loan from the industrial nations or are trained and educated in core nations. They bring value system and attitudes associated with Western Professionalism.

Cont
For granted more Modern technology including communication hardware and software foster a neocolonial-like dependence on organizations from core nations.

Western Research Failings

Beltran criticizes diffusion of innovation
Communication by itself can generate development Increased production and consumption of goods and services are essence of development To increased productivity is technological innovation

Cont
Dominant research tools of diffusion studies interview, sample survey, and content analysis are another obstacle to the exploration of social structure as a key factor in the communication process. Empiricism and quantitative approach also a hurdle to study macro level.

New Departures
Marxist Theories during the 1960s and 1970s. In early 1990s, Marxists quickly lost advocates. Schiller and Rogers pointed out the centrality of communication in the development process. World Bank development report 1998 marks a dramatic shift by including communication as central to future development.

Cont
Finally, a new movement under the umbrella of participatory communication has emerged.

Conclusion
The main point is that the communication research with an international focus is changing, complex, and in some cases controversial. Previous theories and approaches appear limited, which is why the application of world system theory as well as the theory of electronic colonialism to global communication trends is a welcome addition to the discipline.

Cont
Old boundaries and distinctions between hardware and software are becoming meaningless with the digitalization and emergence of media conglomerates.

Discussion