Mass communications from the ground up-part way: a review

Wilbur Schramm, Mass Media and National Development

WILLIAM E. PORTER Department of Journalism, The University ofMichigan

In 1962 the General Assembly of the decade, those for television receivers and United Nations passed a resolution &dquo;ex- cinema seats around the end of the cen- pressing its concern that ... 70 percent tury, and the standard for newspapers of the population of the world lack in only when the world is well into the 2000’s. adequate information facilities and are To help close this gap, the General thus denied effective enjoyment of the Assembly suggested to governments that right to information.&dquo; The concern was they include adequate provision for the based upon a survey, carried out by development of mass communications in UNESCO at the Assembly’s request, which their national planning, and requested indicated the gulf between UNESCO’s UNESCO to give continued support. minimum standards for a mass communi- UNESCO has had a strong section de- cation system and the realities in most voted to mass communication since its underdeveloped countries. beginning, and over the past fifteen years The minimums are modest. For each it has produced much valuable material. 100 inhabitants, according to UNESCO, a Most of this has been descriptive; there nation should have 10 copies of daily have been several editions of World Com- newspapers; five radio receivers; two cin- munications (the last in 1964), which is ema seats; and two television receivers. a handbook of national communication In 1961, North America had 21/4 times the systems; there have been studies and sur- minimum in newspapers and theater seats, veys of the structure of news agencies, of 15 times the radios, and 12 times the tele- legal regulation of media, of comparative vision receivers. In the same year Africa newspaper &dquo;play&dquo; of the same news bud- had about a ninth of the newspaper stan- get, of the impact of cable charges, and a dard, about half of the radios, a third of variety of other useful inventory studies the cinema seats. Asia was somewhat bet- which literally no other agency in the ter off for newspapers, but comparable world was equipped to carry out. Al- (despite Japan) in radio, television, and though action programs were not cinema facilities. A projection based on UNESCO’s specialty, historically, leader- the recent growth rate indicates that most ship of the new drive inevitably devolved underdeveloped nations will meet the ra- to it. The General Conference in 1962 dio receiver minimums by the end of this authorized &dquo;the publication of a study 118 designed to help give practical effect to of the author. He more than fulfills the the mass media development program&dquo;- terms of the assignment. He begins by which is to say that somebody should write setting out some assumptions-some ex- a book of useful advice on how to estab- plicit, others implied. The assumption that lish a major social institution. This aston- the traditional nation-state should be-or ishing assignment, simultaneously cosmic at least will be-the model for develop- and pedestrian, was accepted by Wilbur ment is implicit. The fact that this will Schramm, of Stanford’s Institute for Com- require planned social change, including munication Research, and Mass Media and the reordering of values, is set out with National Development is the product. careful emphasis; he points out, with a There is no question that UNESCO quick bow to David McClelland and Max got the best qualified man. For twenty Weber, that the establishment of some- years Wilbur Schramm has had a unique thing resembling the Protestant Ethic role in the linkage of communication re- seems to be required. And he worries search not only with other fields of social about this: science research but also with the process What are the ethics of the kind of action of its application to live problems; for the we are talking about in this book? .... last ten he has had increasing interest- What are the ethics of using modem com- and on-site experience-in the communi- munication to do the tasks we have just been talking about-encouraging &dquo;productive&dquo; atti- cation of coun- systems underdeveloped tudes even though counter-productive ones tries. may be strongly held, encouraging different Judging not only by its own content, but kinds of farming even though farmers dis- trust better health by the UNESCO promotion which ac- innovation, encouraging habits in the face of fatalism and companied its publication, this book is unwilling- ness to kill living things, encouraging people addressed to a small but extraordinary to work hard and save when they don’t seem audience-the policy-makers and opinion to want to? leaders of underdeveloped countries. Its Schramm admits that such questions purpose is to explain to intelligent men add up to a straw man for readers in some whose previous comprehension of press countries, but he hopes that &dquo;these read- and broadcasting has been largely vis- ers will bear with us while we make clear, ceral how institutionalized communication for other readers, how we stand.&dquo; works, and to suggest to them concrete He stands essentially on the fact that which be taken to the steps might speed &dquo;responsible leadership&dquo; in the developing of an effective system. It is development countries already has made the choice to written with care and a marvelous lucid- modernize their societies; that the choice but the it talks about are of less ity, things seems a reasonable one, and that the prob- interest and than the it importance things lem now is the provision of help. He cannot talk about. The reader of Mass points out that these are only the begin- Media and National Development finds it ning, however, and that a major objective more difficult as he goes along to avoid of a mass communication system is put- thinking about these unspoken things, ting people in touch with each other-the which makes this a most provocative book. provision of means for involving the whole That the shadows are more stimulating population in decisions about national than the substance is in no sense a fault growth over time. There is an assump- 119 tion here that more effective communica- acy, and formal education; the discussion tion means more consensus and more sta- is concrete, full of examples, research data, bility, as well as an assumption that and even how-to-do-it suggestions. &dquo;responsible leadership&dquo; will want this kind Obviously there will be need for orderly of popular involvement. This is closely evaluation of such programs, and this book related to the assertion that development makes a sound case for the establishment, of the mass media helps make the inno- early on, of centers for communication re- vation of social change easier-that, in search in developing countries. effect, the high correlation of communica- The author then turns to the building tion development and economic develop- of the mass media, discussing the problems ment is not merely a matter of phenome- of financing, flexibility, and comparative nological bedfellows. There is some cause- utility; he makes suggestions about ways and-effect, Schramm feels, and it makes in which the impoverished nation can get sense for the aspiring country to develop the most for its money, the kinds of as- the communication system as quickly as sistance that are most helpful (tax relief possible. This is a somewhat more san- for small papers, for example), and the guine view than Daniel Lemer’s, and al- need for determining priorities (will tele- most all the evidence thus far on innova- vision really be worth all the money that tion has been collected in highly-developed it costs?). He strongly urges the establish- countries. ment of communication industries and a Nevertheless, the author makes a per- national news agency. Because of the suasive case. He discusses the familiar need for generalization, this final section specifics of media capabilities-they can of Mass Media and National Development widen horizons, focus attention, raise as- cannot be a blueprint-but it is, at least, pirations, and thus create a climate for specific instruction in how to make one’s development. He at the same time refuses own blueprint. to get carried away by his own advocacy; he carefully makes it clear that major atti- One section of this volume was not tude change, for example, involves per- written by the principal author. Fernand sonal influence and group norms in dimen- Terrou, a political scientist at the Univer- sions that the media can effect only indi- sity of Paris and Director of the French rectly. All this is familiar stuff to any Institute of the Press, contributes a few member of the social science tribe, but to pages headed &dquo;legal and institutional con- this book’s intended audience it might well siderations.&dquo; There is no explanation, come as a revelation. other than courteous mutual deference, The details of the revelation are exam- why someone else should have been asked ined in a chapter which begins with the to write one brief section, but several rea- explanation of the concept of system (one sons suggest themselves. Terrou has done of Schramm’s great talents is explaining, much work for UNESCO in press law and with genuine intellectual elegance, ideas regulation; his is the eminent name. which are generally presented in fustian Schramm, like most Americans who work clutter) and then proceeds to the discus- in mass communication, has no great sion of four kinds of campaigns. These are knowledge of (and, one suspects, little in the areas of agriculture, health, liter- interest in) Terrou’s specialty. 120

Terrou proceeds to tell the new leader- ican. Any obvious bias toward certain ship of the developing countries what kinds of political institutions would simply kinds of press laws to write. The legal alienate a sizable bloc of people who codes he recommends, not surprisingly, are might otherwise be helped. There are based upon traditional French concepts of small and skillful thrusts here which indi- press law; they include provision for the cate the author’s awareness-for example, regulation of content by the authorities on an emphasis upon using the status con- occasion and the licensing of journalists. ferral capacity of the media in behalf of The general tone is of an atmosphere many kinds of leaders-but they are gen- which American and British (and most erally disguised. French) journalists would find highly re- Furthermore, it is not the book’s pur- strictive. Terrou makes the case explicitly: pose to discuss political action. The basic was to talk about the mechan- In these regions political consolidation, na- assignment tional cohesion, and, naturally, economic and ics of communication systems as a help social development require a mobilization by to the planners of national development. the of all public powers intellectual, moral, Here’s some help in getting newspapers and material forces. started and them UNESCO In the field of information, this mobiliza- keeping alive, is what into them is tion sometimes means, inescapably, the taking saying; you put your over and management by the state of the business, and so is whatever comes great mass communications media. It is at through the simple transistorized radios this price that these techniques, especially we urge you to build. We would not pre- radio, can be fully utilized, not only under sume to have it otherwise. If build a the conditions analyzed in this book, for eco- you nomic and social development, but also (for better communication system than you these tasks go together) for political unifica- now have, and if you use it to improve tion and the creation of a real &dquo;public opin- public health and to teach people to read ion.&dquo; This on the methods of imposes organi- and make them the beneficiaries of other zation and management obligations or restric- noncontroversial be tions of such a nature as to promote the action improvements, you’ll of the central power. well ahead. This is unquestionably true. Yet even This passage is as close as this volume this book, skillful and honest as it is, re- comes to discussing the use of institution- inforces an endemic misapprehension-the alized communications for political ends. tendency to believe that better communi- Yet this, surely, is Topic A in the real cation means a more stable, secure, and world of underdeveloped nations; this is less troubled world. This has not been a the question which becomes more engross- belief confined to sentimentalists, evan- ing each time this book evades it. Per- gelists, or newspaper editors; it can be haps &dquo;evasion&dquo; is too bald a word. In the found in the work of social first place, the author is writing as a psychologists, spokesman for the UN; his presumed cli- for example, at the end of World War II. But it has been false. entele ranges, literally, from Albania to repeatedly proved The for Zambia. Each of these has a political sys- capacity communication, both in- tem at least somewhat different from the stitutionalized and personal, has expanded others; the chief thing they might have fantastically in the last twenty years-and in common would be bitter resentment of so has the incidence of belligerence and advice on political morality from an Amer- hysteria, of threat and conflict. Despite 121

Schramm’s confidence, there is little evi- of that volume, and a bleak comment on dence thus far that the development of the things which Mass Media and Na- mass media which has taken place in un- tional Development is not about: derdeveloped countries has been accom- .... in spite of the accelerating interest an increase of either outward panied by of political scientists in the problem of the or inward stability. Mass communication underdeveloped areas, we have not yet accu- systems are also effective in demonstrating mulated the necessary insights and generalized differences and reinforcing hatred. knowledge to provide the basis for a sound doctrine for political development which in It is naive to wish that, in only light turn might be of value for the policy makers were some of this, there things to be said in new countries. about communication to new nations that Nor have the nor the were more profound than suggestions sociologists, psy- nor the communication about the need for a broad base of popu- chologists, special- lar support in initiating social change. ists. In any event, these countries might as well ahead their There might be some comfort in thinking go developing systems that these profound things exist, but sim- of mass communication. By the time they ply have not been put down in this par- are completed, somebody just might have ticular context. thought of something helpful to say about Apparently this is not the case. A first national policy. group of papers related to this matter, called Communications and Political De- REFERENCES velopment and edited by Lucian W. Pye, PYE, LUCIAN W. (ed.). Communications and was published in 1963. It is an awkward Political Development. Princeton: Prince- collection of discrete studies, some of ton University Press, 1963. WILBUR. Mass Media and Na- which are only distantly related to the SCHRAMM, tional Development. Stanford: Stanford topic, held together by some heroic transi- University Press and Paris: United Nations tional writing by the editor. A few lines Educational, Scientific and Cultural Orga- in the preface provide a kind of summary nization, 1964.