Page 195 - Culture Society and the Media

CULTURE, SOCIETY AND THE MEDIA 185
the interests of the major western-based corporations; and second, the consumer
goods in question continued to be largely irrelevant to basic housing, clothing
and food requirements of the masses of the people, only serving to draw away
existing funds from socially productive investment. Wells (1972) claimed to find
empirical evidence to demonstrate the view that the impact of North American
television programming in South America was ‘consumerist’: the rewards for
sectoral inequality were displayed but the means to attain a more widespread
material culture were not. However, an attitude study of adult residents of
Barquisimeto, Venezuela (Martin et al., 1979) was unable to find any significant
evidence of a high correlation between exposure to mass media entertainment
and a consumerist attitude orientation, except possibly among the already well
off.
The view that mass media could help to break down traditional values thought
to be inimical to development has therefore been found unhelpful in a number of
ways. The concept of ‘development’ is itself an especially value-Iaden term; the
relationship between given social values and a western model of development is
peculiarly complex, and possibly requires a better understanding of both
‘developing’ and ‘developed’ societies than at present exists, if indeed it is still
meaningful to refer to either independently of the other. The evidence in favour
of the ‘consumerist’ thesis is inconclusive. It is too broad an issue to be
determined simply by reference to attitudes. Evaluation of whether a consumerist
impact, if such there is, is negative or positive in relation to development, is an
especially complex task. Not enough is known of media systems which have
been systematically exploited for ‘producerist’ ends to be able to evaluate
whether these may be said to have an independent impact in relation to their
respective developmental contexts.

Consolidating national identity
The second major claim for a positive media role in relation to development
concerns its potential for the establishment of a popular sense of national identity.
This potential perhaps has been more widely recognized by new Third-World
élites than the media’s potential for more specific economic or educational
objectives. It would be difficult to argue that nationalized media systems,
disseminating news and information of government activities, very often in the
absence of any competition, have not achieved some degree of national
consolidation. But the simple claim that mass media contribute to national
integration and hence to development requires considerable modification.
Even where the mass media have been nationalized, there remains an
important conflict, identified by Katz and Wedell (1978) between the
exploitation of mass media in order to achieve national integration and the
exploitation of mass media in order to bring about changes in attitudes that
would hasten the process of modernization. The importance of the mass media in
relation to national unity is evident at each of three stages in the development