DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION

DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION

Because of early technological development, information about the world has come to be controlled by the international news agencies of the west namely; Reuters associated press, United Press International and agencies Prance Press.

Having realized the power of the media shaping the thinking of individuals in societies, developing nations essentially came up with the idea of development communication.

The audience for development communication is all sundries and the flows are vertically downward.

At the heart of development communication is firstly,

        i.            A deliberate effort to redress the battered image given to the developing countries by fee. Western media and hopefully attract investments, m order words, developing journalism seeks to repaints the ugly picture that of the never do well, which the western media portray the developing nations.

      ii.            Secondly, a resolved to use the mass media to bring citizens together using reporting techniques and programmes considered most appropriate.

    iii.            Thirdly, determinations to use that mass media for social engineering that would bring about wealth and thereby ensures individual and collective wellbeing in this sense, the mass media are to be used to highlight development programmes and to persuade citizens to participate for increased productivity.

There is no doubt that development communication is all out for development in all its ramifications. It is result oriented. Development communication is a phenomenon practiced only in the developing countries but it has gained scholarship in universities in the west and has proved a fertile area for academic encounters.

Obviously, the goals of development communication are not entirely consoling. Of concern is the one that aims to change the bad image of the developing countries presented by me Western Media, Can this be satisfactorily done through our mass media? The full implications of this goals are expressed in Articles VI and X (3) of the Declaration on the use of the mass media which say that 'It is essential for the mass media m developing countries to have adequate conditions and resources to enable them to gain strength and expand what resources are there for Africa for instance as far as the modem media enterprise is concerned?

Are the international mass media no longer reporting the developing countries as they had been doing? How many mass media houses in the western industrialized countries subscribes to the services of African news agencies? Or, how many citizens or the industrialized countries expose themselves to African mass media?

Up till now any African which needs a favourable mention in the western media would have to travel to London or New-York to address a press conference. Even with this, such countries would not be given the kind of performance they wanted in the media. So in addition, they pay in hard currency for spotlights in the major newspapers and on television in these cities. But the reverse happens to be the case in Africa. Africans still spend money to import foreign media products and spend their time to expose themselves to them. Apart from individuals it is known that "Third world" countries including Nigerian import over fifty percent of their television programmes. They do this, not from other developing countries which may be near self sufficiency in media product as the United State and Britain. Whereas countries such as Britain, France, West Germany and Italy which according to Professor Tunstrall are themselves significant media exporters as Well as importers. They import mainly from America indeed Professor Tunstrall gave an insight account of media products consumption in the third world at a conference of the media in 1983 in London.

In countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, Egypt and India, the hybrid character of most of the national programmes is often a mixture of Hollywood formulae fleshed out with local stars, local language, traditional values and religion. This is superimposing "Third World" third world culture on America or European Ideas. In Economic terms they amount to miscre presentation and subversion of third world culture and tradition. The situation is worsened by the recent growth of video news feeds by satellite. As Professor Tunstrall reported out, many receive big slabs on their television news by satellite very close to transmission time and have to conduct enlightening operation of playing through censorship selection and transmission.

The story does not end with television programmes. Foreign magazine alone sold in eighteen countries including Brazil, Nigeria, Mexico, South Korea and India. Thirty two London publications had at least twenty thousand export circulations. Among such male sex publications, political / financial magazine geared towards Africa and Asia.

The whole situation brings into focus not only the imbalance which exists within the third world and the west in the media trait but also the dominance and effect of western media of developing countries. (Media imperialism)

Clearly a number of differences could be seen between development communication and other communication type. Much of the differences lies in its history, goals and the fact that it is not just a specialized area of communication but philosophy, and ideology that is meant to guide journalism practice in the regions where more than one half of the world’s population resides.

HOW DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION IS MADE AVAILABLE TO THE CITIZENS?

Development communication is practice at an ever increasing cost the cost and maintenance of communication equipments are increasing and the wage bills for staff are rising. Yet its impact seems to be stunted by the way development information is transmitted. The management of development information is both uninventive and reflects lack of grasp of the essence of the phenomenon.

No doubt, development information is made available almost everywhere. It is there in the newspapers, radio and television programmes, schools and books. In all these sources, they are available as mass of facts. Citizens are expected to avail themselves of this piece of information choosing the ones relevant to them and discarding others. As it is with acquisition of knowledge some efforts has to be made by way of reading the newspapers, magazines and books watching television or listening to radio programmes. An average citizen may not clear to him how we will benefit from spending his time information on development.

Probably, looking for development information and these bits of information may be difficult task. Knowledge it is known, is easy to acquire when information is presented in its organized form. So development information must be organized to aid understanding, of thinking about and participation in development.

An attempt in this direction is categorization. Some newspaper and magazines occasionally have allotted columns to information on agriculture, health, science and other human endevours. So have the radio and television allotted some airtime to programmes on these subject matters from time to time. Even with these, development information still does not seem to make more sense; it still remains a mass of facts one more step can make such information more meaningful. It facilitates the citizen’s use of development information. It can lead to higher creativity in design and presentation of development information.

That one step is to go beyond departmentalizing development information according to subject matter but classify it to reflect the levels of development we are grappling with. Thus, for any subject matter information should be organized to show which ones are for self-development, immediate community development, local government, state and national development. This is likely to benefit both policy makers and ordinary citizens.

Interest progression from self development to that of immediate community, local government, state and national is not a simple natural process. It takes much to see beyond self development. Just as many educated Nigerians still do not understand why Nigeria spend millions of naira in aid of other countries in the name of international relations while Nigerians are suffering many citizens at all levels of income and education still do not understand why they should be asked to contribute to development that are far away from them. Here lies the challenges of higher creativity in design and presentation of development information.

Since" not all citizens can think like philosophers and therefore be disposed to appreciate to appropriate easily why certain things should be done in society, development communicators must constantly think of new formats and techniques for handing information for development at the different levels thus identified. In the absence of coercion, there seems to be no other choice than development communication to be persuasive.

Development communication is an attempt to influence the public to accept new ideas, to win citizens for new ways of doing things. Its success depends on the quality or persuasion and the type of change the citizens are persuaded to accept.

An effective strategy for ensuring the desired response must be concerned therefore both with influencing citizens attitudes, change and the types of change that should be introduced and when. For according to Barber 1969, "Those who want to accomplish change must act at the right time on the right place".