Page 192 - Culture Society and the Media

182 CULTURAL DEPENDENCY AND THE MASS MEDIA
establish centralized systems of communication for the benefit of ‘social order’,
the development of broadcasting may be seen to by-pass the need for literacy.
The existence of linguistic diversity has in many countries actually helped to
sustain the life of the language of the ex-imperial power, given the need for a
lingua franca, a language of convenience. The élite media are more likely to
adopt the old imperial language, while poorly resourced vernacular papers may
have to undertake their own translations of news agency and similar copy.
Broadcast media, especially radio, can cater more adequately for linguistic
diversity, but the resources for multi-linguistic programming and dissemination
may not be forthcoming, especially where linguistic divisions correspond with
imbalances of social and political power. Radio is by far the most influential and
important mass medium in most poorer economies, but its impact is still
restricted by technological constraints—atmospheric sources of reception
interference, inadequacy of technical data, inadequate numbers and strength of
transmitting stations, etc. The availability of radio receivers did greatly increase
with the introduction of transistors, but repair facilities may be non-existent and
quality of reception very bad. In most nonindustrialized economies, television is
primarily an urban phenomenon, sometimes confined to élite audiences. The
total degree of exposure to media for any single individual in most parts of the
so-called Third World is far less than the average for citizens of the
industrialized economies and this is likely to remain so for some considerable
time.

Positive claims for a media contribution to development
The belief that the media would play an important role in relation to national
development, in terms both of information dissemination and of attitude change,
was promoted by some western researchers in interesting contrast to an
established view that in the already ‘developed’ world the media performed a
mainly reinforcing role with respect to attitude change. While state regulation of
media control in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, for example, was still
widely regarded as totalitarian and reprehensible in the west, state control in the
‘developing’ countries won the sympathy of some western apologists who
considered it to be the necessary, if sad, price to be paid for political integration
and national prosperity, given the conditions of tribalism that were said to
threaten the security of new nations. Some research studies had suggested a
causal link between media growth and industrialization. It seemed more
important to establish the basic media infrastructure, first, than to worry unduly
about content.
At least four benefits could be claimed on behalf of the role of the mass media
in relation to development. These were that the mass media could, first, break
down traditional values thought to be inimical to the process of industrialization
and modernization; second, help promote the attainment of an autonomous and
integrated national identity; third, assist in the dissemination of specific technical