DOMINANT PARADIGM

The Paradigm A paradigm is a model or set of relationships that will explain and predict the social changes that herald and accompany development. A paradigm can be defined as a framework of understanding within which, discourses are constructed and communicated. Analyzing a paradigm can be the first step to resisting or subverting the hegemonic power of an elite whose interests that paradigm serves. Models Related to Paradigms on Communication Some of the paradigms models are given below: 1. The Asian Model: This model was proposed by Inayatullah. It represents the Asian model of development during seventies. 2. The Package Programmes Model: This model represents the developments in agricultural productivity and rural family welfare. Its concept was accepted by the research efforts of Heedy. Many developing nations (India, Mexico, Philiipines etc.) adopted this model to develop their agricultural productivity and family welfare. 3. The Ruttan-Hayami Innovation Model: This model was proposed by Ruttan and Hayami. According to this model, technical change is guided along an efficient path by price signals in the market. 4. The Old Model: It was a model of growth. Rostow had referred to it in Stages of Economic Growth. Daniel Lerner had given some of its tenets in Passing of Traditional Society. Eisenstadt stated that old paradigm of development had dominated psychological and social sciences for 20 years and ought to be discarded. 5. The Modernisation Model: The academic circles from 1945 to 1965 were dominated by this model. It supported the transfer of technology and the sociopolitical culture of developed societies to traditional and underdeveloped ones. 6. The Dependency Model: This model played a vital role in the movement for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). It became a topic for researchers from the late sixties up to the early eighties. It has its origin in Latin America and emerged from the convergence of two traditions The Neo-Marxism or Structuralism tradition and the Latin American debate on development. 7. The Multiplicity Model: This model was defined because the differences between the First World, Second World and Third World were reduced. 8. Participatory Model: This model is an outcome of the multiplicity model. It focuses on the importance of the cultural identity of local communities. It supports democratisation and participation at all levels. The Dominant Model (Dominant Paradigm) The dominant paradigm is a model or research in the field of mass communication. It contains the concepts of media, society and mass. The media of the totalitarian system (communism) were stifling democratic values. Hence, the liberal and pluralist norms of the society were challenged or even threatened in some nations. The Dominant Paradigm emerged to express the western values (as different from Communism) and the media played vital roles in disseminating the thoughts of liberalism, pluralism, and freedom, ideas dear to the West. Functional Analysts The origins of this paradigm draw their power from sociology, social psychology, and information science. Researchers like Tunstall, Lasswell and others delineated the roles of social sciences and particularly, of the function of communication in the society. These researchers, including McQuail, concluded that communication works toward the integration, continuity and maintenance of a society. They also stated, however, that mass communication can also have disruptive consequences. These studies are better known as Functional Analysis and form the foundation of this paradigm. McQuail's Concept

According to McQuail, the Dominant Paradigm: (a) Takes a liberalist-pluralist ideal of the society; (b) Has a functionalist perspective; (c) Is a linear transmission model of effects; (d) Concludes that powerful media are modified by group relations; and can be studied or analysed by quantitative research and variable analysis. This paradigm combines a view of powerful mass media in a mass society with research practices of the emerging social sciences. Of particular importance are social surveys, social psychological experiments, and statistical analyses in the context of usage of such new social sciences. The view of the society under it is normative. Hence, it presumes that a certain type of good society operates in the nation. Such a society could be democratic, liberal, pluralistic, or orderly. Rogers' Encomium over the Dominant Paradigm Everette M Rogers has showered encomium over the Dominant Paradigm. He affirms that it has led communication scientists into a linear effects-oriented approach to human communication after 1949. According to him, this model would help researchers find out the effects of communication, especially mass communication. This paradigm is more flexible than the Stimulus-Response (SR) model. The linear approach of this paradigm was found effective. Communication must also be viewed from the side of the receiver. Many theories of mass Communication were propounded by researchers during the past. However, no such model was put forth that could represent communication as human, social, interactive, and concerned with sharing the meaning and impact. The Dominant Paradigm fills this void and comes close to a communication model that is human, social, and interactive. Why it is Dominant Paradigm It is known as dominant paradigm because it is: 1. Still taught and applied; 2. Deemed oppressive in nature; and 3. Effective in many parts of the world. Information Theory Shannon and Weaver defined and described the Information Theory. It was related to the technical efficiency of communication channels for carrying information. These researchers developed a model for analysing information communication as a sequential process beginning with a source, which selects a message, which is transmitted, in the form of a signal, over a communication channel, to a receiver, who transforms the signal into a message for a destination. Noise and interference also affected the transmission of signals. Due to this noise and interference, there were differences between the message actually sent and the one actually received. This model had not much to do with mass communication. However, it was viewed as a method to explain the modus operandi of human communication. These studies and many more were done during the middle of 1950s. Shannon and Weaver had come out with their thesis in 1949. The effects of the mass media have remained the focus areas of this paradigm. The contents of media messages, motivations, attitudes and features of audience, intended effects, and unintended effects have also been studied under this paradigm. Media organisations have also been studied under it. The one-way model seems to be mechanistic as well as deterministic. It is in tune with the concept of mass society; this concept substantiates the thought that a small number of elite people (who are rich and powerful) use powerful media tools to achieve persuasive and information effects in the society. Defleur and Ball-Rokeach have explained this process through the famous Magic Bullet or Hypodermic Syringe Model. Critique of the Dominant Paradigm Dominant Paradigm is criticized on the following grounds: (A) On the Grounds of Simple Linear Approach Messages are not understood because of the noise in channels. There is less unmediated communication; It is filtered through other channels.

Signals do not reach receivers. Signals do not reach those receivers who should get such signals. The simple transmission model does not lend support to the concept of powerful media. McQuial states that media effects are judged from a western viewpoint. The contradictions within this viewpoint and its distance from social reality were ignored. (B) On the Grounds of the Efficacy and Success Dominant paradigm has a linear model effect and general mechanisms The highly quantitative and individual behaviourist methodologies and the prevailing scientism of research and theory are not acceptable. The interpretations of research findings about media effects and audience motivations are too hyperbolic to be believed. The ideology of society is liberal-pluralist in this paradigm; the same has not been acknowledged. The technology has potentially de-humanising effect. The neglect of vast realms of culture and human experience by communication research is another issue to be dealt with. ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTION The Dominant Paradigm was reigning supreme in Europe up to the mid-sixties. The Alternative Paradigm probably took roots during the early seventies. The alternative paradigm balances the Dominant Paradigm. It views society from a different angle. Hence, it does not digest the prevailing liberal-capitalist concept. It also does not lend support to rational-calculative utilitarian model of social life. The Alternative Paradigm is not a worked out model of an ideal social set-up. However, its glaring feature is the rejection of pluralism and conservative functionalism. The mass media were criticised because of their commercial, immoral, and monopolistic features. They were also censured due to their falsity. They were studied form a different perspective under the Alternative Paradigm. Marxism was one such perspective, though its form was changed to study the mass media under this paradigm. The origin of the paradigm was the Frankfurt School where researchers propounded an alternative view of the Dominant Commercial Mass Culture. These scholars viewed the mass communication process as manipulative and oppressive. They provided a strong basis for the study of mass communication as a manipulative process. After the researchers of the Frankfurt School, C Wright Mills did some work during the fifties of the last century. He broke the feel good cover of pluralist control. Rc-cxamination of Mass Media Firms The mass media firms have been re-examined under the Alternative Paradigm, Their structures have been scrutinised at national and global levels. Their operational strategies have been put under a sharp focus by researchers, who maintain that such strategies are far from neutral or non ideological. The domination effect has been studied in the context of effects on the youth, alternative sub-cultures, gender, and ethnicity. This has led to new alternative paths to knowledge. Comparison with other Models The concept propounded by Rogers was in tune with the Modernisation Paradigm. From the viewpoint of the Dependency Paradigm, such development agencies had to be indigenous. However, the role, in both the paradigms (Modernisation and Dependency) was that of an elitist vertical (top-down) process. In the diffusion model, the emphasis is on persuasion of the masses. The concept of information exchange is missing; it is the USP of the Participatory Model. The alternative paradigm is not merely the opposition to the mechanistic and applied view of communication. Rather, it is complementary to, and an alternative of the Dominant Paradigm. It has followed a different route to address the issues of change through communication. Alternative Paradigm and Mass Media Effect Due to change in technology, communication relations between First World nations and Third World nations have changed considerably. Hence, researchers are taking a fresh look at the entire scope of mass communication. The Alternative Paradigm does not view the exchange of messages between these two

worlds as transfer of development and democracy to the Third World nations from the First World nations. This paradigm has also changed or forced to change the previous thinking about media effect. This has happened because researchers are no longer keen to accept the unidirectional mass communication model as the de facto guide for effecting change. Components of Alternative Paradigm Here the concept of construction and transmission of socially relevant messages has been promoted. The ambitions and interests of receivers have been kept at a high platform. Contents of Alternative Paradigm Contents of this paradigm are: 1. A critical view of society and rejection of value neutrality as its mainstay; 2. It rejects the transmission model of communication, which is held supreme by the Dominant Paradigm; 3. It uses cultural and qualitative methodology; 4. A preference for cultural or political economic theories; 5. It addresses the inequality and sources of opposition in the society; and 6. A non-deterministic view of media technology and messages. Objectives of Alternative Paradigm Objectives of Alternative Paradigm are as follows: 1. To discover how meaning is created by groups of diverse social and cultural backgrounds. 2. To engage critically with the political and economic activities of the media. 3. To explore the meanings of the practices of usage of the mass media. 4. To understand the language and meanings of the media and media culture. Everett Rogers, in Chapter 3 of the Diffusion of Innovations, describes the dominant paradigm of development and its relationship to the classical diffusion model. The chart below summarizes the dominant paradigm, alternatives to it, and possible factors that have led to its demise as the central focus of development programs.

Main Elements of the Dominant Paradigm Economic growth as measured by GNP. Capital-intensive technology. Centralized planning and development.

Emerging Alternatives to the Dominant Paradigm Equality in income distribution. Appropriate technology.

Possible Factors Leading to the Alternative Paradigm Discouraging rates of economic growth. Environmental pollution and perceived limits to growth.

Self-reliance in planning and development.

Positive outcomes in countries that were self-reliant.

Underdevelopment is caused by internal factors.

Underdevelopment is caused by internal and external factors.

World systems theory. Dependency theory.