Telecommunications for development — an addendum

Reports/Viewpoint service’ ‘electronic message environment as well as identification of telecommunications policy issues which are likely to be relevant in this area. Additional studies involving original research will probably be required in the future, after the Commission becomes familiar with the policy issues that are identified by this study. The contractor will review the body of reports and studies that have been done in the past few years, isolate and identify the policy issues relevant to FCC decision making, additional data and suggest requirements and analytical studies that will form the basis for future Commission decision making. Finally, to provide the FCC with a better understanding of the trends in

computer communications, the Office of Plans and Policy arranged a two-day planning conference to examine trends in technology, market demand and regulatory barriers, Five invited papers were delivered by experts in the computer communications field. The experts were chosen and topics selected by the American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS). The conference began with an historical overview of computer communications, including a discussion of the impact of the Commission’s existing regulations upon services such as computer conferencing and electronic message services. This was followed by a presentation of trends in technology computer

networks, protocols and transmission technology. Next, a discussion of the marketplace examined the computer communications requirements of electronic funds transfer, point of sale networks and electronic mail services. Finally, a thorough discussion of regulatory impact and industry structure provided several alternatives for the future development of this field. Jeffrey

Krauss,

Washington,

DC, USA

’ See Herbert S. Dordick, ‘Airlie House - a unique focus for policy research’, Telecommunications Policy, Vol 1. No 5. 1977, p 437.

Viewpoint Telecommunications for development - an addendum Further for

comments

development,

communications

The

September

communications

on the debate in

response

development

concerning to

benefit

1977 issue of TelePolicy (Vol 1, No 4),

contains a set of three excellent articles on ‘Telecommunications for development’.’ They provide a useful corrective to common cliches. For example, they point out that telephone growth in the less developed countries is faster than in countries where the telephone is more nearly universal, and they illustrate the value (in many instances) of advanced technology for developing countries. I should like to extend the discussion of some points raised by John Clippinger. He does what he sets out to do effectively. He lists the arguments of those who favour extensive development investments and those who think them misplaced. One should not criticize an article for not being a different article one wishes to see written, so I append

68

John

the use of telecommunications H.

Clippinger’s

article

*Can

the Third World?’

this commentary not as criticism but as addendum. The point is that while all the arguments Clippinger enumerates are indeed found in the literature, they are not all of equal merit. We need not be agnostic. Some of the arguments have been supported by careful studies, others repeatedly refuted, while others are indeed in the limbo of continuing expert debate. To evaluate the merit of the assertions in the literature is not dogmatic. It is not a quest for absolute truth; nor is it a claim that any belief is beyond criticism. I assert only that relevant studies have been done and that there is evidence that some of the statements are warranted and others unwarranted. It is not surprising that on issues in which vested interests are at stake, one sometimes finds systematic disregard for

the conclusions of research. Technical experts may confirm the same findings over and over again, and be relatively sure of where the truth lies, but parties affected by that conclusion will keep asserting that the data are not in and that nobody knows what the truth is. Cigarette smoking and cancer provide a fine illustration. In the USA, the Surgeon General’s report examined the evidence and reached a decisive conclusion. Yet for years thereafter the industry and dedicated cigarette smokers pointed out that correlations are not proof of causation, and treated the effects of smoking as an unresolved question. The same pattern can be seen in the later Surgeon General’s repbrt on television violence and children. The carefully modulated and solidly backed conclusions of that report satisfied no one because they did not constitute a simple verdict. So one keeps finding in the lay literature the same old assertions that the evidence is contradictory and no one knows whether violent TV has any effects. Agnosticism in the face of evidence is just as dogmatic as belief where there is no evidence. Given the present state of evidence, which of the propositions that Clippinger lists deserve to be singled out as beyond sensible question or as

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

POLICY

March 1978

Viewpoint substantially refuted by the evidence? One proposition that cannot stand up is the assertion that advanced technologies of communication are ‘inappropriate to social, and cultural economic, conditions in the Third World’. It is asserted that such technologies are ‘expensive and difficult to maintain’. Unquestionably, that statement is often made; it belongs in the catalogue that provides us. Equally Clippinger unquestionably, the statement would be true if it were modified to ‘Sometimes such technologies are inappropriate to the Third World’ especially when they are ‘expensive and difficult to maintain’. The corollary to that modiied ‘Sometimes proposition is that technologies of comadvanced munication are appropriate to the Third World, especially when they are cheap and easy to maintain.’ Gutted in that way, the assertion is certainly true, but not very interesting. The unmodified assertion, however, is patently foolish, for it has been refuted over and over again.

Modernizing attitudes Perhaps the most important set of studies showing the use of advanced technology in communication promoting development concerns the transistor radio. Much of the research confirms Daniel Lerner’s hypothesis about the effect of broadcasting in developing countries.2 Lerner’s original study seemed to demonstrate that the introduction of radio (and also other mass media) in the Middle East was causally related to the development of modernizing attitudes. The transistor revolution followed shortly after Lerner’s study was done, and the new and then advanced technology of solid state radios poured through the world. The rapid underdeveloped adoption of transistor radios, however, does not prove that they had modernizing effects. Lerner’s evidence on radio, taken alone, could be dismissed as just one study. However, over thirty social science studies since have set out to refute or test it. Few pieces of research have been as frequently replicated and as regularly supported. The same basic finding resulted virtually everywhere, though subordinate findings often varied.’ The

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

central thesis was that exposure to mass media increased the capacity of the exposed populace to think about issues outside their own direct experience, which in turn facilitated engagement in modem ways of life. Today, of course, the transistor radio is no longer advanced technology, but in the 1960s it was. Obviously, it would have been nonsense then to recommend to developing countries that they should continue to use the established technology of tube radios; the advanced technology was cheaper, more reliable, less dependent on substantial electric power. Today the same sort of issues arise with regard to use of satellites, mini and microcomputers, and solid state switching. The most recent studies to produce inter alia the same findings as the Lemer study are those on the Indian Site experiment with the ATS-6 satellite. While the village television broadcasts may not have produced exactly the results that the broadcasters intended, studies underway reveal that the use of this advanced technology significantly increased the readiness and ability of villagers to address important national issues in a vocabulary of appropriate There were significant concepts.’ differences in learning over the year in the TV villages and the control villages. Whether the Site programme was cost/effective is, of course, another matter that cannot be answered without also evaluating all alternative uses of the money it cost, but that it was effective in advancing modernization is clearly established. That bears directly on another pair of opposed cliches that Clippinger notes in his inventory. He cites enthusiasts for using educational television for developing countries and critics of it. By quoting journalists, politicians, and educationists one can easily put together a large collection of naive statements on both sides. To do so is to a degree misleading for serious social science students of the subject have long been in substantial agreement on a number of findings about educational television in developing countries. These findings fail to support extremists on either side. Numerous experiences have shown that it is very difficult to assure that television sets which are provided actually are used inschools: they break

POLICY

March 1978

down; they are diverted to other uses; they are too expensive to provide in each classroom. They introduce an undesirable rigidity in the local teaching schedule and take things out of the hands of the teachers, which teachers do not like. They are no substitute for live teachers, who need to be present whether or not TV is there. On the other hand, the studies show quite clearly that, when used, students do learn from TV, and that when the choice is between teaching by inadequately trained teachers and good teaching on TV, the TV-taught students learn more. Dr Shukla’s site results correspond to many previous findings that TV teaching is effective when actually used in developing areas, though again that does not tell us whether it is cost/effective. Such modulated conclusions and a high degree of consensus on the findings is what one finds in all the serious research literature on the subject by such experts as Wilbur Schramm, whether the conclusion in a particular situation is positive or negative regarding TV use.

Uncertainty and complexity One should not confuse modulated conclusions with uncertainty about the conclusions. Popularizers are apt to set up two extreme positions as straw men, and then say that the experts cannot tell us which is true. As evidence, they offer the fact that the experts say something complex which incorporates part of each such extreme assertion. Modulation is not to be confused with uncertainty. On the other hand, there are also topics on which there is great uncertainty among experts. One such area is the relative effectiveness for development of two alternative strategies: one strategy that stresses labour-intensive activities and income equality versus another strategy that stresses exploitation of natural resources and capital-intensive industrialization. Experts may feel very strongly about these issues, and not only about the facts, but also about their moral implications. These issues are a proper matter for debate within the social sciences. But all the participants in this debate (to which Clippinger rightly gives much attention) would, if candid, have to concede that

69

Viewpoint

their views, whatever they are, are subject to a considerable measure of uncertainty. Uncertainty and complexity (which, I emphasize, are not the same thing) confound those who would like to solve with simple-minded policy issues cliches. Rules of thumb, no matter how often they are repeated in public debates, cannot replace the hard work of serious decision. There is no single to whether advanced answer as communications technologies are appropriate to the needs of developing countries. Some clearly are; some the clearly are not; and sometimes answer is unclear. As a general matter, that evenhanded conclusion is all one can say, but it is perhaps appropriate to identify the most prevalent deviations from good practice. It turns out that there is one on each side. On the one side, there is a strong tendency for advisors and salesmen from industrialized countries to recommend to less developed countries the solutions and equipment with which they are familiar or which they have for sale; that leads to a tendency to inappropriate adopt technology that requires often unavailable maintenance. On the other side. there is the ideological propensity of both critics of Western industrial society and apologists for failures of

underdeveloped countries to progress to make a dogma of ‘intermediate Planners of teletechnologies’. communications should beware of both traps. The challenge is to utilize all sorts of technologies primitive, intermediate, and advanced - in ways that are adapted to the needs of development.

Department

lthiel de Sola Pool, of Political Science,

Massachusetts

Institute

of

Technology, Cambridge,

Mass,

USA

’ Jorge Valerdi, ‘A communications plan for hnexico: opportunity for recovery’, pp Bidrn Wellenius, ‘Tele271-288: communications in developing countries’, pp 289-297: John H. Clippinger, ‘Can communications development benefit the Third World?‘, pp 298-304. 2 Cf Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society, The Free Press, Glencoe, IL, 1958. 3 Cf Thomas L. Blair, ‘Social structure and information exposure in rural Brazil,’ Rural Sociology, Vol 25, No 1, 1960, pp 65-75; Phillips Cutright. ‘National political development: measurement and analysis,’ American Sociological Review, Vol 28, April, 1963, pp 253-264; Phillips Cutright and James A. Wiley, ‘Modernization and representation: 1927-l 966.’ political Studies in Comparative Internarional

Development,

Vol 5, No 2. 1969-70, pp 23-41; Cf Hayward R. Alker, Jr, ‘Causal and political analysis’, in inference

Mathematical Science. ed

Applications

in

Political

Joseph Bernd, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, 1966: Frederick W. Frey, The Mass Media and Rural Developmem in Turkey, Report No 3. Rural Development Research Project, MIT, Cambridge, Mass, 1966; Donaid J. and Charles F. Cnudde, McCrone Towards a communication theory of democratic political development: a causal model’, American Political Science Review, Vol 61, March 1967, pp 72-79: Carlos Domingo, Building Dynamic Models from Historical Data, MIT, Cambridge, Mass, 1968; Gilbert R. Winham. ‘Political development and Lerner’s theory: further test of a causal model’, American Political Science Review, Vol 64, September 1970, pp 810-818; Ronald D. Brunner and Garry D. Brewer, Organized Complexity: Empirical Theories of Political Developmenl, Free Press, New York, 197 1; Frederick W. Frey, ‘Communication and development’, in Handbook of Communication. in ed. L. Pool, Rand McNally, Chicago, 1973, pp 412-418. 4There were several studies underway that I was privileged to discuss with their researchers while in India. The Indian Space Agency had commissioned its own evaluation study, conducted by P. Bhaskaran. among others. Dr Shukla did independent evaluation of the an educational and the programming, Operations Research Group in Baroda did an independent evaluation of the adult programming, both done for the Planning Commission. The various results were quite consistent on the main point.

Future ad hoc Robin provides

Hornet,

a

Visiting

an American

Communications

perspective

in a critique of the Report

on aspects

of the Post Office Review

Any American visitor to the UK for more than a few days must be struck by the divergent quality of service for public message deliveries. The telephone here is erratic. it produces more than its share of earpiece static and of misconnected numbers, while the mails, delivered twice each weekday and once on Saturday. move swiftly and smoothly to their appointed destinations. Very nearly the opposite in service quality prevails in the USA. Is it

70

Fellow

of

the

Aspen

of the UK communications (Carter)

Institute scene

Committee.

because the British are a more literate people, fancying the written word and attaching greater worth as well as art to its expression? I had half-hoped to find some answers to these musings from the report of a committee’ whose mandate included assessment of the ‘performance’ and ‘social significance’ of the Postal and Telecommunications business. Instead, the Carter Committee chose to focus most of its attention on

the structure and organization of these now lodged under a two services. common nationalized corporate roof. Here too there is an echo with the USA, where the tendency among members of Congress had been to greet questions of Postal Service performance with calls for reorganization: in 1971 the US Postal Service became by statute a separate corporation, dedicated to the recoupment of past losses through the business flinty-eyed adoption of still carrying an practices (while undiminished load of dewy-eyed, uneconomical social services); in 1977, Presidential Commission after a still-mounting deficits, a reported among response common

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

POLICY March 1978