Dependency Theory

One of the most powerful critiques of modernization/diffusion theories came from the dependency paradigm. Originally developed in Latin America, dependency analysis was informed by Marxist and critical theories according to which the problems of the Third World reflected the general dynamics of capitalist development. Development problems responded to the unequal distribution of resources created by the global expansion of Western capitalism.

Against modernization theories, dependency theorists argued that the problems of underdevelopment were not internal to Third World countries but were determined by external factors and the way former colonies were integrated into the world economy. It forcefully stated that the problems of the underdeveloped world were political rather than the result of the lack of information (Hornik 1988). What kept Third World countries underdeveloped were social and economic factors, namely the dominated position that those countries had in the global order. Underdevelopment, they argued, was the flip side and the consequence of the development of the Western world. The latter concentrated economic power and political decisions that maintained underdevelopment and dependency. Third world countries were politically and culturally dependent on the West, particularly on the United States.

Asides from external problems, internal structures were also responsible for the problems of underdevelopment. Dependency positions charged development programs for failing to address structures of inequality and targeting individual rather than social factors. Unequal land distribution, lack of credit for peasants, and poor health care services strongly limited the possibilities for an overall improvement in social conditions. Interventions were doomed when basic conditions that could make it possible for people to adopt new attitudes and behaviors were missing.

Also, innovations promoted by development programs were adopted by individuals from higher socioeconomic strata living in cities rather than by rural and poor populations. In singling out the mass media as having a central role in introducing innovations, modernization theories ignored the issue of media ownership and control. Urban and powerful interests controlled the media that was supposed to promote development. The media were not interested in championing social goals or helping underprivileged populations but in transmitting entertainment and trivial information. The relation between media structure and content was virtually ignored in modernization theories. Only a small percentage of programming was devoted to development issues and in regions such as Latin America, the media were commercially run and their the central goal was profit-making not social change.

For dependency theorists, modernization theories was driven by behaviorist, positivist and empiricist approaches in the mold of the “scientific model” that prevailed in U.S. universities and research centers. These particular biases accounted for why structural factors were ignored and for why interventions were focused on behavior changes at the individual level rather than on social causes of poverty and marginalization. Modernization theories as applied in the Third World featured, to quote Bolivian communication researcher Luis Ramiro Beltrán (1976), “alien premises, objects and methods.”

The solution to underdevelopment problems was essentially political, rather than merely informational. What was required was social change in order to transform the general distribution of power and resources. Information and media policies were necessary to deal with communication problems. Solutions to underdevelopment required major changes in media structures that were dominated by commercial principles and foreign interests. Policies needed to promote national and public goals that could put the media in the service of the people rather than as pipelines for capitalist ideologies. Such positions were expressed in a number of international fora, particularly during the UNESCO-sponsored debates about the New World Information and Communication Order in the 1970s and 1980s. Representatives from Third World countries proposed “national communication policies” that emphasized the need for governments to control media structures and oppose domestic and foreign elites and business interests.

keywords: change theories

social change