It is obvious, therefore, that, for good or bad, international intercourse made possible through the ever-expanding channels of communication has indeed led to a certain amount of commonness and uniformity through the printed media, even as it has led to the same result through the non-print media.

One must note, however, that insofar as the developing countries are concerned, this commonness and uniformity, internationally speaking, have so far been generally confined to small minorities-minorities which are well educated and relatively high up in the socio-economic scale. It is only a matter of time before these tastes, these values and beliefs, percolate downward and begin to affect the majorities. This will happen as intra-national communication networks begin to function as effectively as the international channels perform today. The tragedy in many of the developing countries is that it is easier, in both a practical and a psychological sense, for a person in a capital city to communicate with London or Paris or New York or Moscow than with someone in a smaller town or rural community in his own country.

The recognition of this phenomenon in the developing countries has been fairly recent. Fears are being expressed openly by the leaders in these countries that the process has already gone so far that it cannot be reversed. The question now is: should efforts be made in fact to reverse it, or is it the inevitable result of development and modernization? After all, these are, in most cases, the same leaders who only a few years ago not only recognized the need for international intercourse but also insisted upon it. The price, if indeed it is a price, had to be paid. If pressures are growing for a reversal of the process, these pressures are being exerted, by and large, by the senior citizens, to whom such change has perhaps been too rapid for adjustment and too intense for emotional comfort. Where such a feeling of going too far has been felt by the leaders. themselves, it is very political in nature, and only social and cultural to a lesser degree. Foreign investment, welcomed in other fields, has been seen as a threat-a political threat-when it impinges upon the media. There has been a growing concern about expatriates owning and/or operating the media, for fear that public sentiment may be swayed in favor of political ideologies repugnant to the basic tenets of the present leaders.

One of the more cogent arguments of the leaders of developing countries today is that political stability is perhaps more important than political philosophy-and especially the freedoms that go with it-and that a country cannot afford the luxury of a clash of ideas or a clash of interests while it is dealing with the more fundamental problems of food and shelter.

As far as the printed media are concerned, the pressure is toward more conformity-not conformity with international standards or international symbols but with national aspirations, with national needs and national priorities, and therefore with national governments. The printed media

therefore are standing today amid a great deal of talk about international intercourse, and are on the brink of disaster, for the very reason that in their shortsighted quest for internationalism-admittedly propounded by their own national leadership at an earlier stage-they are paying the price for neglecting their own national roles.

It has been said repeatedly in the literature of communication that a country's media networks and media content are but a reflection of the country's own structure, its own values, beliefs, and aspirations, and its own stage of development. To the extent that the printed media are in the throes of intellectual ferment, they do reflect the mood of their countries. The media as producers have been found wanting; the media as importers have been shortsighted. By importing material to satisfy their own immediate needs and by not making efforts meanwhile to develop their own production capacities, they are in danger of neither producing nor being allowed to import further.

The implication of such a state of affairs, viewed from an international point of view, propagandistic or otherwise, is frightening. This discussion has dealt with the problem deliberately and almost exclusively from the point of view of the developing countries because the more developed countries have had such intercourse for a long time and have built their own safeguards and their own forms of attack. The United States and the Soviet Union, for example, have worked out a fairly convenient way of exchanging publications, such as America Illustrated and Soviet Life. The number of copies, the content, and the like, are all fairly well standardized. No overtly propagandistic material is permitted, but each knows what type of content may subtly influence the readers.

The developing countries are new at this game. But they are beginning to learn the rules and it would be a great shame if, because of their own lack of experience and lack of foresight, they were to stop playing the game altogether. Propaganda used in its broadest and healthiest connotation can add greatly to a society's education and experience. The political aspects of it can perhaps be controlled if all parties concerned can achieve some kind of understanding in a spirit of give and take. But to lose sight of the social and cultural advantages accruing from international exchange of information, and so to reject them, is tantamount to throwing out the baby with the bath water.

In his oft-quoted discussion on Political Propaganda, Barlett said as long ago as 1940 that

today propaganda is in the air and on it. There is no escaping from its insistent voice. Even were it only half as effective as it is often claimed to be its power would be enormous. It is at work to fashion the education of the child, the ambitions of youth, the activities of the prime of life, and it pursues the aged to the grave.1

It is this fear of propaganda, right or wrong, that the leadership in the developing countries shares.

NOTES

1. "The Aims of Political Propaganda," Daniel Katz, et al., editors, Public Opinion and Propaganda (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1954), p. 464.

EVALUATING FILMS FOR DEVELOPMENT*

BY TULSI BHATIA SARAL

A qualitiative evaluation of film effectiveness in communicating development principles.

In order to be able to criticize or evaluate . . . films [in the international development process] we must first be clear in our minds about the goals and purposes we want these films to serve in the process of development.

We must, for example, determine decisively whether we want the films to inform people about what is happening in their villages, or whether we want the films to be consciously used as instruments of change to facilitate acceptance of new ideas. Do we want the films to serve as tools for imparting new skills and techniques, or do we want them simply to provide recreation in the otherwise dull and monotonous life of the village? Are our films to serve the villagers, the elected village leaders, the paid government workers employed for development work at the village and block levels, or the rare elite, usually far-removed from the realities of village-life but unfortunately actively involved in the decision-making processes affecting the very future of the village-community? These, and a host of similar questions need to be posed, thoroughly studied, and satisfactorily answered before any systematic and serious attempt to formulate evaluation procedures for developmental films can be made. THE EXPECTATIONS

Odd as it may appear, the exact role of films in development has never been clearly specified. All of us engaged in development work all over the world, in our sacred enthusiasm, assume that the communication process is basic to development, diffusion of innovations and modernization, and that if we are to succeed in sparking the expansion of the productivity of underdeveloped nations, we must somehow become more effective communicators. We also assume that of the mass media readily available or commissionable in developing countries, film is the most effective (it has moving pictures, combined sight and sound, has a novel appeal, etc.) and has the potential to cut across the language and cultural barriers.

Without ever caring to test any of these seemingly sound yet vague and rather general assumptions, production units all over the world have been spending vast sums of money turning out movies on development and related topics, and development agencies-governmental, nongovernmental, national, international-have been helping finance their large-scale production and distribution in the remotest parts of the world, wishfully thinking that once the people come out of their shells and

*Excerpts from "Evaluating Films for Development," International Development Review, VIII, No. 4 (December 1966), pp. 39-41. Reprinted with the permission of The Society for International Development, copyright holder.

countries-people sit in front of the "boob tube" for about two hours daily, which in the United States amounts to about 40 percent of their leisure time. They generally watch, not because they have favorite programs, but because they have nothing better to do. There is little televiewing in the morning or during the daytime, even in those relatively few countries that have extensive daytime programing.

As for radio listening, in the twelve countries surveyed, this has become almost entirely a "secondary" occupation; people listen while driving their cars, doing the housework, eating, shaving, and so forth. In the countries covered, time spent listening to the radio in 1966 varied from thirty-six minutes a day in West Germany through one hour in the United States and up to an hour and forty-eight minutes in Czechoslovakia.

It is obvious that, at the very least, nighttime radio listening is bound to be affected-has probably already been seriously affected-by the growth of TV in the urban areas of East and West Europe and in Latin America, as well as in Japan, the United States, and Canada. People don't very often watch television and listen to the radio simultaneously. This does not necessarily mean, however, that the total number of people listening to radio is decreasing, or that the aggregate amount of time spend listening to radio is falling off. Nor does it mean, necessarily, that there is less listening to international radio, even in the urban areas affected.

WHO LISTENS TO INTERNATIONAL RADIO?

There were about 370 million radios in the world outside of the United States in 1970; of these, approximately one-third can tune short-wave. There were an additional 275 million sets in the United States, of which only two million could tune short-wave. By 1980, the world's population will have increased by 1.3 billion, while the number of radios-and the number of short wave sets-is expected to double. Per-capita radio listening in the United States and West Europe will probably remain steady. As the transistor revolution continues, hundreds of millions of people who have seldom had access to the radio in the past will begin listening regularly-in the rural areas of Latin America, even in the outback of Siberia and Soviet Central Asia."

As far as Asia and Africa are concerned, with the major exception of Japan, radio will remain communications king during the seventies and beyond. In China, “radio has become a crucial Maoist tool of mobilization." The late Gamal Abdul Nasser, as he was launching the remarkable expansion of Radio Cario, wrote:

It is true that most of our people are still illiterate. But politically that counts far less than it did 20 years ago. Radio has changed everything.... Today, people in the most remote villages hear of what is happening everywhere and form their opinion. Leaders cannot govern as they once did. We live in a new world."

Noting United Nations predictions that Asia and Africa have a long time to go before they have enough newspapers and cinemas, Wilbur Schramm writes that "the picture points to the importance of radio in the decade ahead."10

In considering the future audience of listeners specifically to international radio, it is important to keep a number of factors in mind. Already mentioned is the fact that many international broadcasters cover vast areas with strong medium-wave signals, as well as by short wave. Also important—and this often comes as a surprise to Americans—is the widespread use of short wave outside the United States. Many countries, particularly very large ones like the USSR, China, India, the Congo, and Brazil, make extensive use of short wave for domestic broadcasting, since it constitutes the cheapest means of covering widespread areas. Broadcasting in Indonesia, a land of thousands of islands stretched over three thousand miles of water, is almost exclusively via short-wave. Most would be inclined to think that the cost of 729 hours of English-language programs broadcast via short-wave to North America every week is money down the drain, but even here it is claimed that some one million Americans listen with some regularity and that they are, in fact, influenced by what they hear. 11

WHY DO THEY LISTEN?

Signal strength and frequency aside, people listen to foreign radio to get something they don't get from their domestic media. This may be certain types of entertainment, such as Western jazz and pop music. They may listen out of sympathy for political views barred at home, or simply "to get the other fellow's point of view." Major Western broadcasters are convinced, however, that the primary motive is the desire often the need-for timely, accurate, objective information, which the domestic media of most of their target countries fail to provide. After the 1968 imposition of censorship in Brazil, for example, Agence France Presse reported that the BBC and VOA had become the sole reliable sources of news on events in Brazil itself. "It is not rare in Brasilia," said the AFP dispatch of December 20, 1968, "to see officials desert receptions and return home to listen to the British and American radio." Although scientific surveys are scarce, evidence is sufficient that people in Communist countries will go to the trouble of listening to jammed broadcasts that are only fifteen minutes long in order to get information denied to them by their own media. 12 Other means of international communication can be controlled by government authorities but radio broadcasting, as the BBC's External Services Director, Oliver Whitley, has said, "cannot be confiscated, or refused a visa, or burnt in the public square.

"13

For Communist broadcasters, providing the current line to the party faithful may take precedence over building up a listening audience among those who thirst for objective information. 14 At any rate, available surveys almost always show Moscow, Peking, and other communist stations