The Role of Media in Development

1. The Role of Media in Development

2. Topics to be discussed • Construction of national, regional and diasporic identity • Promotion of Cultural experience and exchange • Responding to cultural imperialism • Promotion and Defence of rights and citizens

3. Development vs. Growth Studies show that babies given no love will be stunted intellectually Babies that are shown love, simply being picked up and cuddled, have a better chance of developing normally.

4. Development Used to be about using the resources available to you to grow market share, increase exports and other measures leading to more profit Changed in 1987 with the introduction of Sustainability popularised by the Brundtland Report.

5. Sustainable Development Sustainable development is defined as, "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The needs of the world’s poor need to have overriding priority and the world’s environment is exhaustible and care needs to be taken in its use.

6. Media • Media, as we know it, is based on Communication, the sending and receiving of meaning through messages. • In ancient Egypt and China, human messenger on foot or horseback were a common means of communication. • Technology plays a big part in modern communication. Innovation, the creation of new technology and ways of looking at the world, fuels change. • Communication-based technologies have been creating changed in the techno-economic paradigm and affecting how businesses and institutions operate and how humans across the globe relate to each other.

7. Mass Media • The term, ‘mass media’ has had to undergo a few re-evaluations, particularly since the explosion of digital communication in the late 20th and 21st centuries. • Mass Media has become classified into 8 distinct areas, with possibilities for more being added in the future. • They are all characterized by content or messages being able to reach a wide number of receivers at the same time.

8. Print • Books used to be handwritten by monks until Gutenberg’s 15th century invention of foundry-cast movable metal type , known as the printing press, which allowed for newspapers and mass book printing. • The result was higher literacy rates and the de-classification of knowledge, which used to be strictly for the rich and religious.

9. Mass Media… • Recordings • These include gramophone records, magnetic tapes, cassettes, CDs, DVDs • Cinema • Cinematography, first known as ‘moving pictures’ became available by the turn of the 20th century. • Radio • In 1835 Samuel Morse invented Morse code which was followed by the first telegraph line in 1843. Marconi’s discovery of radio waves in the 19th century allowed radios to become popular by 1910.

10. Mass Media… • Television • available from about 1950, became a very popular medium, allowing visual media content to reach the home directly. • Internet • The computer is now one of preferred means of communication, facilitating the Internet with access to social media such as Facebook. • Mobile Phones • As content from the other media types are now available on cellular phones, and companies are able to utilize them as an advertising format, phones have been added to the mass media pantheon.

11. Cultural Imperialism

12. Cultural Imperialism • Culturalimperialism is defined as the cultural aspects of imperialism. Imperialism, here, is referring to the creation and maintenance of unequal relationships between civilizations favouring the more powerful civilization • Cultural imperialism can refer to either the forced acculturation of a subject population, or to the voluntary embracing of a foreign culture by individuals who do so of their own free will

13. In the Caribbean, an example of cultural imperialism would be Americanization of our culture (food, dress, speech, music, mores etc) derived mainly from the processing of American television accessed through cable, movies, books and magazines. • In the field of Communications, culture is seen as a product that is produced and consumed.

14. Cultural Imperialism… • Both cultural and media proponents of the Caribbean have noted the hegemony of American media content • The late Professor Rex Nettleford was one such person who once defined American media as: • “ the hijacking of the region’s media, the invasion of the Caribbean people’s intellectual space and the culural bombardment of the entire region by every means possible from North America…’. (Nettleford, Rex . 1993. Inward Stretch Outward Reach: A Voice from the Caribbean. London: MacMillan.)

15. Research • A 1995 study by Hilary Brown on the impact of American media on Jamaican youth revealed that while exposure to it would result in a wider and deeper knowledge of different events and phenomena due to access to foreign cultures, the exposure is also more likely to put a higher value on American living.

16. Research… • The study revealed that the youth investigated are seeking a better quality of life and alarmingly one in three believed that either the U.S or other foreign option were the means to the self actualization that they sought. • The study reinforced the need for local content that would help to preserve culture, language, religion, kinship patterns, ethnicity and artistic patterns.

17. Promotion of National, Regional and Diasporic Identity The fight against cultural imperialism

18. The development of local media independence and cultural products is important to the development of identity. • The development of technologies will more than likely remain in the hands of the Core countries (First World) and filter to the periphery nations, as usual. • The place for difference is in content mainly creative imagination.

19. Regional Content • The Caribbean region has seen success in music, particularly in reggae, soca and calypso. • Poets, novelists and playwrights such as Jamaica Kincaid, Earl Lovelace, V.S Naipaul and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott have received international success as well. • Filmmakers have also had spurts of success throughout the years as well but the goal is to infiltrate as many of the mass media classes as possible.

20. National and Regional Content • The Caribbean is not alone in its goal of creating identity • India has taken the Hollywood format and created Bollywood, its own movie making enterprise that has proliferated Indian culture and mores and promoted its own unique music and dance styles.

21. Promotion of Cultural Experience and Exchange

22. Globalization • Basically means the removal of borders • This mode of development characterizes international relations at the moment. • Without borders, different cultures will be mixing and without knowledge there will be no tolerance. • The role of the media is this goal is to facilitate knowledge of events and people of other countries so that regardless of religion, skin colour or values, the common human intricacies can unite us and make globalization an easier process.

23. Chilean Miners

24. The mine collapsed on August 5 and until rescuers made contact on August 22, the trapped workers struggled to get by on meager supplies, stretching a food supply meant to last two days into rations for two weeks. • 33 trapped workers became international heroes as their story of survival captured the world’s attention • They survived more than two months underground before rescue. Everything was televised.

25. Stations like National Geographic, the Travel Channel, even the Food Network, help the consumers of these media contents to know more about other countries and to appreciate the differences and similarities.

26. Promotion and Defense of Rights and Citizens

27. Human rights • Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.

28. Human Rights • There are many but a few of the main ones are: • Adequate housing, Children growing up without exposure to violence, pornography or sexual abuse, Civil and Political rights, The right against Arbitrary Detention, Good governance, No discrimination (HIV/AIDS, Gay/lesbian, race, immigrants), to practice your culture, to education, to food, water and sanitation; Slavery and human trafficking, torture, terrorism, gender equality,

29. Media’s role in protecting rights • When these rights are being attacked or when one group is impinging on the rights of another group, the media can help to bring to light these injustices • The media can also help to mobilise help through the proliferation of images and even the help of popular figures such as Hollywood actors and actresses.

30. Libyan Revolution Muammar Gaddafi Former Libyan Leader

31. Libyan Revolution • The Middle East has been a hotbed of autocratic leadership with a grumbling population. • The year 2010 marked quite a few changes in this type of regime either through force or capitulation. • Tunisia, North Africa, Syria,Yemen, Lybia and Algeria all face similar problems.

32. How the media helped • The revolutionists started gaining support and notice through online newsletters and Facebook pages • They organisedprotests through the same media. • Television, internet and radio reports of what happened in one country would swiftly go to another and the movements garnered support and strength through solidarity.

33. Occupy Wall Street Movement

34. Occupy Movement Worldwide

35. Jamaica

36. Conclusion • Media are powerful tools. • In today’s world, it can be negative and positive, but should be used more in aid of development and generally bringing critical issues to light so that life can be made better for all. • The engagement of media is critical to the struggle to attain Sustainable Development in the years to come.

37. THANK YOU!