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Development Communication 4

Modernization theory posits that traditional societies will inevitably transition to modern, industrialized societies through exposure to Western culture, values, and media. Daniel Lerner presented this theory in his 1958 book, arguing that disseminating Western ideas via mass media could accelerate development by shaping people's attitudes and behaviors. He studied villagers in Turkey and found those exposed to Western media exhibited more "modern" personalities and values oriented around social change and progress. While influential, modernization theory has been criticized for being overly Western-centric and for ignoring local contexts and global power dynamics that influence development.

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Tanmay Mahajan
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45 views

Development Communication 4

Modernization theory posits that traditional societies will inevitably transition to modern, industrialized societies through exposure to Western culture, values, and media. Daniel Lerner presented this theory in his 1958 book, arguing that disseminating Western ideas via mass media could accelerate development by shaping people's attitudes and behaviors. He studied villagers in Turkey and found those exposed to Western media exhibited more "modern" personalities and values oriented around social change and progress. While influential, modernization theory has been criticized for being overly Western-centric and for ignoring local contexts and global power dynamics that influence development.

Uploaded by

Tanmay Mahajan
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Modernisation theory

Development is an integral value loaded cultural process.


It encompasses the natural environment, social relations,
education, production, consumption and well being.
The term progress, development and modernisation refer to
a single historical phenomena i.e. transition from an agrarian
(farming) to an industrial society.
How to do development and
Why the development efforts of developing countries do not
equate with the development in these countries?
Early approaches promotion of media toward
modernization, through individual change (such as
empathy, advanced by Lerner).

Mass media transformation for poor countries made


possible by embracing western manufacturing technology,
political structures, values, and systems of mass
communication.

Technological changes

Wilbur Schramm & Daniel Lerner


Daniel Lerner - American scholar
Modernization theory(1958)
Lerner three types or categories of people and
nations—the traditional, the transitional, and the modern.
Western values and ideas disseminated by Western mass
media
Middle East from traditional and primitive nations into
countries with modern forms of social, economic, and
political organization.
“The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle
East” - psychosocial theory of Modernization.
Research - whether people in the Middle East were listening
to Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts
The book was a study based six countries—Egypt, Iran,
Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Syria
Respondents- living conditions, their opinions on politics and
foreign countries, their use of mass media, their level of
happiness, and their basic demographic characteristics.
Lerner's book
“The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing
the Middle East”

communication as an instrument to accelerate


development

Industrialisation literacy media exposure

Economic and political participation


The Village Chief and the Grocer
Balgat Turkey played a critical role in shaping American ideas about the use of
mass media and US cultural products to promote economic and social
development in post-colonial nations.
Lerner presented the Chief as hopelessly parochial, judging all issues and
events from the perspective of his “traditional virtues” and possessing
old-fashioned wisdom.
Grocer- brimming with opinions

“traditional,” whose personalities were constricted by backwardness and


a narrow range of experiences
Transitional Personality
Grocers- "transitional personality," restlessness would unsettle
established orders and lifeways, hastening the advent of Modernity.
Transitional, an ambivalent group who exhibited some
traditional and some modern orientations.
When Lerner first visited Balgat in 1954 he found the village
transformed.
A new road and bus line, as well as municipal water and electricity,
made it a suburb of the capital.
The chief's sons were now grocers and the original grocer was dead
but remembered as a prophet.
What is modern?
“Modern,” who were already more or less pro-western;
Lerner’s modernization theory- any nation could be modern.
No nation was destined to be traditional and backward.
A nation’s citizens had only to emulate the actions and ideas
of people in the Western nations.
Western norms and adapt to the “new ways” of the modern
West were not deemed naturally or genetically incapable of
change but thought to be unsteadily by backwardness
characterized by traditional cultural practices.
"it is modernization, not capitalism that accounts for the basic
shape of social mobility in Western societies.
"Regarding such massive movements in the West due to
people's search for a better life,
Lerner stresses that they "became intimate with the idea of
change by direct experience.

Physical mobility brings about social mobility


and with it "came into operation a 'system' of bourgeois
values that embraced social change as normal.
Idea of projection, the notion that mass media content could help
certain listeners project themselves into unfamiliar roles and
surroundings

Mass communication was the key factor in helping traditional


societies to become modern.
Lerner theorized that radio, television, magazines, and newspapers were
important catalysts of the modernization process.
Empathy, a key psychosocial factor in the modernization,

Audience members with highly empathic personalities –


those who could easily imagine themselves in different
circumstances – would begin to think and behave in ways
transform their countries from traditional societies to
modern ones modeled primarily on the United States.
Modernization involved multiple shifts:
Economy: Shift to higher levels of industrialization
Institutions: Rise of modern government, legal systems,
education systems, etc.
People: Creation of “modern” persons
Shift away from “traditional values”: belief in traditional
religion, local culture
Shift toward: belief in rationality/science, focus on
achievement/competition, etc.
The process of modernization could be accelerated
Economy: Transfer of new technology and economic aid to
poor countries.
Institutions: Efforts to encourage poor countries to establish
“modern” government institutions

People: Efforts to make people “modern”

Inculcate “modern” values, instead of local culture…


Modernization Theory Criticisms:

1. It is very “Eurocentric” / Western-centric

Assumes that the West represents the ideal


The “peak” of an evolutionary process
De-values other societies, cultural traditions
2 Modernization theory focuses on a single country,
ignores global dynamics
Assumes that the experience of poor countries today is
same as Europe in the past…
Ignoring the growth of the global economy
Assumes that success/failure is due to internal factors
Rather than relation to others: domination & competition.
Walt Whitman Rostow(1960)
Presented five steps through which all countries must pass to become
developed.
western capitalist countries- industrialized and urbanized.
Rostow’s model illustrates a desire not only to assist lower-income countries
in the development.
PREMISES OF THE STAGES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

Lack of adequate investment.


The financial gap exists.
Rostow’s five Stages of economic Development
Criticism

Has a strong bias towards a western model of modernization.

Assumes that all countries follow the same route of


development.

Doesn’t look at variations within a country.

Assumes that each country is economically and politically free.

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