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Manyozo, L. 2006 - Manifesto For Development Communication
Manyozo, L. 2006 - Manifesto For Development Communication
To cite this article: Linje Manyozo (2006) Manifesto for Development Communication: Nora Quebral
and the Los Baños School of Development Communication EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS ARTICLE GIVES A
CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT “DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION” IN THE
1970S UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF PROFESSOR NORA QUEBRAL. AS PART OF THIS RETROSPECTIVE, WE
ALSO REPRINT THE ORIGINAL 1971 ARTICLE “DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION IN THE AGRICULTURAL
CONTEXT” BY NORA QUEBRAL, WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY HER. , Asian Journal of Communication,
16:1, 79-99, DOI: 10.1080/01292980500467632
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
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Linje Manyozo
EDITOR’S NOTE: THIS ARTICLE GIVES A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE
EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT ‘‘DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION’’
IN THE 1970S UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF PROFESSOR NORA QUEBRAL.
AS PART OF THIS RETROSPECTIVE, WE ALSO REPRINT THE ORIGINAL
1971 ARTICLE ‘‘DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION IN THE
AGRICULTURAL CONTEXT’’ BY NORA QUEBRAL, WITH A NEW
FOREWORD BY HER.
How did the discipline and practice of development communication begin? Who were the
founders and how were the first experiments implemented? Rejecting the ideologically
populist views that locates development communication origins within western
development scholarship, the following postcolonist exposé appraises various commu-
nication uses in development that emerged from different parts of the world in the past
50 years. The discussion holds that the pioneering development communication
experiments were located between postcolonial and underdevelopment theories, and as
such, to understand its origins, a study must focus on the earliest non-commissioned and
community-originated experiments, as this study purports to do.
Introduction
This critique seeks to outline a manifesto of development communication as
developed by the pioneers of the practice at Los Baños from the 1950s under the
leadership of Nora Quebral. The discussion contends that Quebral’s role in
conceiving and shaping up development communication practice, education and
training cannot be discussed in isolation from the University of Philippines’ College
Correspondence to: Media Studies Programme, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3086, Melbourne, Australia. Tel.:
/61 3 9479 3650; Fax: /61 3 9479 3638; Email: lmanyozo@hotmail.com
of Agriculture. Even though Quebral herself has been acknowledged by the Clearing
House on Development Communication (CHODC) as the originator of the term
development communication and for having defined it for the first time (Bessette &
Rajasunderam, 1996; Lent, 1977) in death, Everett Rogers (1962, 1993) was termed
the ‘father of development communication’ or the ‘pioneer in the field of
communication for development’ (Communication Initiative, 2004; Adhikarya,
2004: 123). The discussion propounds two hypotheses. First, it contends that
different development communications emerged in other parts of the world
independent of Paulo Freire, the dominant modernization paradigm and even before
Latin American scholars challenged the dominant paradigm. Second, the 1950s Los
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methods. Today, the School’s largest institution, the World Bank (nd), conceptualizes
devcom as an ‘integration of strategic communication in development projects’ that
is based on a clear understanding of ‘indigenous realities’. The School’s other financial
Asian Journal of Communication 81
and academic institutions have, over the years, comprised UNESCO, FAO, Rockefeller
Foundation, DFID, Ford Foundation and universities like Michigan State, Texas,
Cornell, Ohio, Wisconsin, Leeds, Colombia, Iowa, Southern California, and New
Mexico. Among the School’s major publications have been the works of Wilbur
Schramm and Everett Rogers as well as important Development Communication
Report which was published by the USAID-funded Clearing House on Development
Communication under the Academy for Educational Development (AED).
Emerging in the 1940s and independent of the Bretton Woods School, the Latin
American School can be traced to Colombia’s Radio Sutatenza, and Bolivia’s Radios
Mineras which pioneered the employment of systematically designed radio commu-
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1950
The Bretton Woods School
Theorists
: Everett Rogers, Daniel Lerner, Wilbur Schramm, Jan Servaes,
Steeves & Melkote, UNESCO, WB, UNDP, FAO, John Hopkins Centre for
Communication Programs, SADC Centre of Communication for
Development. IDRC.
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Woods School was still exploring poverty and its depths within the different parts of
the world, whilst searching for appropriate communication interventions, the Los
Baños School was conducting groundbreaking participatory communication research
experiments in and as development interventions. The School thus pioneered the
design and implementation of communication tools in the promotion of sustainable
development that were based on coherent method and theory (Gomez, 1975; Jamias,
1975a, 1991; Librero, 1985; Quebral, 1975a, 1975b, 1988, 2002).
The Participatory Development Communication School comprises institutional
collaboration between First World and Third World devcom organizations, though
with increased financial prowess, the Bretton Woods School seems to be re-colonizing
the devcom agendum (Ansu-Kyeremeh, 1994). Replacing the Development Commu-
Asian Journal of Communication 83
nication Report has been MAZI, a newsletter being published by the Ford Foundation
Funded Communication for Social Change Consortium. It is yet to be seen whether
MAZI’s interview page will feature the major contributions and pioneering heroes
from South East Asia and Africa. Guy Bessette (2004) describes participatory devcom
as a communication tool with which to facilitate community involvement in local
development. Drawing from Freirean critical pedagogy which situates the learner and
his environment at the centre of education, modern devcom is characterized by
diverse methodological and theoretical trajectories but still centres around partici-
patory production and utilization of indigenous knowledge in local development
(Mulenga, 1999).
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Karin Gwinn Wilkins and Bella Mody (2001) define devcom as a process of
strategic intervention toward social change initiated by institutions and communities.
Neville Jayaweera (1987) conceptualizes the same as communication strategies of a
whole society or the communication component of a national development plan. The
realization has been, even during the emergence of the dominant development
paradigm, that communication involving community participation formulates a very
important facet in the promotion of sustainable development (Bessette & Rajasun-
deram, 1996; Cadiz, 1994; Mayo & Craig, 1995). Acknowledging the many changes
her own concept and definition of devcom has undergone during the ‘30 years of
jostling with reality’, Quebral (2002, p. 16) defines the devcom as ‘the art and science
of human communication linked to a society’s planned transformation from a state
of poverty to one of dynamic socio-economic growth that makes for greater equity
and the larger unfolding of individual potential’. Informed by Freire’s critical
pedagogy, Quebral’s Los Baños School and further developments in visual anthro-
pology and other participatory field practices, Linje Manyozo (2004) defines modern-
day devcom as describing a group of method-driven and theory-based praxes that
employ participatory foreground and backdrop communication tools in strengthen-
ing community decision-making processes and structures with the aim of improving
livelihoods and promoting social justice.
its kind in the tropics and classes were held in the homes of faculty members
(University of the Philippines, nd).
Also known as the College of Development Communication (CDC), the Los Baños
School (CDC, nd) details its historical development from the time it began as the
Office of Extension and Publications of the College of Agriculture in 1954, under
which some staff members began to carry out research in how communication could
be used to address problems of rural development. Quebral (1988, pp. 113 114) /
reminisces about the contribution of ‘a little nudge’ from Cornell University and a
‘visiting extension professor from Tennessee’ and the subsequent establishment of a
Unit which ended up being the Extension and Publications office. In 1960, the first
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devcom courses were introduced in the Agriculture curriculum after which, in 1962,
the College of Agriculture elevated the Extension and Publications Office into a
Department of Information and Communication (DAIC). In 1968, DAIC was
renamed the Department of Agricultural Communication (CDC, nd).
In 1974, the Department changed its name to Department of Development
Communication. Between 1987 and 1998, the Department was elevated into an
Institute and then later a College, a process of transformation that involved
‘progressive decisions, some of which were rational and some not’ (Quebral, 1988,
p. 113). The origins of ‘development-oriented communication practice’ at Los Baños
should also be understood as an ‘intensification of efforts’ by the then teaching staff
who were interested in ‘extending the results of research in the agricultural sciences to
the farmers and other end users of the new knowledge and technology’ (Jamias,
1975b, p. vii).
nication Support Service, the International Rice Research Institute, the Universities of
Singapore and Malaysia and the Manila-based Communication Foundation for Asia
(CFA), which comprised Alfredo Café, Pedro Chanco III, Teresita Hermano, Noel de
Leon, Demetrio Maglalang, Genaro Ong and Raphael Vallejo (Jamias, 1991;
Maglalang, 1976; Quebral, 1988). AIJC’s Crispin Maslog (1999) traces the role of
what he calls ‘heroes of Asian journalism’ by looking at the contribution of people
like Amitabha Chowdhury Mochtar Lubis, Tarzie Vittachi, Zacarias Sarian, Ton That
Thien and Gour Ghosh. The School has been responsible for publishing ground-
breaking devcom research, manuals and journals, the most notable being AIDCOM’s
Journal of Development Communication.
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school year (Quebral, 1975b). By offering this full fledged curriculum, the
department became the first to offer devcom degree training in the world. From
the very beginnings, the devcom syllabi was broad-based and multidisciplinary, with
roots in sociology, psychology, economics, agriculture, linguistics, philosophy,
anthropology, theatre arts, political science and other social sciences, information
technology and multimedia (Quebral, 1975b, 2002). This pioneering undergraduate
curriculum was ‘interdisciplinary’ which, Quebral herself (1975b, p. 31) argues, was
designed to enable students to:
Acquire a theoretical base in the sciences and applied arts that underlie the study of
human communication. Learn practical skills in interpersonal and mass commu-
nication. Gain a basic grasp of the issues and problems of development in general
and of the subject matter of one developmental area in particular. Apply the
concepts, principles and skills of communication in the solution of problems in a
developing society.
The 1974 curriculum included general courses in English and Spanish communication
skills, biology, chemistry, mathematics, political science, economics, physics, huma-
nities, social and political thought, English literature, speech, and statistics (Quebral,
1975b). The core courses comprised Introduction to Development Communication,
Fundamentals of Development Communication, Community Broadcasting, Audio-
Visual Communication, Communication and Society, Communication Campaigns
and Programs, Testing and Evaluation of Communication Materials, Communication
Research, Basic Photography, Print Production, Broadcast Speech and Performance
for Community Radio, Playwriting, Science Reporting, Publications Writing and
Editing, Management and Production of a Community Newspaper, Advanced
Development Writing, Visual Aids Planning and Production, Radio Drama and
Documentary, Educational Broadcasts (Quebral, 1975b, pp. 35 36). The curriculum
/
86 L. Manyozo
(1975, pp. 101, 103, 111) used what could be today confused as Freirean terms,
describing devcom research as ‘problem-oriented, issue-involved, strategy-conscious
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their published and unpublished literature does establish that the ‘devcom, Los Baños
style’ was centred around three cornerstones of agriculture, rural development
journalism and educational broadcasting.
First, the location of the Department of Development Communication within the
College of Agriculture determined the agricultural orientation of the early experi-
ments. Most of the Department’s staff were Communication PhDs who had
Bachelors or Masters degrees in Agriculture, Agricultural Journalism or Extension
Education, like Quebral, Juan Jamias and Rogelio Cuyno. In fact, most staff got their
PhDs under a Cornell Los Baños contact funded by Ford and Rockefeller
/
would thus focus on areas like dairy farming, forestry management, agriculture
leasehold, livestock, farmer constituents (Jamias, 1975a). Quebral and Ely Gomez
(1976, pp. 1 2) outline this agricultural focus, noting:
/
Like Freire in Brazil, Quebral and Gomez (1976, pp. 7 8) realize the inadequacy of the
/
formal school system in ‘energizing’ its Pilipino student citizens. They propose the
‘supplementation and reinforcement’ with other non-formal schooling. The respon-
sibility of designing this out of school system was conceived as a central government
responsibility, for it was already framing national development goals; thus it was
responsible for ‘explaining to people why certain projects are needed’, how each of the
projects ‘may benefit’ individuals and their communities and the required sacrifices
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within the context of developing economies (Quebral & Gomez, 1976). The
positioning of devcom curriculum within low economic levels and human aspects
of communication was made in light of the Philippine’s rising poverty and agrarian
economy. Such positioning could also have been meant to produce a competent and
truthful development communicator who would not pass off someone else’s ideas as
their own otherwise without being accurate and honest, ‘one who professes to be a
development communicator forfeits the title, a diploma notwithstanding’ (Quebral,
2002, pp. 2, 4). The preference of rural over urban development was justified by
Quebral and Gomez (1976, p. 5), noting:
There also certainly is urban development. Years from now it could be that urban
development will take precedence over rural development at the national level,
when thirty percent now living in the cities will have doubled in number. Right
now, however, its sheer number and its central role in the economy give the rural
family the edge. Our statistics [show that] seventy percent of Filipinos live in the
rural areas. This makes the rural family the foremost users of development
communication.
Years later Quebral (1988, p. 161) would acknowledge that devcom methodologies
can be used to solve development challenges of the First World. The essence of the
Los Baños devcom lay therefore in ‘consciously diminishing poverty, unemployment
Asian Journal of Communication 89
and inequality’, goals that have not changed a bit even in modern-day practice
(Quebral & Gomez, 1976).
The third factor in the Los Baños devcom was the notion of development
broadcasting, emphasis being placed on community broadcasting and educational
programming. Referring to a ‘community radio’, Quebral and Gomez (1976, p. 10)
argue that the station ‘serves as a facilitator of interpersonal relationships in a rural
community. The UPLB-based community radio DZLB itself was established for
purposes of ‘non-formal education in the rural setting’ (Librero, 1985, p. 1). Local
media, of which community radio is an important part, were thus conceived as
‘excellent teaching channels’ (Quebral & Gomez, 1976, p. 9). Between the 1960s and
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the early 1970s, the Los Baños School produced much action research in devcom.
Mentioning the notion of development broadcasting for the very first time whilst
focussing on the role and nature of ‘local community radios’ in community
development, Gomez (1975, p. 91; 1976) conceptualizes the role of radio practices in
micro level development through what she terms ‘localized programming and
personalized broadcasting’ which would in the end encourage ‘audience involvement
and participation’.
Though Gomez (1975, p. 92) seems to have located the role of radio and rural
development within the contemporary dominant Lerner’s modernization paradigm
through her labelling of radio as ‘greater multiplier, smoother of transition’ and
‘provider of climate of development’, she however advocates bottom up program-
/
When the World Bank produced its first detailed study of the role of radio in Third
World rural development (Spain, Jamison, & McAnany, 1977), the Los Baños School
had already, in the early 1960s, executed its rural education broadcasting project. In
1962, Radio DZLB ‘was conceived as an experimental rural radio station’ primarily
established to serve as an agricultural extension tool and assisting the School in
‘conducting rural broadcasting research relating to the effective dissemination of
agricultural information’ (Librero, 1985, pp. 2 3). With financial assistance of
/
concurring with her colleague, Quebral (1988, p. 80) elaborates on an ideal rural
education broadcaster:
The broadcast media that I propose will not stand alone beaming disjointed
information to a mass, faceless rural audience. They will be components of a
distance learning system for small groups in which the field worker, the subject
matter specialist, the non-broadcast media, among others, are bound together in an
educational plan. To remove them from the political propaganda charge, let them
be housed in the universities, which are more neutral institutions.
As a rural development project itself, Radio DZLB, also known as ‘The Voice of the
Village’, became a pinnacle of local development collaboration, ‘coordination and
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Like the miners’ radios in Bolivia, Gomez’s community radio became the
community’s representative or what she terms as a ‘social lubricant’, through which
radio provided a sphere on which people could ‘share experiences and facilitate
interpersonal relationships’ (Gomez, 1975, p. 94). Gomez’s social lubrication also
involved peace and conflict resolution, like the case of three farmers who visited
DZLB in 1969 to ‘air their problems’ with regards to pests that were destroying their
Asian Journal of Communication 91
rice, having escaped from a neighbouring farm that was sprayed with pesticides and,
secondly, their fears of being evicted by some landlords (Librero, 1985, p. 37). By
bringing in relevant stakeholders to conduct dialectical discussions in a radio
program, the farmers and representatives from the government and the larger farms
resolved their differences amicably, and importantly, the poor farmers were never
evicted (Librero, 1985, pp. 37 38). At the time when the notion of participation was
/
heresy in the modernization paradigm, Radio DZLB was already engaging in what
would be termed today as participatory broadcasting.
One of the important aspects of Radio DZLB was the school on the air, a concept
of which was borrowed from US’s Columbia Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC)
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1920s rural broadcasting series (Flor, 1995). Under the Philippine government’s
‘Bountiful harvest’ campaign, Masagana 99, a countywide and extensive rice
production scheme was launched in the 1970s with the aim of creating self-
sufficiency in rice as the staple food in the country. Leading the project, the Ministry
of Agriculture ‘embarked’ on a food production initiative which involved a ‘complete
package of technology’, an ‘elaborate credit system without collateral, a market
system’ and a comprehensive communication campaign that ‘included and largely
involved radio’ (Librero, 1985, p. 43). Radio DZLB was responsible for training the
Ministry’s farmcasters from 1976 to 1979 and it also organized and conducted several
schools on the air after which every student received a Certificate of Graduation
(Librero, 1985, p. 68). The school on the air was based on objectives, short and well-
planned programs, each of which composed of one subject matter. Librero (1985,
pp. 67 72) observes that the school on the air must be a ‘cooperative project’ such
/
Today, the Los Baños School has been joined in the arena by many schools and
institutions in Europe, Africa and the Americas in propagating people-centred
development communications though the School continues to ‘stand out as a pioneer
in development communication teaching and the most productive in development
communication education’ in the world’ (Cadiz, 1991, p. v; CDC, nd; Quebral, 2002,
p. 1). Most Bretton Wood organizations have worked with or are indirectly linked to
the School. The School is now a full College on its own, and its curricula offer
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the School ‘does not own the intellectual property rights to development commu-
nication as a field of study or teaching’. This unselfishness is manifested in the
willingness of the old guard of Los Baños in helping other training institutions in the
region to establish their own postgraduate devcom programs ‘seen from your own
background’ a case in example being Professors Felix Librero and Ely Gomez, who are
working with the Department of Agricultural Extension and Communication of the
Kasetsart University in Thailand (Kasetsart University, 2004; Quebral, 2002, p. 17).
Kasetsart’s devcom courses like broadcasting for development, writing for develop-
ment, management of communication system, and scientific information manage-
ment for development do indeed reflect the influence of Los Baños, more so
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Afterthoughts
Development communication is the ‘in’ word for many development and commu-
nication planners and researchers, to borrow Juan Jamias’ term (1975b, p. vii). From
its humble beginnings as a course, then a unit, then a department, an institute and a
full college today, the Los Baños School pioneered the development of a field that has
outgrown itself today. Even during the heat of the dominant development paradigm,
the Los Baños devcom research, despite viewing people as audiences or special
audiences, rejected the massifying of people and advocated problem-oriented, action
and participatory research (Quebral, 1988, p. 74). From as early as the 1970s and
1980s, this brand of devcom became an official development policy in the Philippine
national development plans. The emergence of this practice-based field of study and
research cannot be objectively discussed without mentioning the College of
Agriculture scholars, especially Quebral.
This discussion has established that Bretton Woods devcom may have its roots in
the post-war aid initiatives, but due to geographical, cultural, colonial and historical
differences, different development communications evolved from different parts of
the world. Thus it is a scant disregard for the efforts of the broadcasters of Radio
Sutatenza and Radios Mineras, the travelling theatre troupes of Africa, the extension
Asian Journal of Communication 95
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Appendix