Kaarle Nordenstreng is Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication
at the University of Tampere, Finland, and former President of the IAMCR
Professional Education Section.
Aggrey Brown is Professor of Mass Communication and Director of
the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication at the University of
the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.
Michael Traber is former Director of Studies and Publications at
the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) and Editor of
its journal Media Development.
* This article was first published in Javnost - The Public (quarterly
journal by the European Institute for Communication and Culture, Ljubljana,
Slovenia), 1/1998, pp.79-89 (under authorship of Nordenstreng and Brown).
In this respect the question of textbooks in communication education can be seen as an issue of cultural emancipation as understood in the debate around the new international information and communication order. At the same time the textbook problem represents another element of this new order: the need for a better awareness of the cultural and socio-political diversity of the world, whereby communicators should be educated not only to share a national perspective but to pay due attention also to other peoples and ultimately to the international community at large. Thus national and universal interests complement each other. (Nordenstreng and Traber 1991, 1)
Specifically, we wanted to identify where and how to promote more socio-economically and culturally relevant educational materials, particularly texbooks in each region (textbook understood as a book prescribed or recommended for a certain course; see Nordenstreng and Traber 1991, 3). Moreover, we wanted to promote South-South cooperation and to see whether something could be done by putting existing textbooks from other regions at the disposal of those who were under Western and Northern dominance. And this drive for Third World emancipation was far from a uniform, "totalitarian" approach painted by the opponents of NWICO in their propaganda in the 1980s (see e.g. Nordenstreng 1999). It was rather an ecumenical drive towards pluralism and global diversity in the sense of the MacBride Report (UNESCO 1980).
The "textbook project," as it was briefly called in the IAMCR, was initiated in 1982 at the IAMCR conference in Paris and endorsed the following year by UNESCO's meeting of experts on cooperation among regional communication training institutions. In 1984, the IAMCR Professional Education Section organized in Prague a workshop on the topic, leading to a regional project in Anglophone Africa with the financial assistance of UNESCO's IPDC (Nordenstreng and Boafo 1988). The African survey was followed up by the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA) with a major two-phase project through the African Council for Communication Education (ACCE) to develop communication curricula and replace textbooks produced in North Atlantic countries by those produced specifically for the region (Boafo 1991).
The IAMCR for its part applied for, and obtained, a substantial grant from UNESCO's IPDC in 1989 to carry out an interregional survey for "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" and for "the introduction of appropriate and culturally relevant materials produced specifically for the country/region concerned" (as stated in the long-term objectives of the project; see Nordenstreng and Traber 1991, 4). Phase I of the project produced bibliographic surveys of Anglophone Africa, the Arab world, Asia and Latin America (reported in Nordenstreng and Traber 1991). In 1992-94 the Finnish International Development Agency (FINNIDA) generously financed Phase II of the project, facilitating the extension of the surveys to Francophone Africa, South Africa and the Caribbean, and facilitating a cross-regional examination of the bibliographies. (1)
Accordingly, the inventory reported here is based on literature recorded
in the early 1990s. Although the situation may have somewhat improved since
then -- in part thanks to this project -- the overall picture remains obviously
more or less the same as five years ago. After all, there has been a decline
in the economies of many if not most developing countries of the so-called
South (to a lesser degree also in the North), which has severely affected
indigenous book production and increased the cost of books. Despite much
talk about new communication technologies it is obvious that no fundamental
changes have taken place in the institutional and curricular context of
communication studies around the world -- a decade of shaky economies is
too short time for that. Therefore we see no reason to disregard the data
as outdated. We are convinced that the overall picture of the inventory
is bitterly true still today.
The overall picture based on data from the regional bibliographies
is given in Table 1.
| Regional bibliographies in: | |||||||
| AA | FA | AR | IN | AS | CA | LA | |
| Number of textbooks selected | 316 | 99 | 179 | 952 | 2285 | 97 | 130 |
| Percentage of textbooks
regionally relevant |
20 | 8 | 92 | 49 | 22 | 25 | 29 |
| Percentage of textbooks published in | |||||||
| own region | 6 | 8 | 94 | 32 | 24 | 19 | 70 |
| Europe | 24 | 84 | 2 | 6 | 12 | 40 | 30 |
| USA | 69 | 7 | 4 | 62 | 58 | 41 | 0 |
| South | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
AA - Anglophone Africa (8 countries, 35 schools, 316 books)
FA - Francophone Africa (4 countries and schools, 99 books)
AR - Arab world (6 countries and schools, 179 books)
IN - SAARC (India + 3 countries, 23 schools, 952 books)
AS - ASEAN (3 countries, 11 schools, 2285 books)
CA - Caribbean (1 regional school, 97 books)
LA - Latin America (11 countries, 90 schools, 130 books; only selection
of most commonly used in the region)
The seven regions listed above provided representative samples of commonly used textbooks (ASEAN even produced a comprehensive bibliography). (2) The regional teams then judged according to common criteria, whether or not the textbooks in question were regionally relevant and where and when they were published.
Table 1 shows that by far the highest regional relevance is to be found in the Arab world (92%) and that most of the textbooks were also published in the region (94%). In fact, 90% were books authored by Arab writers, while 10% were translations (most from American sources, often without acknowledgement). The Arab literature was also relatively current: two-thirds of the textbooks were published after 1970 and nearly one-third in the 1980s.
The high regional relevance of textbooks produced in the Arab world is obviously due to language: textbooks in Arabic, the lingua franca of the region, cannot be substituted by foreign books (in English, French, etc.) as easily as in many other regions. The same dependency on -- or protection of -- language is true in Latin America, where Spanish, and Portugese in Brazil, facilitate regional publishing (70%). However, unlike the Arab world, Latin America can also resort to Spanish or Portuguese language books published in Europe (30%). The relatively low figure for regional relevance in Latin America (29%) for its part reflects the tradition of communication studies in this region: textbooks are mostly on general theories and concepts, not so much bound to specific conditions of the media (for details, see the regional report by Joaquin Sanchez and Mariluz Restrepo in Nordenstreng and Traber, 39-51).
Returning to the Arab world, a closer look at the impressive regional relevance reveals a number of problems. First, it is one country -- Egypt -- that dominates in textbook production, as pointed out by Awatef Abd El Rahman in her regional report: "Replies from Algeria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Syria mentioned that they were dependent on Egyptian textbooks, plus some foreign reference works." (Nordenstreng and Traber 1991, 58). Accordingly, institutions with an overtly Islamic approach also rely on Egyptian textbooks. Moreover:
Prof. Singh had his Master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and was influenced by the curricula and textbooks of his alma mater. So, he brought those ideas to Lahore from which neither Indian nor Pakistani programmes in journalism have been liberated. Many of the later teachers in these countries and their neighbours had similar U.S. orientations.
In free India it was at Hislop Christian College, Nagpur University, that a full-fledged Journalism Department was organised, 1952-53. A Fulbright scholar, Dr. Roland E. Wolseley, was in charge, followed by Prof. Floyd Baskette, better known among American textbook writers of their times in reporting and editing respectively. Wolseley's Journalism in Modern India of his Nagpur days, and the Indian Reporter's Guide (1962, by another American professor at Hislop) still continue to be valued texts on many Indian programmes.
The U.S. thrust has continued into the 1990s. The Indian educational level has risen to graduate programmes and Indian scholars settled in the States also now come under the Fulbright umbrella, with no radical departures from the Singh and Wolseley days... (4)
(e) To assist in arranging selected translations and adaptations across different regions, acting as a catalyst without getting involved in the actual publishing businesses. (Nordenstreng and Traber 1991, 4-5)
The assessment was done from annotated bibliographies of each region listed in Table 1 above plus South Africa, which also compiled a bibliography of 49 commonly used books. (5) The judges were members of the textbook project team in each region except SAARC, which at this stage could not participate. In addition, teams were also recruited from Europe (3 experts) and the USA (2 experts) to go through the regional bibliographies from the point of view of the North and to select, like the other teams, up to five most interesting textbooks from each region.
The results are shown in a composite interregional bibliography, listing
all textbooks chosen by at least one regional team, with marks under each
book showing which team(s) had selected it. A summary of the results is
provided in Table 2. (6)
| Regional teams who made selections | Total | ||||||||||
| AA | FA | SA | AR | AS | CA | LA | EU | US | |||
| I | Print media | 5 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 12 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 59 |
| II | Electronic | 6 | 4 | 14 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 11 | 12 | 12 | 72 |
| III | PR-Advertising | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 25 |
| IV | Management | 0 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 16 |
| V | History | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 10 |
| VI | Law-ethics | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 24 |
| VII | Theory-research | 6 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 11 | 53 |
| VIII | Development | 8 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 57 |
| IX | Soc-cult-int | 3 | 5 | 9 | 7 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 13 | 14 | 65 |
| X | General | 3 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 7 | 6 | 27 |
AA - Anglophone Africa
FA - Francophone Africa
SA - South Africa
AR - Arab world
AS - ASEAN
CA - Caribbean
LA - Latin America
EU - Europe
US -USA
The ten subject areas are those used throughout the textbook project as explained in Nordenstreng and Traber (1991, 7-9). Such categories are always somewhat arbitrary and difficult to apply particularly for books from different cultures. For example, category I covers not only general books on the press (including its history, role in society, etc.) but also skills-oriented books on reporting, etc., making the borderlines between areas I, V, IX, and X fluid. Category VII covers basic theories of communication as well as research methods, whereas category IX focuses on the role of media in society and culture as well as international communication. Yet the classifying of textbooks into the 10 categories was quite reliable as proved by several independent coders.
The figures in Table 2 indicate how many times books in each subject
area were selected by the regional teams across all the bibliographies.
Thus the table shows the topical direction of interest among each regional
team, rather than the regions where the books were used. The latter aspect
was irrelevant, because practically all teams made maximum selections of
five books from each regional bibliography. The only notable exception
was the Caribbean team with one bibliography:
Ugboajah, Frank O (ed.). 1985. Mass Communication, Culture and Society in West Africa. Oxford: Hans Zell. (In Anglophone African bibliography, selected by teams from FA, SA, AS, EU, US.)
Mohamed Sayed Mohamed. 1988. Media Responsibility and Islam. Cairo. (In Arab bibliography, selected by teams from AA, AS, LA, EU, US.)
Agrawal, Binod C. & al. 1986. Communication Research for Development: The ISRO Experience. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Co. (In SAARC bibliography, selected by teams from AA, FA, AR, EU, US.)
Dissanayake, Wimal (ed.). 1985. Communication Theory: The Asian Perspective. Singapore: AMIC. (In ASEAN bibliography, selected by teams from AA, FA, AR, CA, EU, US.)
Hinds, Rudolph. 1987. Communication for Human Development: A Caribbean Perspective. Barbados: Caribbean Conference of Churches. (In Caribbean bibliography, selected by teams from AA, FA, AR, AS, LA, EU, US.)
Alsina, Miguel. 1989. La construcción de la noticia. Barcelona: Paidos. (In Latin American bibliography, selected by teams from FA, SA, AS, CA, US.)
An analysis of Table 2 reveals a number of interesting points. Firstly it confirms the fact that theoretical materials (areas VII, VIII and IX) are given higher priority over non-theoretical or skills-oriented materials. A notable exception to this is the selection of textbooks dealing with electronic media: total of 72 selections was made from this area (II), which rated highly on most of the lists derived from the different regions.
However, it is to be noted that the highest scores in area II were from South Africa, Latin Ameria, Europe and the USA -- the regions of the North and those in the South with highly developed electronic media. In addition, a reasonable explanation for the priority placed on textual materials dealing with the electronic media is that these media are almost ubiquitous throughout the world and have particular relevance in the non-industrialised countries where levels of literacy of citizens varies considerably within and between countries. Greater reliance is therefore placed on developing skills and knowledge of these technologies, within training institutions whose graduates must operate in relatively stratified environments in this regard.
It may also be the case that high priority is given to the electronic media because of the revolutionary technological developments that are occuring within this segment of the infocom industry globally. New technologies are revolutionising the field and creating increasing access of citizens throughout the world to new sources of information, albeit with heavy emphasis on entertainment.
If this explanation of the popularity of the electronic media subject area is correct, it points to the need for greater attention to be paid to new infocom technologies as they affect the discipline of mass communication and the process of professional formation of practitioners within it. It is already evident that some of the new technologies bring with them new ways of producing, storing and retieving information and, consequently, new ways of relating to them individually and organizationally.
With the exception then of the electronic media subject area, which was the most popular, and the print media as an area combining press and journalistic writing, theoretical subject areas ranked high in the selections from all regions. And perhaps it should not be surprising that "media and society/culture and international communication" (IX) ranked highest among the theoretical areas, with 65 selections being made from this category.
The emphasis placed on the theoretical subject areas may be explained by the narrow technical resource base of many professional education institutions in the non-industrialised countries. The fact, however, that 65 selections were made from the area IX would seem to suggest a more positive explanation for this emphasis. The obvious cultural differences between the majority of the world's people and Westerners in an increasingly globalised economy places a priority on intercultural communication as a field of study. Contact with the Western cosmology is hardly serendipitous today. On the contrary, it is inevitable and persistent especially in light of the ubiquity of new technologies.
That "communication for development" and "communication theory and research" would follow closely as important areas is also quite natural since they are both complementary and associated fields of study that overlap with the subject area "media and society/culture and international communication." It is also to be noted that development ranks relatively high in most developing regions, but particularly in the least developed regions of the South, whereas it was of less importance for the EU and US teams as well as the more highly developed regions of ASEAN, Caribbean and Latin America.
While the range of textbooks in the field of media management is limited, it is also likely that this second least popular of all subject areas (16 selections) warrants its status on the basis of its rather specialised nature as well. Curricula of media training institutions in environments with few media are not likely to pay much attention to media management as a subject area for general instruction and study. Few work-related opportunities for graduates combined with limited available expertise for teaching are obvious deterrents.
While the subject areas "media law and ethics", and "media history"
are inherently important, they are the most context-specific subject areas
and therefore the least generalisable, cross-culturally. The relatively
high selections in both categories by EU probably reflects a genuine interest
among European educators in these aspects in other parts of the world,
whereas no interest is shown by Europeans in "public relations/advertising"
and "media management."
Yet publishing textbooks locally is not enough. It is important to ensure that they reach the institutions for which they are meant. In this respect, this study recommends that efficient machinery to distribute the books be established in every region. This would require local publishers, regional schools and associations to work closely together. (Nordenstreng and Traber 1991, 79)
However, a start has been made, and the process so far has been very encouraging. It not only created awareness of the situation, in most cases dismal, but actually prompted institutions and individual researchers to develop plans for the creation of new manuscripts. In addition, it has brought together communication educators and researchers from most regions of the South. These contacts have laid the foundation for South-South cooperation in what have been, hitherto, uncharted waters. (Nordenstreng and Traber 1991, 83)
However, the project has helped to make a start. We can proudly point to the fact that a new cross-cultural text, Communication Ethics and Universal Values (Christians and Traber 1997), resulted from regional seminars organized by WACC, and as a response to the textbook project. We can also refer to two global textbooks which were initiated by the project and which will soon be completed -- one on environmental reporting and another on multicultural theories. (8) Furthermore, the project gave rise to an American initiative to solicit new books and journals from publishers to be donated to selected institutions around the world, thereby realising an international system of depository libraries in communication studies. (9) Finally, an international network of journalism schools -- "JourNet" -- is being established with UNESCO's IPDC support and with the ACCE as a focal point. (10)
However, despite these examples and many optimistic plans, the main problems have not yet been solved. One may even say that on a global scale there has not been real follow-up nor implementations -- though the diagnosis is complete, the patient still awaits treatment. Such a gloomy conclusion is inescapable considering the enormous growth of media research and publishing in Europe and the USA, especially on the information society and other policy issues of the North.
On the other hand, while we should be careful not to exaggerate the benefits of the Internet, World Wide Web and the rest of multimedia driven cyberspace, it is obvious that new technologies do offer an important means of South-South as well as South-North information sharing. And it is clear that, if used creatively, these technologies can help to mitigate the high cost of printing educational materials. Standard textbooks will obviously continue to be needed and used (not least because of copyright reasons), while materials reached through the Net serve as supplementary aids. Although access to the Internet and World Wide Web is still quite limited in the South, universities are among the first users, thereby strengthening the position of those institutions of communication studies which operate under an academic umbrella.
Despite all the talk about globalization however, indigenous cultures remain crucial and diversity is even more highly valued than hitherto, as noted by the World Commission of Culture and Development (chaired by Javier Perez de Cuellar) in its report Our Creative Diversity (UNESCO 1995). Thus the original raison'd'etre of this project, instead of becoming outdated during the past decade, has only become more vital.
Last but not least, the general importance of educational materials
cannot be overemphasized. It is through them and particularly textbooks,
that both teachers and students acquire the concepts and paradigms which
allow them to confidently participate in, and substantially contribute
to enriching the world through communication studies.
1. Annotated bibliographies of commonly used textbooks in Anglophone Africa, Francophone Africa, South Africa, and the Caribbean, with background reports by Tony Nnaemeka, Francis Wete, John van Zyl and Hopeton S. Dunn respectively, are reproduced as appendix to the present report.
2. These bibliographies are to be found in the progress report by Nordenstreng and Traber (1991; also reproduced in this Website) and in appendix to the present report.
3. See his chapter in the present report.
4. Eapen's unpublished paper of 1991 is reproduced in the present report.
5. The bibliography examined for Anglophone Africa was a new version produced in 1991 by ACCE, whereas the data in Table 1 above are from the original 1986 survey. The annotated bibliographies examined for the SAARC and Arab regions were those published in Nordenstreng and Traber (1991), instead of the extensive versions on which the data of these regions is based in Table 1.
6. The selected bibliography for all regions is is reproduced as Appendix I to the present report.
7. An explanatory note in the letter of selections by the Caribbean team from CARICOM (sent to the project coordinator at the University of Tampere).
8. The textbook on environmental reporting was sponsored by the original FINNIDA grant and its editor is Kaarle Nordenstreng. The textbook on multicultural theories was sponsored, in addition to FINNIDA, by WACC and its principal editor is Michael Traber.
9. The Communication Depostitory Library System was created by Robert Picard from the State University of California, Fullerton, in collaboration with the IAMCR Professional Education Section and its links to relevant regional associations and institutions.
10. JourNet was planned at a meeting in Nairobi in January 1997 and
it was granted an initial funding by the IPDC in December 1997.
Christians, Clifford and Michael Traber (eds.). 1997. Communication Ethics and Universal Values. Thousand Oaks/London/Delhi: SAGE Publications.
Nordenstreng, Kaarle. 1999. The Context: Great Media Debate. In R. Vincent, K. Nordenstreng and M. Traber (eds.), Towards Equity in Global Communication: MacBride Update. Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press
Nordenstreng, Kaarle and Kwame S.T. Boafo. 1988. Promotion of Texbooks for the Training of Journalists in Anglophone Africa Progress Report of an IPDC Project. Budapest: Mass Communication Research Centre (IAMCR Occasional Papers No. 5/1988, 45 pages – out of print but available in this Website).
Nordenstreng, Kaarle and Michael Traber (eds.). 1991. Promotion of Educational Materials for Communication Studies. Tampere: University of Tampere (Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Publications Series B 34/1991, 126 pages).
UNESCO 1980. Many Voices, One World: Report by the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems. Paris: UNESCO Press.
UNESCO. 1995. Our Creative Diversity: Report of the World Commission
on Culture and Development. Paris: UNESCO Press.