ROLE OF ICT IN DEVELOPMENT

Since the mid 1970s, there has been a steady growth in information and
communication technologies (ICTs) and their application in development.
The US and several West European countries have become information
societies i.e. countries in which the production, processing and distribution
of information software and hardware are the main activities. The ICTs may
be described as “electronic means of capturing, processing, storing and
communicating information”. The digital ICTs store the information as ones
and zeros and transmit the data through telecommunication networks. The
“older” communication technologies such as the radio and television are
analog systems in which information is held as electric signals and
transmitted through electro magnetic waves. Examples of digital ICTs are
television, wireless cellular phones, communication satellites, computers and
the internet. There has been a significant proliferation of each of these
technologies in the third world since 1975. The Satellite Instructional
Television Experiment (SITE) in India is an example of ICT.

A recent phenomena has been the spread of public call services (PCOs) that
provide payphone services as well as fax and photocopying services. The
PCOs have proliferated in most urban areas and some rural areas in the
Third World. A telecenter which is a PCO with internet services is common
in urban areas but are still rare in rural regions.

Uses
Supporters of ICTs have advocated integrated rural development through
telecommunications by highlighting many of their uses and applications in
developing countries-

• Finding markets and farm produce, fishery catches and handicraft

products, negotiating prices and arranging for transportation.
• Arranging for the delivery of inputs such as raw materials, supplies
and tools.
• Obtaining and distributing information rapidly on markets, prices,
consumption trends and inventory
• Facilitating rural and eco-tourism and many other developmental
measures taken.
 In the 1990s, the Internet was ‘exported’ to Third World countries.
Though its penetration is very low in many developing countries and it is
still very much urban based ICT, it has significant potential for rural
development in the Third World. The internet may be used to support
rural development in many areas-

• In the area of agriculture, the Internet can serve as a gateway to global

markets and information. New information can be fed into the
community through existing channels such as the community radio,
bulletin boards at local co operatives, stores and interpersonal
networks. Internet can serve as an information resource as well as a
research tool.

• In the area of community, development support functionaries such as

local NGOs can use the Internet as a window to the outside world and
publicize their work and seek donors while the health workers can use
the internet to access technical information. Easy access to
information going out about the community are valuable resources
and the internet makes it possible.

• Participatory communication approaches place a great value in bottom

up flows of information and delivering research results from the rural
areas to the policy-makers in urban centres. The internet can be used
to effectively document local knowledge practices and share it with
outsiders as well as facilitate horizontal flows among rural
communities and organizations.

• Small businesses can exploit the internet to get the information on

new markets and access critical business and financial information.

• Lastly, the internet may be used to share news among developing

countries.

Case Study
In India, the National Association of Software Services Companies
(NASSCOM) provided email services with video to connect immigrant taxi
drivers in the city to see their relatives and talk to them at a cheaper rate than
a telephone call. Most of them were illiterate and it was a pleasant surprise
for them.

ICTs- a boon or bane for development

The rural poor or small- to- medium size entrepreneurs face many resource
constraints that may prevent them from accessing the technology. These
constraints include ‘ a telecommunications infrastructure to make the ICTs
work, a skills infrastructure to keep all the technology working, and money
to buy and access the ICTs’. In addition to very low teledensity, there are
hardly any internet nodes in the rural areas of developing countries. Almost
all the nodes are situated in the urban areas and this may involve making
long distance calls to connect to the internet if one lives outside the capital
city or a big urban center. In addition, the quality of telephone lines is very
poor, especially in the rural areas and the cost to connect to the internet are
prohibitive for the average user in a developing country. Once the recipients
are able to access the technology, other constraints will inhibit access to the
information put out, the rural poor and the small entrepreneurs may not have
the usage skills and knowledge of English or the language in which internet
messages are encoded. Finally, the rural poor ay not have sufficient
resources to actually use or apply the new knowledge. Resource inequalities
can include monetary resources such as starting capital, maintenance costs
and taxes and infrastructure resources. On a debate of the use of internet for
awareness of health related information, some health workers praised the
satellite system that has brought them email connections and cheap access to
health information while others complained that the Internet will not pay for
the aspirin and syringes.

Whatever have been the disadvantages, at some point in future, though, it is

imperative that the people themselves or their organizations directly control
the ICTs and be able to design and interpret the information systems and the
attendant technologies to derive the greatest benefit.
 ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DEVELOPMENT

The dictionary definition of ethics is the ‘branch of philosophy dealing with

values relating to human conduct, with respect to rightness and wrongness of
certain actions and the goodness and badness of the motives and ends os
such actions’.

DEVELOPMENT
The dominant paradigm assumes an ethnocentric conception of what
progress should be. It describes the type of modernization that has been
achieved in West European and North American countries. Also, it has
looked at development from a macro economic perspective, viewing
development as economic growth obtained through greater industrialization
and accompanying urbanization. Development performance has been gauged
via measures such as GNP and per capita income levels. Any discussion of
development must include the physical, mental, social, cultural, and spiritual
growth of individuals in an atmosphere free from coercion or dependency.
Local culture sin developing nations and elsewhere are not static. The fact
that they have survived centuries of hostile alien rule speaks volumes of
their dynamic nature. Local cultures also may harbor solutions to many of
the problems at the grassroots. To talk of uprooting local cultures is not only
naïve but also ethically indefensible.

LEVEL OF DEVELOPMENT
Much of the work has been at the level of the nation-state. Even research at
the micro level has been concerned with bringing the nation , or some region
into modernity. But if development is not to create greater misery for the
majority at the periphery, then we need a process by which not only
mythical concept of the nation is developed but individuals and communities
are also given the opportunity to create the type of society they want

DECISION MAKERS ON THE ACCEPTANCE/UNAPPROVAL OF THE

DEFINITION OF DEVELOPMENT
The elites in every nation, usually men had the prerogative of deciding what
their country needs. In most developing countries, economic and political
power is concentrated in the hands of small elite. In such circumstances, any
definition of development by elites will be in a direction opportune to their
interests. In this approach, there has been no participation of the people at
the grassroots. People who are the objects of policy need to be involved in
the definition, design and execution of the development process. The
concept of participation favored by bottom-up strategies with labels such as
participatory communication systems and inter mediate technologies has
been narrow: achieve widespread co operation in adopting better health care
practices, increased agricultural production etc

BENEFITERS AND RISK-BEARERS OF DEVELOPMENT

We believe that any policy that continues to exploit the masses to the benefit
of the rich and powerful is morally indefensible. Development must aim for
more egalitarian distribution of benefits as well as risks across all social and
economic classes. The western model as enunciated in the dominant
paradigm is inappropriate for most developing countries. This model,
emphasizing capital intensive technology and centralized planning, has
served to increase the power and wealth of elites. It has led to much
corruption as well. An alternative model that stresses decentralized
development planning with effective local participation would be more
appropriate.

MORAL IMPLICATIONS AT THE POLICY MAKING LEVEL

The focus of policy making needs to be on human development i.e. to
reduce human suffering and not increase it. What is needed today is a self
examination by every intellectual and policy maker concerned with
development.
STRATEGIES FOR PARTICIPATORY COMMUNICATION

Today, the post structuralism and post modernism embraced by leading

theorists challenge universal truths and our notions of objective social
reality. Epistemological plurality is the favored outcome which assume that
language actively constructs meaning and that it is more valuable to discover
representational meaning than to find explanations. At the same time,
political economists, socialist feminists and others with Marxist leanings
have cautioned against going too far in rejecting theories and methods of the
social sciences to the neglect of real material structures that contribute to
social inequalities, as well as to progressive change. For development
communication, the combined effect of all these trends has been to
encourage the acceptance of multiple meanings, symbolic rationality,
cultural specificity, change through human agency, communicative action
and structuration, deconstruction of dominant ideology of power, and the
strengthening of critical consciousness among the people in a community.

Attempts at operationalization of the term ‘participation’ range from those

that reflect the dominant paradigm: the participation-as-a-means approach—
to those that genuinely represent the case for the context based paradigm: the
participation-as-an-end approach. The participation-as-an-end approach has
received support from many scholars and administrators. They argue that
participation must be recognized as a basic human right. It should be
accepted and supported as an end in itself and not for its results. Diaz-
Bordenave states it cogently, “participation is not a fringe benefit that
authorities may grant as a concession but every human being’s birthright
that no authority may deny or prevent.” This approach could be visualized
along a continuum: ranging from attempts at mobilization of the populace to
co-operation in development activities, to empowering people so that they
may articulate and manage their own development.

PARTICIPATION AND COMMUNICATION

Communication constitutes an indispensable part of participatory
approaches. People living in rural areas, urban slums and other depressed
sectors must perceive their real needs and identify their real problems. To a
large extent, this people have not been able to do so due to a lack of genuine
participation in developments strategies ostensibly set up to ameliorate their
problems. Many scholars and practitioners over the past three decades have
favored active participation of the people at the grassroots. However, the
structure of elite domination was not disturbed. In these bottom-up
approaches, the participation of the people was directed because, often the
aim of the development projects was to achieve widespread co operation in
increasing agricultural production, improving formal and non-formal
education, limiting family size etc. thus, people at the grassroots were co-
opted in activities that in the end would make consumers of them for
industrial groups and services. Participation, therefore, was a means to an
end, the end being greater dependence of the people on a market control by
the elites, both national and international. The goal of participation efforts
should be to facilitate conscientization of marginalized people globally of
unequal social, political, spatial structures in their societies. In this approach,
communication channels are used to generate dialogue to help people
understand each other and identify their collective problems.
Communication is thus the vehicle for liberation from mental and
psychological shackles that bind the people to structures and process of
oppression. Used in this way, communication is performing its true
functions—communicare or building commonness among the members of a
group or community striving to change their present situation.

COMMUNICATION AS EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMS

The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC)
based in Montreal, Canada has been in the forefront to make radio a
community-oriented medium that responds to the community’s needs and
contributes toward the development of the community. The AMARC has
encouraged a role for radio as a vehicle for expression and participation of
the community. Worldwide International Foundation (WIF), The World
Association for Christian Communication (WACC) are NGOs that supports
communication activities through funding, workshop, seminars, publications
and consultancy services. Other projects have specifically supported a
variety of media empowerment outcomes in the developing countries.

PARTICIPATION ACTION RESEARCH

Participation Action Research (PAR) is dedicated to resuscitating both the
power of marginalized people and their popular knowledge. Domination of
the poor and marginalized comes about in at least three ways—(i) control
over the means of material production (ii) control over the means of
knowledge production (iii) control over power that legitimizes the relative
worth and utility of different epistemologies/ knowledges. The basic
ideology of PAR is that endogenous efforts and local leaders will play the
leading role in social transformation using their own praxis. The PAR
approach, by resuscitating and elevating popular knowledge, attempts to
create a counter discourse, disrupts the position of development as
articulated by the dominant discourse as problematic, causes a crisis in
authority and creates a space for marginalized groups to influence social
change.

PAR AND SELF DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES

The process of individual and collective empowerment via PAR is complex
and reveals different forms and outcomes. The outcomes of PAR may be
categorized under four interrelated topic

Defensive Actions- These are aimed at protecting existing resources that are
under threat of encroachment, erosion or outright takeover.

Assertive Actions- These refer to situations where the poor and marginalized
groups lack access to resources and opportunities to better their lives and the
lives of their communities.

Constructive Actions- These constitute self-help development projects

initiated and organized by the community to satisfy local needs. Grassroots
organizations mobilize their own resources and skills with or without the
help of external agencies such as the state or NGOs.

Alternative Actions- These actions comprise initiatives that are alternative to

mainstream development projects.

CO-OPTATION OF THE LIBERATION MOVEMENT

In the last 10 years, the work of NGOs in Third World development has
grown significantly. This has led to small scale and decentralized projects
funded mostly by foreign donors, to promote self development efforts using
popular participation approaches. Participatory development is far from
being adopted in practice anywhere in a way which leads to major structural
reforms and the transfer of resources away from those vested interests that
control dominant social and political structures towards underprivileged
people. Thus, the participatory development projects run by the NGOs have
co-opted the liberation ideal of the PAR approach.
INDIAN MEDIA AND DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION

The role of media changes in development communication. It plays the

following four responsible roles:

• Circulate knowledge that will inform people of significant events,

opportunities, dangers and changes in the community country and the
world

• Provide a forum where issues affecting the national community life

may be aired.

• Teach those ideas, skills and attitudes that people need to achieve for
a better life.

• Create and maintain a base of consensus that is needed for the stability
of the state.

Lok Doot, a mobile educational theatre unit, is just one of the many groups
in India that use theatre as a medium for development communication. Its
repertoire includes humorous skits on the value of literacy, hygiene, and
balanced nutrition. Its parent company, Mobile Crèches, was founded 10
years ago by middle-class women to provide day-care and, later, educational
facilities for children of New Delhi’s predominantly female construction
workers. Now they try to educate parents as well as children. Various such
theatre groups operate throughout India. The government of India has long
recognized the importance of mass communication. Radio has been
considered a tool of national development since India drew up its first Five
Year Plan in 1951. Even so, only about ten-third of India population has
access to radio, although almost 70 percent of India’s geographical area
could potentially be reached. In the field of communications, flexibility is
particularly important in a country as complex as India where two thirds of
the people are illiterate, and which is divided into 90 distinct ethno linguistic
regions. The purpose of the communication must take precedence over the
nature of the medium, for each has something to offer, be it a Street play or a
national radio program.
That role of media has been one of mixed successes. Over the last four
decades, the state's forays into development communication, the ruling
communication paradigm at that time, have been significant. But then the
successes of SITE (Satellite Instructional Television Experiment) or the
Kheda Communications Project are offset by the phenomenal failures of
other projects such as PREAL, and in the long run, undermined by the
vacillating fortunes and commitments of rapidly-changing governments.

Today's vastly changed media scenario calls for a recasting of the role of
media in promoting pro social change.

RADIO

The number of radio stations has increased from about 100 in 1990 to 209 in
1997, However, despite its tremendous reach and the fact that it presents the
best option for low-cost programming, radio has been treated as a poor
relative for over two decades. Listenership has either dropped or reached a
plateau. In some cases listenership has risen, although very negligibly, in
some urban areas, thanks to the recent time allotment to private companies
on five FM stations. Some efforts have been made to use radio for social
change, as in the case of the state-supported radio rural forums for
agricultural communication in the 1960s, or to promote adult literacy in the
1980s. More recently NGOs have helped broadcast programmes on women
and legal rights, emergency contraception, and teleserials advocating girls'
education. But it is clearly a medium waiting for a shot-in-the-arm.

TELEVISION

In a bid to give Television a halo of social responsibility, some channels

broadcast programmes with a veneer of public interest: soaps that
incorporate socially relevant themes such as women's education and
empowerment, interactive talk shows on whether smoking should be
banned, and open forums with government representatives responding to
audience queries on human rights abuses or consumer rights.

These programmes combine varying degrees of social value with

commercial appeal in a competitive market. The open forums, in particular,
have played an important role in familiarizing the public to the political and
legal system and in building a demand for political transparency and
accountability.

An emerging trend – and one that also reflects the current programme focus
of development agencies – is the targeting of specific segments of the
audience, in particular, young adults (children and youth in the age group of
10-29 years constitute about 40% of the population). Urban, middle to upper
class youth, especially, constitute a key target group for private channels.
Cashing in on this trend, UNAIDS, India initiated in 1996 collaboration with
Channel V for an on-air and on-ground campaign for HIV/AIDS awareness.
The collaboration includes training and sensitisation of VJs on issues
relating to HIV/AIDS. In another effort, the Ford Foundation, India funded a
BBC training for radio and television producers on reproductive and sexual
health. The six project proposals shortlisted for additional funding, all of
which target children and youth, are in entertainment formats of musicals,
talk shows and animation.

PRINT MEDIA

The very limited reach of newspapers and magazines, and the distinctly
urban educated readership profile, the role of print media has been defined
more in terms of information dissemination and advocacy. The picture is a
lopsided one: circulation figures are rapidly increasing as are advertising
revenues, but this is especially true of English publications. Given the
increasing costs of newsprint and production, and the pressure of market
imperatives, newspaper houses have followed the piper in carrying ad
-friendly fluff at the cost of more serious development and health reporting.
Leading dailies have over the last few years dropped their special sections
devoted to development and health. The low literacy rates and high
production costs have also stymied the possibilities of smaller alternative
publications that could potentially reflect the concerns of the development
sector.
THE INTERNET

Recognizing that access to information and information technologies play a

key role in development, especially given the constraints of the mass media,
groups of non-profit documentation centers in the country have developed
communications systems such as Indialink and Dianet that are focussed
solely on development issues. By providing connectivity to grassroots NGOs
and emphasising the documentation and information from within the
country, these efforts have facilitated greater grassroots involvement in
development. A World Bank funded project for National Agricultural
Technology envisages a similar democratisation through the establishment
of "information kiosks" in rural areas. The proposed project sees the
expansion of public pay-phone offices that have mushroomed all over the
country, including rural areas, into centers with computers for the inputting
and accessing of data relevant to rural populations.
ROLE OF FOLK MEDIA IN DEVELOPMENT
For a long time, traditional or folk media were ignored in development
literature. In the modernization paradigm, anything that was even remotely
connected with the local culture was to be eschewed. Since traditional media
are extensions of the local culture, they were regarded as vehicles that would
discourage modern attitudes and behavioral patterns and instead reinforce
cultural values of the community. Lerner has predicted that the direction of
change in communication systems in all societies was from the oral media to
the technology-based mass media. Also mass media were hailed as indices
and agents of modernization. The period from the 1950s-1970s, therefore,
was characterized by a benign neglect of the traditional media. Folk media
are the products of the local culture, rich in cultural symbols and highly
participatory. In addition they have great potential for integration with the
modern mass media.

In the early 1970s, several international conferences addressed the idea of

using folk media to promote development. Folk media consist of a variety of
forms: folk theater, puppetry, story telling, folk songs, folk dances, ballads,
mime and more. They have served as communication vehicles and
entertainment in Asia, Africa and Latin America for centuries. Ranganath
defines the traditional media as “living expressions of the lifestyle and
culture of a people, evolved through the years.

Folk forms also became vehicles for persuasive communication wherein

modern messages exhorted the audience members to limit the size of their
families, live in harmony with their neighbours or lead more healthy lives.
Newer concepts of development such as self-help, grassroots participation
and two way communication led to a re examination of the advantages of the
traditional media as vehicles for these purposes. Folk media has several
advantages: they are part of the rural social environment and hence credible
sources of information to the people. They command the audience as live
media and are ideal examples of two way communication. Many of the folk
media formats are flexible, thus facilitating the incorporation of
development-oriented messages in their themes. The timeless traditional
media present inexhaustible alternatives for experimentation in development
communication.
CRITICAL ISSUES CONCERNING THE USAGE OF TRADITIONAL
MEDIA FOR DEVELOPMENT

There are some important concerns in using folk media for development.
Ethical questions may be raised about inserting development content in folk
media, as it is possible these media may be fundamentally changed or even
destroyed in the process. Appropriating folk media for development is a
delicate task requiring an intimate knowledge of the nature of traditional
communication channels. In terms of flexibility, Ranganath suggests that it
is possible to categorize all the media as: rigid, semi flexible and flexible.
The rigid forms are usually ritualistic, very religious and reject all foreign
messages. The semi-flexible media might permit the limited insertion of
foreign messages through certain characters or situations. The flexible media
provide unlimited opportunities for inserting development messages,
assuming careful consideration of ethical issues.

While folk media have great potential in communicating development-

oriented messages to rural audiences, they should be employed judiciously.
This requires intimate knowledge and context-based research. Another
important issue involves the integration of folk media with mass media. It
gives the folk media a wide geographical spread while providing mass media
with a rich array of information and entertainment themes from local culture.
Like other folk media, the popularity of once famous bag puppetry in
Taiwan was on the decline, mainly due to competition from television.
However by adapting it to fit the needs of television, there was a revival of
this ancient Chinese folk form but it lost its original character.

However, adaptation need not necessarily change, destroy or reduce the

original popularity of a folk form. The Indian television and commercial
films have successfully integrated elements of folk theatre, songs and
dances. Iran’s ‘Barnameh’ has been successfully adapted to radio and
television, ‘Kakaku’ of Ghana has become a successful serial over radio and
television.

Integration of folk media may be necessary to legitimize television among

rural viewers, and may be inevitable to the future of the waning folk media.
Efforts however should be made to preserve the originality of each folk
form.