66 J. Servaes and P.

Malikhao

Group (UNDG), who aptly summarizes the major “brand” of devcom approaches
as “Participatory diffusion or semantic confusion”: “Many development practi-
tioners are avoiding the semantic debates . . . in order to harness the benefits of
both approaches. For them, what is most important is not what an approach is called,
the origins of an idea or how it is communicated. What is critical is that we find the
most effective and efficient tools to achieve the noble objectives outlined in the
Millennium Declaration” (Rogers 2005).
To state that development communication is a good case to illustrate the impor-
tance and relevance for comparative and interdisciplinary research is a no-brainer.
By its very nature, development communication would not exist without compara-
tive research methods. However, one of the major problems in comparative research
is that the data sets in different contexts may not use the same categories or define
categories differently (e.g., by using different definitions of development, commu-
nication, growth, poverty, inequality, participation, etc.). That, indeed, is the situa-
tion in development communication.

4.2 Summarizing the Past

There are at least three ways of summarizing the past at different levels: by
identifying the different (1) development paradigms and (2) communication para-
digms and (3) by looking at the research priorities in different time periods (see also
▶ Chap. 5, “Family Tree of Theories, Methodologies, and Strategies in Develop-
ment Communication”).

4.2.1 Development Paradigms

1. After the Second World War, the founding of the United Nations stimulated
relations among sovereign states, especially the North Atlantic Treaty nations and
the so-called developing nations, including the new states emerging from colonial
rule. During the Cold War period, the superpowers – the USA and the former
Soviet Union – tried to expand their own interests to the so-called Third World or
developing countries. In fact, the USA was defining development and social change
as the replica of its own political-economic system and opening the way for the
transnational corporations. At the same time, the developing countries saw the
“welfare state” of the North Atlantic Treaty nations as the ultimate goal of
development. These nations were attracted by the new technology transfer and
the model of a centralized state with careful economic planning and centrally
directed development bureaucracies for agriculture, education, and health as the
most effective strategies to catch up with those industrialized countries (Fraser and
Restrepo 1998; McMichael 2008; Nederveen Pieterse 2010; see also ▶ Chap. 6, “A
Changing World: FAO Efforts in Communication for Rural Development”).
This mainly economic-oriented view, characterized by endogenism and evolu-
tionism, ultimately resulted in the modernization and growth theory. It sees
4 Communication for Development and Social Change: Three Development. . . 67

development as a unilinear, evolutionary process and defines the state of under-

development in terms of observable quantitative differences between the
so-called poor and rich countries on the one hand and traditional and modern
societies on the other (for more details, see Servaes 1999, 2003, 2008).
2. As a result of the general intellectual “revolution” that took place in the
mid-1960s, this Euro- or ethnocentric perspective on development was chal-
lenged by Latin-American social scientists, and a theory concerning dependency
and underdevelopment was born (see one of the “classics”: Cardoso and Falletto
1969). The dependency approach formed part of a general structuralist
reorientation in the social sciences. The dependistas were primarily concerned
with the effects of dependency in peripheral countries, but implicit in their
analysis was the idea that development and underdevelopment must be under-
stood in the context of a world system (Chew and Denemark 1996).
This dependency paradigm played an important role in the movement for
a New International Economic Order (NIEO) and New World Information and
Communication Order (NWICO) from the late 1960s to the early 1980s (Mowlana
1986). At that time, the new states in Africa and Asia and the success of socialist and
popular movements in Cuba, China, Chile, and other countries provided the goals
for political, economic, and cultural self-determination within the international
community of nations. These new nations shared the ideas of being independent
from the superpowers and moved to form the Non-Aligned Nations. The
Non-Aligned Movement defined development as a political struggle.
3. Since the demarcation of the First, Second, and Third Worlds has broken down
and the crossover center-periphery can be found in every region, there was a need
for a new concept of development which emphasized cultural identity and
multidimensionality (further discussed in Martin-Barbero 1993; Canclini 1993).
From the criticism of the two paradigms above, particularly that of the depen-
dency approach, a new viewpoint on development and social change came to
the forefront. The common starting point here is the examination of the changes
from “bottom-up,” from the self-development of the local community. The
basic assumption was that there are no countries or communities that function
completely autonomously and that are completely self-sufficient, nor are there
any nations of which development is exclusively determined by external fac-
tors. Every society is dependent in one way or another, both in form and in
degree. Thus, a framework was sought within which both the center and the
periphery could be studied separately and in their mutual relationship, at global,
national, and local levels.
More attention was also being paid to the content of development, which
implied a more normative, holistic, and ecological approach. “Another develop-
ment” questions whether “developed” countries are in fact developed and
whether this genre of progress is sustainable or desirable. It favors a multiplicity
of approaches based on the context and the basic, felt needs, and the empower-
ment of the most oppressed sectors of various societies at divergent levels.
A main thesis is that change must be structural and occur at multiple levels in
order to achieve sustainable ends.
68 J. Servaes and P. Malikhao

4. The modernization paradigm was avowed on both ends of the ideological spec-
trum, both by the classic liberal and neoliberal theorists like Keynes and by the
classic Marxist thinkers. Both ideologies have a lot in common. The differences
in approach lie on the level of the means, the relative role that is assigned to the
market versus the state. But the objective is the same: development on the basis
of the Western vision of growth and progress. The obstacles for development
are indicated only in the traditional sectors and are initially only attacked with
economic means. Where liberals try to achieve development by means of
a massive transfer of capital technology to the Third World, the classic Marxists
strive for state intervention, the stimulation of the public sector, and the estab-
lishment of the heavy industry as an initial step in the development process – in
other words, development according to the Soviet model (Galtung 1980; Sparks
2007). Some scholars (Bartolovich and Lazarus 2007; Chang 2008) claim that
even in Mao’s China, this view on development was of great importance. Since
the revolution, there have been two ideological “lines.” The first stands for
a highly centralized, technocratic guidance of society toward modernization;
the second line is based upon the elimination of the so-called Three Great
Differences (i.e., city vs. country, mental vs. manual labor, worker vs. peasant),
a collective functioning on the basis of mass democracy and self-reliance. These
authors state that these lines continue to guide the Chinese development process
in apparently “nonantagonistic” contradiction.

The characteristics of the different development paradigms have been summarized in

Servaes (1999) (Table 1).

4.2.2 Communication Paradigms

1. The above typology of the so-called development paradigms can also be found
at the communication and culture levels. The communication media are, in the
context of development, generally used to support development initiatives by the
dissemination of messages that encourage the public to support development-
oriented projects. Although development strategies in developing countries
diverge widely, the usual pattern for broadcasting and the press has been pre-
dominantly the same: informing the population about projects, illustrating the
advantages of these projects, and recommending that they be supported. A typical
example of such a strategy is situated in the area of family planning, where
communication means like posters, pamphlets, radio, and television attempt to
persuade the public to accept birth control methods. Similar strategies are used
on campaigns regarding health and nutrition, agricultural projects, education,
HIV/AIDS prevention, and so on.
This model sees the communication process mainly as a message going from a
sender to a receiver. This hierarchic view on communication can be summarized
in Laswell’s classic formula – “Who says What through Which channel to Whom
with What effect?” – and dates back to (mainly American) research on (political)