CARIBBEAN

BACKGROUND TO THE TEXTBOOK PROJECT

This report on selected textbooks and other teaching materials used in communication education in the Caribbean region forms part of Phase 2 of the International Textbook Project being co-ordinated by the Professional Education Section of the International Association for Mass Communication Research (IAMCR). The first phase was launched in August 1986 and involved the promotion of teaching materials in sub-Saharan Anglophone Africa, covering textbooks which were in regular use as well as those which were needed. The project was later extended to include similar surveys in Asia, Latin America and the Arabic-speaking countries of North Africa and the Middle East. The research and documentation in those regions were carried out between October 1989 and March 1991, according to commonly established criteria. The current phase of the Project involves similar surveys in the Caribbean region as well in Francophone Africa, Portuguese-speaking Africa, South Africa, Europe and the United States.

The long-term objectives of the project as agreed by the Steering Committee and the IAMCR International Council, are set out in detail in the Report of Phase 1 (1991: 4-5). They include:

(a) The promotion of adequate textbooks and other resource materials in the education of communicators in developing countries, in accordance with their authentic needs and interests.

(b) The introduction of appropriate and culturally relevant materials produced specifically for the country/region concerned.

(c) The widest possible distribution and utilization of these materials within the constraints of limited financial resources.

CARIBBEAN OVERVIEW

Communication Education, including Journalism Training in the English speaking Caribbean is provided principally by the Caribbean Institute of Mass Communication (CARIMAC), based in Kingston, Jamaica. The Institute has been in operation for just over 18 years, having been established in September 1974. It operates as a teaching department of the Faculty of Arts and General Studies of the University of the West Indies.

At its inception, CARIMAC offered a one year post-graduate Diploma Programme with specializations in Print, Radio and Television Journalism combined with introductory courses in Sociology, Economics, Politics, Caribbean Culture and Use of English. At that time, the course was offered primarily to practising Caribbean journalists with a minimum of three years' professional experience.

In 1977, the Curriculum at CARIMAC was re-organised to take its present structure. While retaining the Diploma Programme, the offering was expanded to include a Degree Programme. Students take their Degree Major in Mass Communication, with additional courses drawn from elsewhere in the Arts Faculty as well as from the Faculty of Social Sciences. Teaching at CARIMAC, as in the entire University, is now organised on a semester system, consisting of two 13-week semesters a year. Within the context of this, a majority of courses at the Institute are also taught on a modular basis.

A Summer Training Programme in Media Skills is also offered, for which participants earn a Certificate.

By the end of the 1991-92 academic year, the Institute had awarded over 350 post graduate Diplomas and over 300 Degrees, while close to 450 persons participated in the Annual Summer Programme. Students for these CARIMAC courses came from over 20 countries and territories, most of them from within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) region. These include Anguilla, Antigua, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts/Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent, and Trinidad and Tobago. From time to time course participants also come from non-English-speaking territories of the region or from outside of the Caribbean area itself, including from Puerto Rico, Panama, Curacao, Aruba, Australia, the UK, the USA and West Africa.

There are 6 full-time faculty members at CARIMAC, supported by a group of 6 regular part-time lecturers, one production assistant and 9 non-academic staff members.

Although CARIMAC is the only regionally recognised institution for Mass Communication education in the Caribbean area, the University of Guyana (UG) also offers full-time courses in Public Communication. The Diploma Programme was introduced in October 1975 as a 12-month course, but was expanded to two years in the 1979-80 academic year. A separate 4-year degree programme in Communication Studies was introduced by the UG in 1987-88.

These Communication Programmes operate within the University's Department of Sociology and lack technical equipment to provide students with much practical training. However, the courses are taught in close collaboration with the media-related public sector departments and institutions, which can offer work experience and attachments. The emphasis of the University of Guyana's communications training is on Development Support Communication and promotional techniques. In addition to a specific number of formal social science courses, the communication modules offered by the U.G. are as set out in Table 5.

EARLY JOURNALISM TRAINING

Early journalism training in the Caribbean region was conducted within media houses as part of their staff development programmes. The region's oldest newspaper, the Daily Gleaner of Jamaica, for example, offered a range of on-going training courses for its editorial staff at all levels. For the more advanced training, both the regional print media and the later emerging electronic media sent trainees abroad to institutions such as the Thomson Foundation in Britain (print) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC Radio and TV).

The first tertiary level training programme in the Caribbean was introduced in 1973. The programme, called the Regional Communicarib course, was organised by the Caribbean Conference of Churches (CCC) and the Extra-mural Department of the University of the West Indies. Training was offered in Communication Principles, Print Journalism and at a later stage, the basic elements of Radio Journalism. Operating from teaching facilities at Codrington College in Barbados, the Communicarib Course pioneered formal journalism training particularly for participants from the islands of the Eastern Caribbean. However, both funding constraints and the development of CARIMAC as a region-wide tertiary training institution in communication contributed to a reduction in the viability of this programme. It was discontinued in 1981.

THE INFORMATION GATHERING PROCESS

The data presented in this report were gathered from departmental section heads within CARIMAC on the basis of a briefing document and schedule circulated to each member of staff. The main research effort was concentrated within CARIMAC as the central communications training institution in the region. A copy of the briefing document, indicating background on the project and a request for information, was also circulated to the Department of Sociology at the University of Guyana, where a limited programme of communication education is also offered. The information from the UG did not arrive in time for separate inclusion in the Report but indications from that institution suggest that the trends researched at CARIMAC are broadly representative of the English-speaking Caribbean as a whole. The historical information concerning the Communicarib Course was researched in the archives of the Caribbean Conference of Churches in Kingston.

The research report and analysis were prepared and conducted by Dr Hopeton Dunn, Lecturer in Research Methods and Radio Broadcasting at CARIMAC in collaboration with Professor Aggrey Brown, Director of CARIMAC. Professor Brown is a member of the International Council of the IAMCR and Dr Dunn is a member of the Steering Committee for the International Textbook Project. Other members of the academic staff of CARIMAC co-operated enthusiastically in the provision of information and in making their departmental needs assessment.

The textbooks and teaching materials included in the survey were divided into 10 categories, (Please see Table 6) which vary only minimally from the classification proposed by the Steering Committee.

The variations from the original draft categories, where introduced, were to facilitate sub-categories or subjects featuring prominently in the Caribbean teaching programmes but which were either subsumed or excluded in the standard format. Audio Visual, for example, which is an important separate part of the Caribbean curriculum, but which is not provided for in the standard classification, has been included under Subject Area 3 along with Advertising and Public Relations. Subject Area 6 has been confined to Media Law and Ethics.The originally attached "policies" aspect is included under area 9, which incorporates teaching materials related to Communication and Society and International Communication issues.

The definitions for categories elaborated by the Steering Committee and used in Phase 1 [1991: 8-9] are still applicable to each category used in our analysis.

TEXTBOOKS AND TEACHING MATERIALS USED

The Caribbean, in common with the other underdeveloped regions already surveyed, is experiencing a severe shortage of culturally relevant, high quality teaching texts and other educational materials.

During the survey, a total of 97 frequently used texts were selected by individual lecturers for courses falling within the 10 subject areas identified. These texts were then analyzed in terms of the source of their content and origin of authors. Three categories were used for analysing the data: (1) Caribbean-based content and authorship, (2) North-American or European content and authorship and (3) Other Non-Caribbean, Third World or inter-governmental sources. Textual materials on Caribbean communication issues which were researched in the region but written by non-Caribbean authors and published abroad are classified in category 3. Materials on Caribbean themes written by Caribbean nationals based outside of the region are classified in category 1.

According to the data, as set out in Table 7, 81.4 % of the textbooks in regular use are from non-Caribbean Sources. The dominant source from which these non-Caribbean teaching materials come is the category North America and Europe, which accounts for 75.3 %. Caribbean authors provide 18.6 % of these textual materials and 6.1 % come from Other Non-Caribbean, Third World or inter-governmental organizations such as UNESCO. This latter category is analogous to the "region-related" classification employed in some studies.

The category North America and Europe includes materials produced in the United States, Canada and all European countries. In fact, the main contributory sources are the United States, Britain and to a much lesser extent Germany, Holland and Canada. Because major publishers often issue textbooks in several American and European capitals simultaneously, it is not possible to accurately disaggregate materials particularly from Europe and the United States. However, because the main developed-country sources are not culturally or industrially dissimilar, it is convenient to classify them together.

The 81.4 per cent external origin combines texts written in North America/Europe (75.3 %) and those from the other non-regional, Third World or non-governmental sources (6.1 %).

Although the origin percentages for educational texts and materials vary across the individual subject areas, the trend indicated by the subject area figures reflects an overall pattern of deficiency in the availability of local texts. Table 8 sets out the Book Sources by Subject Areas. In interpreting these figures, it should also be recognised that they are presented on the basis of a selection only, and do not represent the entire universe of texts consulted or available. The criterion for selection has been frequency of use as identified by the lecturer in the given subject area. It should be noted as well that although the emphasis has been on bound textbooks, where lecturers rely quite heavily on other forms of teaching materials of an audio-visual or periodical nature, these are also included in the survey.

ANALYSIS OF SUBJECT AREAS

On the basis of the survey results, it would appear that the greatest areas of deficiency in regional communication teaching materials are in the subject categories of "Audio-visual, Advertising and Public Relations" and "Media Management and Economics". In the AV, Advertising and PR area, 16 texts were identified, all of which were imported from North America or Europe. And in the area of Media Management and Economics only 2 texts were identified, both of which also came from the global North. The extreme situation in these two areas reflect the very embryonic stage of research and writing in these subjects within the Caribbean. Although Audio-visual has been a separate course at CARIMAC for the past 16-years, the emphasis has been on field-work to create materials for use in development contexts and less on text-based teaching.

While it is a distinct teaching area particularly in the United States, it also does not appear to be taught separately in many of the other Third World regions and as such did not figure on the standard subject area list. In the related area of Advertising and Public Relations, the region has access to a wide range of texts, but mainly from abroad. Teaching tasks place in the form of a mix of year-long courses and short electives at the University of the West Indies and short theoretical modules in the University of Guyana's communication programme. The teaching of Media Management and Media Economics also are also in the early stages of development in the region. The survey therefore reflects the relative dearth of Caribbean textbooks on this subject area and the fact the few available texts are imported.

Notwithstanding the predominance of external texts in these areas, regional teaching, reflected in lecture notes, in field assignments and attachments do introduce into the curriculum an important Caribbean component. Traditionally these areas have been taught as on-the-job training within private sector advertising and public relations agencies. In addition, some candidates go abroad to obtain AV, PR and Advertising training. Their emergence into the curriculum at the regional tertiary level therefore represents an important development. But an inescapable conclusion of this study is that these areas will now have to become primary candidates for the production of formal texts and teaching packages from a regional and Third World perspective.

In the other two main areas of techniques teaching, namely the Print and Electronic Media, just below a quarter of the printed textual material was generated regionally or from sources in the global South. This was also true in the areas of Research Methodology as well as general Readers. In Print Journalism, only 2 of 15 identified texts were locally produced, with all the remainder coming from Europe or North America. In the Electronic Media of Radio and Television, 5 out of an identified 22 texts were produced in the region. Significantly all 5 were CARIMAC publications or were produced in collaboration with the Institute. Four of the 5 publications were in the area of Radio skills and the other one being in the field of film production.

Four areas emerged with indications of teaching material at or exceeding 25 % in regional content and authorship. These are Media History (66.7 %), Development Communication (33.3 %), Law and Ethics (33.3 %) and the category Society and International Communication (25 %). The subject area of Media History, which appears to be highest in regional or other non-European content is nonetheless an area of severe deficiency. The percentage is derived from a mere 3 works, two of which are regional in character. While Media History is not yet taught as a separate course in the region, basic historical information is part of the content of each technique and theoretical area. The need for authoritative research and writing on Caribbean and global communication history is not adequately reflected in the summary indications from this research project.

The absence of data from the University of Guyana results in an under-representation of the regional content of the category Development Communication. To the extent that this area represents a specialist emphasis of the UG's programme, it could be expected that a wider range and greater number of texts and teaching materials are in regular use. The CARIMAC course Communications Analysis and Planning, which falls within this sector, relies on mimeograph materials, case studies and unprinted lecture notes. There is a strong basis here for the materials to be brought together into a single publication, carried out jointly with colleagues in the University of Guyana.

The subject area of International Communication and Society draws on a broad and eclectic variety of sources. Because of the rapid changes and development in technologies, no single text is found to satisfy the needs of the syllabus. Of all the areas covered by the project, this one is regarded as least affected by the lack of textual material. The greatest immediate concern in this area is the cost of reproducing the range of available materials. Although, numerically, only a quarter of the sources frequently used are from the Caribbean or elsewhere in the South, the very international nature of the course requires content of a global range. Nonetheless, the area does stand to benefit from further research, analyses and publications on regional communications issues and their interaction with on-going global transformations.

SYNOPSIS

Formal, tertiary-level communications training in the Caribbean has been in existence for less than 20 years. Three institutions have been involved in training activities: The Caribbean Conference of Churches, the University of Guyana and more substantially, the Caribbean Institute of Mass Communi-cation (CARIMAC) at the University of the West Indies.

The overall results of the survey indicate a very high component of imported texts, particularly from the United States and Britain. An important disadvantage of the high proportion of imported texts is the focus on external solutions and analyses which it could impose and the corresponding lack of regional or Southern approaches to techniques training and communication policy planning. These books are being brought into the region on the basis of purchases in scarce foreign exchange. When converted to local currency, the price of textbooks becomes prohibitive to students, an issue which is becoming more important for the delivery of the curriculum in some teaching areas.

An element of this importation is necessary and inevitable as it is vital for a region like the Caribbean to maintain an active interest and interaction with developments in communication thought and techniques as they emerge globally. But the region also needs to contribute to this global interaction more of its own experience in the form of well documented teaching and research materials as well as teaching methodologies which have maximized the use of available local and other materials. It is our experience that forms of teaching which do not necessarily have permanently bound texts as their main focus, can also be very effective. The use of carefully prepared audio visual materials, open files of regional research papers, image banks and field notes are examples of additional and equally useful types of teaching materials. The reproduction and preservation of these non-text and audio-visual teaching materials should acquire a more substantial place in the catalogue of resources forming part of this project.

 
TEACHING MATERIALS IDENTIFIED FOR

PRIORITY REGIONAL PRODUCTION

On the basis of the survey findings and the foregoing analysis, the following teaching materials have been identified for priority production within the Caribbean region.

(1) A book/file on Audio Visual and Graphic Techniques, incorporating examples of regional work and a beginners guide to computer graphics.

(2) A photographic and line-drawing collection of images from non-European sources.

(3) A book on Social Marketing and Development Communication with practical examples drawn from the Caribbean and other developing countries.

(4) An analytical text on Caribbean Media Institutions, their history and implication for regional communications policy.

(5) A book on the Techniques of Television Production, representing either a broadening and update of the existing Film Handbook or a new, separate text.

(6) A Reader on Issues in Caribbean Communication Studies, including chapters on Media and the Law, Communications and Deregulation, Modern Media Management, Ethics and Professional Standards, New Technologies, Small Group Communications, Broadcasting and Cable Policy, and Electronic Publishing.

Many of the above topics or themes have been identified by lecturers themselves as part of the internal needs analysis carried out in the survey. The majority of books identified here are not region-specific, and the list is by no means exhaustive. The total number has been left at 5 in keeping with the project requirement.