DOCUMENT RESUME EM 010 932 Rao, Y. V. …DOCUMENT RESUME EM 010 932 Rao, Y. V. Lakshmana The Practice of Mass Communication: Some Lessons from Research. United Nationl Educational,

ED 074 746

AUTHORTITLE

INSTITUTION

PUB CATENOTE

AVAILABLE FROM

EDRS PRICEDESCRIPTORS

ABSTRACT

DOCUMENT RESUME

EM 010 932

Rao, Y. V. LakshmanaThe Practice of Mass Communication: Some Lessons fromResearch.United Nationl Educational, Scientific, and CulturalOrganization, Paris (France). Dept. of MassCommunication.72

52p.; Reports and Papers on Mass Communication Number65UNIPUB, Inc., P. 0. Box 433, New. York, N.Y. 10016($1..50)

MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29Audiences; Broadcast Industry; *Communications;Cultural Education; Culture Contact;--*be'velopingNations; *Information Dissemination; InformationTheory; *Mass Media; *Media Research; Nationalism;-News Media; Publications; Publicize; TechnologicalAdvancement

A general picture of mass communication study andmass communication research is presented in this report. The reportis primarily intended for media personnel and administrators involvedin mass communication efforts in developing countries. Thedevelopment of mass communication and the dynamic process ofinformation flow are discussed. In addition, detailed comments on themedia "communicators," the audiences, and the concepts ofcredibility, leadership, and appeal are voiced. The emphasis of thereport is on the ultimate effects and effectiveness of masscommunications as they pertain to developing nations. Previouslyannounced as ED 071 110, RIEMAY73. (MC)

i

IilM

IIIM

INI.B

.11.

1611

.1.P

IM!

1

epos

and

l)tis

on

Mas

s

I v

14

l.

7

1.,..

:,,, ,

.+,.,

,,,,

,,,,,,

,:,/

e,,,,

,,1,1

i

toaa

rri 4=c:or

__

1111191111

This series of Reports and PaperS on 111aNs Contlitintica lion is issued by the Department of Mass Communication.Unless otherwise stated.,the reports may be reproduced in lull or in part, provided credit is given to Unesco. Thefollowing reports and papers have so far been issued and arc obtainable from-National-Distributors of UnescoPublications or from the Department o4lass Communication, Unesco, Place de Fontenoy. Paris-7e.

REPoRis.AND PAPERS ON MASS COMNIUNICAT ION

Number ,Pumper21 Current Mass Communication Research l - Bibliography of 53 COMMUlliCalif111 soldlites7for-etlucation, science and

Books and Articles on.illass Communication Publishedsince 1 January 1955, December 1956. 54 ,(S''Iiiilitniiii:/(i:///1/91i)7r.adult audiences, 1968.

22 Periodicals for New Literates: Editorial illethot; June 55 Television for higher technical education of the employed.

231957,Cultural Radio Broadcasts. Some Experiences, December 56

A first report on a pilot project in Poland. 1 969.Book development in Africa, Problems and perspectives.

1956. 1969.24 Periodicals for New Literates. Seven Case Histories, 57 Script writing for short films, 1969.

November 1957 (out-o-print). 58 Removing taxes on knowledge, 1969.25 Adult Educathm Groups and Audio-Visual Techniques, 59 Mass media in society. The need of research, 1970.

1958. 60 Broadcasting from space, 1970.26 The Kinescope and Adult &Inca tion, 1958 (out of print). 61 Principles of cultural co-operation, 1 970.27 Visual Aids in Fundamental Education and Comnumity 62 Radio and television in literacy, 1971.

Development, 1959 (out of print). 63 The mass media in a violent world. 1971-28 Film Programmes for the Young, 1959 (out of print). 64 The relic, al film in development. 1971..29 HMI-making on a Lou' Budget, 1960 (out of print). 65 The practice of Mass Communication: Some lessons front30 Developing Mass Media in Asia, 1960. research by 1'. V. Lakshmana31 The Influence of tlw Cinema on Children and Adolescents.

An Annotated International Bibliography, 1961.32 Elfin and Television in the Service of Opera and Ballet

and of Museums, 1961 (out of print).33 Mass Media in'the Developing Countries: A Unesco Report

to the United Nations, 1961.34 Film Production by International Co-operation, 1961.35 World Film Directory, AgenCies ConcernedWith Educational,

Scientific and Cultural Films, 1962.36 Methods of Encouraging the Production and Distribution

of Short Films for Theatrical Use, 1962.-37 Developing Information Media in Africa. Press, Radio,

Film, Television, 1962.38 Social Education through Television, 1963.39 The Teaching Film in Primary Education, 1963.40 Study of the Establishment of National Centres for

Cataloguing of Films and Television Programmes, 1963(out of print).

41 Space Communication and the Mass Media, 1964.42

43

44

Screen education. Teaching a critical approach to cinemaand television, 1964-The Effects of Television on Children and Adolescents,1964,Selected List of Catalogues for Short Films and Filmstrips,1963 Edition. 1965.

45 Professional Training for Mass Communication, 1965.46 Rural Mimeo Newspapers, 1965.47 Books for the Developing Countries: Asia, Africa; 1965,48 Radio Broadcasting serves rural development, 1965.49 Radio and television in the service of education and

development in Asia, 1967.50 Television and the social education of women, 1967.51

52

An African experiment in radio forums for rural develop-ment. Ghana, 1964/1965, 1968,Book development in Asia. A report on the productionand distribution of books in the region, 1967.

The practice ofmass communication

Some lessons from research

By Y. V. Lakshmana Rao

Wi\11.111ttirt

EASE SESD IVIO COPIESPL

..0c, 1011RREVIEW 10:

13111P1r3.11,..(7..

00160. ZC,s..

:1

r' ''I /0I-',1:,cJ, /. 1.

1.1q1P1113,It4C. Is the eret_ts',va 1:1., &.stTilvflef..io

all otsblica-

*dos of the tIrdted ttaio.s ElIrLtlonal,Sclentille

and Cultural

01.1anital:on(VALSSGO);

the V`frP.-1.1^!:.V.Ia',

cktznI\C lInecv.vAgencl

\tp,y, kyle covi a --,.:,,.: 9 c,;( .011;303et" NO) , ha Notld

.:.,0, t, '40mMpotieernent on

lietosolor:Icat.,:r..

latilts an'd Isada CP

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH.EDUCATION & WELFAREOFFICE OF EDUCATION

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO-DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROMTHE PERSON ORORGANIZATION ORIG-INATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPIN-IONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY

REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDU-CATION POSITION OR POLICY.

Unesco

1972 International BookYear

Printed in 1972 in the Workshopsof the United Nations Educational,Scientific and Cultural Organization,Place de Fontenoy, Paris 7e

LC No. 72-79892

COM/72.XVII/66.APrinted in France

Unesco 1972

"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS COPY.RIGHTED MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTEDBY

chiesCC>TO ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATINGUNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE U.S; OFFICEOF EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRODUCTIONOUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM REQUIRES PER.MISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNER.-

PREFACE

The present publication concerns the ever -growingneed for research, not only to be carried out butmade available to the practitioners and adminis-trators of mass communication. Unesco has al-ways been concerned with the existing gap of know-ledge and understanding between the researcherand the producer. This was pointed out stronglyat the Meeting of Experts on Mass Communicationand Society (Montreal, 21-30 June 1969) and con-sequently it was felt that a study such as this oneshould be commissioned.

As a result of his wide experience in researchand formelyinjournalism and the administrationof communication programmes, the author of this

study, Dr. Y. V. L. Rao, Director of the AsianMass Communication Information and ResearchCentre (AMIC), carefully explains when, why andhow various types of communication research canbe of great help to the practitioners and decision-makers. Also, Dr. Rao provides us with numerousexamples of applying research to determine; thkseffects and effectiveness of the media, zspeciallyin the developing countries.

It is hoped that this study will contribute to abetter understanding and a fuller co-operationbetween the researcher and the practitioner of masscommunication.

3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface 3

Acknowledgements 7

Introduction g

Chapter I - The Development of Mass Communication 15

Chapter II The Process of Information Flow 18

Chapter III - The Communicator 22

Chapter IV The Media and their Audiences 27

Chapter V Effects (and Effectiveness) of Mass Communication 36

Chapter VI - Summary and Conclusions 46

Appendix - Mass Communication Research: Why and How? 49

Bibliography 51

5

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND AN APOLOGY

This book is an attempt at synthesizing and pre-senting, in relatively uncomplicated form, commu-nication research findings for the use of mediapractitioners and administrators of communicationcampaigns, especially in the developing countries.

To the extent that it has drawn heavily on thewritings and contributions of many scholars, it isnot original. It is perhaps different, however, onlybecause it tries to indicate some practical uses towhich the findings of research can be put. Thosewho have contributed to the field of knowledge ofmass communication are the real authors of thebook, especially those who have themselves triedin the past to compile anthologies or bring togetherthe findings of communication research into whatmay be called "state-of-the-art" presentations.Such books, however, have been, by and large,meant for other scholars or for students in schoolsand colleges..

I express my gratitude to the editors of suchanthologies and to the compilers and the synthesi-zers. While there are too many to name individ-ually, my special thanks go to those from whoseworks I have particularly benefited. They are:Wilbur Schramm, Charles Wright, Alex Edelstein,Theodore Peterson, Jay W. Jensen, William L.Rivers and Joseph Klapper. Of course, there areothers whose individual researches have also beenused. I thank all these scholars.

An apology is also due to them because I amaware of having taken liberties with their work byrewording, reformulating, "translating" and es-p.cially by extrapolating. I can only hope that theywill appreciate the need for this in a book of thiskind, meant for a special kind of an audience. Ifin the process of such translation and extrapola-tion, errors have crept in or nuances have beenignored (often deliberately), that responsibility isentirely mine. Partly to save any possible em-barrassment to the scholars whose contributionshave been "used" in this way and partly to makefor easier reading on the part of the potentialreader of this type of book, direct quotations andfootnotes have been avoided wherever possible -rightly or wrongly.

Whether the end justifies such means or notin fact, whether the means will really guaranteethe end, I do not know.

For the invaluable assistance which I have re-ceived in the production of the manuscript, I can-not adequately thank the two people who have helpedmost: Sonny Francis and Jessie Tan.

To my former colleagues in Unesco and tothat praiseworthy Organization, my gratitude forthe opportunity provided to me - and for theirpatience.

Singapore, October 1971. Y. V. L. RAC

7

INTRODUCTION

Arthur Christiansen, a name every newspaper manimmediately recognizes, had the habit of dictatingeach day some thought whiA.11 came to him duringhis daily work as editor of the Daily Express. Inhis book, Headlines All My Life, he has a chapterin'which he has reproduced some of his "daily bul-letins", one of them reads:

"I wish there was some way for newspapermen to diagnose how much of any single issue ofthe newspaper is read. Are there people who readevery line of it, as we must? Do most people 'dig'reading only that which appeals to them? I takethe view that these are the majorityTM.

There are now ways in which a newspaper, orfor that matter the programmes of broadcastingnetworks or the content of films, can and are beingdiagnosed. Christiansen, in his time, did a magni-ficient job with the Daily Express without the bene-fit of such diagnosis. One of the qualities attributedto him was his ability to put himself in the shoesof the "common man" (an ability referred to as"empathy") and feel the average person's feelings,etc. His advice to newspaper men, conta'ned inanother of his 'daily bulletins was: "It would doeveryone connected with Fleet Street - especiallyeditors - a power of good if they spent an occasionalday off in unfamiliar territory seeing the news-paper reader as he is at work and play. In familiarterritory, in the neighbourhood of your own home,you don't get the same perspective". Or again,"Keep typographical layout tricks under control,There is much virtue in simplicity. Always thereader outside Fleet Street should be considered".

No one denies that there were giants amongnewspaper men in days gone by (and among broad-casters and other communicators in more recenttimes) who, by informal means and through ex-perience, developed a rough idea of the composi-tion of their audiences. But for every such person,there are probably hundreds of media practition-ers, who despite the development of communica-tion research, continue to ask themselves thesame questions even today:

How many persons read my publication; what

kinds of persons read it; am I printing the kind ofthings my audience wants to read about? Is my styleof presentation easy or hard? How can I improvemy presentation in terms of layout, typography,etc? How can I improve the content of my publi-cation and increase the size of my audience?

Let us take a look at another kind of commu-nication "practitioner" who is far less known thanChristiansen but who perhaps did just as much, inhis own small way for his small newspaper (rela-tively speaking). His name is Sidney S. Coldishwho was the research director of a rniddletownU. S. newspaper. He worked closely with the restof the staff of his newspaper - in other words hewas a member of a team which produced the news-paper and in which his own speciality was research.His job xvas to try and find the answers to the ques -tions which occurred to other members of his team.Several years ago in an address to an editors' con-ference he had this to say:

"We use research as a tool, to augment ourknowledge of the readers and markets served byour newspaper and to assist in decision-makingprocesses... Research is a service department.It exists to serve other departments - news, edi-torial, advertising, circulation - and also to servemanagement ".

Coldish admitted that his newspaper's com-mitments of manpower and money to research hadbeen "substantial in past years, and they are growing. . The implication is clear: we believe news-paper research is worth while useful... neces-sary". He then went on to give concrete examplesof how such continuing research had helped hisnewspaper achieve not only a more satisfied read-ership but also a_wider readership and therefore,a more satisfied publisher as well. He concludedhis address by saying that research was a proce -dure that enabled both editors and advertisers "togauge the impact of their offerings to readers andalso makes it possible to try out new ideas - totest the kind of reception a new or different ap-proach will get from readers... Anything thathelps to take the guess work out of the editing

9

process is worth while. Research is capable ofproviding a strong assist. If you will grant that thedecision supported by proveable fact is more like-ly to be correct than one based on conjecture, surHmisc or tradition, then - so far as (my newspaper)editors are concerned - research has justifieditself".

PRACTICAL USES

Among the examples that Gbldish gives of the prac-tical uses of research on his newspaper are thefollowing:

1. Once, in the course of an opinion surveyit was learnt that readers in appreciable numbersfailed to distinguish between the opinion and com-ment columns of the newspaper's editorial pagesand the news pages theniselveis. Many people, helearnt, were unaware of the distinction which tonewspaper men is so apparent that it is taken forgranted. The editor felt after looking at the surveyconclusions that an occasional reminder to thereaders about this distinction could be helpful. Soa small two-column box was devised and insertedon the editorial pages at regular intervals. Thebox told the reader clearly that the editorial pagewas the newspaper's "opinion page'', The reader'sattention was also drawn to ansecond opinion page"when found necessary.

2. On the basis of readership research find-.ings a new summary was carried on page one witha series of news digest items each of which wasthen keyed to the page where a fuller account wasgiven. This was done on the basis of the findingthat reader interest in news shorts was high. Thenews digest items also performed another function;they encouraged the reader to turn to inside pages.Later readership figures showed an increase of35% to 45% for that column.

3. In the course of a study preceding the news -paper's plans to redesign its format it was foundthat 7 out of 10 adults wore eye glasses and thatmost of them regularly wore glasses when read-ing. Therefore the decisionwas taken to introducea larger body type, switching from 8-point type ona 9-point slug, to a 9-point body type on a 91/2point slug.

4. The newspaper opened up inside pages fornews holes, because of the finding that a mixedcontent page - i, e. a page carrying both news andadvertising gained considerably in readershipwhere there was adequate space on the page forsome display of news. It therefore became a rulethat from then on the news space on a mixed con-tent page should contain at least 15 column inches,preferably spread over three adjacent columns andat least 5 inches deep, or over two adjacent columnsof greater depth.

5. The newspaper also departmentalized andstressed its suburban news coverage because ofresearch findings that suburban news was not only

10

being read by more than 7 out of 10 adults wholived intne suburbs but also by G out of 10 men andwomen living in the central city itself.

One of the editors of the newspaper calledthese editorial. changes "editorial engineering" andadded that in terms of reader satisfaction, adver -tising gains and circulation growth, such "engineer-ing" appeared to have worked out very well.

Coldish' s own discussions of the pros and consof newspaper research are worth recapitulating.One of the central problems he says, is that manypublishers and editors still doubt the usefulnessof research. Their usual responses are: "Every-thing you found out through research, I've knownall along; this merely confirms it"; or "You can'tedit a newspaper successfully by slide rule"; or"the research that is done isn't practical; it doesn'ttell me the things I want to know"; "I know myreaders and what they want; after all I've been inthis business now for umpty-nine years; and J:

don't need statisticians to tell me what to do".Goldish's own point of view is that informationabout readers and what they choOse fo read is aform of "military-type intelligence" which editorsneed as their audiences grow and as the society inwhich those audiences exist becomes more compleX.

Continuing his argument, Goldish rightly pointsout, however, that if we were to treat readershipdata as binding or if we were to produce news-papers limited to "best-read" types of content,"we'd have the most flamboyant, sensational andfrivolous newspapers ever published - becausethe best-read stories, day in. and day out, areusually those heavily vested with violence, sex,controversy and so-called human interest qualities".

The editor must therefore still use his profes -s ional judgement on what is important, consequen-tial and significant. But he must also recognizethat readers' interests and demands of their news-papers are widely varied and that readers arepeople with diVers e backgrounds and equally diverseinformational and entertainment needs. "Editingfrom the strength of knowledge is to be preferredto editing by hunch, intuition or calculated guess".

"SESAME STREET"

Let us take another example - this time from tele-vision. Sesame Street is a children's programme,now watched in 50 countries around the world, bychildren and their parents. It has won every ma-jor award for its class and unwittingly, but suc-cessfully, competed for audience ratings againstsome of the best commercial productions in theUnited States. It is a production of the Children'sTelevision Workshop with modest studios in NewYork.

The original idea for what later turned out tobe Sesame Street came to a Mrs. Joan Cooney in1966. After obtaining support from several fund-ing agencies and foundations, she consulted various

experts as psychologists and children's book illus-trators. A great deal of preparation went into theplanning of the series and Dr. Edward L. Palmer,formerly an associate research professor in Ort gon'sState Education System, worked with children acrossthe United States for 18 months, studying their gen-eral behavioural patterns and specifically their at-tention spans, areas of interest, eys movemects,etc.

Dr. Palmer and his associates found that themost effective approach to learning "fused the swit-ches of commercial TV, the quick cuts from ani-mate to live action". Transitions were avoided."We ]earned ", says Dr. Palmer, "that what boreskids is too much time spent on any one subject. Sitand talk straight at them, and children think youare giving them Walter Cronkite" (a noted U.S.Television commentator and news analyst for CBS).

On the basis of the 'findings of such systematicresearch, the series was planned and executedwith no "anchor man"; children wander around side-walks and through neighbourhood stores, chattingwith their adult hosts. "Learning seems almost aby-product of fun'', said Time magazine, reportingon Sesame Street in a special cover storylast:rear.

The producers of Sesame Street have allowedfor constant feedback from its audiences and fromprofessional critics and have successfully incor-porated some changes as _they have gone along. Re-search before, research during and research afterhas obviously paid off handsomely and all those as-s or .:ated with the programme have achieved a satis -faction beyond their wildest hopes. Besides, accord-ing to an independent educational testing service,"Sesame Street has been sharpening the cognitiveskills of poor kids by as much as 62%". It contin-ues to entertain and educate.

Examples like this where communication re-search has been harnessed for practical purposes.by the practitioners of mass communication aremany. Unfortunately, however, they are not al-ways available easily to the average professional.This is partly because the conclusions of specificstudies like this, sponsored and done for specificpurposes, usually remain within the media unitswhich make use of them. Partly also it is becausemost practitioners of mass communicati.on, espe-cially in the developing countries where the needis greatest (for reasons which will be explainedlater) do not have the inclinai!on or the opportunityto expose themselve's to mass communication lit-erature. The point that is being made here is thatthe informal, intuitive and unsystematic ways ofanswering day-to-day questions are no longer ade-quate for the modern communicator.

This is because the communication revolutionwhich has taken place has vastly increased the num-ber of communication media and has given theaverage person access to many media. This hasalso meant that the competition among the mediaon the attention of the public has increased tre-mendously. Since every individual has only so much

time to read or to listen to the media, his need forselection among the media output has increased.Therefore it is the medium whose messages arcinteresting and easy to absorb, v,-hose messagesmeet the needs of the public, which will sure

A nother reason for the failure of i' :waive methods is the increasing number of people in the au-dience. More people are entering the ranks of thepotential audience of the media everyday, partlybecause of increasing literacy, partly because ofincreasing per capita income and partly becauseof the easier availability of the media. The daysof the exclusive audience of a press catering to anelite are disappearing fast and have indeed dis-appeared already, even in the developing countries.The task of the communicator, therefore, has be-come far more difficult. Finally, to make the taskof the communicator even more difficult, publictastes have been changing.The 'public is not Jnlygetting better educated, but also more sophisticat-ed. Their interests have been broadeningthroughexposure to more communications from outsidetheir immediate environment. These changingtastes and broadening of interests have meant thatno communicator can base his decisions on whathe knew to be true even a few years ago. He nowhas to keep constantly in touch with these changesOne of the better ways of doing so is to keep intouch with communication research an activitywhich has itself grown up only in the past two dec-ades partly to meet this need. The communicationresearcher thus becomes a member of the teamwhich produces the ultimate product of a mediumof mass communication. He draws from his know-ledge of the experiences of past communications,the tested efficiency .of present methods and pro-jects this knowledge into the future for the guVanceof the communication practitioner. lie ha:': toolsat his command to do this task in a systematic way.And those tools are constantly being sharpened.

PRINCIPLES, NOT RULES

The purpose of the following discussion is to sum-marize selectively those aspects (and those as-pects alone) of mass communication research togive the practitioner (and the administrator of com-munication campaigns) a general idea of what masscommunication is about and what mass communi-cation research has been able to do so far, andabove all to attempt to show that mass communi-cation research can help the practitioner in hisday-to-day work. It may not yet be able to answerevery single question, general or specific, whichthe practitioner may have.. In any case it is doubt-ful that this is what the practitioner would like tohave. Research cannot and does not provide hardand fast rules for the practitioner. Nor does itintend to do so, even as the principles of layout orof composition are not meant to stifle the individua-lity and the creative ability of the sub-editor or the

11

cameraman. There are times when the practition-or decides deliberately to flout principles and per-haps place one double column story directly underanother or a cameraman lets a bridge run up anddown his picture vertically insteat: of diagonally.A good practitioner does this deliberately and notbecause of ignorance; a bad practitioner may do sobecause he has not been exposed to any principlesat al]. The practice of journalism has its princi-ples; the practice of mass communication has itsprinciples. But these principles are essentiallymeant to be guidelines because communication(like journalism) is at least partly a creative activity.Neither the teachers of the principles of journalismnor the teachers of the principles. of mass commu-nication want to stifle individuality or creativity.However, to the extent that these are functionalactivities as well, they will maintain that the pro-fessional must first inform himself of principlesand practice so as to become a better journalista better communicator in this functional sense.

The newspaperman, the broadcaster, the film-maker, etc. , are being taught the techniques oftheir profession but their exposure to the princi-ples of mass communication has so far beeninadequate. This is not a statement made by re-searchers but by mass communication practition-ers themselves - in many of the training pro-grammes being increasingly organized all over theworld by national units, by regional centres andbyinternational organizations.

The following discussion is meant purely as astart to meet such a need. It does not claim tobecomplete or fully adequate. For, in the last twodecades or so the literature of mass communica-tion has burgeoned fast. The practitioner who maywant to go deeper into,some of the aspects of masscommunication theory or research is directed tothat literature (see. selected titles at the back ofthe book).

THE RESEARCHER AND THE PRACTITIONER

There are two concepts in mass communication re-search which the practitioner in newspapers, broad-casting stations, etc., knows intuitively. How ac-curately is another matter. These two conceptsare: "selective exposure" and "selective percep-ton". In simpler terms they merely mean that areader or viewer or a listener exposes himself tothe content of the mass media in a selective way,and that evon after he does that, ha interprets whathe reads or sees, in his own way. This is usuallyguided by his own needs, interests, abilities - andprejudices. This is true of all of us - includingthe professional journalist and the communicationresearcher. And this is true in relationship toeach other's products. The practitioner for instancemay often pick up some publication in the field ofmass communication research but reject it as being"not for me". The researcher too surely turns a

12

page in his daily newspaper or switches channelson his television set with identical words. Oftenprejudices also show up.

Whatever judgements are made, they are oftenmade very quickly on the basis of a certain "cue".This may be a headline in a newspaper, or thetitle of a programme on the radio, or the face orthe voice of an announcer on television. But often,for the purposes of their own professional workthe practitioner and the researcher will bring them -selves to sit through or read through materialwhich they would find, under more "normal' circumstances, to be either boring or pompous oruseless. The practitioner does this because heneeds that background information for his own work;the researcher does this because he may be ana-lysing a certain content and therefore has to mon-itor a whole series, let, us say, of televisionprogrammes.

There seems to he as much truth in the prac-titioner's criticism of the researcher as in theresearcher's criticism of the practitioner. Thesecriticisms are too well known in the profession tobe discussed in any detail here.

Perhaps the strongest argument one can makefor the need to get over any existing pr?.juclices inthe field of mass communication is that the age ofspecialization is now upon us and that thereforewe cannot any longer fit into a society adequatelywithout specialized knowledge. For the practitioner of mass communication there is a growing needto inform himself of his own field of activ itywith-in the whole gamut of mass communication whichhas undergone revolutionary changes in the life-time of most of us who started as newspapermensay, twenty or thirty years ago. The advent ofradio and television and the other vast networksof mass communication, including the large-scalegovernmental communication programmes, hasforced us to take another look at our own particu-lar place and our special role.

REFRESHER COURSES

The suddenupsurge of activity on the part of profes -sional organizations to run training programmesand refresher courses for working journalistsseems tobe the most compelling argument for thefact that in the midst of all the changes that aretaking place in society we may all have to run tostand still. This includes the communication prac -titioner, just as it did the general medical prac-titioner of a few years ago.

The layman looks to the media to inform himand educate him on the changes that are takingplace around him so that he can become a moreeffective me:mb6r of his society the farmer with -in the agricultural revolution, the rural hous ewives,amidst the revolutions that have been taking placein the areas of hygiene, sanitation and child rear-ing; young men and women, within the context of

rising costs and rising populations. But what aboutthe communicator within the communication revo-lution which is now being referred to as a commu-nications "explosion". Traditional praciibeliefs are being questioned constantlyingly in all avenues of human behavicmunication, which is the life blood I

caused some of these changes, but ix,been affected by them. Communicator:, Mi.) notonly expect and encourage societies to make thesechanges smoothly and effectively but also considerthemselves as leaders of opinion, obviously haveneed for information on communication itself.

We have all heard editors and publishers, forexample, asking themselves why their circulationfigures are not going up as rapidly as literacy andper capita income? Perhaps some of them, espe-cially in the developing countries, are trying tofind out. These efforts are praiseworthy, but forsome of the more general questions, there are al-ready some tentative answers provided by peopleto whom these questions had occurred earlier. Oneof them might as well point it out to the newcomer,much as Charlie Brown (in a recent Schulz cartoon)told Lucy whom he caught counting snowflakes,"you are wasting your. time, I've already done it"!

Unfortunately, however, the relative newnessof. mass communication. research, coupled withthe oldness of communication practice have createda situation where, much like a father and son, therehas been relatively little common ground for ahealthy dialogue. Therefore, each one has achieveda sense of security for himself by confining him-self to his special world, even though each mustrecognize from time to time that, by doing so hehas perhaps missed out on something.

NEED FOR. DIALOGUE

Professional journals have provided the practition-ers with the techniques of communication, such asthe art of interviewing, the art of writing, etc.,some of them based on research findings and someon experience alone. There is no doubt that bothare useful and necessary. However, practitionersof communication have had relatively less oppor-tunity to expose themselves to the more generalprinciples of effective communication based onresearch done on the communicator himself, themedium in which he specializes, and the audiencewhich he serves. These are the areas which thisdiscussion attempts to covebriefly and selectively.

In a recent article in the professional maga-zine, The Quill, James Tankard, in an article en-titled "Communication Researchers, Speak Up!"

made out an excellent case for the need for a great-er dialogue between experienced journalists andcommunication researchers. One of the most spe-cific needs he mentioned "is for more speculationin research articles on the meaning and potentialusefulness of findings". Not all research hasobvious immediate application, but in many caseswhere none are mentioned reseal should beable to indicate possible uses'',

"Communication research", he warned " doesnot yet have a more complete scientific rhetoric,it undoubtedly will have some day, but principlesof potential use to professional communicators arebeginningto emerge. The promotion of such prin-cifiles appears to be a responsibility of the re-searcher, and a responsibility he should begin as-suming now. The journalist, for his part, shouldbe prepared to give the research a fair hearing".It is in that spirit that this book is being written.Hopefully it will be received in that spirit -by thepractitioners of communication without whose ac-tive assistance and constructive criticism masscommunication researchers might as well closeshop.

There seems to be need for a warning here.It is that although we. are trying to be guarded inpresenting generalizations, we realize that thewhole purpose of the book is to present some re-search conclusions so as to indicate possible usesfor the practitioner. There is a danger in this thatsuch conclusions may be misconstrued as "princi-ples" or "rules" for all situations and conditions.This is not so. Some of the conclusions are fromstudies done under specific conditions. And thesemay differ in another culture or in another situa-tion. They should therefore be taken only as gen-eral guidelines. ..,

Far more research needs to be done and suchresearch needs to be done in different culturesand in different Communities and perhaps even inspecific media units. For example, some researchstudies tell us that more adults read the best comicstrips on an average day than the front page ban-ner story. Such a finding gives us an indication ofthe average interest of an average public in a givencommunity. Research also has shown that theaverage reader spends more time in his 'metropo-litan daily on features than on news. This mayormay not be true of all readers of all cities. It isworth finding out for any given paper.

The purpose here is to present a general picture of mass communication study and mass commu-nication research. It is for the practitioner to decidewhat to do with some of the principles that seemto be emerging. It is also up to him to askques-tions - both of himself and of the researcher.

13

CHAPTER I

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MASS COMMUNICATION

When journalists gather in the pub or in the coffeehouse they talk shop, like all professionals do. Thejournalist's shop talk, however, has a certainamount of romance, adventure and an aura of char-isma which most other professions lack. Part ofthis comes from within the profession itself but agreat deal of it comes also from the "consumers"of journalism whose own attachment to the news-men and reporters of their choice is generally anintense one. However, as every journalist knowsand most of his fans do not - a great deal of hardwork and pragmatic decisions go into the produc-tion of a newspaper, or a magazine or abroadcastor a film. This hard work and decision-makingrevolve around the myriad factors involved in theprocess of collecting, collating and disseminatingof information and ideas. Ih all of the mass mediathe economics of the medium also play a role whichis little understood not only outside of the mediumbut also within.

However, the stories about journalism andjournalists are so interesting and so colourfulthatit is perhaps a shame that sometimes one tends toforget that reality is quite far removed from suchromanticism. Journalists may continue to need thecompensation that such romanticism lends .them,to be able cheerfully to handle the frustrations ofreality.

This is particularly so today since journalismhas itself evolved, over the last few decades, intoa much bigger, more systematic and also morecompetitive vocation. It has also taken uponitself,by and large, a greater responsibilitytowards so-ciety. And society has been making even greaterdemands on journalism. We are using the word"journalism" today to include all the mass media,the press, radio, television, film, etc., whereasformerly it referred only to newspapers and maga-zines. However, the inadequacy of the word jour-nalism to describe the activities and concerns oftoday's "journalist" is already beginning to relegate that word if not quite into oblivion, certainlyinto describing only d part of the communicationprocess in society. The new phrase is "mass

communication", and even some of the older jour-nalists are beginning to call themselves communi-cators in certain contexts. As such contexts areprogressively increasing, especially because ofthe growing activities sponsored by universities,by professional organizations, by national govern-ments, by international organizations, etc., themore common reference now is to"mass commu-nication?' or the mass media" than to "journalism".In this transistory stage, however, definitions of"journalism" and definitions of "mass communica-tion" vary. For purposes of this discussion wemight perhaps more conveniently define journal-ism as the business of collecting, managing, edit-ing and disseminating news and information throughone or another mechanical device. We might per-haps then define mass communication as the studyof the process involved in such utilization of suchmechanical devices for such news and information,and the flow of those messages through society.

Journalism, according to Webster, is: "thebusiness of managing, editing, or writing for jour-nals or newspapers; also, journals or newspaperscollectively". Such a definition was an adequateword for describing the media in the days whenmost mass communication was carried onby newspapers and magazines. And such a period lasteda long time. The first mechanical device bywhichman could share his thoughts with a large numberof people, was the printing press. The birth ofBritish journalism, for example, can almost bedated back to 1476 when William Caxton set upthefirst press at Westminster. Actually, however,the emergence of a regular periodical devoted tothe dissemination of news came only over a hundredyears later. But what we have come to know asthe newspaper had forerunners in the form of"broadsides" and pamphlets. The delay was dueto the unavailability of facilities for the gatheringand distribution of news. Literacy too was notwidespread and not everyone could afford to buythese news sheets. There were also political rea-sons which made printing a somewhat risky occu-pation. One might add that such factors as illiteracy

15

and economic restraints continue to act as obstaclesto newspaper growth even today in large parts ofthe world.

The development of printing occurred along-side industrialization and in fact printing itself waspart of that process of industrialization since itbrought workers together under one roof and subs-tituted the machine for a task which was once doneby hand. It also succeeded in reproducing, rela-tively inexpensively, identie "terns by mechanicalmeans; this was mass pro n.

The printed media ' .ely sway overa long period of time a ri it ct Jued to be the onlymeans by which cultur economic andpolitical allegiances could be maintained over largeareas. It performed the functions which today'ssociety expects all the media of communication toperform and to share. These are: to inform andbroaden the horizons of the public, to interpretevents and issues, to criticize, and when neces-sary, challenge authority, to act as a"watchdog",to entertain and to assist in selling goods and serv-ices by bringing buyers and sellers together.

The "communication revolution" came in thenineteenth and twentieth centuries and brought withit the motion picture, the radio and later - muchlater - television. "Journalism" thus became onlyone part of this wider network of mass communi-cation media.

FUNCTIONS OF THE MEDIA

Apart from the increase in the number of the media,there was also a gradual but distinct change in thefunctions of the media which made journalism toorestricted a term to describe this bigger world ofcommunication. There has been a tremendous in-crease in the various types of public relations ac-tivities, of advertising, of house organs, in shortof all forms of persuasive communication. A greatdeal of the early contributions to the study of masscommunication, in fact, came from the propagandaactivities during World War II and from advertising.Only later did social scientists, comingfrom vari-ous disciplines such as political science, sociologyand psychology, begin to study the media in their"natural" situation and for their own sake. Today,because of the greater interest in mass communi-cation in the developing countries and communities,anthropologists are also increasingly contributingtheir services to the study of mass communication.

With such developments having taken place andcontinuing to take place, it has therefore becomenot only more stylish but also more accurate totalk of mass communication rather than of journal-ism, when referring to all media and not merelyto newspapers and magazines. It may indeed bemore correct to say that journalism is part of masscommunication. For, as in the other media of masscommunication, newspapers and magazines tooutilize mechanical devices and have become

16

institutionalized - that is a whole institution .beZcomes the message carrier whether it is a broad-casting station or a film studio or a newspaper ora magazine.

All these require a large group of people bring-ing their own specialities to, their tasks, workingtogether ti.iproduce a product which is then carriedto thousands or millions of persons almost simul-tannously. The media units work as social insti-tutions each having its own controls, inside andout, its economic concerns, its ethical codes, etc.These various media, as branches of mass com-munication, are all more or less in the same busi-ness of collecting and disseminating informationand knowledge.

It should be noted, however, that there arcdifferences - and some very distinct differences -between the various media. We shall deal with thislater. Suffice it to point out that mass communi-cation does nut mean communication for every one.Even in a give n medium, mass communication isselective because the medium is selective. Eachof the media tends Co select its audiences, and au-diences likewise select among and within the media.

As social institutions the mass media are (orought to be) responsive to the environment in whichthey operate. This interaction between the mediaand their societies, it will be seen, means thatnot only do the media influence the social, economic,cultural and political structures within which theyoperate but that in turn they are themselves influ-enced by them. Therefore to understand masscommunication .properly one must understand thesociety in which the media exist. And to under-stand that society onu must have a clear pictureof its values and basic beliefs. This means thata knowledge of history, sociology, psychology,etc. , is necessary for a true understanding of themedia. Today the training of journalists attemptsto provide such a background. This is sometimesdone by professional organizations which run short-term training courses for working journalists whocan neither afford the time nor have the inclinationto sit through long courses leading to a degree ina university. However, the new recruits to jour-nalism and to other media are increasingly comingfrom universities where the better schools of jour-nalism and/or communication are providing sucha background in their regular curriculum, in addi-tion to imparting basic knowledge of the techniquesof production in one or more of the media. Althoughthe students may concentrate in later stages oftheir course work on the techniques involved in aspecific medium, they are primarily exposed to abroader outlook on all the media within varioussocial, political, economic and cultural frameworks.

The change from journalism to mass commu-nication has also slowly but surely occurred ineducational institutions and many of the old depart -ments of journalism have redesignated themselvesin the course of their expansion into departmentsor schools of journalism.and communication.

THE "BORN" JOURNALIST

Since the printed medium was the obvious and vir-tually the only avenue for employment in the past,schools of journalism concentrated largely onmeet-ing the demands of newspapers, although this de-mand was very slow in coming- and continues tobeslow in some parts of the world. Gradually, how-ever, at least in some countries (the United Statesis a leading example), the schools of journalismsucceeded in proving themselves and also succeed-ed in proving; that f'essional education wasbetter '` training, especially te.ch-nical rv. the job" innewspapersor in broadcasting stations. Such training is nowbeing reorganized as at best a slow process andat worst extremely limited and often confining, of-fering little opportunity for advancement to theaverage reporter or sub-editor. No school ofjournalism, however, claims that it turns outthe "complete" journalist. But they do claimthat they turn out better recruits to the professionof journalism than the old relativelyless educatedand totally untrained entrants into journalism whoseclaim to being journalists was based on birth ratherthan on training. The old adage that journalistsare born and not trained is all but dead. As JosephPulitzer who got into trouble for daring to suggestthat a journalist was educated and not born, oncequipped: "the only position that occurs tome whicha man... can successfully fill by the simple factof birth is that of an idiot".

At least in some parts of the world, therefore,the fight for recognition which the schoolsof jour-nalism have fought, has been won. The newer jour-nalists tend to be better educated and better trained.They have a good background of the humanities andare knowledgeable in the social sciences. Increas-ingly editors and publishers. and executives ofbroadcasting networks are preferring to recruityoung people who have a degree from a school ofjournalism. This is also true in such related fieldsas market research, public relations, advertising,government information.services, etc. Soon, itmay not be enough for a potential journalist to havea broad background in the humanities and the socialsciences, for we are on the threshold uf the age ofspecialization. The general reporter is increasing-ly being forced to give way to the science writer,the economic writer, the political correspondent,the specialized columnist, the women's page editor,the sports writer, etc. , within each medium, notto speak of the specializations across the media.

Such developments have brought intheir wake,discussions on whether journalism can now becalled a profession, since a profession is distin-guished by the fact that it needs specialized train-ing and a formal recognition of that training by agroup of qualified "teachers". Without enteringthe discussion itself in any depth, it seems thatsuch an agreement is well on its way to beingreached, at least informally, among the various

clashes of media practitioner as well as on thepart of educators and the general public. This isall to the good since the journalist is bound to bene -fit through an elevation of his own stature. Thisincludes newspapermen as well as "electronicjournalists'', a term made popular by Eric Sevarcid,the American television commentator. The trendis especially evident in the fact that a number ofprofessional organizations have been formed withspecialists of their own (such as newspaper editors,publishers, broadcasters, photographers, "workingjournalists", etc. ), whose representatives oftenget together in national and international conven-tions to discuss problems of common concern. Re-cently representatives, of universities, not onlyfrom schools of journalism, but other depa.rtmentsas well, have been able to join such organizations asfull members or associates and international organi-zations such as Unesco, have increasingly beenable to bring scholars and practitioners togethersince such organizations have always worked closelyWith ail of them.

USE IN EDUCATION

It may also be worth pointing out that today onetalks freely not only of education in journalism butalso of journalism in education. A give and takebetween educators and journalists has broughtabout the new trend of the use of mass media ineducation - perhaps the best justification for theclosest relationship being established between themedia practitioner and the educator. This closerelationship, or the need for it, has been extendedbeyond the administrators of formal education toadministrators of out-of-school education, whichin its broad sweep, includes such vast educationalefforts as those in the field of health, agriculture,family planning, community development, literacy,business management, and finally administrationitself. National and international planning bodieshave found the need for the contributions of jour-nalists and communication personnel of all kindsto be built in, as integral components, into allforms of developmental activities within the broadconcept of social change and of modernization.

No practitioner needs to have any further con-firmation of the recognition of his importance tosociety. The challenge has been made, And it hadbeen made in a proportion which is awesome in itsdimensions. Whether he will be able to meet thischallenge or not depends on his own ability to com-prehend and to come to grips with the vast prob-lems of the big world which exists outside the news -paper office or of his broadcasting station. If hewants to do so he must have a fuller understandingof himself, of his medium and of the world outside.In other words, the communicator, the mediumand the audiences. Such knowledge used within thesocial context in which he operates should make .

him a more effective communicator.

17

CHAPTER II

THE PROCESS. O' INFORMATION FLOW

We might as well begin by saying that the practiceof mass communication is difficult. This is des-pite the fact that man has been communicating, inone way or another since pre-historic times. Inour present discussion, we are particularly con-cerned with mass communication which is in manyways different from interpersonal communication.We know that interpersonal communication is com-plicated. Mass communication is perhaps evenmore complicated. In interpersonal communica-tion, since we are extremely concerned about our-selves, we do put a great deal of effort Into watch-ing the reactions of the person we are talking toand into correcting ourselves to the best of our abi-lity whenever we make a mistake or whenever werealize that whatever we are saying is not beingunderstood or not being received in quite the waywe want it to be received. We may correct our-selves either by retreating or by clarifying or per-haps even by apologizing.

Those of a p who practise mass communication,on the other hand, generally do not have: an oppor-tunity for such immediate "feedback" of reactionsfrom our audiences. Therefore, we have little op-portunityfor keeping up a healthy dialogue and evenless opportunity to retreat or clarify or apologize.Most of the time even if we would like to do so, itis far too late. Hence in any effort on our part toensure that our practice of mass communication isachieving what it sets out, to achieve, a great dealof preparation must go into it before we begin tocommunicate. Fortunately, unlike in the inter-personal situation, there is time for such prepa-ration. The feedback may not be immediate, but itcan be obtained if we are willing to put in the ef-fort to obtain it. Moreover considerable informa-tion is already available to the practitioner of masscommunication in the body of knowledge gatheredpatiently, even if sometimes haphazardly, by masscommunication researchers. Exposure to suchknowledge can itself be a form of preparation. Thisis as true for newspapers dealing with their for-midable deadlines as it is for radio and televisionbroadcasters and for film-makers and equally

18

important, administrators of mass communicationcampaigns, especially in developing countries.

For any systematic approach to the practiceof mass communication,, the communicator musthave a certain amount of knowledge of himself, hisparticular medium and his audience, in otherwords, the total process of communication. Apractitioner may be an excellent technician and ahighly skilled professional, but without an under-standing of the process of communication, he wouldbe less of a professionalthan he would himself liketo be.

SIMILARITIES

It should first of all be noted that mass communi-cation channels are always operating side by sidewith interpersonal channels and that the two inter-act very closely and each is exerting an influenceon the other. Although we have drawn a distinc-tion between mass communication and interperson-al communication with a view to setting our ownboundaries we should also recognize that thereare many similarities between the two. In bothsituations the communicator has to gain attention,has to be understood, has to be accepted, has tobe interpreted and has to succeed in bringing aboutsome kind of a change in attitude and behaviour. Ofcourse not all mass communication or all interper -s onal communication goes through all these steps.A considerable proportion of straight news items,for example, are read or listened to and immediate -ly forgotten or stored away for future retrieval.

The interaction between mas s communicationand interpersonal communication is both constantand cumulative. While a great deal of content frommass communication forms the grist of interper-sonal communication, it is also natural that subjectsdiscussed in the interpersonal situation (a summitmeeting, or a church group) finds its way inevitablyinto the mass media. Each therefore feeds ontheother and affects the other. It is not a one-sidedcause -and -effect relationship.

Since our concern here is with mass commu-nication we will look at interpersonal communica-tion as related to mass communication from thepoint of view of the practitioner of mass communi-cation, but will try to keep in mind the impoi tantrole of other forms of communication from whichthe practitioner of mass communication cannot sep-arate himself, whether in his day-to-day work orwithin the context of his ultimate objectives.

A RELATIONSHIP

Communication essentially is a relationship - a re-lationship between the person who is imparting amessage or sending out a s'Ignal and the receiverof such signals. Obviously they must use somecommon signals to be able to communicate at all.

For the practitioner of mass communication,the important things to consider are that he hassomething to communicate, that he has a channel(or medium) through which he can convey his mes-sage and that there is an audience which hopefullywill receive that message because there is interestin it. It will be noticed that we have defined "com-muhication" and expanded it, for the purposes ofthe practitioner to "mass communication" and indoing so have brought in the additional factor of the"channel" or the "medium" - because this has acrucial bearing on the difference between commu-nication and mass communication. In addition,mass communication involves a complex corporateorganization, an extensive division of .labour and agreat deal of expense.

Without complicating this distinction any fur-ther, let us merely say that the difference betweencommunication and mass communication is thatwhile the first includes, interpersonal communica-tion as a distinct component, to the average prac-titioner of mass communication, this becomessecondary because the practitioner of mass com-munication virtually loses control of his messageonce it gets into the interpersonal situation. Hismessage may be discussed immediately after say,a person watches a televisiOn programme. Butfrom that moment on the television set itself ismost likely turned off and what happens in theliving room between two or more individuals is be-yond the control of the programme director or ofthe news analyst. He has either communicated ef-fectively or he has not. Only time and researchcan perhaps tell.

Often broadcasting networks and newspapersinsist that they do have feedback because their lis-teners and readers write letters commenting uponsome item of news or information and the waytheywere handled. But researchers have conclusivelyshown that such feedback can be very misleading.Because those who write these letters are a parti-cular breed of readers and listeners'and they donot represent the total audience of mass communi-cation. Very oftenthe so-called feedback is confined

to the comments made by the communicator's owncolleagues. Needless to say, such feedback is per-haps even worse and even more limited than theletters or telephone calls.

What do we mean when we say that communi-cation is based on a relationship between the send-er of a message and its receiver? In the interper-sonal situation this is easily grasped. But whatabout the mass communication situation? It meansthat when a man picks up a newspaper or tunes into his favourite television programme, he does sowith certain expectations of achieving a certain re-lationship. He expects the communicator, what-ever the medium, to talk a certain language andtalk about certain subjects and he expects to under-stand what is being said. If he does not find his expectations fulfilled and does not achieve satisfaction,that relationship will break.

To understand what this means, one need onlyask a villager in a remote Indian village why hedoes not listen to the radio. Chances are that thevillager's reply would be "It speaks a strange lan-guage" or 'Tin not interested in what it says". Ob-viously it is not the radio set that he is complainingabout; it is the commentator, even if he expresseshis relationship in terms, of the medium rather thanthe communicator or the specific message. Perhapsthis is the sense in which Marshall McLuhan talksabout the medium being the message. It is doubt-ful, however, that a more sophisticated listenerwill refer to his relationship quite the same way.

To get back to our discussion on the processof communication, there are many events fromwhich the communicator selects a few to be con-veyed to his audience. He writes these stories asbest as he can and fixes them in a time-slot or anews hole. A receiver then selects from amongthe material presented, pays attention to somemessages, interprets them and disposes of themas he likes. But the messages and the mediumhave brought the communicator and the receivertogether.

SELECTION

The process, however, while simple in some res-pects, is highly complicated in others. Let us takea day-to-day example of a news agencysending outtens of thousands of words over the wires into anewspaper office or a broadcasting station. In itsown way the news agency is trying to cater to aspecialized audience which in its case are its sub-scribers. But the subscribers are not using all ofthe material. They have their own special interestsand special needs'and above all they have their ownspecial problems which severely restrict them. Anewspaper has only so many columns; a broadcast-ing station has only so much time to devote to thenews agency's material. The typical news editorpicks some stories and lets them in; the rest he"spikes" and keeps out.

19

The process continues trough the chief sub-editor and the sub-editor anal finally the man whomakes up the page on the "stone". They are trim-ming the stories. All of them are actingas "gate-keepers".

This concept of the gatekeeper role of the com-municator is an extremely important one in under -standing the process of communication. The averagepractitioner can see what this does to the wholeconcept of "objectivity" even without going beyondthe purely informational content of mass commu-nication into the persuasive parts of mass commu-nication (such as editorials, news analysis, features,documentaries with built-in messages, etc. ) Afterthe newspaper is put to bed and after the newscastends the process of selection still continues. Inthe case of the newspaper as well as in broadcastingand films, there are distribution problems and be-yond that there is the audience. There is one kindof a gatekeeper or another throughout the process.Therefore, from the start of the process to theultimate end (we shall see how there is perhaps nosuch ultimate end) the amount of effective commu-nication is progressively getting smaller and smallerand therefore only a fraction of the total communi-cation in society get any real hearing at all.

If we assume that one of these messages hasindeed reached a reader or a listener thenwhathappens? It enters the social networks which aremade up so much of interpersonal communicatiori.The particular item may now be discussed andpassed on. It is possible too that in some form,it may even come back to the original source, andbe put back into the communication system in somesimilar or different form. The circle is now com-plete and the original information becomes part ofthe experience of society. But while it has obviouslytouched some, it has not touched others at all.

"NOISE"

In the process of transmission, a message maybecome contaminated. This concept is usuallycalled "noise", a term which comes from electron-ics (we have all experienced it on a telephone, forexample, where we sometimes do not hear distinctlyor even correctly). But in mass communicationthis need not be actual physical noise. A messagemay be contaminated because it has not been under -stood properly and therefore in travelling furtherwithin the communication system it can be mis-interpreted and lose all resemblance to the originalmessage. It may become rumour or gossip orcounter-propaganda. This is the reason why thepractitioner of mass communication cannot be over-careful in constructing and in disseminating hisoriginal message. The more complex the subject -matter, thd more simply and more aacurately itneeds to be handled.

Once the message is received, social rela-tionships can also play a great part in how it is

20

received. We are all members of some groups whichare relevant to us and whose value systems andbeliefs we subscribe to. Therefore, when a mes-sage enters such a group, what happens to it isguided to a large extent by the group's beliefs andvalue systems. More often than not the messageis not accepted at its face value. It is checked withother members of one's group. For example, afarmer who listens to a broadcast about a new fer-tilizer or a new plough, is more than likelyto checkwith other farmers before attaching any value tothe message and befor e de,' d t o try tile Itymtilizer. The rness.ri this tent.Most of the research dune on "diffusion of innova-tions" has had to deal with the study of theseprocesses.

Apart from small groups, communication alsohas to meet the requirements and deal with thenorms of the society at large. In most societiesthere are some strongly held beliefs and traditionsand generally a way of doing things. The commu-nicators are themselves part of this society andtherefore their own messages will also be guidedto a large extent by these norms and by these prac-tices. The tendency therefore is to work withinthose practices. The implications of this for inter-national communication and inter - cultural commu -nication are obvious. Unless some of the morecommon terminology and the more common valuesystems are taken into consideration, the .messagecannot travel very far, and if it does, can be soeasily misunderstood.

An additional factor in communication whichshould be recognized bythe practitioner has to dowith the message itself. The meaning of a mes-sage is not necessarily wholly in the words that itcontains. There canbe a great deal of informationoutside of them. Much like the word "yes" may beaccompanied by a shrug of a shoulder or a smileor a certain tone of voice. It is the totality whichmakes the message. In the case of mass commu-nication, this would obviously be, affected by what-ever characteristics are specific to a given medium.Inthe case of a newspaper it may be the type-face,its size, the headline itself, the position on the page,etc. It may also include a by-line which may tellthe reader a great deal (or nothing at all). In thecase of the radio, of course, the speed of reading,the quality of the tone of voice, etc.

HEAD START

The factors mentioned in this discussion are theones to look for but in specific societies theywillwork in specific ways and this is important. Practitioners of mass communication, by the verynature of their experience, will necessarily havea head start but to reach that finish line they in-variably need a little assistance from the communi-cation researcher. It is the latter's task to providethe practitioner with that little extra which he needs.

The researcher cannot do so by basing his know-ledge entirely ou the literature he exposes himselfto - often from societies outside his and the prac-titioner's own. This is especially true of the de-veloping countries where the practitioners and theadministrators of mass communication want to doso much and yet have so little to go on. This in-cludes their knowledge of the communication pro-cess in their own society.

In the succeeding c apters we shall be didcussing the nature of ecific components in the

communication process. Thes.c: are: the commu-nicator, the channels and the audience. The charac-teristics of each one of these, of course, will havea bearing on the process and finally on the effect- .iveness or ineffectiveness of a given message anda given medium. Our discussion of the processitself has, therefore, necessarily been brief. Th-reader is invited to go thrr,,igh Ow following

' ..11.1plete the picture for himself -based on his own knowledge of his own particu-lar community.

21

CHAPTER III

THE COMMUNICATOR

It has been estimated that as many books were pub-lished in the last 25 years as in the 500 years before1950, and that perhaps 90% of all scientists andtechnologists who have ever lived are alive andworking today. In the United States it is believedthat there are more people engaged in providingknowledge to the public than all the farmers andindustrial workers put together. The communica-tor is king. Or is he?

As Wilbur Schramm put it "technically, whathas happened in the last five centuries is that manhas developed some remarkable machines that canbe inserted into the communication process to dup-licate a -message, and to extend almost indefinitelya person's ability to see and hear and record, andthus to share, information. The communicationprocess (however) remains basically the same.The psychology of communication is basically thesame... But because man lives by information,this new ability to share it, has had a profound ef-fect upon human life. "

It cannot be denied that communication in suchvast dimensions.has brought about fundamental so-cial changes. The news sheet and later the elec-tronic media have made it possible for large num-bers of people everywhere to be informed aboutpolitics and therefore to participate in government.

The locus of power has moved from hereditaryleadership to an informed and intelligent leader-ship. It has also been suggested that without chan-nels of mass communication the industrial revolu-tion of the nineteenth century could not have trans-formed our way of life as it did.

The advent of television, as it has been clearlyshown, has brought about impressive changes inliving habits in the more industrialized countries.Communication has now been clearly recognizedas the fundamental social process andmajor changesin human communication have always accompaniedmajor social changes.

This relationship between communication andsocial change can be seen most sharply in some of thedeveloping countries which are just moving from anolder culture into a media culture. In such countries

22

the process of communication development has beentremendously shortened because of the availabilityof new media and of communication technology.

In the midst of such change, where does thecommunicator fit? What are his rights, privilegesand responsibilities? How is he presently doinghis job and how can he do better? Let us first lookat the available potential and then see if communi-cation research has some suggestions to offer.

Thanks to communication technology, mediapractitioners and administrators of government de-velopmental campaigns are now able to take newconcepts into the hitherto isolated villages fasterthan if the villages continued to be dependent ontraditional and mainly oral channels of communi-cation. Their messages may involve the use of anew fertilizer or a new method of cultivation, theneed for vaccination or the need to restrict the sizeof one's family. They may also involve the explana-tion of what elections are all about. In this vast"educa.tion" process an increasing amount of powerpasses from the older wise men whose claim topower was exclusive knowledge of the past and in-to the hands of informed men who now commandknowledge of the outer world and of new ways ofdoing things for the benefit of all. Such a processgains momentum fairly fast and social change oc-curs at increasingly rapid speed.

Such a process of change, however, needs veryoften to perhaps be slowed down somewhat or di-verted into specific channels in order to preventany unhealthy developments. One of the essentialingredients in bringing about a smooth changeoveris again communication. Accurate information pro-vided by trustworthy communicators and throughcredible channels becomes imperative. The roleof the communication practitioner and the adminis-trator of. communication campaigns, therefore, be-comes extremely important.

For, among the things that mass communica-tion can do are some inbuilt dangers. These havebeen usually summed up in the phrase "revolutionof rising expectations". While it is true that thephrase refers especially to the economic aspects

of social change, it nevertheless covers otherchanges as well. For example, while initial com-munication can "sell" a new fertilizer or a newcontraceptive device, those who adopt such newpractices may be disappointed as a result of over-enthusiasm. Such disappointment can percolateinto a community through oral channels if the com-munication networks are not geared to handle suchsituations. Only accurate information can squelchthe repercussions of unhealthy rumour mongering.The same thing is true in other areas of human be-haviour which mass communication is capable ofaffecting. These range all the way from entertain-ment to selling a bar of soap and from providingeducation to intervening in political campaigns,from speculating on prices to discussing religion.The opportunities for doing good or bad are literallyinfinite. The vast networks in mass communica-tion which have been built in such countries andwhich themselves are picking up increasing, speedin the whole process of change are also becomingcomplex. The average person is overwhelmedbysuch Complexity, because often he is not in a posi-tion to fully grasp the mechanics of bringing outthe daily newspaper or a television programme ora feature film or even a book.

"GATEKEEPERS"

In this whole process of a c. ;- of information andthe transmission of knowledge communication prac-titioners act as powerful gatekeepers of knowledgeand therefore even of change. More often than notthey a re perhaps even unaware of what they do ordo not do. They can withhold knowledge and theycan add to knowledge and they can also interpretthe available information. Therefore it is impor-tant for such communicators to fully understandtheir own role as well as their own strengths andtheir own weaknesses. They should also be awareof the strengths and weaknesses of the channelswhich they control and operate and perhaps evenmore important the audiences whom they are outto serve, sometimes as mere transmitters, some-times as watchdogs and sometimes as gods.

How does the communicator measure up tohis task, especially at the present time with re-newed challenges facing him? Needless to say, itis important that he should be conscious of his ownstrengths and weaknesses and his own preconcep-tions and needs. Only then can he either deliberatelyattempt to become detached or be aware of his in-tense involvement so that when he is dealing witha vast audience, he knows what he is doing and per-haps why.

Research has given us some indications ofwhere the communication practitioner stands inthis regard. Much of the research, of course,has inevitably concentrated upon the oldest prac-titioner of all - the newspaper journalist. However,the "electronic journalist" and other communicators

will be able to recognize the similarities they mayhave with their colleagues of the print medium. Thepicture that has emerged out of studies focusingonthe communicator is not a pretty one, but it is nota particularlyugly one either. We have alreadybeen aware for some time of our own limitations,even if we have not been able to admit this to our-selves, let alone to others outside of the profession.

Essentially, we practitioners of mass commun-ication have been caught between the past, the pres-ent and the future. (In sociological terms this couldbe translated into "traditional mores, persistentfolkways, and social change". But from now on weshall desist from using the researcher's languagewherever possible.) The journalist has been thecaptive of a traditional social, political and culturalstructure in his day-to-day work while at the sametime faced with sometimes revolutionary changestaking place all around him, often in little doses butoccasionally in big doses as well. Most of the timehe has been a follower; occasionally he has beenable to lead but always poised to step back if the goinggot too hard. Because generally to him journalismhas been his bread and butter and not, as in the caseof scholars and philosophers, an occasional leap in-to the unknown. The journalist also has often hadto fight for his own rights and privileges, as a mem-ber of society. Sometimes he has seen those rightsand freedom temporarily or permanently abrogated.Sometimes traditional rates have been taken awayfrom him without new roles being provided and hehas had to fend for himself in the ensuing chaos.

A good example of this in the newly emergingnations is the almost exclusively political orienta-tion of the journalist. Today, for such a journalist,the avenues are few, since he himself has not changedamidst all the changes that have taken place aroundhim. The enemy (a colonial power) has withdrawnor been expelled and unless he finds new enemiesto tackle, he is lost. He can now only fall back eitheron straight reporting of fires, accidents or speechesor criticise his own government and insist that allgovernments are a journalist's "natural" enemy.Therefore, in the new tasks of the new governmentshe has not been able to find a niche - unless he movedinto the government himself. And many journalistshave done just that. And those who did so find them-selves in a completely different role - that of publicrelations men for governments or as practitionersin media controlled and operated by governments.The journalist who continued to work in newspapersfound that somehow the sharpness of his nib wasblunted, both because his own conscience would notpermit him to be as blatantly critical as he usedtobe and even if he could that there was some lack ofzeal and of appreciation. Partly as a result of thejournalist's own inability to change and partly be-cause of the new governments' own needs, the vastnetworks of communication utilized in the "construc-tive" aspects of communication for national develop-ment to bring about changes in society, began to bedeveloped and operated by the governments. This

23

expansion of other media meant that the journalisthad to find his own place side by side with otherjournalists and the situation became very confus-ing. New roles were not defined and it could noteven be simplified into a dog-eat-dog basis. Onlytime would sort out these roles, but meanwhilethere is a great deal of stress and professionaldisorientation and disorganization.

Even in the developed countries, although therehave been no changes in governments (in the sensein which this occurred in the newly emerging na-tions) a vast expansion of media networks has takenplace, and governments have had to take up newtasks, especially in the area of social welfare, inecology, etc. The relationship between the journalistand the government has undergone some necessarychanges, but not always smoothly.

Unfortunately much of the research done onthe journalists comes from the more advancedcountries. However, it would seem that a greatdeal of the conclusions perhaps apply universally.

The status of the journalist, for example, dif-fers when viewed from his perspective and the per-spective of his "public", that is society. There isevidence to show that since social change has beentaking place and since the journalist has not beenable to keep up with that change, either because hehas not perceived it or because he is not willing tochange, he has not been able, generally speaking,,to modify his perceptions. This has affected hisability to communicate effectively. The implica-tion of such a lack of change has had its necessaryrepercussions on himself as well as on society.

"IMAGE" OF JOURNALIST

There is a considerable body of literature whichindicates that there are fairly distinct ways in whicha journalist begins to achieve an image of himselfand also how society has crystallized for itself animage of the journalist. The factors which go intothe journalist's own assessment of himself are es-sentially based on his own membership group whichis made up of news sources, the interaction withhis colleagues in the news room, his relationship(or the lack of it) with higher status groups con-sisting of editors, publishers and chief executivesof one kind or another. This process of socializa-tion (or finding a comfortable niche for himself with-in the small group of the news room and the largergroup outside of the news room), while 'bringing himcloser to some people, has created social distanceLetween himself, the news sources, the audienceand often his own editor and publisher.

Research, in fact, has shown that journalistsare unusually typical in their behaviour as a "pure"group. Their behaviour is guided, consciously andsubconsciously, by traditional, ways of doing thingsand by very strongly held beliefs and are subject toa great deal of internal pressures, and penalties.

24

A typical journalist group is small, intimate andcohesive, much like a family. Therefore its abilityto shape him is very high. It has been shown thatnewsmen identify with each other very closely andrefer to themselves in the plural as "we". Theyalso limit.their interaction with the outer world soas to strengthen their own in-group feeling. It isthis last aspect that isolates the journalist a greatdeal and makes him unusually dependent upon hisown group for psychological support as well as formaterial rewards.

Within the newsroom itself, a slow processof assimilation takes place of which the journalistis generally unaware. Since he himself has thestrong urge to "belong" in his chosen group he de-velops a style of writing and handling stories gene-rally by just watching how others do it. He maynever be told what policy is, but he soon learnswhat he should avoid, even though if in fact he didnot avoid, it he may not be taken to task at all.Very often the policy of a newspaper, for example,is not dictated by the publisher but is unwittinglymade by the ways in which stories are selectedand "played'? in the newsroom. Such selection andplay are themselves based on traditional practicesand the newsman's own "feelings" about his pub-lisher or editor rather than by any specific instruc-tions on what to play up and what to play down.

This subtle process of "socialization" has itseffects on the journalist himself. Studies haveshown, that journalists show a strong need to con-trol their, environment, to avoid an open assump-tion of power and develop a strong sense of depend-ence. A newspaper is seen by them more as aninstrument of control than as a vehicle for inform-ing others. One researcher concluded that: thejournalist is close to decisions without having tomake them; he is in the presence of celebritieswithout having earned their companionship; andhe is perceived by readers and news sources as asource of power whatever his real influence uponthe newspaper and upon the reader.

For most journalists, it.has been shown, theact of news writing provides an opportunity to pleasereaders (perhaps their own colleagues) and gaintheir admiration and perhaps affections. It alsogives them a sense of the power of words and theopportunity to censure and to punish.

STRESS ON INFORMALITY

Some of these generalizations coming out of researchfindings (which frequently surprised the researchersthemselves) of course do not apply to every singlejournalist among journalists. However, the generalpattern which emerges should be recognizable,whether it is in newspapers or in broadcasting sta-tions, or in government information services. Allthat research has shown is that the journalist isas prone to the psychological and sociologicalstresses of organizational and social norms as any

other member of a society or of a bureaucracy.There is at least one difference, however, andthis is in detail. Whereas in formal bureaucraticstructures, personal relations are expected to bekept at a reasonable level of formality, amongjournalists the stress is more on informality. IL

is this that leads a journalist to treat his own col-leagues much like members of his own family anddepend on their support at the slightest sign of anyexternal threat to himself or to any other memberof his family.

There are obviously exceptions among news-rooms. Further research is called for to identifyand isolate more of these individual factors suchas differences in organizational structures, in cul-tural and traditional norms, etc. Until that is done,however, it might be useful for journalists to keep'the conclusions of present research in mind andlook at themselves and their own roles at least alittle critically.

One would like to be careful in making gene-ralizations about newsmen and the uncomplimen-tary picture of them which emerges from research.However, there is indication, backed by systema-tic study, that journalists are leaving newspaperwork because they perceive a lack of future in thefield an d because of their low prestige, poor leader-ship and comparatively low pay. There is a gene-ral dissatisfaction with opportunities for self-expression and for service to society. What isdisturbing, says one researcher (Edelstein) is thatthose who are leaving are undoubtedly the mostable, the most intelligent and the most maturepsychologically.

Some of the frustrations which lead to suchdissatisfaction have been identified and these aredirectly related to the newsman's day- to- daywork.One researcher, after following reporters aroundtheir beats and interviewing them at the end of theday concluded that the reporters relied heavily up-on "formula writing" and "formula news judgements".This meant that they relied upon writing techniqueas one way of avoiding the demands placed uponthem by news sources, by editors and by readers.Although, by so doings they avoided criticism theygot no self-satisfaction, nor didthey feel that theyhad done a particularly praiseworthy job in the ser-vices of their own community. There was no senseof involvement, but only a "studied state of detach-ment". The journalist had no sense of being cou-rageous, only safe.

Some of these characteristics of journalistswhich show up in their routine work, obviouslyaf-fect the end product, in this case, the newspaper.Studies have shown that the tendency is for onenewspaper to look like another, the other being,in a way, the object which is being emulated.Usually a smaller newspaper or a newer one triesto emulate a bigger and more established one.Where a cluster of newspapers exists int a singlecity, the tendency is to try and guess at what the

other newspaper might do with a story, or a photo-graph. On such a guess often depends the finalplay.that a story gets. Because of the in-grouptemperament of journalists to which we have al-ready alluded, these guesses work fairly well.When they do not the editor might take his staffto task because he too looks at the other paper be-fore deciding the "goodness" or "badness" of hisown paper on that given day - another of the un-seen forces towards conformity.

LEADERS AND FOLLOWERS

In the sociologist's way of looking at things whatthis means is that newspapers have their own"leaders" and "influentials" and just like peopleone newspaper tends to imitate another. It shouldperhaps be stressed again that no one is suggest-ing that all newspapers end up being equal. Theycannot. There are leaders and there are followers.But the tendency of the average is to attempt toemulate the above average and this leads to un-conscious (and often conscious) conformity. Addto this a journalist's desire for individuality andthe resulting stress can often be quite intense.

Perhaps a journalist who wants to be individ-ualistic can make a greater effort at identifyingthe points where forces of conformity seem to im-pinge upon him. He may try and create occasionswhen he can talk to his editor or publisher and sellan idea. Such efforts are usually not made; whenthey are, the chances are that a fresh, idea will bereceived well. But if the journalist wants, to playsafe, he will continue to be an average memberof an average community.

Another question which has occurred to re-searchers is whether a reporter's "anticipation"of reactions to his story influences his reportingor his writing? These reactions may be from hisnews sources or from his readers. Naturally,most reporters would deny such a possibility.However, studies do indicate that there are suchinfluences at work. One of the main factors is,of course, the anticipated social contact with thesource. Another is the status of the source.

On the other side of the coin, reactions ofsources to reporters have also been investigated.It was found, in one study that physicians ratedreporters relatively low in accuracy, in true per-ception of readers' needs and in the completenessof reporting. But the same physicians rated themhigh on craft-defined standards of human interestand timeliness. However, in this study the news-men perceived themselves differently. They iden-tified themselves with a "higher" group. In otherwords, the interesting conclusion was that the re-porters rated themselves much more like physi-cians than physicians rated reporters like them-selves. The physician, on account of the reporter'sstory, feared a reduction in his sown status and

25

values as viewed by other physicians. But the re-porter viewed his story as leading to an increasein his own status in the news room and among hisreaders.

Studies done on other aspects of the relation-ship between news sources and newsmen indicatethat generally reporters are rated quite high ontheir accuracy, but only in so far as craft skillssuch as spelling, addresses, etc. , are concernedbut not in the meaning and values as expressed bythe sources.

INSTRUMENTAL ROLE

The dangers inherent in such a complicated newssource-reporter relationship have been expressedby sonic researchers who find that the relationshipsseem to be based more on socialfactors than on theintellectual. Often the journalist is given accessto a higher socio- economic group and to an informalpower structure "as a quid pro quo for his contri-butions to a formal structure". One of the reasonsfor this is of course that unlike in the past when agovernment on the one hand and the mass media onthe other, were expected to be two different things(before The Fourth Estate concept), each viewingthe other with some amount of suspicion and jealousy,today the changes that have taken place because ofthe development of mass communication and ofgovernment, have forced a different kind of rela-tionship. Governments want to be informed, atleast in the more highly developed countries, aboutthe public before taking or announcing governmen-tal actions and decisions. Therefore the instru-mental role of mass communication has been recog-nized and the mass media are often used as a toolof governments. This certainly leads to conflicts.It is a game at which two play. Both realize thatthere are advantages and there are disadvantages.If the game is played according to rule (and un-fortunately there are no rules) both may stand to

26

gain and as servants of society they may serve theirown needs as well as society's better.

At least in sonic of the developing countries,without losing their "freedom" it has been possi-ble for the media to work closely with governmentsin their efforts at bringing about social change andmodernization. If by their ideological convictionsthe media, especially the newspapers, do not per-form this partnership role effectively they auto-matically surrender the constructive aspects oftheir work as social institutions to governments.In such countries neither the governments nor thepress can afford the luxury of internal bickeringand of false professional pride or of power. Ad-mittedly, the lines are hard to draw. They canonly be drawn on the basis of the characteristicsof a given situation and on the basis of a mutualrecognition that each needs the other and that bothare there for the higher purpose of serving society.

As James Reston has said, "The responsiblegovernment official and the responsible reporter ...are not really in conflict ninety per cent of the time.When they do their best work, they are allies withone another... Clever officials cannot "manipu-late" reporters, and clever reporters cannot really"beat'' the government. From both sides, theyhave more to gain by co- operating with one anotherthan by regarding one another as "the Enemy".

(In this section, we have confined our discus-sion to research on the communicator. Unfortu-nately, it is very limited - and almost exclusivelyon the newspaper journalist. For other aspects ofthe role of the communicator in the total processof information flow, especially regarding sourcecredibility, the "gatekeeper" role, etc. , thereader's attention is drawn especially to the chap-ters on the process of communication and on theeffectsof communication. In fact all the chaptersdeal with the communicator because after all, thediscussion is about the practice of mass communi-cation and it is the practitioner who practices it.)

CHAPTER IV

THE MEDIA AND THEIR AUDIENCES

The purpose of all communication is to reach anaudience. In the case of the mass media these au-diences, as we have seen, are usually large, het-erogeneous and anonymous. The communicatordoes not really "know" them. At best he may havea hazy idea. He has a very little direct knowledgeof either those who receive his messages or thosewho do not - in other words, his actual audienceand his potential audience.

It should be safe to a.3sume that every seriouspractitioner of mass communication would like (asArthur Christiansen said he would) to know whomhe is reaching and whom he is not. If he is reach-ing some people', what do they think of his presen-tations, how do they react, is he changing their at-titudes, beliefs and perhaps, behaviour? If he isnot reaching some people, why not? Is there any-thing he can do?

Research has some answers, largely tentativeperhaps, but nevertheless worthwhile for practi-tioners to keep in mind. While most research, inthe earlier stages, was essentially concerned withnumbers (of those receiving the various media),lately the study of audiences has become extremelysophisticated. It has begun to classify audiencesaccording to many demographical characteristicssuch as age, education, sex, income level, etc. ,

and has begun to go deeper into the socio-psycholog-ical factors involved in peoples' attentiveness (ornon-attentiveness) to the media, the special charac-teristias of specific groups within the larger audi-ence, etc.

In this chapter, we have combined media andaudiences for discussion together, because it wouldbe difficult and unnatural to separate them. As wehave said, the two are closely linked in a compli-cated relationship.

Generally, the word audience refers only tothose who attend to a given medium or message.But since the practitioner would also like to knowabout those who do not receive him, let us try anddiscuss the media and their audiences in both thesesenses.

"OBSTINATE" AUDIENCE

For a long time it was widely assumed, not onlyby media practitioners or by laymen, but even bysocial scientists that if a message could be placedin the mass media, it would have great effect ininfluencing the audience. It was also assumedthat the information contained in the mass mediawas carried directly to the audience. Continuingresearch has disproved both these assumptions,at least to the extent that such sweeping generali-zations were totally erroneous.

The first set of these findings showed that theaudience, by and large is "obstinate" - a termcoined by Raymond A. Bauer and used extensivelyby scholars since. The second set of findings hasshown that a considerable amount of the messagescarried by the media in fact reaches an audienceonly indirectly, that is through other people - orally.Of course in this process of transmission there isscope for a. great deal of distortion. The natureof the process of distortion is being studied care-fully, but we shall not discuss it here. The im-portant thing to remember is that, as WilburSchramm has said, the old "bullet theory", al-though laid to rest by researchers, is still mak-.ing the rounds among media practitioners and theiraudiences. Many of them continue to believe thatthe audience is passive and that communicationmessages are directly shot at them.

Once it is recognized that the audiences arenot passive and it is they in fact who reach out tothe media of their choice, a very much differentpicture emerges. Briefly, it is that in this rela-tionship between the media and its audiences, eachis affected by the other. The media become objectsfor sale and the audiences are the buyers out tobe wooed, but making up their own minds, guidedby their own needs and directed by their own atti-tudes to reach out for the articles (and programmes)which interest them most.

It has also been shown that information thenflows by word of mouth through social channels

27

and reaches even those people who had not reachedout for any of the media in the first place.

These two major findings must make a greatdeal of difference to how the practitioner approacheshis task. If he wants to reach a wide audience,does he project his message at the level of the com-mon denominator or does he aim it only at thosepeople who will expose themselves to the media inthe first place and then hopefully pass it along toothers? If indeed the practitioner does decide toaim his message at an elite audience only so as toreach them directly, what assurance does he havethat his message will indeed disperse itself auto-matically within the wider society? If he gives alittle thought to the mechanics of such a process,he will soon realize that a great deal must dependon the nature of the subject matter. Has the sub-ject direct relevance to the daily life of an ordiriaryperson; is the topic so specialized that only a fewwould be interested or can comprehend; is it anitem of news which fits into the "frame of refer-ence" of the average person and therefore compre-hensible to him or is it a feature which would appealonly to a specific section of an audience such aswomen or children or youth? He may also askhimself whether he can more or less accuratelypredict the type of person who would be the car-rier of his'message once he or she has been reachedby

"OPINION LEADERS"

A series of studies have shown that for each typeof subject matter, such as politics, human interests,society news, sports, movie reviews, etc. , thereis a certain type of reader who usually makes ithis or her business to be informed and then to passon such knowledge among the groups that he or shemixes with. Such people then become the "opinionleaders" in that group for that particular subject.The opinion leader or influential who may be regardedas a trustworthy source when it comes time to voteis not necessarily given that privilege on a freeevening when his friends decide to go to the movies.Here someone else's opinion may be valued. Thesame is true for other facets of human behavioursuch as farming or religion or marketing. It isobvious then that each of these persons may alsobelong to a completely different socio-economic,age and educational level. Therefore, the styleof presentation, andin the case of broadcast media,the timing must vary. Surely a farmer who maybe the opinion leader in his own community as faras farming practices are concerned can be reachedby a language and at a time which are far differentfrom the manner in which a political leader maybe reached or, for that matter, a movie fan, thelast of whom, at least one study has shown, is pro-bably a teenage girl.

One of the difficulties of mediapractitioners,it seems, is that many of them have only been

28

trained (if at all) or have the ability to write or pro-ject themselves in only one style, a style which iscorn mon to themselves an cl their peers. Apartfrom the danger of not reaching a preferred audi-ence at all, there are alsO the twin dangers of eitherinsulting the intelligence of the target group byover-simplifying or that of going over their headsby being too erudite for that particular audience.Needless to say, a clearer understanding of the.levels and interests of sub-groups within an audi-ence must enable the communication practioner todo a more effective job. A great deal of researchhas been done to identify opinion leaders andentials in given cultures and given communities.Of course cultures and communities vary. if spe-cific studies have been done in a communicationpractitioner's own community, a knowledge of suchstudies would be most useful. If such studies havenot been done, the practitioner has only two alter-natives: either to get such studies done if he can orto arm himself with a deep understanding of the so-cial patterns in his own community - communitymeaning not his peer group, but the vast world out-side, consisting of his present and potential audi-ences.

It is also worth noting that there are differencesamong the "influentials" and "opinion leaders'? inso far as their exposure to the media are concerned.In other words whilst some influentials are avidreaders of newspaper, others spend more timelistening to the radio or watching television orgoing to the movies. This knowledge is perhapsmore useful to the administrator of mass communi-cation campaigns rather than to the individual com-munication practitioner. Because, generally speak-ing, all the media would like to obtain as wide anaudience as possible. The exceptions are the spe-cialized publications and programmes. The admin-istrator, however, will have to make decisions onallocations of limited resources to the disseminationof messages through various media. Leaving asidepolitical or other considerations, from a purelyprofessional and administrative point of view hewill no doubt wish to know which of the media aremore likely to reach the specific segments of thesociety in which a communication campaign is beingmounted. Research is replete with examples ofmoney wasted, whether it is on printing posters oron making expensive documentaries and even onbuying space in newspapers.

Unfortunately such data on media use, in coun-tries where it is most necessary, is not alwaysreadily available. In many countries, little attempthas been made to gather such data. But for the pur-pose of this discussion, merely to see how signifi-cant such differences can be to media practitionersas well as administrators of mass communicationcampaigns, we may look at some examples fromsome of the highly advanced countries.

MEDIA USE

Until a child learns to read, it has been found thatthe electronic media are dominant. After this thevse of the printed media increases rapidly. Asthe child grows up, its media use is influencedgreatly by the patterns of mediaused in the family.This is not only because the child cannot obviouslyuse a medium which does not exist at home but al-so because the child is imitating the older membersof the family. However, as he grows older he isinfluenced by the pattern of behaviour of his friendsand school mates. Later, as he gets into higherclasses in school he makes less use of the mediaand he begins to get more selective, because heis busier with homework and social activities. Hisselectivity may lead him away from the purely enter-tainment content of the media.

Among adults, television and newspapers ratehigh. Magazines come next, then movies and thenbooks. The data on radio listening is somewhatsketchy.

Newspaper reading, in the United States, seemsto rise to a peak in the 1940's and fall off slightlyin later years. Magazine and book reading alsoseems to decline gradually in later years. It hasalso been found that people over 60 are active usersof the mass media especiallytelevision, apparentlybecause of their lessening social activity and par-ticipation in work groups.

Here are a few more broad generalizations,based on research findings:

1. Selection of serious and informative materialrises with age and education;

2. Use of the print media also increases witheducation;

3. As the responsibilities of a person becomeheavier and the time he can devote to the mediagets to be less, the more he turns to the printedmedia for informational material, especially to-wards the newspaper which is the most easily avail-able. He also turns towards the more serious partsof the audio-visual media;

4. The entertainment parts of the media, how-ever, do not undergo such changes. Most peoplecontinue to expose themselves to the audio-visualmedia for entertainment throughout their life span.But, as for the informational content, the bulk ofthe audience consists of people who are highly edu-cated and who bear relatively heavy responsibilitiesin their daily work.

IN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

At this point in our discussion it may be useful totake a closer look at the communication patternsin the developing countries, although as I've al-ready indicated, the research evidence is relativelyless. However, the experienced practitioner andadministrator will be ableto recognize the factorsthey will have to take into consideration in their

own day-to- clay work within their own communities.1. However underdeveloped the mass communi-

cation networks may be in the developing countries,as compared to the more advanced countries, thereare channels through which information can be car-ried to the rural population;

2. Considerable information is flowing throughthe presently available channels but full practicaluse is not being made of these channels for lack ofadequate knowledge of them on the part of the prac-titioner and administrator;

3. There is considerable awareness of newpractices and innovations but these arc not beingadopted owing to the lack of sustained and well di-rected information campaigns through the mediaas well as through interpersonal channels of com-munication;

4. What this means is that if communication isless effective than it can be, it is not so much be-cause ()flack of channels (although this can certainlybe improved as well) but because of the lack of ef-.fective use of them;

5. One of the more important findings is thatwhile channels for the flow of information frommetropolitan centres to the rural, communities isfairly high, as also the flow of directives fromthe higher to the lower units in the governmentaland bureaucratic hierarchies, such informationflow is lacking in the other direction. Thereforethere is not only lack of feedback, but also a lackof fundamental knowledge of the needs and aspira-tions of the lower echelons. It is not only the ad-ministrator that can make more effective use ofmass communication through such knowledge, butalso the media practitioners themselves.

6. Most of the media practitioners belong toelite, city-oriented group. The efforts on their,part to appreciate the social and cultural milieuin which the vast majority of their potential audi-ences live has been very limited. Therefore theireffectiveness remains limited - even as the sizeof their audiences;

7. While the mass media directly reach only arelatively small number of people in the villages(the radio is not doing too badly) the traditionalmedia (mostly involving face-to-face communica-tion) are disseminating all significant informationon a fairly wide scale. News of important events,reaching the elite through the mass media, is re-layed through the traditional channels fairly rapidlyand adequately. But persuasive communication ondevelopmental aspects has not been very success-ful. In other words, there is a distinct differencebetween communication of news of major import-ance and communication of knowledge and informa-tion relevant to behavioural change in such im-portant Subjects as health, education, familyplan-ning, community development, etc.

From the point of view of the practitioner andthe administrator, what are some of the implica-tions of such research conclusions? One is that in thecontext of rural development, mass communication

29

should aim at not only the transmission of informa-tion but should also attempt to arouse interest sothat people are encouraged to experiment with newideas and new innovations; that to be able to do thispractitioners and administrators should make ef-forts to understand the needs and interests of thevillagers; that once that is done the style and con-tent of presentations should be matched with theneeds, the interests and abilities of the villagers;that the practitioner and administrator must havea more complete knowledge of the communidlionnetworks in the villages, especially the role theinfluentials and the information carriers and o dothis they should encourage their field workerE(cor-respondents and extension workers) to sul;mitperiodic reports on what they hear and what theysee; that messages should then be tailored tothesepatterns.

In some ways this will mean that the copy-writers, the announcers, the sub- editors, the film-makers should relearn some of their techniquesand this can only be done through training coursestaught by not only "specialists" who base theirlec-tures on textbooks or on their own limited (not inyears but in exposure to field conditions) experiencebut also by field workers, correspondents, and re-searchers who have actually lived and worked inthese communities.

LEVEL OF PRESENTATION

This also means that newspapers, broadcastingstations and film units must make efforts at "lower-ing" the level of their presentations which are nowlargely aimed for a "high class" audience in a "highclass" style. They must also recognize that, in thefinal analysis, if they are to do a professional jobas professional communicators, they will be judgednot by their ability to communicate with their ownpeers (which comes easily and naturally) but withthe less fortunate groups whose interests may bedifferent, whose levels of understanding may belower, but whose needs are far greater. Such achange among the practitioners and administratorsis only possible if everyone in the communicator'shierarchy appreciates the need for such change. Asub-editor cannot make this change if he is afraidthat a news-editor will take him to task for notwriting a "smart" or a "bright" headline; a posterdesigner cannot effectively bring about such a changeif the head of the publicity unit refuses to be satis-fied with anything but a modernistic, sophisticateddesign, etc. The news-editor and the director ofpublicity will have to appreciate the needs of com-munication perhaps even more than the sub-editorand the poster designer. Perhaps both can takeadvantage of the researcher and the evaluator andtheir experiences in the field. An administratorwill also like to have greater information on therelative effectiveness of the media - i, e, whetherfor a given audience radio is more effective than

30

film or vice versa, While research does notas yet have a great deal to offer in this regard, it.nevertheless has some but we shall deal with thisin a later section. It may, however, be worth not-ing that in 'any large communication campaign acertain initial investment in research can pay highdividends. Whatever general guidelines there maybe coming from research done elsewhere, may nothold -true for the specific community which the ad-ministrator is out to serve - or to convince.

PURPOSIVE COMMUNICATION

Most communication can be considered to be pur-posive, although very often a communicator mightinsist that all he is doing is passing on informationabout some event or a person in public life or evenperhaps dealing with a subject in feature style tomerely clarify or expand. From his point of viewhe may be correct but the audience can often readsome moral into a story. This is very much simi-lar to a social situation where a person may passon a piece of news with no conscious ulterior motive.However, another person in the group will remembersomething connected to that item of news and soon adiscussion might ensue. In the discussion opinionswill be expressed and perhaps an argument will soonreplace an exchange of snippets.

In the mass communication situation, whethera person is exposing himself to an item of news orinformation, some "internal" discussion takes placewithin himself as long as the news is of immediateinterest to him. An example of this might be a newsitem regarding the latest evidence of a relationshipbetween cigarette smoking and cancer. The impli-cations are clear, even if the news item itself canbe described by the communicator as straight re-porting. An item regarding a price increase maytrigger general thoughts and feelings about inflation,the present government's policies and a whole hostof attitudes may be activated. To that extent there-fore most communication content can have unpredic-table repercussions.

For the purposes of this discussion let us, how-ever, deal with those items which the communicatorconsciously places within the network of communi-cations to motivate and eventually bring about apossible change in behaviour which he considersnecessary or beneficial.

The communicator here must start with a veryclear idea of the ultimate goal and work his waybackwards through the commitment or involvementthat he desires, the kind of motivation he believeswould bring about such a commitment, the type ofinformation which he feels ie-necessary to activatesuch a motivation and finally the specific segmentof the audience which he wishes to reach with thatinformation. Once he has charted such a coursementally he is in a far better position to begin aneffective process of communication. He may stillfail, but at least he has brought a professional

approach to his work. His style of presentationwould now be guided by his knowledge of the intel-lectual level of his target audience; his content willbe based upon the issues and the arguments whichhe feels would motivate that auriLence to reach acertain commitment and then hopefully his ultimategoal will be reached.

To take our earlier example of smoking andcancer, if the communicator feels that he wouldlike to write to a middle-aged auzlience, obviouslyhis style of presentation and arguments would dif-fer from another occasion when be might want topitch his message to teenagers or to housewivesor to cigarette manufacturers. It would be clearthen that it may be better to reach specific audi-ences at specific times rather tha.n dilute the mes-sage by combining all these segments of the audi-ence and attempt to reach all of them with one longpresentation. This will hold true for all mediagenerally, although there may be specific caseswhen a general message may be equally effective.An example of this would be a short film shownprior to a family feature film. In such a case thecommunicator may expect certain internal pres-sures to work on various members of a family; forexample, a child asking its father to stop smoking(and this can be an effective pressure indeed) or afamily may discuss the whole issue when they gohome and take a joint decision.

But if a film on a new fertilizer is shown un-der similar circumstances to a city audience theeffects will perhaps be negligible. The wastagehere can be enormous. With some prior planningbased on such "commonsense" thinking on the partof an administrator, a great deal of such wastagecan be avoided. Perhaps there is no specific re-search to back such thinking. It would be worth-while to get it done - even if it merely confirms ahunch. A great deal of research has done just that.On the other hand, a great deal of research has al-so disproved the rightness of "commonsense" de-cisions.

SOURCE CREDIBILITY

From the point of view of the audience, the prac-titioner and the administrator will also have tothink of another extremely important factor - thatof source credibility. This depends very muchagain on the characteristics of a given audience.

To take our example of the film on fertilizer,the producer will perhaps ask himself if he shouldinterview somebody. But should this be an "export"or a simple farmer who has tried the fertilizerhimself. What kind of a farmer? Somebody withwhom his audience can identify itself or a leaderwhom they particularly respect. But then if thisleader is a big farmer, will the audience, composedof small farmers, reject the fertilizer as some-thing which only" big people'? can afford? Audiencescan be unpredictable - until we find out why they

react one way or another. Only then can we avoidcostly mistakes.

Thirty years ago there was a classic exampleof such a mistake (fortunately avoided in time) ina film vt.tich was made as part of an anti-malariacampaign in a .developing country. A good propor-tion of Lae film was devoted to the identification ofthe infection carrying mosquito, a still of whichwas blown up to fill the screen. The audience'sreaction was one of complete unconcern. Whenthey were questioned in depth they responded bysaying that they had no such problem and what-ever mosquitoes they had were much smaller ones !Very often it is not possible for a communicator,however professionally competent, to remove him-self completely from his own milieu and put him-self in the place of a typical member of the audiencehe is attempting to reach. Often the only way isto bring that typical member into his studios or togo out into that audience with his prototype beforeproducing that product on a big scale. This isknown as "pre-testing".

NATURE OF APPEAL

The purposive communicator will also ask himselfwhat kind of an "appeal" will work with his audience.His first concern may be, for example, whetherhe should appeal to a parent as a parent or as amember of a responsible citizenry; he may thenask himself whether he should use a fear appealand if so at what intensity. For it has been shownthat with certain kinds of audiences a highly intensefear appeal is less effective than a medium-levelappeal. We shall have more to say about this ina later section.

At this point of the state of knowledge, no re-searcher will give clear cut answers to many ofthese questions. But the point that is being madeis that a certain thinking is imperative in the prac-tice of communication. This step-by-step approachis what the researcher is trained to take and it isthe kind of approach that many untrained practi-tioners follow almost intuitively. But for everysuch a practitioner there are perhaps a hundredothers who do not. And professional training doesnot always include such discussions, merely be-cause the top level practitioners who instinctivelyare able to plan their communication neither havethe time nor often the ability to train younger prac-titioners in this fashion.

Many of us have no doubt seen highly avantgarde presentations of films, whose content is ob-viously meant for a lay audience. One examplewhich comes immediately to mind is a MarcelMarceau-type pantomime film aimed at the illit-erate and semi-literate rural population of a de-veloping country! The obvious question whichwould occur to a professional administrator iswhether this film was pre-tested before hutiredsof copies were made for simultaneous showingall

31

over the c-,'Jotim- If the pre-test had shown alack ()_ trcticrn or worse, a negative reaction,it woull:.; obvio uIy have been better to scrap theparticui: of work tan compound an errormanyfo.

One ..':ianetc;.iliy see oo.N7..' in every medium thetool of -.-:te,s--=.g can J.D. adopted. If a news-paper, '2Ur..-7e-._a-rrule, wries to start a new fea-ture or 00::i,irytn., or e., ...IL:attempt to restructurethe whole parerrL'it De worthwhile getting thereactions of aiit-all segre--t of its typical audience.Many successfulTrecent;p=raluctions and publicationsbegan tha:- many ,_%-:..,Dr.re have failed becausethey did nat Or3 so.

WHY THE 17.T.T,TTY:LA

The develtapzn, Lint of mass society and of higherrates of ur'lanization have brought with them cer-tain changes in the organization and content of themass merlin. Perhaps a fuller discussion of thisdevelopment from the point of view of the audiencewill give us a clearer picture of what it is that thereader or viewer expects from the media to whichhe exposes himself.

One of the important effects of the chang:sthat have taken place in society has been called"democratization" of the content of the media.Newspapers, magazines and books once addressedthemselves only to a small circle of education andwell-to-do readerS. (In some of the developingcountries this is unfortunately still true to a les-ser or greater degree. ) But as the base of politi-cal power, economic well-being and education ex-panded, the audience, or the potential audience forthe media also spread from the elite to the popula-tion at large. The printed media began to geartheir contents to the tastes of this wider audienceand also reduce their prices. In most parts of theworld, movies, radio and television arrived onlyafter the dernocraLic movement had already takenplace. ThereP...re they appealed to a mass audi-ence from the start. To a large extent the tastesand interests of that wide audience determined thecontent of the media.

Needless to say, technological development as-sisted the media in making it possible for them toproduce their product in vast numbers and to dis-tribute them over, large areas. But, of course,such large operations needed large investments.Among the major sources for such investmentshave been subsidies by governments, politicalparties, labour, industry, etc.; advertising; andthe customer who generally pays not merely thecost of production but also an additional amount togive the owner a profit. There remain, however,media units which do not make a profit but are sup-ported for other reasons by one or more of the in-terested groups already mentioned. But the factremainst b rwhateverreason;..economic, polit-ical or-:ate* Tither, tite customer had to be wooed

32

and therefore his needs and interests had to be ta-ken into account.

.";hat are some of these needs and interests?The (.nommon belief that people read newspapers tobe inlormed, or watch television for entertainmentor.! .rarf to the movies for relaxation, turns out to beover,- :simplification. While it is true that peopleread to become informed, they do so for differentreasons: some to be in contact with their societyand their environment, some to escape boredom,some to achieve prestige and some to find reassur-ance for their behaviour and to adjust to their 81esin society.

Studies done during newspaper strikes in NewYork., for example, came up with some interestingconclusions; the newspaper. plays several roles.

VARIED NEEDS

To some readers it is important in its traditionalrole as a source of information and ideas aboutserinus public affairs. Other readers are apparentlyless interested in the content itself than in the useto which they put it - which is essentially to bolstertheir own ego by appearing informed in conversationswith other people. In other words it is a source ofsocial prestige. Some readers find it an indispen-sible tool in the routine of daily living, as for ex-ample, advertisements for local stores, radio,television and movie schedules, stock market re-ports, weather forecasts, fashion tips, etc.Readers also use the newspaper for social contactbecause it enables them to keep up with the latestgossip and social events; to keep in touch with one'sneighbours as it were. At least one reader remarkedthat the newspaper "makes up for the lack of know-ing people". For some it is an escape from theirevery day world, from the cares, problems andboredom of daily routine into a world where thingsare happening. The newspaper becomes a "sociallyacceptable form of escape". One researcher con-cluded that it is a source of security in an insecureworld and that reading the newspaper has becomefor many people a "ritualistic or near-compulsiveact".

Mast of the regular readers, during the strikes,turned to radio as their chief source of news and totelevision as a poor second but they could not reallytake the place of the daily paper. It had become a'habit, and even though their daily routine was scarcelydisturbed bythe lack of newspapers they did express"a distinct feeling of loss".

From such research the newspaperman can getan idea of what it is that is expected from him andeven more important a sense of his own importanceto society. Obviously, it is not enough if he keepshis public informed about the latest events. Suchhard news and serious public issues form, only onepart of his expected role. He and his medium areexPected to do a great deal more. Amongrthe moreiimortant tasks are to provide his_ audience that

contact which theyneed with their environment intheir day-to- day chores, in their constant needfor reassurance and to enable them to adjust totheir roles in society.

LEADERSHIP ROLE

The lesson is therefore fairly clear that in a chang-ing society the public expects newspapermen to pro-vide not only guidance but also leadership of a con-structive kind. In the developing countries this isapparently an even more important role than in themore advanced countries. A whole host of subjectsare new to a vast majority of the population in thesecountries, whether it is vaccination or schoolingor family planning or inflation or ecology. If thenewspapers are unable to perform these functions,the pubic will necessarily have to look elsewhere,perhaps to other media, perhaps to the vast net-work of government information services attachedto the various ministries concerned, perhaps topolitical and social leaders at various levels andeven perhaps to members of their own small ill-informed communities. If newspapers allow them-selves to be left behind, they will be left behind.This, if and when it occurs, will be bad not onlyfor newspapers and newspapermen, but also forsociety.

But what about the other media? What do peopleexpect from them? There is no comparable re-search' as in the case of newspaper strikes. Butother kinds of research have been done and thereare some answers. The broadcast media affordsocial contact, advice in daily living, escape fromboredom, etc. They also provide information, butinformation does not rate high. Those who do ex-pose themselves to news programmes, for example,do so essentially because they get i-, sooner thanthe newspaper but it is the newspaper they look for-ward to the following morning to read "all" aboutit! But apart from the informational content (andwe are now talking only of public programmes andnot specialized educational broadcasts) there aremany psychological and sociological satisfactionswhich the public derives from broadcasting as frommovies. It has been found, for example, that dramasand serials provide women listeners and viewers witha source of emotional release. They give them anopportunity to "cry over the misfortune of others,or to share in their trials, to compensate them fortheir own troubles, or to magnify their own pro-blems by identifying them with those of the heroesand heroines''. Also, by identifying themselveswith the fictional characters, they can compensatefor their own inadequacies and failures. For manywomen such programmes are also a source of ad-vice on meeting life's problems and on proper waysof behaviour. They are also assisted in social re-lationships - getting along with other people, hand-ling husbands, rearing children, etc. They learnhow to meet the threats of a hostile world or to

adjust to :T~.. tragedies as a death in the family.They learn hr r to react when trouble comes. Somelisteners arJE viewers consider the programmes sovaluable that _hey sometimes refer friends seekingadvice to specific programmes.

THE "WESTERN"

An example Lf a similar finding with regard to thepopularity of the "Western" among men which hasbeen over-simplified as mere "escape entertain-ment", is that the hero's single-handed ability tosolve problems justly and quickly, helps to allaythe frustrations that the viewer feels as an impotentindividualin a complex and threatening society. Itgives him a sense of security by portraying the worldin which the wicked are punished and justice triumphs.Women find the Western pictures them as sharingthe decisions and hardships necessary to creatinga good society. This satisfies their craving for in-dependence and in today's phraseology, perhaps for"liberation".

It is possible to question this sort of help that"escape entertainment" provides. It is temptingto say that wishful thinking and projecting blame toothers are not the formulas that one should applyto solve one's problem. But obviously large num-bers of people find that it helps. For the practi-tioner, however, there are other lessons to belearnt. If such programmes are attention-getting,he can obviously weave a message into an attractivestory. Far too often the publiC is expected to sitthrough a direct talk or a straight forward presen-tation on topics which are supposed to help them intheir day-to-day tasks; to provide them with adviceon handling problems, etc. More often than not suchprogrammes have very low "ratings" (the numberof people watching or listening).

It should be possible for example, in develop-ing countries to bring in constructive forms of ad-vice and suggestions by weaving them into such"escape entertainment". Admittedly such pro-grammes are more difficult to make for it takesnot only professional skill but also a creative ability.Moreover, administrators who often sponsor andfinance such productions in the developing countriesare themselves unaware of the need for such subtleand sometimes "sub- liminal" appeals and thereforereject such productions and such producers out ofhand. They look upon their audiences as the "stupid,illiterate masses" who should be told about what'sgood, for them. They tend to forget, that in the finalanalysis, it is the audience which decides whetherto turn that knob on the radio or television set offor on and whether they will pay their admission feeto a movie house and enter it in time to watch the"shorts" that precede it; and if they do, whetherthey will bring themselves to be psychologically at-tentive:

One researcher found that community radio setsin one of the developing countries, while being heard

33

were not listened to. Irt is this distinction thatseparates the good production from the bad.

MEDIA CHARACTERISTICS

At this time, it may be useful to look into the spe-cific advantages and disadvantages that differentmedia have within the total communication system.Obviously each of the media has certain uniquequalities which it can use for its own benefit andtherefore for the benefit of its audience and tosociety at large.

It seems only necessary to go into this questionbriefly, because the special characteristics ofeach of the media are fairly well known. However,a knowledge of the differences is useful so thatpractitioners in one of them could avoid the temp-tation of doing what another is equippedto do better.

It must be pointed out that the advantages attri-buted to the various media are not often supportedby objective data. They represent some amountof deduction from observation and some amountof careful thinking on the part of social scientists.It can perhaps even be argued that the followingstatements seems so patently valid that they donot need objective demonstration.

Print

The advantages of the print media are the following:(a) Unlike radio, television and film, which pre-

sent their material at a set pace, the printed media(newspapers, magazines and books) allow the redderto set his own pace based on his abilities andinterests. He can quickly scan or skip columnsor pages as he pleases and therefore does notneed to suffer the boredom or the bewildermentwhich the pace and content of other media mayforce upon hirri. Moreover, he may read at thetime he chooses, stop when he wants to and re-sume his reading when he pleases. In short hecan expose himself to the print medium wheneverhe is in the mood;

(b) Reading can be repeated: unlike the contentof other media, printed matter is not necessarilylimited to a single "showing". The reader can goback to it again and again if he wishes. Radio andtelevision programmes, with only a few exceptions ,

are produced and broadcast only once. Films runfor a period of dayS or weeks but are rarely seentwice by the same person. Therefore, theoreticallyat least (and often in practice) the print medium iscapable of repeating the same message as it wereto the same individual more than once;

(c) Treatment of a subject may be fuller: printcan develop a topic to whatever degree and what-ever length seems desirable. Complex discussionsare therefore generally more fit for presentationin the print media;

(d) Specialized appeal is possible: despite the

34

tendency towards mass appeal print still can caterand does cater to specialized interests. The bridgenotes, crosswords, etc. , are good examples innewspapers; so also are specialized books and maga-zines. Print does remain the medium in whichminority views can most easily find voice and spe-cialized interests can be met.

(e) Possible greater prestige: many writershave suggested that for various reasons the printmedia seem to have the highest prestige. One ofthe reasons is that print is the oldest medium andtherefore has a certain tradition and prestige as-sociated with it; also that since habitual readersget attached to specific publications, they are morelikely to be influenced by "my paper".

If print does possess this prestige, then itshould be able to exercise greater influence andpressure and persuade its readers. Research hasnot indicated any conclusive evidence to supportsuch a view. However, it has shown that at leastcertain sections of the public, usually at the highersocio-economic and age and educational levels, dotend to attach more importance to what they readthan what they hear or see. On the contrary a muchbigger public which is less educated and lower inthe socio-economic scale rates non-print mediahigher. This may be only because at each of theselevels the exposure to a given media is highr.We do not have any definite answers yet to thesecomplicated questions. But if print does, in fact,have a greater persuasive effect, then at least inthe developing countries it seems a shame that thebrunt of the persuasive task is being carriedbymedia other than print.

BROADCASTING

(a) Television and radio have the great advan-rage that they can reach people who cannot bereached by print either because they cannot reador because, as in certain countries, distributionfacilitir s are not adequate.

(b) Another advantage which has been cited isthat radio and television resemble face-to-facecontact and that therefore there is a greater senseof actual participation.

(c) As news distributing media they have thedistinct advantage of speed.

(d) Another advantage which has been proposedis that television and radio audiences have a senseof good feeling since they knoW that they are alllistening to the same programme at the same time,unlike newspaper readers. There is no evidencetoback such a proposition but under certain condi-tions this can be a very real proposition and it hasbeen shown that such a common experience doeslead to greater effectiveness. We refer to the nowwell-known radio farm forum experiments. Insuch groups not only are people listening to thesame voice from the same receiving set, but al-so take part in the discussions that follow. The

same thing may hold true in family viewing andlistening.

(e) Radio and television also afford a varietyof other gratifications such as counsel in daily liv-ing, self-glorification, escape from boredom, etc. ,which we have already alluded to in another context.

FILM

(a) Many of the characteristics of radio andtelevision will apply to the film with some additionalfactors which stem from the conditions under whichmovies are screened. The "cinema situation", ithas been suggested, changes. the sense of time andspace of the viewer who is more or less "in con-ditions similar to those for inducing hypnosis".Hence, it is contended, the cinema may be moreeffective than any other medium. Research hasnot come up with any conclusive evidence of sucheffectiveness.

(b) As a medium of information and knowledge,it has all the attributes of television, again withthe added advantage of the bigger screen for longshots as well as close-ups.

(c) Again because of the conditions under whichfilms are screened, they have a greater ability togive an audience a sense of identification and evenof concentration.

(d) This advantage is however perhaps neutral-ized by the fact that the cinema viewers cannot ex-perience the feeling of "community" and are there-fore thrown almost completely on to their ownprivate associations. Such uncritical identificationwith the characters on the screen results in whathas been called "voluntary passivity".

(e) Films are regarded more as a medium ofentertainment, but they do possess the abilitytoconvey information on customs, habits, manners,of people beyond an audience's immediate environ-ment. They can therefore be considerably forcefulin bringing about changes in attitudes, beliefs andin behaviour.

We have seen that among the characteristicsof the various media, there are some distinct dif-ferences among the media from the point of the au-diences; there are also some similarities. Eachmedium can take advantage of its own unique charac-teristics and all of them can play complementaryroles. Although sometimes, in the fierce competi-tion for advertising income and public attention, themedia have tried to cross their own "naturalulinds,by and large, with experience, they have learnt tomake fairly good use of their own special capabilities.

As information media; for example, radioand television are primarily useful in signalizingevents and making those first reports (they havekilled the newspaper extra, for example) - leavingit to the newspapers to pick up the details and per-haps for the magazines to analyse in even greaterdetail without being rushed by the clock and by in-coming news developments. Film documentariescome under the same category as magazines.They are relatively free of the pressure of timeand topicality.

The serious practitioner will bring to his worka knowledge of his particular audience and of hisparticular medium. It is the combination of theseabilities, needs and desires that provide him notonly with the possibilities of effective communica-tion but the challenges which are every pro-fessional's due.

35

CHAPTER V

EFFECTS (AND EFFECTIVENESS) OF MASS COMMUNICATION

The practitioner's ultimate aim, of course, is tobe effective and to succeed in having some effecton his audience. Such success may sometimes bejudged purely on the basis of whether an audiencehas been "reached'', or it may be extended to in-clude such things as "understandings' of the infor-mation; creating of a climate for discussion; thetaking of a position regarding an issue; the chang-ing of an attitude and finally, of course, the trans-lation of all these into some action suggested by acommunication or by a communicator.

The world "effect" is also used in anotherwider sense as in "What is the effect on childrenof violence in television programmes and in themovies? " This is a much broader, almost philo-sophic and moral question. We shall not discussthis here at any length, only incidentally inci-dental to answering the more basic questions whichoccur to a practitioner. Also, to give him a feelof potential power of his medium to do good orbad.

Otherwise we shall concentrate on the conclu-sions of research on effectiveness and effects ofcommunicators and their media on audiences, bigand small. It is not possible to separate effective-ness from effects in any logical sense, just as itis not possible to separate audiences from channels.Most researchers have used the two words almostinterchangeably. The reader, will however, beable to make his own distindtion on the basis of thesequence of the influence of mass communication

from awareness to action. In other words, amessage may be effective in reaching an audience,but does it have any eventual effects in bringingabout change in behaviour? Hopefully the followingr'iscussion will make this Clear, both from the pointof view of the communicator and his medium andfrom the point of view of the receiver and the com-munity of which he is part.

A DIFFICULT AREA

Of all research in mass communication the mostdifficult is to study its effects or its effectiveness.

36

This is inevitably so for the very reasons men-tioned earlier that man communicates within asocial environment in which he is open to influ-ences not only from within but also from without.Therefore the number of elements (or variables)which have to be taken into consideration are fartoo many in number and it is extremely difficultto isolate these factors. Even if one succeeds inisolating them and studying them individually,there remains the task of combining these factorsand studying the effects of communication in thereal or natural situation as opposed to the experi-mental or laboratory situation. However thereare some indications, based on research, on thisaspect of communication. Admittedly we knowmore about what mass communication cannot dorather than what it can!

Some of the broad generalizations which havebeen made are unfortunately the kind that only re-searchers have any patience to read. An exampleis: that under some conditions mass communica-tion affects a few people a great deal and a fewpeople very little and under other conditions itaffects a large number of people a great deal anda large number of people very little and that underalmost any condition mass communication affectsevery one at least a little. While it is true thatsuch a statement does not tell us much, it is stillnevertheless worth noting, merely because a lotof us continue to believe that mass communicationis extremely powerful under any condition. Evenif a practitioner were to at least stop and thinkabout possible conditions in his own environmentat a given time and place, he would certainly beable to do a hatter job if he wants to bt. effective.

INTERNAL CONFLICT

One of the most interesting findings of researchin so far as effectiveness is concerned is that mostpeople expose themselves to information whichagrees with their own existing point of view andthat this is because most people do not want to place

themselves voluntarily in a situation of conflict. Inother words, the average person feels most com-fortable when his own views are reinforced by in-formation to which he exposes himself. This re-cently developed "theory of cognitive dissonance"has become an important contribution to the under-standing of audience behaviours and of mass com-munication effectiveness.

If most people behave this way, then obviouslymost of the content of the mass media should be in-capable of changing attitudes or opinions. This istoo simple a conclusion. All mass communicationis not totally ineffective. For, it has also beenshown that often information to which one is exposed"accidentally" as it were is remembered and some-times acted upon. This concept which is worthnoting is called the "sleeper effect". Essentiallywhat this means is that a person usually will believeinformation which he gets from a source in whichhe has faith. The same person will disregard in-formation (even the same information) which he re-ceives from a source in which he has less faith orno faith. But it often happens that a person who isexposed to information from a source of less credi-bility (to him), forgets, after a period of time, thesource but retains the information. At that timehe would tend to believe that information the sameinformation which he had discredited when he wasconscious of the source.

What does all this mean to the practitionerand the administrator? Partly it means that theresearcher has few exact guidelines to provide atthis time. But partly it also means that the prac-titioner should not be complacent about his effec-tiveness. He has to "try harder". In his choiceof quoting sources, in his choice of the kind of ap-peal (strong and weak) he makes in his presenta-tion, in his decision on the frequency at which hemight repeat his messages and in his order ofpresentation of pro and con arrangements in a com-plicated social issue, there are guidelines whichresearch has provided. We shall discuss theselater in this section.

Suffice to say here that there are indicationsof mass communication effectiveness - but thereare no indications of its infallibility. The seriouspractitioner must know both sides of the picture be-fore he can make himself and his medium effective.

PUBLIC DEBATE

It is only lately, especially after the advent of tele-vision that serious public debate has taken place onthe possible effects of the media. Most of this de-bate has centred around television and to some ex-tent movies. This is obviously because the publicis particularly concerned about the increase incrime and violence, about immorality and aboutescapism. Another area of intense criticism of the"normal" fare of the media is its effects on children.At the same time, the media have also come in for

some praise for their ability to expand educationalexperience out of school and educational achieve-ment within the schools.

Such public debate, most of it based on intui-tion, hearsay and emotion, has been conducted ata very low level. But it has succeeded in provok-ing not only the mass media (especially television)to look at themselves, but also led to high-levelcommittees and research groups being set up tolook into this whole question systematically andexamine the evidence carefully. Unfortunately,however, no conclusive evidence is as yet avail-able. But becaus the emotions involved, what-ever little evidence is available, pro or con, isnow being used by the interested parties in the de-bate and the fragments of evidence have becomethe "arms" in the fight - proving once again theexistence of "selective exposure" and "selectiveperception"!

This inability on the part of research to pro-vide definitive answers has perhaps caused a di-minution in the status of the social scientists.This is because he has admitted honestly that withthe tools now at his command lie is not in a positionto give definitive answers to all the questions whichare being asked. In fact, in some ways he mayhave even added to the confusion by admitting thatperhaps each of the parties to the debate may havesomething in what they say. In an emotional situ-ation this is all that is necessary for the mediapeople and their supporters on the one side andfor media critics and their supporters on the otherside. As Klapper wrote, "It is surely no wonderthat a bewildered public should regard with cyni-cism a research tradition which supplies, insteadof definitive answers, a plethora of relevant, butinconclusive and at times seemingly contradictoryfindings".

LONG-TERM EFFECTS

Apart from the fact that in the whole area of masscommunication research the effects are hardest tostudy, there is also the researchers' natural ten-dency to be cautious in making any pronouncements.Therefore no exact cause and effect relationshipsbetween the media and their audiences have beeneven suggested. Whatever general statementshave been made talk about the long-term effects ofmass communication. In so far as short-term ef-fects are concerned the statements have been veryguarded understandably.

Research is now agreed upon one thing: thatin the long-term mass media do have effects, evenif these cannot always be measured in the shortterm. During a political campaign, for example,the media have little or noL3effect on voting deci-sions (in the short term) but over a longer periodof time the media do succeed in bringing politicalpersonalities, issues and problems to public attentionand therefore provoke public discussion effectively

37

enough for the political process to have immeas-urable impact. It is in the early stages of the po-litical process leading to election campaigns thatimages are built and discussions take place result-ing in decision-making. It is only a small minoritythat is willing to change its decisions (whether tovote and whom to vote for) in the last few weeks ofa campaign.

We have already noted that people generallyexpose themselves to messages which reinforce (oragree with) their own prior attitudes and that theseprior attitudes are governed by several social psy-chological factors which play such an importantrole in human behaviour including human communi-cation behaviour. These factors are: the individ-ual's own predispositions; his group membershipand that group's values and beliefs; the nature of.he inter-personal networks of communications ofwhich he is part and the opinions of his own influ-entials. We have also seen that the media workalongside all these factors and that they workthrough some of them.

SOME GENERALIZATIONS

Let us now look at some of the broad generalizationswhich have come out of research on the effects ofmass communication. Most of these, it must beremembered have come from short-term studiesbecause of the difficulty of conducting long-termstudies.

Mass communication ordinarily does not pro-vide the single and direct cause of audience effectsbut rather functions among and through a nexus ofmediating factors and influences (we have alreadysummed up these factors).

Mass communication, therefore, usually be-comes a contributory agent but not the sole cause,in a process of reinforcing the existing conditions.This is true in all areas of human behaviour, po-litical or social or cultural.

When mass communication does function as anagent of change one of two conditions is likely toexist: (a) the mediating factor will be found to beinoperative and the effect of the media will then bedirect: or (b) the mediating factors, which normallyfavour reinforcement will be found to be themselvesimpelling towards change.

The influence of mass communication, eitheras a contributory agent or as an agent of direct ef-fect,' is affected by various aspects of the mediathemselves or of the communication situation. Theseinclude such things as the manner of presentationof issues, of the source of the communication, themedium, the existing climate of public opinion, etc.

All these may sound terribly co 'fusing to thepractitioner of mass communication. Perhaps wecan clarify some of them by being more specific.

38

MOUNTING A CAMPAIGN

We can perhaps start at the beginning. Let us saythat an administrator of a mass communicationcampaign would like to convince farmers of theefficacy of a new type of fertilizer and his task isto induce the farmers to use such a fertilizer.This means that he is attempting to show themand to convince them that the practices that he issuggesting are better than the traditional methods;that if more farmers change their methods theywould produce more rice or wheat or whateverand that this would mean not only that the farmerwould, benefit by having a higher income but alsothat the larger community of which he is a memberwould benefit.

There are several questions which must occurto him in the process of mounting such a campaign.If he is a typical administrator he will go abouthistask perhaps somewhat as follows: he will probablybe asked to attend a couple of meetings with officialsof the Ministry of Agriculture who will inform himof the need for a communication campaign to "sell"the new fertilizer and give him a few facts andfigures about the experiments done on it. Fromthen on he is more or less. on his own.

The administrator knows that there are someagricultural workers in the rural areas, he pre-sumes that they have access to the farmers andthat therefore they can be used as the oral channelsof communication and that they would perhaps alsobe able to "demonstrate" the use of the new ferti-lizer. In his own ministry, the Ministry of Infor-mation, he knows that he can arrange for the print-ing of brochures and posters, perhaps the makingof film slides and picture charts and that he canarrange for films to be made on the advantages ofthe new fertilizer. He can also arrange for broad-casting radio and television programmes periodi-cally. He then looks to the newspapers and allo-cates some money to buy space in them for adver-tisements. He will also arrange for handouts andphotographs and he may also meet some of theeditors and publishers to gain their co-operation..This is the situation as it generally exists in thedeveloping countries.

What the administrator has set out to do isnot only typical but generally speaking correct. Ifcampaigns have failed it is not because of the lackof a goOd general approach. It is usually in thedetail. And it is generally in the detail that a cam-paign is either slow in picking up or does not pickup at all.

ADMINISTRATOR'S QUESTIONS

Now let us look at what we mean by detail. In thisdiscussion the media practitioner will be able tosee that most of the points discussed will also re-fer to him and his own tasks. After all no com-munication campaign can succeed without the active

participation of the practitioner. The questionsthat will naturally occur to the administrator are:

1. What are the media at my disposal? Wehave already indicated what these might be, althoughthere may be others such as the traditional media(song and drama units, puppet shows, etc. ).

2. Which of these media should I use? Theanswer to this is that he should use whatever mediahe thinks reach the audience that he is particularlyinterested in that is the farmers.

3. What do I know about the farmers' mediahabits? Obviously unless he knows what the farm-ers listen to or read or view he cannot correctlyplace his messages about the new fertilizer inproper proportions in the media. If the farmersare largely illiterate the newspapers will certain-ly rate low (except for some of the elite farmers);the brochures will contain more pictorial matterrather than long, written explanations and the samegoes for posters. If the farmers have radios hewill certainly rely heavily on that medium and soon.

4. In what proportions do I allocate my re-sources? Based on his knowledge of the audience'smedia habits he will make decisions on his use ofthe various media and calculate the expenditure in-volved. A great deal will also depend on the humanand material resources he has at his command.For example there is no point in printing a wholelot of brochures unless he has people who can notonly distribute them but also explain the content ofthese brochures to the farmers.

5. What kind of content willI put in the media?This will depend on his knowledge of the relativemerits of the media in reaching the audience thathe wishes to reach; their level of understanding,their prior attitudes, etc. The level of presenta-tion will also depend on such knowledge. He mustalso have a fairly good idea of the segments withinhis audience some may be highly educated andsome may not be educated at all. Obviously he can-not use the same content for his entire audience. Ifhe does so he will end up by either insulting the in-telligence of some of them or by failing to communi-cate at all with perhaps the majority.

6. How can I make sure that I am putting inthe right 'content at the right level for the varioussegments of my audience? He can only make him-self sure about this by "pre-testing" the variousmessages among representative samples of theaudiences. In other words, before he prints ahundred thousand posters he will test his prototypesamong a few groups of the kind of audiences hewishes to reach with that poster and study the re-sults of such a pre-test to find out if they under-stand what it says and how they perceive the mes-sage that it wants to convey. If the results are notencouraging he will get the poster redesigned onthe basis of the reactions of his sample audiences.

7. Once the campaign is under way how do Iknow whether it is going along the lines that I wantit to? This he can find out only through periodic

reports from the field by trained obsem ers whosereports must provide the administrate; with thefeedback that he needs. On the basis o that feed-back he can change the strategy of communicationif and when it seems necessary. Without suchfeedback lie has no assJ:rance that all of his effortsat preparing the campaign are, in fact, paying off.

8. How long do I continue to run the campaign'?This will depend on his resources and the needs ofthe country as well as the effectiveness of the cam-paign. But it must be kept in mind that howeversuccessful a campaign, a continuing effort (evenon a reduced scale) is essential to keep the mes-sage alive, not only among the present farmingcommunity but those younger farmers who will bejoining such a community in the future.

THE PRACTITIONER'S ROLE

These questions are by no means complete, butthey are typical of the kind of questions which mustoccur to a communication administrator. Inslightly different form they will also occur to thecommunication practitioner. Let us try and listthem as they might occur to the practitioner in asingle medium. Let us take the head of a broad-casting station in the same kind of a structure orcommunication system within which the adminis-trator of the type we have discussed operates.

This broadcasting station would then be onewhich is part of a governmental network and whichreceives its policy directives from the Ministry ofInformation. Without going into the administrativeproblems in any detail, let us confine ourselves tothe professional aspects, but keeping in mind thatthe professional in such a situation operates withall the advantages and disadvantages that an admin-istrative structure offers. Let us also assume thatthe director of the broadcasting station has comefrom professional ranks and therefore asks him-self some professional questions as the following:

1. How do I go about translating these direc-tives from the Ministry of Information into action?He will get as much information as possible on notonly the material resources made available by theadministrator for his particular unit but also thesubject matter. He will probably discuss thesewith a few producers and other production staff.He will decide on the length and the number of pro-grammes he can produce. He will make a tenta-tive list of the subjects to be covered and he mayalso allocate responsibilities among his productionstaff. The production staff in turn will then lookfor researchers, script writers, actors, announ-cers, commentators, etc. The ideal of course,would be if all these professionals including es-pecially the interviewers were to prepare them-selves fully by reading up something on farmingand fertilizers, old and new.

2. What do I know about the farmers' radiolistening habits? In the case of the practitioner

39

he needs this information in greater detail. Forexample at what time is the farmer usually freeand at different times in the farming cycle? Whattype of farmers are there in his own region, break-ing up by age, educational level, perhaps religion,caste, etc? If such information is not readily avail-able, thiS will first have to be gathered. If thereis a dialect or dialects in use in the region, canthe practitioner obtain people who can use the dia-lect in the, programmes? He would also like toknow how many radio sets there are.in the areaand are they mostly community radio sets or pri-vately owned or both.

3. In what proportions do I divide my pro-grammes? The station director, on the basis ofsuggestions and advice will have to make decisionsnow on the various types of programmes that hecan produce: the drama, the interview, the straighttalk, technical presentations on the characteristicsof the fertilizer itself, general documentaries onthe use of tie fertilizer in other parts of the world,etc.

4. How can I make sure that I am putting inthe right content at the right level for the varioussegments of my listeners? Pre-testing is againthe answer and if for some reasons he cannot doso, an immediate post-testing is essential so thatthe director of programmes can at least preventrepetitions of the same errors.

5. Once my campaign is under way how do Iknow whether it is going along the lines that I wantit to? In the case of the practitioner it is perhapseasier to arrange for such information because heis closer to the scene and can get his own staff tofeed back information to him. His staff should beable to make a fairly systematic analysis of audi-ence reactions to the various types of programmespresented. If the drama seems to be more effec-tive than the interview or the straight talk, thedirector would like to know this and change hisstrategy. If the language used in the programmesseems to be unintelligible, or the wrong dialect,he should be able to get new script writers ortrain the old. In addition, the practitioner has theresponsibility to feed this information back to theadministrator at the top and tell him why he ismaking some changes.

6. How long do I continue to run the campaign?Usually in the case of the director of a broadcast-ing station this decision is perhaps already madefor him. However that decision will depend on hisown assessment as it is fed back to the decision-making administrator who would like to continuethe campaign if the station director can convincehim of the efficacy of the campaign as conductedthrough the radio and of the need for its continuation.

7. What can I do to make the campaign evenmore effective? The answer to this question mustcome from the field. If his staff working in thefield have been making some suggestions in theirperiodic reports these suggestions themselves canact as a basis for experimentation. Such experiments

40

can be tested in their turn and experience becomescumulative. The Radio Farm Forum, for example,came out of such experience that since farmersdiscussed the content of a programme after listen-ing to it, why nut informally organize the farmersinto a discussion group? It has been shown thatsuch personal participation in a discussion lendsto better understanding of the content and conse-quently a greater retention of the content. Organi-zing such a group means that there has to be aleader and the leader obviously has to be an in-formed person himself even if he acted more as amoderator rather than a leader. In fact if he istrained to give the impression that any suggestionsfor action come from the group itself there is morelikelihood of such decisions being translated intoaction.

It is perhaps unnecessary to go into any othermedia. The newspaper man, the film maker,will no doubt also act on the basis of the same orsimilar questions, each one has his own potentialaudience and each has the particular characteristicsof his own medium to deal with. We have alreadydiscussed some of those characteristics in an earliersection.

CONDITIONS FOR EFFECTIVENESS

But in the context of persuasive communicationwhen we are trying to influence an audience, whatconditions need to be met? It may be useful to listthese briefly, although they are all, by implication,present in our earlier discussion.

1. The audience must, somehow, be exposedto the communication.

2. All or most of the audience must interpretor perceive correctly what attitude or action thecommunicator is asking of them and why.

3. The audience must remember or retainthe gist of the message that the communicator istrying to get across,for immediate action is notalways possible.

4. Members of the audience must decidewhether or not they will be influenced by the com-munication. Some of them may try out a new prac-tice before finally adopting it.

Obviously it is impossible for a communicatorto ensure that each and every member of his audi-ence will indeed take the action that he is recom-mending. But as a professional communicator itmust be possible for him to make sure of the firstthree conditions. The ability of a practitioner istested by the way he goes about his tasks and whatresults he is able to achieve. The more systema-tically he approaches his tasks and the more will-ing he is not only to allow for feedback but also toarrange for true feedback, the more effective hecan be. It is here that researchers (or evaluators)can help him. They cannot teach him his profes-sion and they cannot, in most cases, tell him .whattechniques to use in so far as his craft is concerned,

but they can analyse those techniques and feed himinformation on whether his techniques are workingor not if he is willing to listen.

TECHNIQUES

Let us look at a few examples of those techniques:1. One of the classic studies in the field of

communication research went into the question ofthe effect of emotional appeals. Intuitively a com-municator tends to feel that the more intense hisappeal the greater its possible effect. However,an experiment conducted with groups of studentswho were exposed to three versions of a 15-minutetalk on dental hygiene showed that although eachversion contained the same general informationand made similar recommendations, they had dif-ferent effects. The "strong'' appeal emphasizedthe pain caused by tooth decay and was illustratedwith slides showing diseased gums; in the "mod-erate" appeal the threats appeared less often andin a milder form; in the "minimal" fear-appealversion the more severe threats were replaced byfairly neutral information. The main results ofthe experiment indicated that the minimal fear-appeal was more effective, followed by the mod-erate appeal. The strong appeal brought about theleast amount of change in the hygienic behaviour ofthe audience. The researcher's own conclusionwas that "when fear is strongly aroused but notadequately relieved by the reassurances containedin a persuasive communication, the audience willbecome motivated to ignore, or to minimize theimportance of the threat".

The lesson for the practitioner may be that nomessage should promise or threaten more thanwhat is reasonable and that the audience has itsown defensive mechanisms. In fact the possibil-ities of "counter-propaganda" increase when suchunrealistic promises are made or when highlyemotional fears are aroused.

A good example of such counter-propaganda(which then becomes more difficult for communi-cators to neutralize) is the experience of an "over-sell" on the part of some family planning communi-cators in a developing country. The IUD was "sold"as being painless, safe and reversible. Threecategorical promises. When it turned out that itwas not painless in many instances, its other ad-vantages of safety and reversibility were all butforgotten. A less categorical claim may have beenbetter, for it must be remembered that in the com-plicated communication channels in society one dis-satisfied person who feels that she has been "takenin" can cause a surprising amount of damage andonce such damage has been caused it is extremelydifficult for communication to undo it It is fareasier (even if slower) to think of possible reper-cussions and counter arguments and to plan a mes-sage accordingly.

2. An example may clarify this, A study was

done to find out whether in making out a case fora recommended change in attitude or behaviour, itis better to present only one side of an argumentor both sides. It was shown that in the case ofthose who are initially opposed to the communicator'sposition, it is better to present both sides of anargument but that in the case of a person who isinitially in favour of the communicator's position,a one-sided argumen'. can be effective. The impli-cations can be seen clearly in the case of the familyplanning example which we discussed in the previousparagraph.

Some knowledge of the initial attitudes of theaudience will help the communicator greatly inplanning his message. It would also help to knowthe audience's general educational background forit was found that with the better educated group thetwo-sided presentation is generally more effectiveregardless of initial attitude, whereas in the case

,of the less educated it was the other way round.3. In addition to the presentation of arguments

there is also the problem of the sequence in whichthese arguments maybe presented. In other words,does the argument presented first have a betterchance of influencing people than that presentedsecond? The limited research done indicates thatthe first presentation changes opinion more thanthe second presentation changes them back. Forthe communication practitioner, it seems the bestthing to do would be to see the first presentation isas clear, honest and compelling as possible so thatthe possibility of counter propaganda is minimized.

DETERMINANTS OF EFFECT

The preceding discussion has been concerned pri-marily with the overall effectiveness of the variousmass media. We shall now try and look at someparticular aspects so as to get an idea of some ofthe determinants of effect. Such determinants ob-viously are: the communicator, the communica-tion, the medium and the audience. We have dis-cussed some of their characteristics earlier. Itmay, however, be helpful to look at them againbriefly.from the point of view.of effectiveness.

THE COMMUNICATOR

What is said, however compelling and convincing,is generally not sufficient. Who says it is almostjust as important and occasionally even more im-portant. A number of studies which have gone intothis question show that the difference made by thecredibility of the source to identical messages isquite sizeable in its immediate effect. Credibility,of course, depends on the perception of the readeror listener. For example, if a reader is morefavourably inclined towards a given magazine thana given newspaper, even if the same message iscarried by both, the effect of that magazine saying

so will be greater on him than of the newspaper.The same thing goes for speakers, commentators,editorials, etc.

The audience need not always have directknowledge or association with the source. If awriter, for example, is identified as a specialistin economics, what he may have to say on devalu-ation will be more effective than if the same dis-cussion is led by a person who is not so identified.It would seem worthwhile for a practitioner or anadministrator to try to use the name of a trust-worthy source (and the sources may vary fromcommunity to community) in all forms of persuasivecommunication. The source need not always be abig name; a successful user of a contraceptive de-vice, for example, may be considered as a trust-worthy source by an audience of women for whomit is easy to identify with such a source. Needlessto say, such "trustworthy" sources can be foundin every field of human behaviour.

THE COMMUNICATION

In so far as the communication itself is concerned,the effects of the mass media are influenced bothby the character and the content of the message.Research has been done on the types of appeals em-ployed and arrangement of the elements of an argu-ment. We have discussed these earlier in thissection.

A few interesting studies have also been doneto find out if "emotional" appeals would be moreeffective than "rational?' appeals. In these studieswhere a difference showed up, it was clear that theemotional appeal was more effective - but the re-searchers have warned that there are individualdifferences among audiences based on such factorsas age, education, etc.

THE MEDIUM

Although there are a considerable number of studieswhich have compared one medium with another interms of achieving some desired effects, few defini-tive conclusions have emerged owing to problemsconnected with this kind of research in the naturalsituation.

The most outstanding finding, which in fact haslittle to do with relative effectiveness of the media,is that oral presentation of material is more effec-tive than any media presentation! However, someguarded generalizations are possible for the mediathemselves.

One is that the learning effectiveness of diffe-rent channels and combination of channels seemsto depend more on how the channels are used andby whom than on the channels themselves. This isdirectly related to the selective attention conceptwhich we have discussed. Therefore, some know-ledge of the media habits of the audience is necessary

before an administrator can decide which media(combination of media he is going to utilize in ccampaign. Of course, he can use all of them ormost of them. But research also warns, as wehave seen, that multiple channels may sometimedivide attention to a point where optimal learningis not possible through any one channel., This isparticularly so in the audio-visual me dia,Rf courseThe use of badly chosen pictorial illustrations ittelevision, for example, may distract from thelearning process which is already taking placethrough the audio channel.

Films and television have been generally founto be more effective in learning, than other meditBut more of such research has been done on learring than on persuasion and especially among schotchildren. We have left the educational aspects cthe mass media (especialy in-school) mostly ouof our discussion since it is a highly specializedfield and has its own special characteristics an<problems.

MEDIA DIFFERENCES

We have already indicated that research on t1relative effectiveness of the media has not providenough grounds for generalizations and we 'havesaid that one of the reasons for this is the exposuof the audience to the various media. It may beworthwhile discussing in what respects the meddiffer in thiq regard i. e. the kind of audiencethey attract and the degree to which they hold tlattention of the audience. Any effects that cornmunication may have are obviously bound to thefactors.

For a medium to be effective, it must obviousfulfil some conditions:

(a) it must be easily available;(b) it should stand out from the rest of its

background;(c) it must satisfy the needs of the person

whose own previous experience leads him to acertain medium and not to another;

(d) that person should find it useful and firthe kind of information that he is seeking.

Education and social status have considerainfluence on the media selection of people. It Ibeen found, for example, that the higher the edcation, the greater the preference for the printmedia and for informational and news content (the other media.

THE AUDIENCE

In our earlier discussion we had already indicEthe importance of audience characteristics wreference to the communicator, the communicaand to the media. Research on effects has addeour knowledge of audiences in a specific se,However, much of this research has been concex

with individuals and with small groups. To theaverage practitioner and administrator, this maynot seem to be of much practical use, because theyare interested in bigger groups and in larger num-bers. But a general idea of how personality factorsmay affect communication can help when a communi-cator already has some basic knowledge of the valuesystems of the beliefs and of the cultural milieu inwhich his audience lives.

One of the biggest problems that the communi-cator faces in any attempts to produce changes insignificant sections of the audience is the fact thatoften although an audience may expose itself to amessage, no real change occurs. The communi-cation brings about awareness but no action. Then,of course, there are sections among a potentialaudience which do not even expose themselves tothe message.

MOTIVATION

The communicator's main interest is to have someknowledge of the variations in the extent to whichindividuals who are exposed to a given communi-cation are likely to be influenced by it. There aretwo general factors which may explain such varia-tion. One is intellectual ability and the other ismotivation. These determine whether an individualpays attention to the communication, whether heabsorbs and understands the content and finallywhether he accepts the message contained in thecommunication and is willing to act upon it.

Researchers agree that there is a positivecorrelation between intellectual ability and thedegree to which an individual is able to acquirethe knowledge flowing from communication. Thismeans that the higher one's intellectual ability thegreater the amount of content he takes in. How-ever, most research in this area so far has con-cerned itself with information on public affairs,politics, etc. There is less research on occupa-tional content such as about farming or, in the caseof women (especially in the developing countries)about hygiene, san1Lation, child rearing, etc. Onestudy showed that there are sex differences. "Howthe individual relates the news about governmentto the male or female social role has bearing on theamount of learning of factual information". Onecan assume perhaps that this is also true in thecase of non-governmental information.

Differences in motivation also play an impor-tant rale in determining how much is learnt fromcommunication. In other words the higher the in-terest of a person in a given topic the greater hewill learn from communication on that topic. But,notivation factors also have a tendency to work indifferent ways, depending upon one's own prior at-titudes towards the subject. If one, is interested ina given subject but has a strong preconception aboutit and has already taken a strong position for oragainst that subject, while his learning may increase,no attitudinal change inay take place.

One classic study in the literature showed thatthe prejudiced individuals (in this case, prej-udice against negroes) protected themselves byreading into the message content wnieh was infact not there. In one instance, an open penknife,which was in the hand of a white man was conveni-ently "transferred" to that of his black neighbourwhen respondents were asked to describe whatthey had seen in a cartoon showed to them for afew seconds.

We can therefore see that apart from learningthe content of communication there is a problemof the acceptance of what the message implies.While learning may be related positively to intel-lectual ability, acceptance may in fact be negative.Some have suggested that this is indeed as it shouldbe; the less intelligent are more susceptible topersuasive communication than the more intelligent.

But in so far as direct evidence of mass com-munication changing attitudes and behaviour isconcerned, there is not a great deal. We havealready indicated how research has shown that inthe process through which mass communicationtravels, changes in attitude and behaviour areclosely related to psychological and sociologicalfactors among the audience. But it has conclusivelyshown that mass communication cannot only ef-fectively bring new information and issues to theattention of the public, but that when properlydirected and evaluated at every stage, it can alsoeffectively work through inter-personal channelsin bringing about attitudinal and behaviouralchanges.

Mass communication's biggest asset in thisregard is the capacity it has to take informationand knowledge to large numbers of people and ex-pose them to new subjects, to new ideas and to newissues. We have also referred to the influentialsand the opinion leaders and their rale in the com-munication process. How and when mass communi-cation can "use" such people depends on the know-ledge that the practitioner and the administratorhave of their particular community and to whatextent the practitioner and administrator are them-selves motivated to make use of their professionalability to bring about the desired effects in anorderly way.

THE MEDIA

We can perlon:ps summarize our discussion oneffectiveness of mass communication by takinganother look at the media. Granted that,researchon effectiveness is difficult, what are some of thebroad generalizations which can safely be madeabout all the media?

1. The media have the power to focus atten-tion on issues, on events and on personalities andthus to direct a great deal of the discussion withinsociety. All the media have this power.

2. The media have the power to confer status,

43

both on the communicator and on the personalitiesthe communicator brings up for attention. In otherwords, the media have made famous (or notorious)not only politicians or actors and actresses but alsonewspapermen, commentators_ _off' the broadcastmedia, film producers, etc.

3. Face-to-face persuasion is more effectivethan persuasion through the audio-visual media andthis is in turn more effective than persuasion throughthe print media. However, it must be borne inmind that some topics can be presented better bysome media than others. The relative persuasivepower of the different media is therefore likely tovary from subject to subject. For example, thechemical differences between two fertilizers canperhaps be better explained orally or through theprint media while the techniques of their actualuse may be more effectively presented visually.

4. A combination of media communication andface-to-face communication is likely to be moreeffective than either alone. A good example is theproven effectiveness of the radio farm forums inwhich a rural programme presented by radio isimmediately followed by a discussion by the organ-ized listening group. Similarly it has been foundthat a combination of educational television pro-gramme and classroom teaching is more effectivethan either alone.

All these generalizations must necessarily beviewed against the fact that at any given time, underany given condition, there will be differences with-in audiences. Obviously, therefore, the effective-ness of the medium would depend on the character-istics of the audience. Similarly the effectivenesswill also depend on the content and on presentation.Whatever-generalizations have been made can onlybe based on the old precept of "other things beingequal".

There is an old example of the 1 lc of effec-tiveness of a programme on chicken tanning on aradio farm forum group which turned out to be com-posed almost entirely of vegeterians! The contentwas not "relevant". Surely similar examples canbe found in all the media. Unless the content fallswithin the experiences and interests (and under-standing ability) of an audience however powerfula medium, the message would be ineffective.

Another factor to be taken into account is thataudiences themselves differ in so far as their ap-proach to the 'various media is concerned. In otherwords for certain kinds of audiences certain mediacan be more effective than others.

The print media, in a given culture, for ex-ample, may be more effective in reaching the highersocio-economic and educational levels than radio ortelevision. Similarly, radio may be more effectivein reaching the rural audiences of the developingcountries, for obvious reasons, than the printmedia or television. Basic data on media use,therefore, becomes indispensable to the adminis-trator of a mass communication campaign. There

are many examples of wasted human and materialresources in the developing countries stemmingfrom the administratoris metropolitan orientationunquestioningly guiding his decisions of media usein non-metropolitan areas.

Let us take a brief second look at specificmedia from the point of view of effectiveness:

Print media

Research on newspapers has indicated that thereseems to be very little effect, positive or negative,arising out of the support of a majority of news-papers to a given candidate or party during a po-litical campaign, on the success or failure of thatcandidate or party at the polls. However, it mustbe noted that this is a study of the short-term ef-fects and refers to election issues over which thepublic have probably already made up their minds.

In other areas of human behaviour, especiallythose which call for change in attitudes over alonger period of time, the print media have a greaterimpact, especially in bringing up for discussionand thought, issues, people, places, events, etc.We have noted the considerable advantages that thisprint media have over other media for this kind ofserious and prolonged exposure on the part of theaudience.

Film

From the point of view of effects, film has beenstudied more extensively than newspapers.' Thisis partlybecause it is easier to reach the audiencewhich normally is physically present together andin a public place unlike the audiences for othermedia which are scattered over a wide area. Butwith film too only short-term measurements havebeen made because of the difficulties of long-termevaluation. Most films are concerned purely withentertainment. Here we are concerned only withresearch done on those films whose main purposeis to instruct, to provide knowledge, to changeopinions and beliefs. In the short-term, it hasbeen shownthat the film is reasonably effective inconveying information, but not as effective inchanging behaviour, although the effects arenotnegligible.

Researchers have also pointed out that mes-sages stated in a generalized form are not likelyto be understood and accepted by any significantportion of an audience and that messages whichare not explicitly stated are likely to be entirelylost upon the less intelligent members of theaudience. In other words, if one is dealing withsome complex material, an explicit presentationof the conclusions of the communicator must bemade. This is more effective, especially in thecase of the less educated.

Radio

The major operator of radio has been the govern-ment, not only in the developing countries but alsoin some of the industrially advanced countries.Some studies done on radio programmes directedat farmers have shown that as a medium concernedwith changes in farming practices, radio rankedabove brochures, posters, exhibits, etc. Butthere have also been studies which have not pro-vided such happy results.

The study of the effects of radio listening onthe use of other media (studied before the spreadof television) provides considerable evidence thatradio listening does not necessarily affect news-paper reading or exposure to books and magazines,In fact it may be complementary; the stimulationfor reading newspapers and magazines may comefrom listening to programmes over the. radio.People who "accidentally"listen to a radio discus-sion of political issues, for example, may be ledto read political news in newspapers and maga-zines. Those who are not exposed to one generallyare not exposed to the other. A study done in arural community of a developing country showedthat of the six people who regularly listened to thecommunity radio set, five were also regular news-paper readers.

Television

The development of television has been extremelyrapid and dramatic in large parts of the world. Theeffectiveness of this medium has been studied ex-tensively and much of it has concerned itself withthe instructional use of it It has been shown thatit can be extremely effective for this purpose notonly in the case of children but also of adults(literacy, for example). However, it has beenstressed by researchers that television cannot re-place the traditional classroom teacher. Theteacher continues to be necessary not only to allowfor discussion of the content of 'a programme, butalso for purely psychological reasons, and alsobecause students can get the necessary personalattention which they need.

An incidental effect of television has been theextent to which it has changed the pattern of life of

the typical family, especially its leisure timeactivities. However, it has not radically changed

_a family's exposure to newspapers or magazines.The incidental or unexpected and unintentioned

effects of mass communication are many. We willonly look at a few.

Unanticipated effects

We have already indicated that there are some long-.term effects which may not show up in the short-term and vice versa. We have touched briefly uponwhat is referred to as the "sleeper effect" whic:ihas to do with the credibility of the source and thecontent of the message as related to the audience'stendency to forget the source that rememberedthe content.

Another kind of effect which researchers havediscovered has been called "unanticipated conse-quences'? (or unintended effects). For example,the purpose of a film or a radio programme maybe defined as pure entertainment by the communi-cator, but have very positive effects on an audi-ence. We have seen, for example, where a lightdrama may be "used" by women audiences to learnhow- to deal with household problems and how thepractitioner may use such "entertainment-type"presentations for intentional persuasion. In ad-vertising parlance this may be referred to as the"soft sell".

Examples of unintended effects will no doubtoccur to the practitioner from his own experience -not necessarily professional, but social. Thewhole area of "cross-cultural communication?' isreplete with them, especially in the field of inter-national communication. Mass communication hasunintendedly changed the life patterns of wholepopulations, whether it is in the mode-of dress orthe 'tastes, in music and in soft drinks or in thelength of a boy's hair. The leadership in manycountries, especially the traditional, developingcountries, are showing, increasing concern aboutthis "phenomenon" on the eve of the advent ofsatellite communication in many, of them.

The individual socially responsible practitionermayfeelhelpless in this larger global context, butit is a:subject he should be concerned about as aprofessional and as a citizen.

CHAPTER VI

SUMMARY- AND CONCLUSIONS

In the previcus chapters we have attemptedto dis-cuss the whole field of mass communication, how-ever briefly, to try and obtain a picture of it as itlooks today from the present knowledge of the field.We have deliberately confined our discussions tosome of the broad generalizations which have stoodthe test of time (relatively speaking) and the con-tinuing efforts of researches to question them andtest contradictory hypotheses. We have not at-tempted to confuse the issues by presenting con-flicting views or the results of on-going research.While this has advantages for the newcomer to thestudy of mass communication and especially to thepractitioner and administrator who have to act andtake decisions now rather than wait for research tocome up with definitive principles, it also has cer-tain disadvantages.

We have indicated that some of these generali-zations, as they stand today, may still be somewhatspeculative. Therefore communication strategiesbased on such relatively incomplete evidence maynot always work. But we know tthisethe complicatednature of the process of communitGatEnn makes suchcomplete asstrzpractically impossible. However, we have -wined that any, action basedup-on some evidenietter than puiredntuition alone..We have givemesmomples of such profitable action.We have also le '-onated that an experienced practi-tioner of mass eammtnunication instinctively has acertain undez-Muudieg of what mayieffective andwhat may notzliti,-.4,1hurthat there ismeedand scopefor a fullertad4emstanding and therefore of greatereffectiveness-sforl*:Y,both of which same:exposure to

conclusions-(c± assearch and of ,syntematic studyare essential.

We have accw9aefThomas Carr ollls maxim thatthe greatest 10/.6 ri.:1`.4blim of communication is the Mu-

- sion that it has ]ice achieved and said that °uncon-cern for purpos*Vof this discussion is that commu-nication researchers have been less than effectivein reaching the communication practitioners andthat communication practitioners have not been aseffective as they can be in communicating with their

audiences in large parts of the world where sucheffectiveness is vital for the social, economic, cul-tural and political development of societies and forbringing about greatly needed social change andmodernization. Consequently we have made theassumption that if the practice of mass communi-cation is based on research on mass communica-tion the chances of more effective communicationcan be increased. We have therefor e also assumedthat if today practice does not seem to be based onresearch as systematically as it could be this isbecause the opportunities for practitioners and poten-tialpractitioners to be exposed to research findingsis badly limited. We have stressed the need for adialogue between the two; we have stressed thefact that the relationship between the practitionerand the administrator on the one hand and the re-searcher on the other must be one of mutual trustand mutual appreciation.

We have talked a little hit about the historicaldevelopment of mass communication and indicatedthat insome ways it is an offshoot of the traditionalfieldof journalism,, but that there are some signi-ficant: differences, between journalism and masscommunication. landoing so we have also drawn adistine tion betweemnass commithication andinter-personal communication, while recognizing thevery close interrela.tionship between the two. Theprocess of mass cozomunicatiowcannot be separatedfrom: the process-zeinter-personal communication.But our concern hsagieen mainly with mass commu-nication and therefore has leaned more heavily inthat direction in so far as the present problemsof conununication with mass audiences are con-cerned. We have _accepted the, claim that com-munication (the combination of mass- communicationand inter-personal communication) is the fundamen-tal social process. Now let us briefly recapitulatewhat we have said in our discussion of the commu-nicationprocess, of the communicator, of the mediaof mass communication and their audiences, theeffectiveness and the effects of mass communication,and finally of research itself.

THE PROCESS

Communication, which was originally perceived asa one way process and as "something someone doesto someone else", is now recognized as an act ofsharing in which the communicator and his audienceare both active partners. While a communicatormay be trying to reach a given audience, that au-dience is itself attempting to reach given communi-cators and these may not always be the same. Theprocess therefore becomes complicated and unlessa sameness can be achieved no effective communi-cation can take place.

In the case of mass communication, a machine isintroduced which enables the communicator not onlyto duplicate his messages but also to send themover long distances and thus cover wide audiences.By doing so the oractitioner of mass communicationis making his own task of communicating far moredifficult than when he, as a person, talks to another.In the inter-personal situation he can getimmediatefeedback and tell fairly well whether his message isgetting across or not. But in the mass communica-tion situation he gets no such feedback except muchlater, if at all. He is also dealing with a heteroge-neous audience composed of people of various socio-economic and educational and age levels whose needsand aspirations and whose levels of understandingare very different. In such a situation the commu-nicator can only hope that his message or messageswill be communicated and disseminated in such away that they will have the desired effect on reason-ably large segments of the audience or audiences.

For a clear understanding of mass communica-it is important to remember that while communica-tion may do something to people, unless people dosomething with that communication the relationshipbetween communicator and people is not complete.Unfortunately most of the time, therefore, commu-nication or the messages of the communicator aremerely dissipating themselves. A person's expo-sure to mass communication may be just a habit,or, a ritual, as in the case of the newspaper at thebreakfast table. Unless the reader wants to absorbthe persuasion of an editor or a commentator or iswilling to beentertained by the human interest sto-ries or cartoons in the newspaper no communicationcan take place. Different messages have differentpurposes (our concern have been mainly with the pur-posive and persuasive forms). The purpose of thecommunicator must meet the needs of the receiver.Only then can the objective of communication beachieved.

From the communicator's point of view the ob-jective of a communication may be to inform, toteach, to entertain or to persuade. From the re-ceiver' s point of view the corresponding needs wouldbe to understand, to learn, to enjoy and to decide.For a communicator, therefore, it is important tohave a fairly good idea of the needs of his audience.It is also important that he understands the commu-nicator (that is himself) and his medium.

THE COMMUNICATOR

Because of the nature of mass communication, thecommunicator is a professional working for andwithin an organization which itself is a social insti-tution. Therefore as a member of an organizationand as a member of society, he is susceptible to in-fluences and forces beyond his control. As a mem-bar of a professional group his own psychological,sociological and creative needs have to be satisfied.The conflicts which arise in such satisfaction, oftenmake him less of a free agent than he would preferto be. In so far as he is constrained to work'as amember of an organization, certain bureaucraticand other organizational factors also come into play.His awareness of these limitations and his abilitiesto feel secure within those limitations and to the ex-tent to which he is himself capable of overridingthose limitations haVe a bearing on the style andmanner of his work. In addition he also has to achievea working relationship with members of the societyoutside of his own profession with whom he is incontact in 'his own work. His perception of themand his attitude towards them together with their.perceptionand attitude towards him play a signifi-cant rOle.in the communication process._

THE MEDIUM.

The practitioner of mass communication has anotherbig handicap (in addition to himself and his "obstin-ate audience"): his medium. There is no "perfect"medium. Each medium has its own advantages anddisadvantages and in the vast market of mass com-munication they are all competing-in their own im-perfect Way to be able to reach the largestnumberor, the most highly influential of the people whomthey wisth to sell their preduct to or convince ofithe_rightness of their argument. An understandingaofthe strengths and weaknesses of Ms own mediumcan stand the practitioner in good stead; togetherwith knowledge of the strengths and weaknessesofthe other media. In addition to the competitiveas-pects of the media, there are many complementaryaspects which also should be appreciated. The oldermedia (such as newspapers) have in some ways :al-ready experienced the advantages of having the newer media (such as television and Movies) and withinthe newer- media themselves, the initial fears ofgo-ing out of business (for example films, by. -the ad-vent 'of television) have !been disproved andin somecases,actually turned out to be blessings.

AUDIENCE

Next in the mass communication system is the au-dience - that all important and at the same timefrustratingly complicated "target" which howeverdoes not behave like a target. It is not only ob-stinate but it is also uncomfortably active and

idiosyncratic. Its "selective attention" and"selec-tive perception" makes the communicator's taskanything but easy. He may have the best of motivesand the most convincing of arguments, but if he doesnot gain attention and he is not accepted, or if ac-cepted, is interpreted wrongly, his whole effort iswasted. Therefore to make sure that whatever ef-fort the mass communication practitioner and the ad-ministrator are putting into their work is not entirelywasted, that effort must necessarily be based up-on an understanding of the audience. To a large ex-tent that audience is in fact the master. It is thereceiver who decides whether he will indeed pay at-tention to a message and when he does it is again hewho decides whether the message meets his needsand whether he will accept it and act upon it.

Such action,, is after all the end resultthat thecommunicators' whole effort has been aimed at.While this is especially true in persuasive commu-nication, it is also true in other forms of communication: in informing, in entertaining or, in purelycommercial terms, even in selling a copy of anews-paper or a cinema seat. Apart from the receiver'sown needs which a message may not satisfy, thereis also the receiver's communication experience it-self. He has been "taken" before, whether by a 48point headline or an attractive poster advertising-a_movie, or the promises of the efficacy of a pill,,which have not lacced up to his expectations. There-fore he is either immunised or driven away. In anycase he is often sceptical of anything smacking ofpersuasion. He Is also made up,rof a set of beliefs,and attitudes only some of which are relativelyflexible.

Those of us who are practitioners of mass com-munication either must find our way through thismaze or not enterrit at all, unless we are satisfiedwith doing a half-hearted job of searching for theproper exit. We ourselves have to look for "cues",just as, we expect the receiver to look for our cues.These cues are tIxere for us to see if we take thetime to look. Much like our own they too may notalways deliver what they promise. It is rour taskto force the proviiters of those cues (in ttitrii casethe communication researchers) to improve them:It is only the combined efforts of:the senders andreceivers of a message that can make that messageeffective. This as true in the case of mass com-munication asiz the case of mass communicationresearch.

Effects

We have presented some generalizations on the ef-fectiveness of mass communication and suggestedthat they have the power to focus attention, to con-fer status, etc. Also that while face-to-face com-munication is more effective than mass communi-cation in persuading people, there are neverthelesspoints to remember about the differences among themedia. Actual effects are harder to study. However,there are a few examples in the literature of masscommunication. Most of these have been studied

in the laboratory situation. They are harder tostudy in the natural situation because of the largenumbers of variables present. However, thereare some indications of value to the practitionerof mass communication. These have to do withthe nature of argument, the level of discussion,the order_of presentation, the intensity of fear ap-peals, etc.

We have deliberately refrained froM dealingat any length with what maybe called the "socialeffects" of mass communication. We have saidthat this is a much broader and almost a philmze2-phical and moral question which may or may ruibe of direct import to the average practitioner auk;administrator. In any case it would make thecussion impossibly long. Generally speaking we-have also refrained from getting into controversialissues, such as, for example, Marshall McLuhatt'sthesis that the "medium is the message". We havetalked about the media and we have talked about themessages (or the content of communication) onlninso far as research has something reasonably:deaf.--nite to say about them. Unfortunately McLuhan±mthesis is still being discussed - sometimes vw-hemently and often in bewildered terms - by sunhvaried people as mass communication scholars, pub-lic relations specialists and advertisers as well asby philosophers and intellectuals with a literarybent: Whether or not the introduction of print media and later the electronic media have influencedsociety positively or negatively to;quite the extentMcLuhansuggests, is a question which is too broadin its scope for a. discussion.such as ours which isnecessarily limited in its objectives.

We, have also refrained fronadiscussing someof the relatively-:simpler questions such as theetf-fects of television or film on:children, or on adultsor on society as a..whole. In:the latter :case we lavedone so because research is continuing :and has rtott.come up with any clear conclusions.

Moremesearch is needed, in:all areas, welkavesaid, butthe greater need seems to be for thejteptc-titionersof mass commuricationto try out sorat.rufthe suggestions indicated in the.research. ItismarlYwhen this is done .in the regular .day-to-day workmf.thepractitioner:and the administrator of massacran-munication thatthe state of knowledge of the whyfield of mass communication.can move forwatcLinany real sense. As long as the.-_researcherfined to his "laboratory" and the-practitioner after-ates in the natural situation and.the two do not:metet,our knowledge of the effects of rnass communicationmust remain limited.

One looks forward to the day when researchinmass communication feeds the practice of mass oarn-munication and the lessons learnt in the practice ofmass communication feed the researchers. Onlythen can mass communication, not only as a func-tional activity but also as an art form, flourish, andonly then can a full-fledged "disciple" of communi-cation emerge. The essence of the problem is notto bring about agreement but appreciation betweenthe two groups.

APPENDIX

MASS COMMUNICATION RESEARCH: WHY AND HOW?

Perhaps the reader -who has reached this, point inthe.hook would...like to have a little more informationon research itself, why it is done, when and how.

We submit that the first questionis perhai-ready answered adequately in the previous sectionm,even if itha-s been done by implication, rather thandirectly. Research is done simply because the prac-titioner ofmasszcommunication and the administra-tor of communication campaigns wouldnecessarilyprefer to approach their tasks on the basis of somefundamentaliolowledge of their media, of their au-diences, of the process of information flow and of anypossible effects their messages are likely, to have.

The second question - when? - is perhaps evenmore obvitons. Without being facetious, one would

'say: befone, during and after. Before, because weneed soli:.: basic knowledge; during, because wewould like:to knowlaow we are doing and whetherany changs:in our approach are called for; after,because we.surely would like to find out how effec..tivewe have .been ..:in reaching an audience, in makingthem understand and in convincing them of any ar-guments which we may have put forward.

The-thrr' d question of how research is done isa more complicatedone and we would do better torefer the:reader to more specialized publicationson thiS subject. Suffice it to say that there aremany ways in which research can be done and manykinds of subjects which it can study. The methodsof research will depend on the problem in hand andfacilities available.

Basically, research is done to obtain depend-able information - hopefully some of it, at least,will be of use to the operator of the media, :. Suchinformation is obtained by scientific methods andin an objective fashion by trained people.

It would be tempting to say that some simpleresearch can be done by experienced people whoare capable of taking a detached approach to thetask in hand, even if they have no specialized train-ing. Such a statement would be, in a limited sense,perhaps accurate. However, there are very clearlimits to such research. It would therefore bebetter if research is done by those who have had

systematic training in its methods and its techniques.For the average practitioner, however, it

would be useful to have an idea of the kinds of re-search which are possible. These are perhaps toa_large extent already clear from our earlier dis-cussion. For example, we have seen that it is pos-sible to study the content of our present productionsby taking a close look at our own newspapers, (orbroadcasting schedules, etc. This area of researchis referred to as content analysis. This is -a re-search technique for the objective, systematic andquantitative description of the content. It helps thepublisher of a newspaper or the head of a broad-casting station in assessing the kinds of programmeor items which he has been putting out, such aseconomic mews, political news, human interest sto-ries, sports, etc.

Afterthaving done this, it may be useful to knowwhat percentage of the audience is exposing itself,to any given category or indeed to any specific item.This aspect of communication research will fallun-der the much broader field of audience research.Sometimes, in the case of specific media, this in-volves the study of readership patterns or listener-ship patterns, etc. But it also means the gatheringof information about a large number of character-istics of the audience, including their normal ex-posure to the media, their reactions to what theyread and view, their attitudes to and opinions onvarious_subjects and issues, their responses tospecific messages, and finally their adoption of newpractices and innovations which of course will alsoinvolve a change in attitudes.

"FEEDBACK?"

The importance of audience research, especiallyin developing countries is self- evident. These coun-tries need to bring their people to actively partici-pate in development programmes and to discuss andexpress their opinions on the changes that are be-ing brought about. It would also be useful for theleadership in these countries to have information

on the public' s needs and inter ests. --,7.'ithese wouldfall under the general concept of "feedback" whichwe have discussed and which just means the infor-mation that comes back to a communicator tellinghim what reactions his receivers are having to thecommunication messages which he is ,sending out.Such information is of very practical relevance tothe.media practitioner because he doesmot normallyhave the benefit of feedback from hi-s [....rge audienceas he would have in a face-to-face situation. It takesresearch to provide him with dependable feedback.

Another important type of resetarrai which seemssimple to do but which also takes a great deal oftraining if it is to be done systacnatically and reli-ably is the case, study. This means ,the gatheringof information and the interpretatioitxtf. such infor-mation and evidence to explain the behaviour of anindividual or a community or a sactal institution.Usually this is done by an individual trained to ob-serve, to ask questions, to collect:as-much dataas he can and then analyse andpresent- his conclu-sions in a descriptive, narrative farm. Obviously,the reliability of a case study will depend on-the per-.son doing it. When it is done properly:it can be veryuseful as a basis forluture action.oarthre part of theadministrator and practitioner andaraso for furtherdetailed investigation by remearcherz.

Another type ofresearchisthe;e=ariment. Thisusually involves a group of people:Al:1m- manageable

50

geographical unit (such as a village) to whomcertain kinds of messages are directed throughcertanti channels to find out what changes in attitudesand behaviour may occur as a result. When thisis done; the researcher would also like to have anoth-er village (called the control group) which willnotreceive this special treatment. By comparing thetw.0 groups at the end of the experiment, he will beBible to tell, what effect these particular messagessent through particular media have had. In otherwords, he -can judge the efficacy of messages andmedia..

The uFattulness of pre-testing has alreadybeerireferred to, This technique, which is of great im-portprpreto administrator and practitioner alike, isthe sdrmpte testing of information materials beforethey areLduplicated or produced in large quantitiesand distributed. The tests are done on a small num-ber of. apple who are typical of the kind of audiencethe rnammial being tested is aimed at.

..Theway in which-such a small group is selected(sa o the way invihich the questions are askedand gprstiormaires arre administered, the way thelarraLaiitaitais collected, collated and analysed areliktaills;whichwe will not go into. They will requirelangthydiscussion. Besides, there .are some fairlybalrerespqrch materials which will give the interes-ted-practitioner and administrator an adequate intro-duction to mass communication research techniques.

BIBLIOGRAPHY*

BERELSON, Bernard ed.Reader in public opiniorrand communication, EditedbyBernardBerelson and Morris Janowitz. 2nd ed.,6th imprsn. , New York, Free Press, 1967.CHRISTIANSEN, ArthurHeadlines all my life. London, Heinemann, 1961.DEXTER, Lewis Anthony ed.People, society and:mass communication. Editedby Lewis A. Dexter and David Manning White.New York, Free Press, 1968.DE FLEUR, Melvin L.Theories of mass communication. 2nd ed. , NewYork, David Mckay Co. 1970.

EDELSTEIN, Alex S.Perspectives in mass communication. Kobenhavn,Einar Harcks Forlag, 1966.FRIENDLY, Fred W.Due to circumstances beyond our control. NewYork, Vintage Books, 1968.GOLDISH, Sidney. S."How editors use research on the Minneapolis dai-lies'", Journalism Quarterly v. 37, No. 31960.p. 365-372.HALLORAN, J. D.The effects of mass communication; with specialreference to television; a-survey. Leicester, Lei-cester University Press, 1965.HANCOCK, AlanMass communication. London, Longmans, 1968.

HOVLAND, Carl I.Communication and persu:asion; psychological stud-ies of opinion change. By-Carl I. Hovland, IrvingL. Janis and Harold H. Kelley. 11th imprsn.,New Haven, Yale University Press, 1968.HOVLAND, Carl. I.Experiments on mass communication. By Carl I.Hovland, Arthur A. Lumsdaine and Fred D. Shef-field. Vol. 3. New York, John Wiley &Sons, 1965.

KATZ, Daniel ed.Public opinion and:propagol-, ladited by DanielKatz, Dorwin Cartwri2ht llotx.F,Dttnekrs. New York,Holt, Rinehart and Winatmal,T954.

KLAPPER, Joseph,The effects of massrrrrnTrIromtaugudon. New York,Free Press, 1969.LANE, Robert E.Public opinion. By Reitenzi_ Lane and David 0.Sears. 2nd ixnprsn., meoctliCliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1965.

LAZARSFELD, Paul E.The people's choice; how,71--mirser makes up hismind in a presidential. czmxpaszo,44. By Paul F. Laz-arsfeld, Bernard Berelsatuvit!MazelGaudet. 3rdimprsn., New York, Coliartie,-7"---i;Pniversity Press,1968.

LERNER, Daniel ed.Communication and charx ,±Leadeveloping coun-tries. Edited by' aniel Lernammanad-Wilbur Schramm.2nd irnprsn., Honolulu, "Fixst-..Z.Mest Center Press,1969.

This is a short and highly-selected list of books.They have been selected partly because of theirintelligent and impressive treatment of the va-ried aspects of mass communication and partlybecause of their provenabilityto hold the atten-tion of the practitioner. A=few of them whichmay not meet these,qualifb=tions are there be-cause their contents tra-weacnntributed to thisbook.

Many of the books_ included in this list areanthologies and the practitioner can choose theparticular aspects of mass communication thathe wants to read about. tr-TP will also find moreextensive references in them - if he wants toread further.

NAFZIGER, Ralph 0. ed.Introduction to mass communications research.Edited by Ralph 0. Nafziger and David M. 'White.2nd ed. Baton Rouge, Louisiana State UniversityPress, 1968.PETERSON, TheodoreThe mass media and modern society. By TheodorePeterson, Jay W. Jensen and William L. Rivers.New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965.RAO, Y. V. LakshmanaCommunication and development; a study of twoIndian Villages. Minneapolis, University of Min-nesota Press, 1966.RESTON, JamesThe artillery of the press; its influence on Ameri-can foreign policy. New York, Published for theCouncil on Foreign. Relations by Harper & Row,1967.

RIVERS L. WilliamResponsibility in mass communication. By WilliamL. Rivers and Wilbur Schramm. New York, Harper& Row, 1969.

ROGERS, Everett M..Diffusion of innovations. 7th imprsn. , New York,Free Press, 1969.SCHRAMM, WilburMass media and national development; the role ofinformation in the developing countries. Stanford,Stanford University Press, 1964.SCHRAMM, Wilbur ed.The process and effects of mass communication.4th imprsn. , Urbana, University of Illinois Press,1960.

SCHRAMM, Wilbur ed.The science of human communication; new direc-tions and new findings in communication research.6th imprsn., New York, Basic Books, 1963.SCHRAMM, WilburTelevision in the lives of our children. By WilburSchramm, Jack Lyle and Edwin B. Parker. Stan-ford, Stanford University Press, 1961.SKORNIA, Harry J.Television and society; an inquest and agenda forimprovement. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co.,1965.

SOMMERLAD E. LloydThe press in developing countries. Sydney, SydneyUniversity Press, 1966.SUMMERS, Robert E.Broadcasting and the public. By Robert E, Summersand. Harrison B. Summers. California, Wads-worth Publishing Co. , 1966.

TANKARD, James W."Communication researchers, speak up! " TheQuill.August, 1968. p. 14-15.Time. "Whor s afraid of big, bad TV?" 23 November,1970. p. 40-49.WOLSELEY, Roland E.Understanding magazines. 2nd ed. Ames, IowaState University Press, 1969.WRIGHT, Charles R.Mass communication; a sociological perspective.14th imprsn., New York, Random House, 1968.

Argent inaAustralis

AustriaBelgium

BoliviaBrazil

-BulgariaBurma

CameroonCanadaCeylon

ChileColombia

Congo (People'sRepublic of)

Costa RicaCuba

CyprusCzechoslovakia

DahomeyDenmark

Arab 130'11)11cof EgyptEthiopiaFinlandFrance

French West IndiesGermany (Fed- Rep.)

Ghana

GreeceHong Kong

Ilungary

IcelandIndia

IndonesiaI ranIraq

IrelandIsrael

ItalyJamaica

JapanKenya

KhmerRepublicKorea

KuwaitLiberia

LibyaLitxembourg

MalaysiaMalta.

. MauritiusMexico

MonacoNetherlands

Netherlands AntillesNew Caledonia

New Zealand

NigerNigeria

Norway

Pakistan

Peru

PhilippinesPoland

PortugalSouthern Rhodesia.

RomaniaSenegal

SingaporeSouth Africa

UNESCO Pi:1131.10ATIONS: NATMNAL DISTRillurro RsEditorial ims.la, S.A., Alsina 1131.1itT.NosPagicarians: fMticatiunal Supplies Pty. Box 33. fast Office. Brookvale 2100. Periodicall:1)a.niniv Pty. Ltd.. Box 33, Post Office, Brookval6 aioo, N.SAV, Sub.,L:ent: United Nations Associationof Australia. Victorian Division, 4th Floor, Askew !louse, 364 1,0t1Sdale St.. MELBOURNE (Victoria) 3000.Verlag Georg Fro:nine & Co., Arbeitergasse t -7. 1051 WIFNJean De Lannny, t t 2, rue du Trine. 131tuXEla.rx 5.Libreria Universiearia, Unicersidad San Francisco Xavier, :ma rtado 212, Sortie.

Vargas, Sc rvico de Pul ilic:10es. caixa postal at i20 l'r:tia tie Botafogo IBF, Rio or. JANEIRO,

Iletnus, K:mtora Literaturn, bd.. Rousky 6. SOFIJA.Trade Corporation n." (9). 550-552 :Merchant Street, RANOOC1N.Librairie Richard, 13.P. 4017, YaouNnO.Information Canada, OTTAWA (OM).Lake I louse Bookshop, Sir Chittampalam Gardiner Mawata, P.O. Box 244, CoLomno 2.Editorial Univerdearia, S.A., Casino 10220, SANTLAGo.Libreria Buccholz Galeria, avenida. Jimenez de Quesada 8-40. apartado aereo 49-56, BoutrrA; Dist rilihrosLida., Pio Alfonso (Garcia, carrera 4t, n"' 36 -119 y 36-125. CARrmiEs,A; J. °cumin Brulriatic2 N., Calle17, 6-59, anal-ratio nacional 83, GIB sellar (Cundinamarea). Editorial Losa,I2 Ltda., Calle ISA, n." 7-37,apartado adreo 5829. apartado nacional 931. linest)TA. .'sub-depols; I Iilirio 1,4 Ceiba,

Li bud rie populairc, 13.1'. 577, BRAZZAVILLE.

()Iici"a NIetiellinCalle 37. n."14-73 Oficina, 305, l31.'011AA1ANGS; Edificio Zaceour, Oficina 736, CALI.

Likrerla Trejos S.A., -apartado 1313, SAN .105f. Telffunos: 22R5 y 3200,Distribuidora Nacional tie Publicaciones. Nepluno 674, LA HABANA

Archbishop Makarios 3rd Avenue, P.O. Box t722 Nicosia,SNTI., Spalena 51, PRAHA II (Permanent display) ; Zit branicni lit eratura, t 1 Sookenicka, PRAHA 1.Far .51 (wad,' only NnklailatelSivo Alfa. I lu rhanovo nom 6 linATtsi.AvA.Librairie nationale. 13.P. 294. PcntTo Novo.

Einar' Munksgaard Ltd., 6 Norregade 1165 14111ENIIAVN K.Librairie Kasr El Nil. 36. rile Kasr Ill Nil, 1.1e CAIRE National Centre for Unesco Publications. -1 TlaaatHarh Street, '.I'rthrir Square, CAIRO.National Commission for Unesco. P.O. Box 2096, Aunts ABABA.Akateeminen Kirjakauppa, 2 Keskuskatu, HELSINKI.Librairie de l'Unesco, place de Fontenoy, 75 l'Aftts-7*. CCP 12508-48.

.

Librairie Felix Conseil, I1 rue Perrtnon. FORT-DE-FRANCE (Martinique).Verlag Dokumentation, Postfach 148, Jaiserstrasse 13, 8023, NIONCHEN-Put.l.acIl. 'The Courier (Germanedition only): Bahrenf elder Chaussee 16o, HAMBURC-13.411RENFELD. CCP 27 05o,Presbyterian Bookshop Depot Ltd P.O. Box 1.95. Accaa; Ghana Book Suppliers l.td., P.O. Box 7860,AcCRA; The University Bookshop of Ghana. ACCRA; The University Bookshop of Cape Coast ; The Uni-versity Bookshop of Legon, P.O. Box t, 1.800N.Librairie H. 1<auffinann. 28, rue du Stade, ATIIIINA1:Librairie Eleft he roudakis, Nikkis 4. .ATIIENal.Swindon Book Co., t3-t5 Lock Road, Kowt.00N.Akaderniai Konyvesholt Vaci ti 22. leppApr.si: V.A.K.V. Kiinyvtarosok 13oltja, N6pkeiztarsaseig tufa r6, BUDAPEST Vt.Snaehjeirn Jonsson & Co. LI, F., Rif must raet i 9, REVKIAVIK.Orient Lomunans Ltd,: Nicol Road, Ballard Estate, BOMUAV 17 Chliearanian Avenue, CM.CuTTA 13;36n Mount Road, MADRAS 2; 3/5 Asaf All Road, Ntew DELHI r, .Sub-depots: (Ward Book & StationeryCo., t7.Park Street, CALcurrA 16; and Seindia Ilouse, NEW DE1.111; Publications Section, Ministry of Edu-cation and Ynuth Services. 72 Theatre Communication Building, Connaught Place, NEW DFI,Iti 1.Indira P.T.. Di'. Dr. Sam Ratulangic 37. DIAKARTA,

nationale iranienne.nour FUnesco, 1/154. avenue Roosevelt, II.P, 1533, TbtfltAN'.McKenzie's Bookshop, Al-Rashid Street, BAGHDAD; University Bookstore, University of 13aglacind, P.O.

75, ..AMIDAD,'Pile National Press, 2 Wellington Road, Balishridge, Drnt.tN 4.Emanuel Brown. formerly Illumstein's Bookstores: 35 Allenby Road and 48 Nachlat Benjamin Street, Tel.Aviv; 9 Siffornzion I faronlka Street, JERUSALEM.LICOSA (Libreria Comtnissionaria Sansoni S.p.A.).. via Laronfreort 45, (Insulin postale 552, 50121 FIRENZE.Sangster's Book Stores Ltd P.O. 13ox 366, lot Water Lime, KINGSTON.Maruzen Co. Ltd., P.O. Box 5o5o, Tokyo International. TOKYO.'Phe ESA Ltd., P.O. Box 30167, NAIROBI;Librarie Albert Portal', t4. avenue 13oulloche. PHNOM-PI:NILKorean National Commissioil for Unesco, P.O. Box Cent ral 64, SEOUL.The Kuwait Bookshop Co. Ltd, P.O. Box 2e.y.-t,Cole & Vane,/ Bookshops Ltd., P.O. Box 286. NIoNHOVII.Agency for Development or Publication and Distribution, P.O. Box 34-35, Tamot.I.Librairie Paul Bruck, 22 Grande-Rue, LUXEMBOURG.Federal Publications Sdn. Bhd.. Bahl Barka, 31 Jalan Riong, Kuat.s LUMPUR.Sapienza's Library, 26. Kingsway, VALLETTA.Nalanda Co. Ltd, 3o Bourbon Street. Pc-mi.-Louts.CILA (Centro Interamerican6 de Libros AcadOmicos), Sullivan 31 Six, Ml'XICO 4, DFBritish Library, 30, boulevard des Moulins, MoNTE-CAnt,o.N.V, Mareinus Nijhoff, Lange Voorbout 0, 'sOttAvEN)IAGE.G.C..T..Van Dorp & Co, (Ned. Ant,) N.V., W1LLEmsTAn (Curacao, N.A.).Reprex S.A.R.L., B.P. 1572, NOUNIt.A.Government Printing Office, Government Bookshops: -Rutland Street, P.O. BioAxm5H3T40414:AUCKLAND; 13oOxford Terrace.. P.O. box..1721, CHRISTCHURCH; Alnut.Street, P.O. Box 857, 1 Princes Street,P.O. Box 1104. DUNEDIN; Mulgrave Street. Private Bag, WELUNCION.Librairie Manclert,' B.P. 868, NIAMEY.The University Bookshop of lie: The University Bookshop of lbadati, P.O. Box 256,1EADAN; The Universityof Nsukka; The University Bookshop of Lagos., The Ahmadu Bello University Bookshop of Zarin.All publications: Johan Grundt Tanum (Booksellers), 1<arl johansgate 43, OS1.0 1. 'The Courier only :At'S Narvesens. Line raturjeneste, Brix 6:25. Oslo 6.The \Vest-Pak Publishing Co. 1,1,1., Unesco Publications House, P.O. Box 374, G.P.O., LAHORE.Shotoronnu:Urdu Bazaar, LAHORE, and. 57 -58' Monet Highway. G/6-1, ISLAaIARAD, Pakistan PublicationsBookshop Sanwa r Road. 13.Awm,PINtil: Pa ribagli, .DACCA.'The Cattiier' sell':. Editorial Losada Pertiana,apartodo 472. 1.IMn. Other publications: Distribuidora IncaS.A., Emilio. Althatis .470-Lince. ca silly 3T iS,The Modern Book Co., 926 Rind Avenue, P.O. Box 632. MANILA.Osrodek Rozpowzechniania WyelaWnictw Naukows/cli PAN, Palac Kultury i Nauki, WARSZAWA.Dias & Andrade Ltda., Libraria Portugal. rua o Carmo 70. LISBOA.Textbook Sales (PVT)- Ltd 67 Union Avenue, SALISBURY.I.C.E. LITIRL-Calelt Virtorici; no. 126. P.O. Box 134-1 35. ItucuRETt.La Maison du Livne. i 3. avenue Bourne, B.P. 20-6o. DAKAR; Librairie Clairafrique, B.P. zoos, DAKAR;Librairie 'he Sonegal% B.P. 1594. DAKAR.Federal Publications Sdn 13hd., Times House, River Valley Road. SINGAPORE 9.Van Schaik's Bookstnre (Pty.) Ltd., Libri Building. Church Street. P.O. Box 724. PRETORIA.

Spain

SudanSweden

SwitzerlandTanzaniaThailand

Togo

TurkeyUganda

U.S.S.R.United Kingdom

United StatesUpper Volta

Venezuela

Yugoslavia 'Republic of Zaire

411 nuhlirationc: Edirinnea fbel.arnerica.fs, S.A., calle de (Mate v5, MAnain 20; DistribuciOn dePubliracinnes del Consejo Superior de fnvestigaciones Cientificas, Vitrubio 16, MAnain 6; Libreria delConsejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Egipciacas is, BARCELONA. For 'The Courier' only:Ediciones L.iher, apartado t7, ONDARROA (Viscava).Al Bashir Bookshop. P.O. Box r 118, KUARTOUM.All Publications: AID, C.E. Fritzes Kungl. liovbokhandel. Fredsgatan z, Bnx 16356, 103 27 STOCHFIOLMr6. For 'The Courier': Svenska FN- Fiirbundet, Vasagatan 15, IV. tot 23 STOCKHOLM t. Postgiro 18 46 92.Europa Verlag, Rarnistrasse 5, ZURICH; Librairie Payot, 6, rue Grenus. 1211 GENtAT /1.Dar ec Salaam Bookshop, P.O. Box 1)030. DAR F9 SALAAM.Suksapan Panit, Mansion 9, Rajdamnern Avenue, BANGKOK.Librairie evang6lique. B.P. 378; I.Owt; Librairie du Bon Pasteur, B.P. r tfi.t, Lott; Librairie moderne,

BLIPb.rai7r7, rie7Htt'°chmelie, 469 fstiklal Caddesi, BeVog111, ISTANRUL.Uganda Bookshop, P.O. Box

4Merhdunarodnaja Kniga, Mosz1vA5, KANl ALA.G-2ol'o.H.M. Stationery Office, P.O. Box 569, 1.olvnoN SE1 ntiii; Government bookshops: London, Belfast,Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, F.dinhurgh, Manchester.Unescn Publications Center P.O. Box 433, New York, N.Y. toot6.Librairie Attie. B.P. 64, Ouagadougou, Lihrairie catholique 'Jeunesse d'Afrique', OuAcAnoucou.Libreria Historia, Monjas a Padre Sierra, Edifieio Oeste 2. n.° 6 (frenre al Capitolio), apartado de correos7120-101, CARACAS.jUgocloVencka Knjiga. Terazije 27, IlEnonAn, Drzavna Zaluzha Slovenije Mestni Trg. 26, LJUBLIANALa Lihrairie. instivut politique'congolais, B.P. 2307, KirrstiAsA. Commission nationals de la Republiquedu Zaire pour l'Unesco, Ministi.re de Peducation natinnale. KINSHASA.

US. $1.50 ; 45p ; 6 FPlus taxes, if applicable[B.2991]