Prerequisites of Development Communication

There are two perspectives from which we need communication for development

communication‟s needs and audience‟s needs. 
The communicator may communicate by information and education, and thus motivate the masses.  
The audience may communicate for development information, making demands for development and asking solutions for development problems. These two perspectives suggest certain prerequisites for development communication:

 (i) human and localized approach to communication rather than abstract and centralized;

(ii) credibility and role of communication links, and

(iii) access to communication.

Development Threshold:

Human and localized approach suggest that communication efforts should be tailored to the needs, psychological dispositions of people and the development threshold of people. Development threshold” is significant for development communication. For example, there is a marked difference between the development threshold of rural and urban society, between elites and masses, men and women within the urban and rural society. These differences in the threshold are termed as “development gap”.

Development gap is identified with socio-economic gap, knowledge gap, and communication gap. Development gap suggests that people in different development thresholds need different development communication handling for effective development. The development-gap hypothesis is that patterns of communication may lead the have–nots away from the mainstream of development thus creating gap between the haves and the have-nots three sub factors: technical, theoretical and potential reach of the media; distribution of media among people; and audience of the interpersonal infrastructure. The availability of mass-media, media institutions in a country itself is no guarantee that media will be used by the people:

(i)                mass media are usually not available where they are needed the most for development purposes,

(ii)              whatever media are available and are received usually do not carry the kind of information that might aid development,

(iii)            the mass media content may not be relevant enough in a given situation to aid development and

(iv)           even if functionally relevant information is available, the infrastructure and input may not be available.

For example  the participation in any development programme depends on the level of the motivation of people. The level of motivation depends on the perceived need-based programmes and sustained community interest in the development  programmes. Motivation results from various supports which are built into the development programmes and for the development programmes such as support from traditional value systems, leadership of community, experts and change agents. 

Source:- Global Media Journal – Indian Edition/ISSN 2249-5835

DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION: A PURPOSIVE COMMUNICATION WITH SOCIAL CONSCIENCE - AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE

Dr Rajesh Kumar