About a few days ago, in a brief
moment of self reflection, a stream of thought crossed my mind again. For
whatever it is worth, I have tried to jot down at least part of what I could
recall after a few minutes because the fleeting moment was lost quickly. I thought, though, that, crude as it may
still be, it is good enough to start from again.
My mentor, Professor Nora Quebral,
first defined development communication as the “art and science of human
communication applied to the speedy transformation of a country and the mass of
its people from poverty to a dynamic state of economic growth that makes
possible greater social equality and the larger fulfillment of the human
potential” (1971). After four decades, Professor Quebral (2012)
is now saying that development communication is the “science of human
communication linked to the transitioning of communities from poverty in all
its forms to dynamic over-all growth that fosters equality and the unfolding of
individual potential.” There may be a
difference in the phraseology used, but the deeper meaning remains the same. On the whole, the measure of development
remains founded on economic precepts although in the new definition it has
become much clearer that the measure of development has expanded to include
non-pure economic concepts.
What this is telling us is that the
definition of development communication could change, as it has many times,
usually depending on who the definer might be, or the context in which the
definition is anchored. But as a
concept, development communication has not changed. The definition, in spite of what appears to
be some differences, actually remains because that is what definitions are for, as anchor for everybody
to maintain their moorings to the concept.. What does change is the manner in which the
individual constructs the meaning he or she attaches to it and its processes,
which becomes the basis for the development of a mindset. For example, in the early years of devcom, I personally
considered devcom as a vocation, some kind of a calling. I still do, and I have, in fact, stuck to that
mooring much more deeply as I have learned to view development phenomena from a
more personal perspective.
In the decade of the sixties,
development meant economic development.
Then, beginning in the seventies and eighties, the social and even
spiritual dimensions were added to the equation. Necessarily, this made the whole process much
more complicated and more difficult to measure and achieve. So from a largely economic development
orientation in the sixties, devcom practitioners in the succeeding decades
became increasingly concerned about total human development. It was
in this transformation that I somehow internalized at least a little bit more
what devcom was all about given the totality of my own experience and exposure
to human conditions under varying circumstances. During the first decade after the
introduction of devcom, I may have been preoccupied with economic development
and was personally detached a bit from the realities of the other social and
perhaps psychological aspects of the human development agenda. This largely influenced my own personal
concept of what communication could do as a variable in the development
equation.
Today, I am trying to look at devcom more
as a communication mindset rather than mere variable in the development
equation. Well, to be sure, I have not
yet achieved fully that psychological state although I know that once one has
achieved that state one has reached a level of mental preparedness, readiness,
and willingness to pursue with single-minded confidence and commitment to
achieving, through the use of communication, a human development purpose or
end-goal. It is a mental state that
predetermines how we might respond to and interpret a situation in order to be
better prepared to pursue it through various means of communication. For me personally, it has come to a point
where when I look at an activity designed to benefit individuals and
communities I immediately have that feeling of connection where I can say “this
is a devcom situation” or “this is not a devcom situation.” The first time that this idea of devcom being
a mindset crossed my mind was in 2007 when I was speaking before participants
of an international seminar on development communication at Kasetsart
University in Bangkok (Librero, 2008). At
that time, I had considered devcom as mindset but at a very crude stage. Today, I’m looking at it as a comprehensive
psychological state that, to me, at this point, defies any sort of formal
definition itself but may be heavily influenced by the current definition of
the concept of development communication.
It is as if the condition is having attained a semblance of self
actualization. It means one just knows
when he or she is doing development communication work. It is a situation where you do things
automatically without thinking about definitions. When you consciously go by definitions and perhaps
even sets of criteria, you are clearly doing things more mechanistically. This makes you less sincere, therefore, less
effective.
How does one reach this point or level
of awareness and commitment? I guess
one has to start with a definition of the term because that’s where we anchor
our understanding of it. The definition
may be necessary but far from being sufficient in transforming one’s mental processes towards concretization of beliefs, knowledge, and behavior. The bottom line is, we have to internalize
what it means to be unable to achieve one’s potential as human and gain a deep understanding
of what it takes to achieve such potentialities.
In general, devcom, according to how
it is currently defined, focuses on the achievement of what the United Nations
refers to as the Medium-Term Development Goals (MDGs), which do have very
specific targets. This is how Professor
Quebral (2012) puts them in perspective, as follows (p. 7):
1.
halve by 2015
the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day;
2.
halve by 2015
the proportion of people who suffer from hunger;
3.
ensure that,
by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete
full course of primary schooling;
4.
eliminate
gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferable by 2005, and to
all levels of education no later than 2025;
5.
reduce by
two-thirds, by 2015, the under-five mortality rate;
6.
reduce by
three-quarters, by 2015, the maternal mortality ratio;
7.
have halted,
by 2015, and began to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS;
8.
have halted,
by 2015, and began to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major
diseases;
9.
integrate the
principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and
reverse the loss of environmental resources;
10.
halve by 2015 the
proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water;
11.
by 2020 to
have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 200 million
slum dwellers.
Hitching the focus of development
communication to these MDGs shall remain until they shall have been fully
achieved or at least substantially achieved, then communication efforts would
be refocused again on what shall then be considered major goals of human
development. By then, perhaps there
would be another context. But the manner
in which individuals would view the role and function of communication would
perhaps remain because it shall have become a mindset.
If, in fact, devcom is a mindset, then
it is much like equating development communication with the pursuit of happiness,
instead of mere economic development.
After all, happiness would be the pinnacle of the achievement of the
human potential. Then, perhaps the
pursuit of nations could be the pursuit of national happiness, which could be
measured in terms of Gross National Happiness (Revkin, 2005). The GNH is a measure of quality of life or
social progress in a more holistic and psychological terms in contrast to the
highly economic-based indicator known as the GDP. The GNH was introduced in 1972 by Bhutan’s
Fourth Dragon King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who has managed to steer his
country to modernization and a happiness index much better compared to other developing countries in spite of low economic development in recent decades (Thinley, 2002).
References
Librero,
Felix. (2008). Quo
vadis, development communication? (thoughts on the practice of devcom in a
knowledge society). Original version was
presented in an International Seminar on Development Communication, Kasetsart
University, Bangkok, September 2007. The revised version appeared in the Maiden Issue of The Philippine Journal of
Development Communication, 2008.
Quebral,
Nora C. (2012). Development Communication Primer. E-book. http://www.southbound.my.
Penang, Malaysia: Southbound Sdn. Bhd.
Quebral,
Nora C. (1971). Development communication in the agricultural
context. Paper presented at the
symposium on the theme ‘In Search of Breakthroughs in Agricultural development’
in honor of Dr. Dioscoro L. Umali, College, Laguna, Philippines, 9-10 December.
Revkin,
Andrew C. (2005). A new measure of well-being from a happy little
kingdom. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/04/science/04happ.html
Thinley,
Lyonpo Jigmi Y. (2002). Gross national happiness as measurement of
development. Theosophical Digest, 2nd
Quarter, pp. 36-45.
No comments:
Post a Comment