 Dear learners, today I am going to discuss with you the concept of development and the role of mass media in development and especially the use of communication channels which lead to the concept called developmental communication. The concept of development is centuries old. In fact, it started rather originated in Turkey and from the demographic aspect of development it has come to another stage what we call as economic development. Mostly we consider development as economic development. However, the real concept of development came onto the scene after the Second World War. After the Second World War, many countries of the world got their political independence. Their immediate need was to have economic development, remove illiteracy and poverty from their respective countries. Harry Truman thought of development as a panacea for all the Third World countries. In fact, the very concept of development is given by the western countries to the developing countries. Development as all of us know is measured in economic terms. In fact, many economic theories that have been dealing with developmental concept are prescribing various methods and approaches and strategies for national development especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. How to develop is the biggest question for the countries that have poverty writ large on their teeming populations. Poverty has got its own vicious circle and to come out of this vicious circle there has to be a national policy and here the real issue comes what exactly is the role of mass media in development. How can we use mass media for development? In fact, it was in India the first attempt was made to use mass media for development. Wilbershram, noted communication expert, came to India at the invitation of Pandit Javarlal Nehru who was the Prime Minister of India then. Two, suggest methodologies for using mass media for national development. In fact, Wilbershram has written a monumental book called The Role of Mass Media in National Development in which he has given the strategies to be adopted, the methods to be followed for the use of mass media in national development. Mostly, we talk of several concepts related to development communication. As a matter of fact, it was development journalism in India, not development communication to begin with. And the role of print media was deliberated upon. But later, when the electronic media became powerful, they were supposed to be used for development. The All India Radio, which was under the control of the Union government, was supposed to play a developmental role in the country and reaching out to the masses which were scattered in remote corners of the country. The question of addressing the issue of poverty or even the issue of illiteracy or even the issue of superstition, there are several sectors which are to be dealt with and media are considered to be very powerful tools of changing the society. Coming back to the very concept of communication for development, certain experiments were conducted in different parts of the world. One experiment or what we call as a research project was carried out by a well-known communication scholar, Daniel Lerner. Daniel Lerner again conducted his research in the monoreligious country of Turkey and he found out there were several factors that were responsible for the usage of mass media for development. He gave five important factors which are to be considered. One was literacy. He said people will have to become literate to take active part in the process of development. And from literacy he talked of political participation. He said literacy will increase the participatory level of the target audience. And thirdly he prescribed urbanization. He said if there is an urbanization then people will move from rural areas to the urban areas in search of education, in search of employment and finally for better standard of living. From urbanization he moved on to what is called as mobility. People move from one place to another, from one profession to another, from one country to another for better opportunities in life. It can be education, it can be employment, it can be health, it can be anything under the sun which will get them a better future. In fact when it comes to mobility we talk of two types of mobility per se that is physical mobility and psychic mobility. Physical mobility means moving from one place to another. Psychic mobility means psychologically moving from one state to another state from the traditional state of affairs to the modern state of affairs. In fact when we talk of development we also talk of modernization, we also talk of social change. A society has to change to become modernized. The question here is whether modernization takes place first or social change takes place first. Or are they going to take place simultaneously in a developing society? This question is to be addressed with lot of conviction and also with lot of precision. And added to these two types of mobility there is one more mobility called social mobility, a person moving in hierarchy, social hierarchy and occupational hierarchy always searching for better opportunities in life. And the other factor which was emphasized by Daniel Lerner was empathy. Empathy means putting oneself into the shoes of another person to understand what he feels, what he experiences. Empathy as a factor is to be incorporated in all communication strategies to make people understand what others feel like, what others want. From these we go to the next important development in development communication, the emergence of a theory called diffusion of innovation. Diffusion of innovation was popularized by E. M. Rogers and he said communication in developing societies or traditional societies is not easy with the target audience because of the credibility factor. Between mass media and the target audience he introduced another factor called opinion leaders. Opinion leaders were the bridge between the media and the audience. For the simple reason they were accepted as credible communicators in the traditional societies. These opinion leaders can be panchayat leaders called them presidents or school teachers or health workers, all these people who interact with the masses every day. And the diffusion theory is also known as two step flow theory in mass communication. In fact E. M. Rogers also speaks of what is called as a subculture of presentry. This subculture which is not accepted by everybody in the field of developmental communication is considered to be the main hurdle for modernization. Modernization simply does not mean westernization, acceptance of western values, western methods and western type of living. It is actually modernization in terms of the thinking process, modernization of technology and modernization of education which makes life comfortable for the millions and millions of people across the world. In fact the latest figures in India suggest that almost 32% of the people in India live below the poverty line. Of course some people say it is 28% but whatever it is, if there are people who go to bed every night without food it is the most amenable condition in any country for that matter. In order to make all these people have access to better life, better opportunities, there should be congenial developmental policies. Development is not a one way traffic, it is a true way traffic. Many people have suggested certain models of development. In fact we talk of the first world, the second world and the third world. All these developing countries belong to the third world wherein the day to day existence itself is a million dollar question for the people who are sending their dreams to a toss because they can't afford. How to give them the basic needs? You know the western models suggested industrialization, they said improve GDP, they said improve the output, the production and you know it was all in terms of production and consumption cycle. Produce more, consume more, get more profit and reinvest them and produce more and again consume more. And what they have understood is the creation of a consumer society. In fact most of the third world countries they do not belong to that kind of tradition. For example India and China were great civilizations once upon a time. And if they are asked to aid the industrialized west in terms of a culture, education and social living everything becomes problematic. Tradition is considered to be a barrier for development, it is not so. One part of development, the most important part is the cultural part of the people. Without ignoring culture of the people you cannot have any developmental strategy, developmental policy. And these developmental strategies are to be changed, revised and fine tuned to meet the aspirations of the people. We also talk of two important problems in developmental communication. One is what we call as the revolution of rising expectations. When people are given dreams they expect things to happen on their own. If their dreams are not met what happens is there is going to be a revolution of rising frustrations. Rising frustrations will lead to anomy, lead to chaotic conditions and lead to violence in a very society. When we adopt a democratic system of development which is totally different from the dictatorial strategies of development there will be problems to be surmounted. How to cross the barriers of development is the biggest question. People in developing countries are always supposed to be resistant to new ideas, changes. We talk of development of innovations and innovations are very important because we have to take the people into confidence. We talk of participatory model of development, we also call it as organic model of development. We have to design messages to reach out to the people so that they will understand developmental communication properly. There is one problem with regard to the developmental strategies initiated by the westerners. Their concepts are always given from the viewpoint of their own societies. In the eastern block, in the eastern hemisphere where the civilizational history is of significance we have to understand that there has to be a different strategy, different policy. How to go about it is the question. The criticism of the western model is very simple because it is consumer oriented. We also talk of what we call as the usage of bits and bytes for developmental revolution. It is not the correct methodology. When we talk of using technology for development it should be appropriate technology. In fact the western models of development they almost exhaust all the resources of the planet and ultimately the future generations may not have anything to deal with. This kind of developmental strategy is questioned by scholars like Beltran, Majid Tehranian and several others. They say the consumer oriented developmental model or consumption oriented developmental model is not what we require. What we require is holistic development, a development which encompasses all aspects of human life. How to achieve this? Without conducting a scrutiny of the western model of development we cannot think of our own model of development. Majid Tehranian talks of developmentalism as an ideology. Development, if it becomes an ism then it loses its sheen, it loses its relevance. Then how to make it relevant? Majid Tehranian talks of the problems given by the western scholars to the developing countries in terms of the models, strategies and technologies for national development. The whole question here is how to surmount these problems to achieve a higher GDP and also keep culture, tradition and all other aspects of these societies into a holistic model wherein we can have a meaningful development. Majid Tehranian talks of several concepts which are quite interesting. One concept he talks of is time consuming acceleration. We go fast, we use communication means, we use all the logistical support systems to go fast but the speed takes time. So similarly the type of development that is suggested by the western countries to the developing societies will also take time. He also talks of routinization and regularization of idiotization of the education system. Education is producing, the present day education system is producing people who cannot think but follow a uniform pattern of learning. And the third one is sick making healthcare system. The western prescription of the healthcare system is making people, even the healthy people sick. So when we talk of bits and bytes as true indicators of development and the energy units as indicators of development, consumption patterns as indicators of development, will it not be deceptive when we talk of developmental indicators. In fact they may not be true indicators of development. Then how to use media for development in a country like India. For quite a long time we talked of radio as the best medium for development. There were experiments in Thanjavur and other parts of southern India where cultivation of a particular variety of rice, paddy was popularized by all India radio. It is even now referred to as radio rice. For the simple reason there was a huge gap between literacy and illiteracy in rural India. Now with improvement in the literacy level radio has turned out to be a medium of music and television is a medium of entertainment perhaps super entertainment. In such a context with the print medium not reaching the vast majority of the people how can we reach out to the masses and prepare them for development. When we talk of western model of development is there any possibility of creating our own model of development. There is always a key debate on the Gandhian model of development. Gandhian model of development means it is taking people into confidence making people as partners in development. In fact it is the creation of village republics where people preside over their own destinies. And Gandhiji said rich people should become the trustees of the society. Gandhiji stressed the importance of life related education. The concept of Nayid Thalim was a particular step towards vocationalization of education. The Gandhian philosophy you know the very concept of Satyagraha is very important. And the nonviolent means to achieve freedom can also be used for the achievement of economic independence for development. Gandhiji's ideas have been misinterpreted. They said Gandhiji was against machines. Gandhiji was against modernization. It is not so. Gandhiji did not want mass production but he wanted production by the masses. So if you understand the economic realities behind the Gandhian prescription of development perhaps you will appreciate it. In fact I would like to quote one British economist Schumacher who wrote the beautiful book Small is Beautiful. Perhaps it talks about appropriate technology for developing countries. Now the world is moving inexorably towards a technocracy that is technology induced democracy. And when technology becomes very important in the world what about the human beings and their role in the society. Dennis Gaulay perhaps a leftist thinker talks of the cruel choice. Development is a cruel choice. What people want is bread. In addition to bread they want dignity. In addition to dignity what they want is the right to dream. Unfortunately in several societies even the right to dream is curtailed. It means the individual liberty is curtailed when governments are becoming very powerful and doing nothing for the society in the process. In other words we have powerful non-performing governments all over the world and it creates a great divide. And the technology has also induced what we call as developmental hiatus or popularly known as the digital divide. And the digital divide has increased the gap between the rich and the poor, the house and the have nots all over the world. And because of the new developmental priorities the world is polarized into two sections of the society where the rich are becoming richer the poor are becoming poorer. If such a situation exists in the long run it is not going to do good for the entire society the entire world. The world is already ridden with violence and we always think of development on one side and the marginalization of the people who sacrifice everything for the sake of national development. In India alone we have come to know that almost 6 crore people have been marginalized during the last several years in the name of development. Such a situation will lead to resistance and possibly violence. This kind of development should not be the alternative. The developmental choices should be given to the people and they should always choose the path of development. So development communication is not easy. Even to this day we have come to know that interpersonal communication channels are stronger than media channels. Many experiments conducted all over the country with specific reference to India they have always made it clear that man-to-man communication is stronger and mass communication plays only a supplementary and complementary role in national development. It does not mean that mass media do not have any role to play. They also play a significant role but unfortunately with the corporatization of media and the corporatization of the media market the developmental strategies are becoming really tough to deal with. And we have to fine-tune them, we have to revisit them, we have to rethink of them and we have to make the best use of the media for taking away the miseries of the people to go to Mahatma Gandhi to wipe tears from the eyes of the poorest of the poor. Yet it remains a billion dollar question on how to make developmental communication effective. Perhaps you and I can think of and devise strategies, communication strategies for development.