Rogers, particularly, focused attention on development and its relationship to communication. Rogers has insisted: 'The newer conceptions of development imply a different and generally, wider role for communication' (Rogers, 1976, p8). In many development efforts where information has been used, communication activities alone have been relied on to provide the impetus for change. Skillful communication, for instance, can change peasants' perceptions of their situation, but it alone cannot change the situation very much. 'It can help a backward farmer to see opportunities he ignores, but if opportunities do not exist, information will not create them' (Brown and Kearl, 1967, p25).
In the 1950's and 1960's, there was much optimism and high hopes for the role that mass communication might play in fostering development in developing countries. Hedebro, G, (1980) sums up the following major functions that communication was supposed to fulfill:.
- teach new skills from literacy to agriculture and hygiene.
- act as multipliers of resources of knowledge.
- raise levels of aspirations which in turn would act as incentives for action.
- make people more prone to participate in decision-making.
- facilitate the planning and implementation of development program that will correspond to the needs of the population.
- make economic, social and political development a self-perpetuating process.
- create a sense of nationhood.
These various points express the firm belief of the time that communication could contribute in an important way to the striving for improved living conditions. Some authors even used terms as 'magic multipliers' in describing the media and what they could do in the development process. (Mytton, 1983, p27) Against this background, communication was seen as an indispensable tool for making the people of under-developed societies more modern.
During the 1940's and 1950's, the dominant paradigm emphasized the need for rapid economic growth by means of industrialization.
