Development communication has its origins in post-war international aid programs to countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa that were struggling with poverty, illiteracy, poor health and a lack of economic, political and social infrastructures. Development communication commonly refers to the application of communication strategies and principles in the developing world. It is derived from theories of development and social change that identified the main problems of the post-war world in terms of a lack of development or progress equivalent to Western countries.

Development theories have their roots in mid-century optimism about the prospects that large parts of the post-colonial world could eventually “catch-up” and resemble Western countries. After the last remains of European empires in Africa and Asia crumbled in the 1950s and 1960s, a dominant question in policy and academic quarters was how to address the abysmal disparities between the developed and underdeveloped worlds. Development originally meant the process by which Third World societies could become more like Western developed societies as measured in terms of political system, economic growth, and educational levels (Inkeles & Smith 1974). Development was synonymous with political democracy, rising levels of productivity and industrialization, high literacy rates, longer life expectancy, and the like. The implicit assumption was that there was one form of development as expressed in developed countries that underdeveloped societies needed to replicate.

Since then, numerous studies have provided diverse definitions of development communication. Definitions reflect different scientific premises of researchers as well as interests and political agendas of a myriad of foundations and organizations in the development field. Recent definitions state that the ultimate goal of “development communication” is to raise the quality of life of populations, including increase income and well-being, eradicate social injustice, promote land reform and freedom of speech, and establish community centers for leisure and entertainment (Melkote 1991, 229). The current aim of development communication is to remove constraints for a more equal and participatory society.

Although a multiplicity of theories and concepts emerged during the past fifty years, studies and interventions have fundamentally offered two different diagnoses and answers to the problem of underdevelopment. While one position has argued that the problem was largely due to lack of information among populations, the other one suggested that power inequality was the underlying problem. Because the diagnoses were different, recommendations were different, too. Running the risk of overgeneralization, it could be said that theories and intervention approaches fell in different camps on the following points:

• Cultural vs. environmental explanations for underdevelopment.
• Psychological vs. socio-political theories and interventions.
• Attitudinal and behavior models vs. structural and social models.
• Individual vs. community-centered interventions development.
• Hierarchical and sender-oriented vs. horizontal and participatory communication models.
• Active vs. passive conceptions of audiences and populations.
• Participation as means vs. participation as end approaches.

These divergences are explored in the examination of theories and approaches below.

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