Modernization theory

Modernization theory

The discipline’s first paradigm, modernization theory, emerged in the 1950s to describe modern transformations of social life. This evolu­tiona­ry theory asserts that underdeveloped nations can ‘modernize’ and develop to the same extent as ‘modern’ countries. Modernization theory arose from the notion that international mass communication could be used to spread the message of modernity and transfer the economic and political models of the West to the newly independent countries of the South. Communications research on what came to be known as 'modernization' or 'develop­ment theory' was based on the belief that the mass media would help transform traditional societies. This promedia bias was very influential and re­­ceived support from international organizations such as UNESCO and by the governments in developing countries. One of the earliest exponents of this theory was Daniel Lerner, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose classic work in the field, The Passing of Traditional Society (1958) - the product of research conducted in the early 1950s in Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iran - examined the degree to which people in the Middle East were exposed to national and international media, especially radio. In this first major comparative survey, Lerner proposed that contact with the media helped the process of transition from a 'traditional' to a 'moderni­zed' state, charac­terizing the mass media as a 'mobility multiplier', which enables individuals to experience events in far-off places, forcing them to reassess their traditional way of life. Exposure to the media, Lerner argued, made traditional societies less bound by traditions and made them aspire to a new and modern way of life.

Another key modernization theorist Wilbur Schramm, at the time Director of the Institute for communication Research at Stanford Univer­sity, California, whose influential book, Mass Media and National Development, was published in 1964 in conjunction with UNESCO, saw the mass media as a 'bridge to a wider world', as the vehicle for transferring new ideas and models from the North to the South and, within the South, from urban to rural areas.

This top-down approach to communications, a one-way flow of information from government or international development agencies via the mass media to Southern peasantry at the bottom, was generally seen as a panacea for the development of the newly independent countries of Asia and Africa. But it was predicated on a definition of development that followed the model of Western industrialization and 'moder­nization', measured primarily by the rate of economic growth of output or Gross National Product (GNP).

It failed to recognize that the creation of wealth on its own was insufficient: the improvement of life for the majority of the populations depended on the equitable distribution of that wealth and its use for the public good. It also failed to ask questions like development for whom and who would gain or lose, ignoring any discussion of the political, social, or cultural dimensions of development. In many Sou­thern countries, income disparities in fact increased over the succeeding thirty years - despite a growth in GNP. In many developing countries economic and political power was and remains restricted to a tiny, often unrepresentative, elite, and the mass media play a key role in legitimizing the political establishment. Since the media had, and continue to have, close proximity to the ruling elites, they tend to reflect this view of development in the news.

It is important to understand the Cold War context in which modernization theory emerged, a time when it was politically expedient for the West to use the notion of modernization to bring the newly independent nations of Asia, the Middle East and Africa into the sphere of capi­ta­lism. As Vincent Mosco comments: 'The theory of modernisation meant a reconstruction of the international division of labour amalga­ma­­ting the non-Western world into the emerging international structural hierarchy' (1996: 121). It is now being accepted that some of mo­der­nization research was politically motivated. It has been pointed out that Lerner's seminal study was a spin-off from a large and clan­des­tine government-funded audience research project, conducted for the Voice of America by the Bureau of Applied Social Research. Despite its enormous influence in the field of international communication, Lerner's research had more to do with the East-West ideological contest of those days of Cold War, when in the Middle East radical voices were demanding decolonization - Iran had nationalized its oil industry in 1951, leading to the CIA-backed coup, two years later, which removed the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Musaddiq. Given the prominence of radio propaganda during the 1950s, this research could also be seen as an investigation of radio listening behaviour in a region bordering the Soviet Union. In this context it is interesting to note that Lerner had worked for the Psychological Warfare Division of the US Army during the Second World War.

The crux of the matter, Lerner argued, was 'not whether, but how one should move from traditional ways toward modern life-styles. The symbols of race and ritual fade into irrelevance when they impede living desires for bread and enlightenment' (Lerner, 1958: 405). (The example from matrix movie).

Southern scholars, especially those from Latin America, argued that the chief beneficiaries of modernization programmes were not the 'traditional' rural poor in the South but Western media and communication companies, which had expanded into the Third World, ostensibly in the name of modernization and development, but in fact in search of new consumers for their products. They argued that modernization programmes were exacerbating the already deep social and economic inequalities in the developing countries and making them dependent on Western models of communication development. Partly as a result of the work of Latin American scholars, the proponents of moderniza­tion in the West acknowledged that the theory needed reformulation.

In fact, modernization theory has been subject to much criticism from both communist and capitalist thinkers, as well as world systems theorists, who assert that the adoption of Western values by developing countries is likely to bring about social disorganization and personal discontentment. Although modernization theory has lost much of its appeal and prominence among academics, Chalaby (2007: 64) stresses that the paradigm remains popular in development circles and that various United Nations agencies and nongovernmental organizations are involved in projects in the developing world incorporating information and communication technologies. Not surprisingly, modernization theory influenced many of the debates that took place in 2003, and again in 2005, when the international community was called upon to take part in a World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). This two-phase United Nations summit placed an unprecedented global spotlight on information and communication issues.