J6211-001 Communication and International Development
Spring 2006
Professor Bella Mody
203 B Armory
mody@colorado.edu
Office hours 2-3 PM Tues and by appointment
Class meetings T 11-1.30PM
Armory 1B01
3 cr.
Course description: This graduate course focuses on the historical and present day
causes of underdevelopment and maldevelopment in the Three Quarters World (see
attached map in hard copy version to be distributed in class). It then analyses whether,
under what conditions and how communication media can contribute to addressing the
root causes of development problems.
Goals: After completing this course, students will be able to stand on the shoulders of the
giants who went before rather than re-invent the wheel. You will be able to
a. describe and analyze the literature on media applications for international
development, and then
b. produce publication-worthy research papers which address gaps in previous
scholarly literature
Method: A typical class session will consist of student presentations and critiques of the
readings, instructor presentations and an occasional video or guest presenter.
Requirements
Required texts:
1. Philip McMichael. Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective.
Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2004 3rd ed
2. Pradip Thomas and Zaharon Nain eds. Who Owns the Media.
Malaysia:Southbound, 2005
3. Srinivas Melkote and H Leslie Steeves. Communication for Development in the
Third World. Delhi: Sage 2nd ed.
Reading strategies
Schedule 6 hours of reading time outside class for a 3 credit course: you may find
the following reading strategies helpful:
a. Write down everything you know about this topic before you start reading on it.
b. Read the first paragraph, the first line of each following paragraph and the last
full paragraph: now write down the outline of the paper. You should get the
skeleton of the argument is and how it is constructed..
c. Skim through the middle of each page: speed read. Highlight interesting
thoughts and possible sections you might quote. You are getting a feel for how the
argument is developed, how flesh is put on the bare bones of the skeleton.
1
d. Now read the full paper through: Write comments or questions in the margin
so you can review the paper easily when you want to review it.
e. Write your summary of the main points and staple it to the paper.
f. If the paper is long and difficult to follow, take a break and come back to it
when your mind is fresh.
g. Explain the main points of the paper to a friend: the more you engage with the
paper in different modes (reading, writing, talking), the more memory traces
in the brain you are creating, and the higher the chances that you will recall
the content.
News media: Please read/browse/watch/listen to a comprehensive news source
daily to be current with media, economics, politics and cultural issues. Good
sources are
http://iht.com
http://www.democracynow.org
http://news.bbc.co.uk
http://nytimes.com
http://ipsnews.net
UN wire (Sign up at www.smartbrief.com/un_wire )
KGNU 88.5FM community radio in Boulder provides the BBC news every weekday
from 6-7AM and 4.30-5.30PM, and on weekends (Sat-Sun) from 6-7PM.
Democracy Now is transmitted from 7-8AM on weekdays.
Web and library research: You must be familiar with how to conduct electronic
searches for research literature. Please see Stephanie Lichtenauer the Journalism
librarian with your draft research paper topic so she can help you to review the literature.
Research paper
This is a literature review and analysis paper. The following is one illustration of an
acceptable paper. You are free to propose alternative topics that fit in with the course
topic along with identification of a journal where you plan to submit your work for
publication. Submit an abstract by Feb 14 with references and accessible literature to be
reviewed per section
Example: Your paper needs to be organized into the following sections:
-Purpose: ex. To understand the root causes and factors leading to underdevelopment in
country W or Region Y; to investigate whether and how communication media X can be
harnessed to aid in ---- (e.g. Reduction of poverty or gender discrimination or ethnic
conflict or to promote agricultural growth, health education, etc.)
-Organization of paper
-Research method: Search of secondary research sources by….
-Findings
-historical and present-day causes of underdevelopment and mal-development
-communication media infrastructure in the country
-selection of one development foci amenable to resolution by media: justification
2
- how you recommend media be used to address this development problem in light of
national politics, economics and media infrastructure available: specify ownership,
financing, operations, hardware, applications software, user research, impact evaluation
Paper format: Use logical section headings. Summarize at the end of each section. Make
sure there are transitions between sections. Use the style sheet specified in the journal of
your choice consistently. The length of the paper must be no more than 20 double-spaced
pages (longer if specified in the journal you have chosen). 25 lines per page, Times New
Roman font size 12, 1” margins, one staple, no plastic covers thanks.
GRADING
No INC grades are possible except in accordance with university policy.
10% of your grade is based on weekly submissions of 3-page double-spaced typed
summaries reflecting on the readings (due in class)
50% of your grade is based on 2 tests, a mid-term and a final
40% of your grade is based on your research paper due no later than April 18 in class:
you are encouraged to finish it as early as possible to avoid end-of-semester stress.
:
COURSE POLICIES
All written work must be your own. Plagiarism and cheating will result in a failing grade
for the work. Students with disabilities should see me in the beginning of the term to
make special arrangements. I strongly urge that you complete course requirements on
schedule. If unforeseen circumstances prevent this, university policy requires that you
sign an agreement specifying when the outstanding work will be completed.
Sexual harassment: The University of Colorado policy on sexual harassment applies to
all students, staff and faculty. Sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual attention. It can
involve intimidation, threats, coercion, or threats to create an environment that is hostile
or offensive. Harassment may occur any where on campus and between members of the
same or opposite gender and between any combination of members in the campus
community. Any person who feels s/he has been harassed should contact the Office of
Sexual Harassment at 303-492-2127 or the Office of Judicial Affairs at 303-492-5550.
For more information, go to http://www.colorado.edu/sexualharassment/
WEEKLY READING ASSIGNMENTS
Jan 17: Introductions
Readings:
Jan 24: National underdevelopment and mal-development: pre-colonial and colonial era
Readings: McMichael Ch 1
3
Jan 31: Post colonial nation states and modernization
Readings: McMichael Ch 2
Guest lecture: Professor Hemant Shah, University of Wisconsin Madison
Location: tba
Race, Mass Communication and “Third World” Nation Building: Academic
Networks and Modernization Theory after World War I
This project examines the intellectual history of modernization and mass communication
theory, a specific development communication model conceived and elaborated in the
United States in 1950s and 1960s. Specifically, I examine the ways in which the theory
and its assumptions about people, social change, and media effects were inflected by
changing ideas in the US academy about race and race relations. Recent research on
modernization has begun to show that racial thinking had an important impact on the
formulation of modernization theory in the post-war era. However, no one has
systematically examined why, how, and with what consequences ideas race and race
relations made their way into academic work about introducing mass communication into
countries of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (the “third world”) as important elements
of making them “modern.”
Feb 7: Globalization and anti-globalization
Readings: McMichael, pp. xxiii-xxxix, Chs. 3-4
Thomas Tufte, Communicating for what: how globalization and HIV/AIDs push the
ComDev agenda. In Oscar Hemer and Thomas Tufte ed. Media and Glocal Change.
(E-reserves for 6211 on library web site)
UNESCO Adopts Convention to protect diversity
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30714
Sasha Constanza-Chock, The Whole World is Watching: Online Surveillance of Social
Movement Organizations in Pradip Thomas ed. pp. 271-292 in Who Owns the Media?
La Jornada. Telesur:ACounter-hegemonic project to compete with CNN and
UNIVISION. In http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/print.php?artno=1388 Mar 2, 2005
Peter Evans. Counter-hegemonic globalization: transnational social movements in the
global political economy. Accepted for publication in Current Sociology.
http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/EVANS/evans_pdf/Evans%20Transnational%20Mo
vements%20-%20Final%20Draft%2010-10-03.rtf
Feb 14: Re-thinking development
Readings: McMichael, chs 7, 8
Amy Goodman’s interview with John Perkins, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/03/1435206&mode=thread&tid=25
Nancy Birdsall et al. How to help poor countries. Foreign Affairs, July-Aug 05
(WEBCT)
4
Feb 21: What might development include: theology, spirituality and empowerment?
Readings: Melkote Chs. 7, 8, 9;
Dan Schiller, Communication and the Crisis: From Neo-liberal to Authoritarian
Development? in Pradip Thomas, ed. Pp. 159-173
UNDP Human Development Report 2005 Overview
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/
Click on Overview
The right hand panel on this website lists region and country reports for your research
papers (ex: Arab Human Development Report 2002, 2003, 2004; Central America 2002,
2003)
World Bank World Development Report 2006 Overview (Sept 2006)
http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTWD
RS/EXTWDR2006/0,,contentMDK:20586898~pagePK:64167689~piPK:64167673~theS
itePK:477642,00.html
Also search the World Bank web site (www.worldbank.org) for country and regional
reports. This site also has the invaluable resource called World Development Indicators
Feb 28: Organizing communication media for national development
Readings:
Media In World Bank, World Development Report, OUP: 2002 See PDF file of Ch 10
http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTMODELSITE/EXTWDRMODEL
/0,,ImgPagePK:64202988~entityID:000094946_01092204010635~pagePK:64217930~pi
PK:64217936~theSitePK:477734,00.html
Check out World Bank DevComm Team pages at
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTDEVCOMMENG/0,,cont
entMDK:20239563~menuPK:34000166~pagePK:34000187~piPK:34000160~theSitePK:
423815,00.html
Pradip Thomas and Zharaom Nain, Who Owns the Media . Malaysia: Southbound, 2004.
Chs 1,2, 3 (http://finance.yahoo.com)
Global Social Divides and their Digital Refractions. Current data compiled from World
Bank, Development Report. (WEBCT)
March 7: Media in Africa (Southern Africa, Nigeria) and Latin America
Readings:
From Pradip Thomas ed., Hueva pp. 97-118, Nyamnjoh, pp. 119-134, Fiol 135-158,
Musa and Mohammed, 227-248
(For Central America specialists, see Rick Rockwell and Noreene Janus, Media Power in
Central America. U of Illinois Press, 2003)
5
March 14: Media in Asia (exs from China, India, Malaysia, Middle East)
Readings: Pradip Thomas ed. pp. 179-226, 249-270; 135-158
Karin Wilkins, Communication and Transition in the Middle East, Gazette, 66, 6 2004
pp. 483-496
Bharat Dogra, Right to Information Exposes World Bank Water Deal 11 Nov 2005
http://www.ipsnews.org/print.asp?idnews=30902
Learn about the history of the Freedom of Info Act in the US at
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/foia2.html
March 21: Mid term test on class content completed so far
March 28: Spring break
April 4: Information, Communication and Poverty Eradication
Readings:
Roxana Barrantes, Analysis of ICT Demand: What is Digital Poverty and How to
Measure It? In Hernan Galperin and Judith Marsical ed. IDRC Digital Poverty: Latin
American and Caribbean Perspectives. Peru: IDRC REDIS-DIRSI www.dirso.net
(WEBCT)
Pablo Accuosto and Niki Johnson. Financing the Information Society in the South
Uruguay: 2004 (WEBCT)
Simone Cecchini, Poverty Reduction Group, The World Bank, Can Information and
Communications technology Applications Contribute to Poverty Reduction? (webCT)
Charles Kenny, Juan Navas-Sabater and Christine Qiang, Information and
Communication Technologies (webCT)
Manne Granqvist, Assessing ICT in Development, in Hemer and Tufte, ed. Media and
Glocal Change (WEBCT)
Arvind Singhal and others, Lessons learned from the IT Initiatives in the Grameen Bank
in Bangladesh. In Hemer and Tufte, pp. 427-434 (WEBCT)
Praveen Swami. Online jehad. Frontline. Vol:23 Iss:01 URL:
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2301/stories/20060127005901300.htm
Ron Chepesiuk, Outsourcing the Western Media, Global Journalist, First Quarter 2005
http://www.globaljournalist.org/magazine/2005-1/outsourcing.html
From the Tunis World Summit on Information Societies 2005:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4450060.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4446966.stm
April 11: Abikok Riak Worldvision Director, Washington D.C.
Visiting presenter: How to write successful grants for development work
April 18: Entertainment education
Thomas Tufte, in Oscar Hemer and Tufte ed. Media and Glocal Change Ch. 9
Entertainment Education in Development Communication
23 (WEBCT)
Clemencia Rodriguez, in Hemer and Tufte, From the Sandinista Revolution to
telenovelas, Ch. 23 (WEBCT)
6
Ruth Mandel, The Political Economy of a Kazakh Soap Opera, In Faye Ginsburg ed.
Media Worlds, Berkeley, Ca: U of California Press 2002 (WEBCT)
April 25 Media for ethnic and national integration
Helmer and Tufte, Ch 12 (WEBCT)
Mody, National News About Foreign Genocide, in Uncovering Darfur (WEBCT)
May 2 Health Communication
Hemer and Tufte, Chs. 24, 25 (WebCT)
Mody, More than “best practices” for HIV-AIDS control
http://spot.colorado.edu/~mody/docs/IAMCR%20Tapei%202005.ppt
For those interested in this topic, see Leslie Snyder in Mody ed. Handbook of
International and Development Communication, Sage 2003
Is there a future for telemedicine? Thelancet.com, 359, issue 9322,
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673602088451/fulltext
May 8 1.30: Final test Armory 1B01 covers class content since the mid-term test: there
are no cumulative tests.
How to get more mileage out of your research papers:
-conference presentations
1. Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies Graduate Student Conference
April 7-8, 2006 Princeton University
Bridging Disciplines, Spanning the World: Approaches to Development, Diversity and
Democracy
We are soliciting papers from graduate students in anthropology,
economics, law, history, sociology, political science, philosophy and
other relevant disciplines on topics related to our conference theme of
'Bridging Disciplines, Spanning the World: Approaches to Development,
Diversity and Democracy'. The conference offers an opportunity for
graduate students pursuing scholarship in international and regional
studies to move beyond the disciplinary boundaries that structure our
approaches and thoughts, and to engage in inter-disciplinary interaction
and conversation.
--We are able to offer a limited number of travel grants.
--PIIRS is in the process of publishing a monograph with selected papers
from last year's conference, and will again consider doing so this year.
The panels will focus on the following topics:
- Power, violence and development
- Poverty and the city
- The ethics of globalization
- Development and natural resources
- Developmentalisms past and present
- Identities and social movements
- Globalization and difference
- Justice, law and culture
7
- Ethnicities and institutions
- Democratization, violence and power
- Structures of representation
- Democracy and (in)equality
- The ends of modernity
- Power, NGOs and civil society
Please submit abstracts of 400-500 words online at
www.princeton.edu/~gradconf <http://www.princeton.edu/%7Egradconf> by
January 28, 2006. Abstracts should specify methodological approach, with the goal of
communicating to interdisciplinary audiences, and include a short bibliography (not
included in word count). Questions can be sent to gradconf@princeton.edu
<mailto:gradconf@princeton.edu>. Please feel free to forward this call for papers to your
colleagues.
2. Mapping the field of Communication for Development and Social Change
Conference in Brisbane Australia Call for Papers Jul 5-8 2006
Submissions due by Feb 1:
Abstracts for full paper presentations: 150-200 words; full papers 1 June 2006
Panel proposals: 300 word rationale, 150 word abstract of each panelist’s prez
Workshops you want to conduct: 3-5 pp. single spaced
Email submissions to
Dr Shuang Liu
School of Journalism and Communication
U of Queensland
s.liu@uq.edu.au
3. Submission to international division of Association for Educ in J and MC deadline
April 1, 2006 for annual meeting in San Francisco www.aejmc.org
JOURNALS
http://www.colorado.edu/Journalism/globalmedia/links.htm
Examples:
Global Media and Communication http://gmc.sagepub.com
Illustration of blind peer reviews requested by this journal
Referee’s report
Referee’s name
Manuscript title:
Please return your comments by ---- ( 2 months hence)
In evaluating a paper, please bear in mind the following criteria:
Importance of the subject
Originality of the approach
Soundness of the scholarship
8
Degree of interest to the journal readership
Clarity of the organization
Strength of the argument
Writing style
You may find it helpful to rank these on a 1-5 scale (5 = high)
Recommendation: please tick one
ACCEPT AS IT STANDS
ACCEPT WITH MINOR REVISIONS
RESUBMIT/REQUIRES MAJOR REVISION
(Please select only if paper has real promise)
A
B
C
REJECT
(Please supply some comments that can be
sent to the author rather than a bare rejection)
D
REFER TO A SPECIALIST
E
MORE SUITED TO ANOTHER JOURNAL
(If possible say which)
F
New journal: Communication for Development and Social Change
http://www.sjc.uq.edu.au
and http://www.hamptonpress.com
Jobs
http://www.internationaljobs.org/index.html
NGO on information access for everyone: www.internews.org,
Website on communication for development: www.comminit.com
www.afronets.org
www.itu.int/
Also click on http://www.itu.int/wsis/ (on the World Summit for Information Society)
and the Telecom development bureau of the ITU at http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/index.asp
www.unicef.org
www.fao.org
www.unesco.org/
9