Unit 1, part 1 - Introduction

UNIT I
DEVELOPMENT

Societal Problems

INTRODUCTION

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. In the 1960’s, the need to address pervasive problems in countries with post-colonial backgrounds prompted the evolution of development communication as a professional and scientific discipline. Perhaps an unstated goal of development communication is to render itself irrelevant through the solution of these societal problems. Some say, however, that these problems will always be there, or at least, the tendency for them to recur is always present. Be that as it may, the existence of these problems in its various forms and permutations provides the major argument for development communication.

OBJECTIVES

After studying this chapter, the student should be able to:

enumerate the social problems associated with under-development;
describe these conditions; and
establish trends when appropriate.

A THIRD WORLD LEGACY

Although this term “Third World” is no longer in vogue after the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe, the problems and conditions represented by this phrase have not disappeared nor, in fact, diminished. The problems that our generation of baby boomers attempted to solve 30 years ago are still as virulent as ever.
Living in a developing country, you must have encountered these conditions on a daily basis. There is a strong tendency for us to become insensitive or desensitized to these problems. As student of development communication it is important for us to resist this tendency. An unrelenting awareness and consciousness of these problems provides the impetus for our practice.

Third World Problems

Development sociologists would tell us that problems as the ones described in the Prologue are pervasive in the Third World and hence associated with underdevelopment. Decades of development experience prove that they come in clusters, occurring and recurring with alarming consistency and tenacity like a collective nightmare that refuses to pass. These problems persistently nag the conscience of rich nations. The virulent nature of these problems has desensitized our society. What is more alarming is the apathetic attitude adopted by many of us.

The Dev Com Response
Development communication grew in response to these societal problems. One of its underlying assumptions id that these problems may be traced to root causes and these root causes may in turn be remedied by information and communication.

Problems
The most menacing of these problems is poverty. How many live in absolute poverty? Consider these figures: 350 million in India; 195 million in China; 93.2 million in Bangladesh; 72.4 million in Brazil; 47.8 million in Indonesia; 46.4 in Nigeria; 37.6 million in Vietnam; 35.2 million in the Philippines; and 157 million more in other parts of the developing world.
Poverty is a problem that brings with it a host of other virulent problems, such as societal instability, vices and diseases. Consider, for instance, the argument of the parents of sexually abused children in Pagsanjan, a tourist town in Southern Luzon. They would gladly “lend” their children to pedophile tourists since these foreigners would spend for their children’s education and upkeep.
Consider, too, the justification of the parents of the exploited Muro Ami boys. That it is only because of extreme poverty that they allow their sons to dive, work the fishing nets and risk their lives.
Then there are the public school teachers would gladly give up their teaching jobs to become domestic helpers in Italy. Not to mention the dentists and accountants who apply for menial jobs in the US Navy. We hear about the young ladies who are forced to sacrifice their morals for a stint in Japan as japayukis. And who is not familiar with the barrio lasses whose highest aspiration id to become mail order brides for aging males in the Australian outback. It is all because of poverty or unrelenting threat of it in a developing country.
Six out of 10 Filipinos are poor. This estimate is based on optimistic figures on National Census and Statistics Office. If we base our figures on current poverty indices of organizations such as the University of Asia and the Pacific, we estimate that eight out of 10 Filipinos are below the poverty line.
Being poor means being unable to eat properly, clothe yourself properly, purchase medicine for your ailments, or dwell in a safe, comfortable shelter. It means being unable to get an education because of the lack of money. It means not being able to support your family or adequately provide them with basic necessities. It means being eternally in debt.
We are not even writing strictly of slum dwellers or marginal farmers here. Many professionals fit the description given above.

Unemployment
You are unemployed when you do not earn a living. You are underemployed when your job requires skills that are way below what you trained for. Consequently, you are paid way below your worth.
Our national economic experts believe that our unemployment rates are decreasing, painting a rosy picture of the utilization of our human resources. However, what does your experience tell you? Are unemployment and underemployment really improving?

High Population Growth
World population has reached the 6 billion mark and is rapidly increasing. Reflect for a moment that at the end of the 18th century, there were only 900 million people in the entire world. This nearly doubled a century later withy 1.6 billion. Today, however, after another hundred years, this figure ballooned almost four times. Is the dire Malthusian prediction coming to pass in our time?
Seven out of the 10 most highly populated nations are developing countries. These countries have youthful populations, and thus have a staggering potential for even greater population growth rates. Considering a world where resources are limited, this becomes a critical concern not only of developing countries but also of Western countries with low populations as well. In fact, the United Nations considers it as one of the biggest problems facing the world today.

Inequality
Contrary to myth, all men are not created equal. Some are born rich, others are born poor. Some are born healthy; others are born with the specter of disease continually haunting them. Some are born in industrialized countries; others are born in developing countries. However, everyone should be equally provided with the opportunity to develop, realize his or her full potential.
In developing countries, such a condition is but a dream. Consider, for instance, the fact that 10 percent of the population in the Philippines controls 90 percent of its economic resources. For a poor country, it is strange to find people literally wallowing in wealth.
Is the situation any better globally?
In 1998, the United Nations Development Program reported that:
The wealth of the world’s three richest individuals is more than the total GDP of 48 nations.
The wealth of the world’s 15 richest people is more than the total GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa.
The wealth of the world’s 32 richest people is more than the total GDP of South Asia.
The gap between the rich and the poor countries to widen
Little has changes since then.

Environmental Degradation and the Loss of Arable Land
The Philippines should not be poor. It is very rich in natural resources. Being in the tropical zone, it is also very rich in genetic resources. Biodiversity is one of the hallmarks of all its major ecosystems – upland, lowland, and coastal. Yet these ecosystems are surely being degraded at an alarming rate.
In the past 50 years, 70 percent of our primary forests have been logged-over. Our agricultural lands are rapidly being transformed into industrial parks and residential subdivisions. This loss of arable land poses not only environmental problems but food security problems as well.
Furthermore, our cities and inland waters suffer from unabated industrial pollution that causes an ever-widening range of pervasive skin and respiratory ailments, cancers, nervous disorders, neurological diseases, and brain damage. What is even more disturbing is the threat to our coastal and marine environment, which is the most genetically diverse in the entire world.
By nature, marine ecosystems are more delicate than upland and lowland ecosystems. A sudden drop or increase in temperature could spell the death of many organisms. A carelessly dropped anchor could physically damage coral reefs and subsequently contribute to depleted fish catch. Consider that more than 50 percent of our protein intake comes from our coastal resources.
Malnutrition
Two decades ago, it was estimated that 68 percent of our population lived below the so-called borderline between nutrition and malnutrition. Seventy-five percent suffer from Vitamin A deficiency. Seventy percent of our children are anemic. An equivalent percentage has internal parasites.
However, our technocrats are optimistic. By 1997, a researcher from the Department of Science and Technology believed that the malnutrition rate would slow down by 40 percent. UNICEF figures belie this rejection. The organization estimates that 160,000 children die each year because of malnutrition. Seventeen children go blind each day because of Vitamin A deficiency.
Furthermore, we should note that, as food policy researchers Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins have stressed, malnutrition wears two faces: undernutrition and overnutrition. Underdeveloped countries are cursed with the former while the latter is prevalent in the West where the poor, who cannot afford gyms and diet programs, are obese.
Ethnic Conflict
Contemporary wars are not being waged by countries but by cultures.
The conflicts in Rwanda, Basque, Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Aceh, Maluku, East Timur and Mindanao are not political struggles but are cases of cultural and ethnic strife. Political scientist and historian Samuel P. Huntington refers to these conflicts as the beginnings of the clash of civilizations. More appropriate perhaps id the phrase, the clash of cultures.

SOCIETAL PRIORITIES
Given the gravity and extent of our societal problems, one would think that a concerted and comprehensive effort to solve all these problems would be conducted by the community of nations. Indeed several initiatives have been formed, particularly during the turn of the Millennium Development Goals.
Yet, if we begin comparing the items of our annual global expenditures, then we can only conclude that these initiatives fall way below our global list of priorities.
The United Nations Development Program made such a comparison in its 1998 Human Development Report. The analysis showed that during the late 1990’s, the world spent US$ 789 billion on military hardware/software and US$ 400 billion on drugs while allotting a mere US$ 8 billion on basic education. And to think that military spending only serves to exacerbate problems such as ethnic conflict.
Europe alone spent US$ 105 billion on alcoholic beverages and US$ 50 billion on cigarettes while the entire world spent a measly US$ 13 billion on basic health and nutrition. The Japanese spent an average of US$ 35 billion per year on business entertainment while the rest of the world had to be satisfied with US$ 8 billion on water and sanitation. Europe and the United States spent US$ 17 billion on pet food and US$ 12 million on perfumes while the rest of the world had merely the same amount to spend on reproductive health care.
The following chart gives the global annual spending in the 1990’s a clear indication of our societal priorities in spite of our societal problems.

Fig 1. Annual Spending in US$ Billion (to be prepared by students; REFER TO DISCUSSION IN CLASS)


Underdevelopment problematique

INTRODUCTION
Problems associated with underdevelopment have exhibited a great degree of complexity. Attempts to analyze these problems often fail to grasp the intricacy of the situation and occasionally offer solutions that work for the short term but are ineffective in the long term.
This chapter gives the development communication student a technique to better appreciate these problems and in so doing offer sustainable solutions.

OBJECTIVES
At the end of this chapter, the student should be able to:
describe the “vicious cycle of poverty:”
characterize problems associated with underdevelopment;
describe the problematique technique; and
define subordinate and superordinate influential factors.

THE VICIOUS CYCLE OF POVERTY

In the mid-1960’s, the noted policy scientist Daniel Lerner introduced the phrase “vicious cycle of poverty” to development jargon. It characterized a situation wherein:

…no sustained economic growth is possible because each specific advance is rapidly checked by some counter-tendency in the social system. The most important of such counter tendencies is excessive population growth. Any significant economic progress tends to prolong life by reducing famine and pestilence. When death rates decrease more rapidly than birth rates – often, indeed, while birth rates are increasing – then rapid population growth occurs. In poor countries population growth tends to ”lead” economic growth by setting rates of increase that must be attained so that the society can stay at its existing levels of poverty. No surpluses can be generated, hence no “leap forward” is possible.

We can summarize the dominant features of the vicious cycle in the following diagram (to be prepared by students; REFER TO CLASS DISCUSSION).


Lerner’s analysis points to excessive population growth as the most critical counter-tendency in the development process. But is it really? If we reduce population growth to zero (ZPG) in the Philippines, will we solve our country’s problems and crises?
Without undermining its originality and importance, we must point out a flaw in Lerner’s analysis: he assumed that these problems or so-called dominant features come individually and sequentially. However, it has been perennially observed that the problems associated with underdevelopment:
Are pervasive;
Are interrelated;
Come in clusters; and
Have an innate tendency to recur.

Development planners in the 1990s faced with the same problems as their counterparts in the 1950s and 1960s. The situation has prompted development agencies to focus on a new concept, namely “sustainable development” (as in sustainable agriculture). It is along the line that we introduce the following topic.

THE PROBLEMATIQUE PERIOD
In the late 1970s, two commu7nication scientists from Indiana University, Michael Molenda and Anthony Di Paolo, observed a certain tendency for problems in communication systems to come in clusters and recur. They referred to the presence of this type of problems as a “problematique’ situation. Since then, the word “problematique” has come to mean a complex cluster of problems that are so virulent in nature that they recur every so often.
Molenda and Di Paolo also developed an innovative yet simple way of solving the problematique by tracing and differentiating between symptoms which they called “subordinate influential factors” and root causes which they referred to as “superordinate influential factors.”
They argued that in any given system, problems are usually interrelated, one being the cause or the effect of another. Decision makers usually fall into the trap of mistaking a symptom for the root cause. Hence, any attempt at remedying the symptom will only succeed temporarily since these are merely palliatives. Until the root cause is identified and eradicated, the cluster of problems will always recur. The important thing is to identify the superordinate influential factors through a series of unstructured, open-ended interviews. This procedure is known as the “problematique” technique.

The Problematique Map
How is the problematique technique done/
First, identify a problem situation. For purposes of example, let us pick a personal, not a societal problem and assume that our biggest problem is “ not enough cash”

Figure 2.1 The Not Enough Cash Problematique Map (REFER TO CLASS DISCUSSION)


Next ask, Why?” In the words, ask yourself, “Why don’t I have enough cash?” List down the reasons that directly cause the situation of not having enough money. Again, for purposes of example, let us say that the following reasons contribute to our cash flow problem:

low income and
high cost of living

In a diagram, link these reasons to the problem situation with a line and an arrowhead pointing towards the problem to establish causality. Our diagram would now look like this:

Fig. 2.2 The Not Enough Cash Problematique Map (REFER TO CLASS DISCUSSION)


Now, go over these reasons one by one and ask yourself, “Why?”
Why is my income low?
Why is the cost of living high?
Let us assume that you have two sources of income: your salary and investment. Let us assume further that your salary is small and that the returns on your investment are also small. Moreover your salary is pegged to the minimum because of the lack of advanced degree. Similarly, the low ROI and the high cost of living may be a function of unsound economic policies. In the diagram, link these factors to the respective situations to establish causality. Our diagram would now look like this:

Fig. 2.3 The Not Enough Income Problematique Map
We may continue this process by again asking ”Why?” for each reason identified until this question can no longer be answered. The problematique itself, however, shares the boundaries of the system under study. In other words, the factor identified should not go beyond the system.
Let us assume that such is the case in our example. The lack of advanced degree could no longer be attributed to any other factor and the unsound economic policy goes beyond the system under study, i.e., our personal circumstances.
Figure 2 gives us an example of the problematique map, the problematique technique’s basic tool for analysis. The bold-bordered box is the condition under study. The boxes with arrows pointing towards them are the subordinate influential factors or the symptoms of the root causes. The blocks with no arrows pointing towards them are the subordinate influential factors or the root causes.
The problematique condition may be described in the following manner: The root causes of our poor cash flow are the lack of an advanced degree and the poor economic policy environment. Symptoms or subordinate influential factors of this problem situation are: the high cost of living and low income, which in turn is caused by low salary and low returns on investments.

Does it make sense to you?


















Reference: Introduction to Development Communication by Ongkiko and Flor, 2003