Cultural definition of culture
System of knowledge, meanings and symbolic actions that is shared by the majority of people in a society.
Individualism: refers to broad values tendencies of culture to emphasize the importance of individual identity “I” over group identity “we”. We can find democracy in individualist societies because of individual rights.
Collectivism: refers to broad values tendencies of a culture to emphasize the importance of the collective identity “we” over individual identity “I” and group obligation over individual rights.
Low context: refers to communication pattern of linear logic interaction direct approach, direct verbal interaction style. Loose, wide networks, shorter term, compartmentalized relationships, task more important than relationship.
• Rule oriented, people play by external rules
• More knowledge is codified, public, external, and accessible.
• Sequencing, separation--of time, of space, of activities, of relationships
• More interpersonal connections of shorter duration
• Knowledge is more often transferable
• Task-centered. Decisions and activities focus around what needs to be done, division of responsibilities.
High context: refers to societies or group where people have close connection over a long period of time. Dense, intersecting networks and long-term relationships, strong boundaries, relationship more important than task
• Less verbally explicit communication, less written/formal information
• More internalized understandings of what is communicated
• Multiple cross-cutting ties and intersections with others
• Long term relationships
• Strong boundaries- who is accepted as belonging vs who is considered an "outsider"
• Knowledge is situational, relational.
• Decisions and activities focus around personal face-to-face relationships, often around a central person who has authority.
Mono-chronic time
- Do one thing at a time - Concentrate on the job
- Take time commitments (deadlines, schedules) seriously
- Are low-context and need information
- Are committed to the job
- Adhere religiously to plans
- Emphasize promptness
- Are accustomed to short-term relationships
Poly-chronic time
Poly-Chronic time
- Do many things at once
- Are highly distractible and subject to interruptions
- Consider time commitments an objective to be achieved, if possible
- Are high-context and already have information
- Are committed to people and human relationships
- Change plans often and easily
- Base promptness on the relationship
- Have strong tendency to build lifetime relationships
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Assignment III
Karen Hughes is trying to give a good image of the United States to the world especially to Arabs by using public diplomacy. Hughes is using famous people and stars to promote and improve the image of the US. I think that everybody in the US agree that Karen has give more power and credibility to public diplomacy in the country. For the Moroccan context I think that there is no official public diplomacy that helps Morocco to have better image in the international level, but we still have some kind of public relations that Moroccan ambassadors use to strongest the relationship of our country with the rest of the world.
The three strategic goals of the US-Public Diplomacy
1- Making sure that America is continuing the big place of freedom and democracy where you can work, in other words the shining city.
2- Isolating and marginalizing the terrorist extremist
3- Having a common values between America and people in the world by using exchange programs and cultural activities
The three strategic goals of the US-Public Diplomacy
1- Making sure that America is continuing the big place of freedom and democracy where you can work, in other words the shining city.
2- Isolating and marginalizing the terrorist extremist
3- Having a common values between America and people in the world by using exchange programs and cultural activities
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Milestones in Communication and National Development
- Several terms are used to describe the deliberate use of a social system’s communication resources to promote, support and sustain planned social change. Among the terms are communication and national development, development communication, communication and development and communication for development.
- Communication for development is the use of communication processes, techniques and media to help people toward a full awareness of their situation and their options for change, to resolve conflicts, to work toward consensus, to help people plan actions for change and sustainable development, to help people acquire the knowledge and skills they need to improve their condition and that society, and to improve the effectiveness of institutions.
- Public awareness and information campaigns, community mobilization, folk media, social marketing, entertainment-education and advocacy are among the dominant strategies being used to promote, support and sustain projects aimed at agriculture, education, the environment, family planning and reproductive health, gender equality, nutrition and public health.
- Practitioners of communication for development are engaged in projects aimed in improving the economic, political and cultural conditions of people all over the world.
- Purposive communication: the deliberate use of social system’s communication resources to encourage individual and collective movement in a preferred direction.
- Humans can speak and have languages influenced their social organization.
- Through speech and language, they could coordinate efforts to achieve common goals of the group.
- Today, the mass media, especially print, broadcasting and the internet, play important roles in the delivery of formal and informal education in many societies.
Post-World War II realities
- At the end of World War II, the human condition was bleak.
- The devastation caused by the war and the consequences of colonialism challenged the international community to do something about the unacceptable state of the human condition.
- Infant mortality rates were almost five times higher in Africa, Asia and Latin America than in Europe and the United States.
- The Marshall Plan has demonstrated the effectiveness of management in economic and social reconstruction.
- Development aid became an important item on the international relations agenda, and the development project became the primary vehicle for connecting aid with the beneficiaries.
- Industrialization was generally accepted as the engine driving progress.
- The United States and the Soviet Union sought to use its economic, military and cultural power to achieve its national interests.
- Sphere of influence refers to the ability of powerful states to impose their will on other states through economic, cultural and military means.
- The United Nations was created as a mechanism to prevent war and to coordinate the international community’s response to the global pervasiveness of poverty, want, fear, ignorance and disease in vast regions of the world.
- The UN has played a major role in the development of the field of communication for development.
What is development?
- Development is recognized as a complex, integrated, participatory process, involving stakeholders and beneficiaries and aimed at improving the overall quality of human life through improvements in a range of social sectors in an environmentally responsible manner.
- Among the challenges are the reduction and the elimination of poverty, provision of adequate housing, access to health care and lifelong education, food and nutritional sufficiency, adequate and functioning physical infrastructure, reliable transportation systems, respect of human dignity and rights.
- Development is a profound form of social change.
- An unintended consequence of the increased use of chemical fertilizers has been the pollution of water sources.
- Urban groups appeared to have benefited more than rural poor.
- Fifty years of engagement in the development arena by a number of players has led to the acceptance that development was complex, multidimensional and dialectic process that had no universal recipe.
Communication for development
- Several forces have influenced the evolution of the field of communication for development. Among these are the growth of capitalism, advances in communication technology, and the ideology rivalries between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
- Of equal importance in the evolution of the field of communication for development were the influences of changing development paradigms and advances in communication theory, especially theories of mass media effect.
- Theory in the field of communication for development has been influential in mapping the scope and nature of development challenges, guiding research methods, and supporting transformative practice.
- A paradigm is defined as an overarching body of thoughts whose core assumptions are subscribed to by all who work under its rubric.
- During the Cold War, the modernization paradigm not only guided the generation of communication theory but also influenced the foreign aid decisions of the United States and its allies.
Southern Ohio, USA
- Southern Ohio is an example of maldevelopment and the process of underdevelopment.
- In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, coal mining, mining, and logging industries fueled economic development in Southern Ohio.
- By the 1960s, most of these industries were closed, leaving in their wake unemployment, polluted watershed areas, and other manifestations of environmental degradation.
- The concepts participatory and sustainable are central to contemporary communication for development practices.
- Participation refers to the involvement of citizens/beneficiaries in defining, designing, implementing, and evaluating development interventions.
- The term sustainable development is used to describe an intervention whose outcomes are environmentally and culturally sound and can be continued by the community after the end of any resources that may have been provided by external agencies.
Turkmenistan
- Communication for development interventions is also evident in the transitional societies that have emerged since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Eritrea
- Modern communication technologies are being used to create distance education systems aimed at improving access to formal education and the management of the economy.
The Caribbean Community
- Dengue and malaria are diseases induce high morbidity rates that undermine worker productivity and can make the Caribbean lass attractive as a tourist destination. Tourism is a major source of income for Caribbean nations.
The modernization model
- The literature of communication for development identifies three development paradigms that have exerted substantial influence on the field since the end of WW II: dominant paradigm (modernization model), the dependency paradigm (dependency critique), and the alternative paradigm (another participatory, or development, model)
Modernization through capitalism
- At the end of World War II, two ideas contended for dominance in the discourse on development and human progress: modernization through capitalism and communism.
- The modernization perspective held that human society progresses in a linear fashion from traditional societies to modern systems of social organization and that they will continue to do so in an evolutionary manner.
- Fatalism, or lack of self-efficacy, has also been identified as an attribute of traditional societies.
- A modern society, on the other hand, is characterized by “materialism, the dominance of capital as a form of wealth, consumerism, rational-legal authority, sub-cultural diversity, and positive evaluation of change.
- Walt Rostow and David McClelland subscribed to the idea that the cause of underdevelopment was to be found exclusively in internal factors.
- Walt Rostow identified four stages he considered necessary for progressing from a traditional to a modern society: the pre-takeoff stage, the takeoff stage, the road to maturity and the mass consumption society.
- Modernization scholars emphasized the importance of broadcasting in the development process.
Communism
- The Soviet Union and its allies promoted and supported efforts to achieve progress to revolutionary socialism.
- Information and communication had a special role in revolutionary socialist practice.
- The tensions between these two approaches influenced practices of communication for development within the international development community.
The 1980s: development support communication and project support communication
- The work done by United Nations organizations has contributed much to the field of communication.
- Communication’s role in this formulation was to accelerate the installation of the engines of modernization, especially the industrial infrastructure to facilitate economic growth.
- The development support communication (DSC) approach arose out of dissatisfaction with the ineffectiveness of many of the UN-sponsored development projects in Asia and other parts of the developing world.
- These modernization-oriented projects also failed to take into account culture and context. As a result, there was waste, dissatisfaction, and underutilization.
- UNICEF staff were actively assisting governments around the world is designing communication plans to support development.
- Development support communication interventions by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) demonstrated the essential role of communication I its projects aimed at improving food security and the empowerment of citizens, especially women and farmers.
Broadcasting
- In the 1930s, radio in the United States and Europe was used to persuade citizens to become more educated and to consume more goods and services.
- The Voice of America in the Middle East was associated with the United States’ Soviet containment strategy.
- According to Lerner, broadcasting would serve as a psychic mobilizer, facilitating the modernizing process and preventing the adoption of Soviet ideology and practices.
- Broadcasting was key in constructing national identity and national unity.
- Broadcasting played an essential role in diffusion theory, by making the influential early adopters aware of innovation.
- The increased dependency creates the conditions that facilitate individual and collective behavioral change.
- As indicated earlier, socialists held similar ideas about human progress. They contended, however, that capitalism had deformed and derailed human progress, resulting in human exploitation.
- Developing nations that had followed the modernization route had demonstrated marginal improvements in meeting the basic needs of their citizens.
The dependency critique
- The critique of modernization emerged from two intellectual sources: “one rooted in neo-Marxism, or structuralism; the other, in the extensive Latin American debate on development associated with the U.N’ Economic Commission for Latin America”
- Dependency theorists demonstrated that the existing pattern of global economic relations, one dominated by the industrialized north, was contributing the underdevelopment of the developing regions of the world.
- There are encouraging demands for lifestyles that could not be provided by economy.
- The broadcasting systems were undermining development, a phenomenon that Howard Frederick has termed development sabotage communication.
- The dependency critique of the modernization sharpened two essential ideas for communication and development practitioners: the importance of the programming of broadcasting in development; and the importance of participation, not only for achieving a development project goal but also as a crucial element in nurturing democratic practices.
Another development
- This new perspective on development was initially articulated in Sweden and has three fundamental pillars: development should strive to eradicate poverty and satisfy basic human needs, priority should be given to “self-reliant and endogenous change processes,” and development should be environmentally responsible.
Contemporary strategies in Communication for development
- Exciting new strategies in communication for development have emerged over the past three decades.
- Public awareness campaigns, social marketing, entertainment education, and advocacy have been effective in communication for development projects.
- These theory-driven strategies all subscribe to systematic planning: formative research, project design, pretesting of materials, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
Public Awareness campaigns
- Public awareness campaigns systematically draw upon the power of the mass media, especially broadcasting, to create awareness in societies about the development intervention.
Social marketing
- Social marketing is the application of commercial marketing ideas to promote and to deliver pro-social interventions.
Entertainment education
- Entertainment education has been defined as the systematic embedding of pro-social educational messages in popular entertainment formats.
Advocacy
- When stakeholders and beneficiaries in the development process promote the interventions by reporting on their positive experiences and benefits, the credibility of communication increases.
- Communication for development is the use of communication processes, techniques and media to help people toward a full awareness of their situation and their options for change, to resolve conflicts, to work toward consensus, to help people plan actions for change and sustainable development, to help people acquire the knowledge and skills they need to improve their condition and that society, and to improve the effectiveness of institutions.
- Public awareness and information campaigns, community mobilization, folk media, social marketing, entertainment-education and advocacy are among the dominant strategies being used to promote, support and sustain projects aimed at agriculture, education, the environment, family planning and reproductive health, gender equality, nutrition and public health.
- Practitioners of communication for development are engaged in projects aimed in improving the economic, political and cultural conditions of people all over the world.
- Purposive communication: the deliberate use of social system’s communication resources to encourage individual and collective movement in a preferred direction.
- Humans can speak and have languages influenced their social organization.
- Through speech and language, they could coordinate efforts to achieve common goals of the group.
- Today, the mass media, especially print, broadcasting and the internet, play important roles in the delivery of formal and informal education in many societies.
Post-World War II realities
- At the end of World War II, the human condition was bleak.
- The devastation caused by the war and the consequences of colonialism challenged the international community to do something about the unacceptable state of the human condition.
- Infant mortality rates were almost five times higher in Africa, Asia and Latin America than in Europe and the United States.
- The Marshall Plan has demonstrated the effectiveness of management in economic and social reconstruction.
- Development aid became an important item on the international relations agenda, and the development project became the primary vehicle for connecting aid with the beneficiaries.
- Industrialization was generally accepted as the engine driving progress.
- The United States and the Soviet Union sought to use its economic, military and cultural power to achieve its national interests.
- Sphere of influence refers to the ability of powerful states to impose their will on other states through economic, cultural and military means.
- The United Nations was created as a mechanism to prevent war and to coordinate the international community’s response to the global pervasiveness of poverty, want, fear, ignorance and disease in vast regions of the world.
- The UN has played a major role in the development of the field of communication for development.
What is development?
- Development is recognized as a complex, integrated, participatory process, involving stakeholders and beneficiaries and aimed at improving the overall quality of human life through improvements in a range of social sectors in an environmentally responsible manner.
- Among the challenges are the reduction and the elimination of poverty, provision of adequate housing, access to health care and lifelong education, food and nutritional sufficiency, adequate and functioning physical infrastructure, reliable transportation systems, respect of human dignity and rights.
- Development is a profound form of social change.
- An unintended consequence of the increased use of chemical fertilizers has been the pollution of water sources.
- Urban groups appeared to have benefited more than rural poor.
- Fifty years of engagement in the development arena by a number of players has led to the acceptance that development was complex, multidimensional and dialectic process that had no universal recipe.
Communication for development
- Several forces have influenced the evolution of the field of communication for development. Among these are the growth of capitalism, advances in communication technology, and the ideology rivalries between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
- Of equal importance in the evolution of the field of communication for development were the influences of changing development paradigms and advances in communication theory, especially theories of mass media effect.
- Theory in the field of communication for development has been influential in mapping the scope and nature of development challenges, guiding research methods, and supporting transformative practice.
- A paradigm is defined as an overarching body of thoughts whose core assumptions are subscribed to by all who work under its rubric.
- During the Cold War, the modernization paradigm not only guided the generation of communication theory but also influenced the foreign aid decisions of the United States and its allies.
Southern Ohio, USA
- Southern Ohio is an example of maldevelopment and the process of underdevelopment.
- In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, coal mining, mining, and logging industries fueled economic development in Southern Ohio.
- By the 1960s, most of these industries were closed, leaving in their wake unemployment, polluted watershed areas, and other manifestations of environmental degradation.
- The concepts participatory and sustainable are central to contemporary communication for development practices.
- Participation refers to the involvement of citizens/beneficiaries in defining, designing, implementing, and evaluating development interventions.
- The term sustainable development is used to describe an intervention whose outcomes are environmentally and culturally sound and can be continued by the community after the end of any resources that may have been provided by external agencies.
Turkmenistan
- Communication for development interventions is also evident in the transitional societies that have emerged since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Eritrea
- Modern communication technologies are being used to create distance education systems aimed at improving access to formal education and the management of the economy.
The Caribbean Community
- Dengue and malaria are diseases induce high morbidity rates that undermine worker productivity and can make the Caribbean lass attractive as a tourist destination. Tourism is a major source of income for Caribbean nations.
The modernization model
- The literature of communication for development identifies three development paradigms that have exerted substantial influence on the field since the end of WW II: dominant paradigm (modernization model), the dependency paradigm (dependency critique), and the alternative paradigm (another participatory, or development, model)
Modernization through capitalism
- At the end of World War II, two ideas contended for dominance in the discourse on development and human progress: modernization through capitalism and communism.
- The modernization perspective held that human society progresses in a linear fashion from traditional societies to modern systems of social organization and that they will continue to do so in an evolutionary manner.
- Fatalism, or lack of self-efficacy, has also been identified as an attribute of traditional societies.
- A modern society, on the other hand, is characterized by “materialism, the dominance of capital as a form of wealth, consumerism, rational-legal authority, sub-cultural diversity, and positive evaluation of change.
- Walt Rostow and David McClelland subscribed to the idea that the cause of underdevelopment was to be found exclusively in internal factors.
- Walt Rostow identified four stages he considered necessary for progressing from a traditional to a modern society: the pre-takeoff stage, the takeoff stage, the road to maturity and the mass consumption society.
- Modernization scholars emphasized the importance of broadcasting in the development process.
Communism
- The Soviet Union and its allies promoted and supported efforts to achieve progress to revolutionary socialism.
- Information and communication had a special role in revolutionary socialist practice.
- The tensions between these two approaches influenced practices of communication for development within the international development community.
The 1980s: development support communication and project support communication
- The work done by United Nations organizations has contributed much to the field of communication.
- Communication’s role in this formulation was to accelerate the installation of the engines of modernization, especially the industrial infrastructure to facilitate economic growth.
- The development support communication (DSC) approach arose out of dissatisfaction with the ineffectiveness of many of the UN-sponsored development projects in Asia and other parts of the developing world.
- These modernization-oriented projects also failed to take into account culture and context. As a result, there was waste, dissatisfaction, and underutilization.
- UNICEF staff were actively assisting governments around the world is designing communication plans to support development.
- Development support communication interventions by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) demonstrated the essential role of communication I its projects aimed at improving food security and the empowerment of citizens, especially women and farmers.
Broadcasting
- In the 1930s, radio in the United States and Europe was used to persuade citizens to become more educated and to consume more goods and services.
- The Voice of America in the Middle East was associated with the United States’ Soviet containment strategy.
- According to Lerner, broadcasting would serve as a psychic mobilizer, facilitating the modernizing process and preventing the adoption of Soviet ideology and practices.
- Broadcasting was key in constructing national identity and national unity.
- Broadcasting played an essential role in diffusion theory, by making the influential early adopters aware of innovation.
- The increased dependency creates the conditions that facilitate individual and collective behavioral change.
- As indicated earlier, socialists held similar ideas about human progress. They contended, however, that capitalism had deformed and derailed human progress, resulting in human exploitation.
- Developing nations that had followed the modernization route had demonstrated marginal improvements in meeting the basic needs of their citizens.
The dependency critique
- The critique of modernization emerged from two intellectual sources: “one rooted in neo-Marxism, or structuralism; the other, in the extensive Latin American debate on development associated with the U.N’ Economic Commission for Latin America”
- Dependency theorists demonstrated that the existing pattern of global economic relations, one dominated by the industrialized north, was contributing the underdevelopment of the developing regions of the world.
- There are encouraging demands for lifestyles that could not be provided by economy.
- The broadcasting systems were undermining development, a phenomenon that Howard Frederick has termed development sabotage communication.
- The dependency critique of the modernization sharpened two essential ideas for communication and development practitioners: the importance of the programming of broadcasting in development; and the importance of participation, not only for achieving a development project goal but also as a crucial element in nurturing democratic practices.
Another development
- This new perspective on development was initially articulated in Sweden and has three fundamental pillars: development should strive to eradicate poverty and satisfy basic human needs, priority should be given to “self-reliant and endogenous change processes,” and development should be environmentally responsible.
Contemporary strategies in Communication for development
- Exciting new strategies in communication for development have emerged over the past three decades.
- Public awareness campaigns, social marketing, entertainment education, and advocacy have been effective in communication for development projects.
- These theory-driven strategies all subscribe to systematic planning: formative research, project design, pretesting of materials, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
Public Awareness campaigns
- Public awareness campaigns systematically draw upon the power of the mass media, especially broadcasting, to create awareness in societies about the development intervention.
Social marketing
- Social marketing is the application of commercial marketing ideas to promote and to deliver pro-social interventions.
Entertainment education
- Entertainment education has been defined as the systematic embedding of pro-social educational messages in popular entertainment formats.
Advocacy
- When stakeholders and beneficiaries in the development process promote the interventions by reporting on their positive experiences and benefits, the credibility of communication increases.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Research Paper: Freedom of Media in Morocco
Freedom of press is measured to be a part of freedom of expression .Freedom of expression is the right to communicate one’s thoughts and opinions liberally though diverse communication channels. It can be either though giving a speech, write an article… this freedom of media starts to be limited when it touched the liberty of others by either harming others way of thinking, or their personal status. To be aware if a specific country enjoy of having freedom of press, you should first know which media system the country adopt or belong. According to Yahya R.Kamalipour in his book “global communication” it exists six normative media system which are the authoritarian system which is likely to be observed in the tyrannical regimes, the libertarian one that refers to the idea that press should be “free marketplace of ideas”, the soviet theory that focuses on culture and information, social responsibility as a form of public faith, developmental media, the democratic media that holds local information, the developmental model that underline the social issues, and finally the participatory media. Each kind of these media has its own characteristics that we try to apply to countries. Though my paper, I will try to define each one these media systems and their main characteristic, and which kind of media morocco are adopting and measure the level of freedom that Moroccan media have.
According to Shramm in his book the “Four Theories of the Press”, there are four theories which identify the media systems of each country, authoritarian, libertarian, soviet and social responsibility. There are two other media systems added later by McQuail, development model and participatory media. Let’s define each system separately and apply it for countries.
Authoritarian system that media have no freedom and it’s controlled by government, this system promotes censorship and punishment for broadcasting or writing without the government permission. This dictatorship system was applied in Germany with Hitler and Italy with Mussolini and now we can see it in Saudi Arabia where media is very controlled in a point, citizen cannot express themselves. In some countries where this system is applied, military forces is used to direct and control the media.
Libertarian system, the term is coming from liberalism which means the market should regulate itself without government interventions. This system promotes the idea of “free market place of ideas” in other words it’s ruled by capitalist moneymaking rather than government. This system is found meanly in Europe where people have the right to make their voices heard in media.
Soviet model is related to the communist party which denies the freedom of expression, According to Shramm “soviet theory assigned the media a role as collective agitator, propagandist and educator in the building of communism … the main principle was subordination of the media to the communist party - the only legitimate voice and agent of the working class. Not surprisingly, the theory did not favor free expression, but it did propose a positive role for the media in society and in the world, with a strong emphasis on culture and information and on the task of economic and social development….” (2007: kamalipour P. 24)
Social responsibility system means that media is working with capitalist and serving public needs and that’s by acting as a watch dog for the government. Here in this system the media is not controlled by the government and it is working for public interest. For instance, when government imposes new taxes or increases the price of food, media oppose the government and act as the mediator between government and citizens in order to serve the public needs. There are two other models added by McQuail in 1994 development model and participatory media. The development model means that media is used in the development process of the country and that’s by promoting issues such as poverty, education and the access to basic needs. Here in this model the role of the media is to inform and acknowledge citizens to take care of their health by avoiding the causes of diseases and helping them to overcome their social issues. This model is used in countries that are in the transition from colonialism to independence and development.
The last theory is the participatory model which deals with communities and small societies in this model the media is interacting with citizens by taking into considerations their point of views and critics toward the news or the program presented. According to Kamalipour the participatory media “supports the right to relevant local information, the right to answer back and the right to use the new means of communication for interaction and social action in small scale setting of community.
From my own perspective, I can say that Morocco is adopting in somehow the development media theory. After the colonialism period Morocco had to overcome its social and economic issues and develop the country. In that period Moroccan government in cooperation with some international organizations has launched many projects aiming at eradicating poverty and developing its citizens living conditions. Part of the Moroccan media programs is promoting socioeconomic development in the country by showing what the king Mohamed VI is doing in that field. Moroccan media is participating in the development process and that’s by broadcasting programs that help at increasing the level of education in the country; for instance, “Alif Lam” program that help illiterate people to start reading and writing. These kinds of programs are helping a lot people in rural areas to overcome the phenomenon of illiteracy without going to schools. The first concern of Morocco is education because according to some statistics about 50% of Moroccans are illiterate. In order to develop and to move from traditional society to modern and democratic society, Morocco has to overcome the issue of education and that’s why Morocco is spending more than 3$ per citizens every day. Many projects were launched in some radio stations to educate and teach people who could not go to school.
Moroccan media system helped the percentage of children who went to primary school increased from 17% in 1956 to 47% in 1963. From these statistics one can notice that education was the first problem that Moroccan government dealt with, as a result they end up with a significant increase in the percentage of children who attended the primary school. The government doesn’t stop there and they continue to give more importance to this field and thanks to some educational development projects, Morocco succeeded in achieving 92% in 2004. There are also some programs that at the same time entertain and educate in other words edutainment programs, where people can learn and entertain. Media system participated a lot in the development of the country and in the process of moving from tradition to modern society. Transitional society means the process of moving from the colonialism period to a modernity and democracy which is the case of Morocco.(2006: UNDP reports on Morocco)
We saw that Moroccan media is participating in the development of the country, but have they a total freedom? Let’s first define the term, Freedom of media or press is when the governments do not control the media by censoring some of their programs and stopping them from presenting events or special information. The freedom of media means that all people have the rights to express themselves publicly and give their opinion in the media as it was stated by The Human rights declaration: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers” (article 19, UDHR). There are some non-governmental organizations their principle goal is defining and judging the freedom of media in each country such as (CPJ) committee to protect journalist, freedom house and reporters without borders. These organizations are working to develop the freedom of media and expression by looking and identifying if the sate is controlling or monopolizing the media (TV, Radio, and Press). They are measuring the independence of the media by measuring the level and the amount of control that state exert on. Some of these organizations are reporting the level of freedom that media enjoy in each country to International level. In some countries censorship of media is needed to regulate, but without affecting or limiting the level of media freedom. In that case some Non governmental organizations are determining whether the independence of media is limited by the state or not.
According to the worldwide press freedom index Finland, Iceland and Netherlands are the countries where the press enjoys a total freedom. This is because they are democratic countries where the rights of citizens are the primary goals of the government. Countries that are at the bottom of the list are People’s Republic of china North Korea and Vietnam where there is press is restricted. Morocco is considered non democratic country where press does not enjoy total freedom because according to the worldwide press freedom index Morocco is positioned 106 over 169 states. From this statistics one can noticed that even though we have a development media system we still have censorship and control from the government which weaken our media and therefore the flow of information. Moroccan government present news as they want not as it is in order to destroy the image of the country. For instance, al jazera broadcasted the event of Sidi Ifni in the exact way along with the reasons, but Moroccan channels presented only part of the events because Moroccan government did not want to show the whole events and the truth behind it.
From this statement one can notice that Moroccan press still needs more freedom by having independent judiciary system in order to have democratic state that can serve public interest.
Let’s identify the advantages when the press enjoys freedom and independence in Morocco. When the press is free it can play the role of intermediate between states and citizens. For instance, public needs is expressed throughout the press and media so when the media is not controlled by government, citizens can ask for their rights and wants a good example is when government increased the price of some products the media does not broadcast the riots of citizens and the pain of the poor because the state does not want to show the dissatisfaction of Moroccans at the international level. Journalist also could not write articles to criticize government because they were afraid to end up in jails. To make my argument strong enough I can bring the case of the journalist who criticized Moroccan elite without stating his name and the result of that the government punished the author by paying sixty millions Dirhams in order to apologize for this act. It is clear now that in Morocco journalist, TV and radio stations have no right to present or criticize something without the approval of the government. Giving more freedom to Moroccan media can lead to democracy. When the media enjoy freedom and independence it can criticize government rules and public officers who are looking for their self interest instead of serving public interest. By this strategy officers will start to work for the public interest because they know that they can be removed from their positions if citizens are not satisfied. If we say it from the other side citizens’ participation in the decision making of the state will increase along with the level of democratization. I think that by freeing the media, Morocco could develop and move from the periphery to the semi periphery because every body in the country will start to work in the exact way to serve the public interest and the media will have the right to target and discuss the subjects that were in some how shameful in the past when Hassan the second exerted his authoritarian regime. Democracy is the base of development and modernity of the country and without liberalizing media there is no democracy. We can say that Morocco is starting liberalizing the media system and that by applying the concept of globalization of the telecommunication that I learned in the International communication class.
First the telecommunication in Morocco was controlled or regulated by the ministry of communication, in other words the state who was in charge of regulating. After noticing that globalization and development in that sector, telecommunication should be liberalized, privatized and then deregulated. Moroccan government applied this concept by liberalizing the telecommunication sector form states and privatized it by creating an organization “HAKA” that will deal with these issues. The HACA is haute autorite de la communication audiovisual which is responsible for regulating the telecommunication sector in Morocco.
I wanted to apply this concept to Moroccan context and I hope that succeeded in explaining it.
I think that in Morocco there is no freedom of press because when people try to critic or write about an elite, automatically government punish him or her. For instance, the case Nichane the Moroccan magazine that targeted indirectly a topic about religion and that‘s was by writing a jock about Islamic religion. The magazine published an article about the late king Hassan the second. These two publications resulted on some riots and protestation about the Nichane magazine. The government did not miss the opportunity to attack the magazine along with the author by sending them to jails and paying a fine. This event was on December 20th, 2006 where the Prime Minister Driss Jettou prohibited the magazine from publications and closes their website. From this statement one can notice that press expression is very week in Morocco because states is controlling the media. I think that democracy means giving the rights to very body to express their opinions and ideas without any restrictions, but unfortunately it is not the case in Morocco.
To conclude, I think that Media in Morocco should be more liberalized in order to have a developed and democratic society because as lippmann said “A free press is not a privilege, but an organic necessity in a great society." From this statement media play an important role in our society, so liberalizing it will help citizens to express their opinions and also get the exact information without state influence. According to a friend Freedom of press helps in reaching and telling the truth. The truth that journalist could not reach without freedom. I think that I succeeded in reaching the purpose of writing this paper which is “there is no freedom of media in Morocco”.
Reference list
Yahya R.Kamalipour 2007. Global Communication. Purdue university calumet
Individual freedom and the bill of rights: Freedom of the Press. Retrieved May 5, 2008 from international information programs: USINFO.STATE.GOV.
UNDP reports on Morocco 2006
According to Shramm in his book the “Four Theories of the Press”, there are four theories which identify the media systems of each country, authoritarian, libertarian, soviet and social responsibility. There are two other media systems added later by McQuail, development model and participatory media. Let’s define each system separately and apply it for countries.
Authoritarian system that media have no freedom and it’s controlled by government, this system promotes censorship and punishment for broadcasting or writing without the government permission. This dictatorship system was applied in Germany with Hitler and Italy with Mussolini and now we can see it in Saudi Arabia where media is very controlled in a point, citizen cannot express themselves. In some countries where this system is applied, military forces is used to direct and control the media.
Libertarian system, the term is coming from liberalism which means the market should regulate itself without government interventions. This system promotes the idea of “free market place of ideas” in other words it’s ruled by capitalist moneymaking rather than government. This system is found meanly in Europe where people have the right to make their voices heard in media.
Soviet model is related to the communist party which denies the freedom of expression, According to Shramm “soviet theory assigned the media a role as collective agitator, propagandist and educator in the building of communism … the main principle was subordination of the media to the communist party - the only legitimate voice and agent of the working class. Not surprisingly, the theory did not favor free expression, but it did propose a positive role for the media in society and in the world, with a strong emphasis on culture and information and on the task of economic and social development….” (2007: kamalipour P. 24)
Social responsibility system means that media is working with capitalist and serving public needs and that’s by acting as a watch dog for the government. Here in this system the media is not controlled by the government and it is working for public interest. For instance, when government imposes new taxes or increases the price of food, media oppose the government and act as the mediator between government and citizens in order to serve the public needs. There are two other models added by McQuail in 1994 development model and participatory media. The development model means that media is used in the development process of the country and that’s by promoting issues such as poverty, education and the access to basic needs. Here in this model the role of the media is to inform and acknowledge citizens to take care of their health by avoiding the causes of diseases and helping them to overcome their social issues. This model is used in countries that are in the transition from colonialism to independence and development.
The last theory is the participatory model which deals with communities and small societies in this model the media is interacting with citizens by taking into considerations their point of views and critics toward the news or the program presented. According to Kamalipour the participatory media “supports the right to relevant local information, the right to answer back and the right to use the new means of communication for interaction and social action in small scale setting of community.
From my own perspective, I can say that Morocco is adopting in somehow the development media theory. After the colonialism period Morocco had to overcome its social and economic issues and develop the country. In that period Moroccan government in cooperation with some international organizations has launched many projects aiming at eradicating poverty and developing its citizens living conditions. Part of the Moroccan media programs is promoting socioeconomic development in the country by showing what the king Mohamed VI is doing in that field. Moroccan media is participating in the development process and that’s by broadcasting programs that help at increasing the level of education in the country; for instance, “Alif Lam” program that help illiterate people to start reading and writing. These kinds of programs are helping a lot people in rural areas to overcome the phenomenon of illiteracy without going to schools. The first concern of Morocco is education because according to some statistics about 50% of Moroccans are illiterate. In order to develop and to move from traditional society to modern and democratic society, Morocco has to overcome the issue of education and that’s why Morocco is spending more than 3$ per citizens every day. Many projects were launched in some radio stations to educate and teach people who could not go to school.
Moroccan media system helped the percentage of children who went to primary school increased from 17% in 1956 to 47% in 1963. From these statistics one can notice that education was the first problem that Moroccan government dealt with, as a result they end up with a significant increase in the percentage of children who attended the primary school. The government doesn’t stop there and they continue to give more importance to this field and thanks to some educational development projects, Morocco succeeded in achieving 92% in 2004. There are also some programs that at the same time entertain and educate in other words edutainment programs, where people can learn and entertain. Media system participated a lot in the development of the country and in the process of moving from tradition to modern society. Transitional society means the process of moving from the colonialism period to a modernity and democracy which is the case of Morocco.(2006: UNDP reports on Morocco)
We saw that Moroccan media is participating in the development of the country, but have they a total freedom? Let’s first define the term, Freedom of media or press is when the governments do not control the media by censoring some of their programs and stopping them from presenting events or special information. The freedom of media means that all people have the rights to express themselves publicly and give their opinion in the media as it was stated by The Human rights declaration: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers” (article 19, UDHR). There are some non-governmental organizations their principle goal is defining and judging the freedom of media in each country such as (CPJ) committee to protect journalist, freedom house and reporters without borders. These organizations are working to develop the freedom of media and expression by looking and identifying if the sate is controlling or monopolizing the media (TV, Radio, and Press). They are measuring the independence of the media by measuring the level and the amount of control that state exert on. Some of these organizations are reporting the level of freedom that media enjoy in each country to International level. In some countries censorship of media is needed to regulate, but without affecting or limiting the level of media freedom. In that case some Non governmental organizations are determining whether the independence of media is limited by the state or not.
According to the worldwide press freedom index Finland, Iceland and Netherlands are the countries where the press enjoys a total freedom. This is because they are democratic countries where the rights of citizens are the primary goals of the government. Countries that are at the bottom of the list are People’s Republic of china North Korea and Vietnam where there is press is restricted. Morocco is considered non democratic country where press does not enjoy total freedom because according to the worldwide press freedom index Morocco is positioned 106 over 169 states. From this statistics one can noticed that even though we have a development media system we still have censorship and control from the government which weaken our media and therefore the flow of information. Moroccan government present news as they want not as it is in order to destroy the image of the country. For instance, al jazera broadcasted the event of Sidi Ifni in the exact way along with the reasons, but Moroccan channels presented only part of the events because Moroccan government did not want to show the whole events and the truth behind it.
From this statement one can notice that Moroccan press still needs more freedom by having independent judiciary system in order to have democratic state that can serve public interest.
Let’s identify the advantages when the press enjoys freedom and independence in Morocco. When the press is free it can play the role of intermediate between states and citizens. For instance, public needs is expressed throughout the press and media so when the media is not controlled by government, citizens can ask for their rights and wants a good example is when government increased the price of some products the media does not broadcast the riots of citizens and the pain of the poor because the state does not want to show the dissatisfaction of Moroccans at the international level. Journalist also could not write articles to criticize government because they were afraid to end up in jails. To make my argument strong enough I can bring the case of the journalist who criticized Moroccan elite without stating his name and the result of that the government punished the author by paying sixty millions Dirhams in order to apologize for this act. It is clear now that in Morocco journalist, TV and radio stations have no right to present or criticize something without the approval of the government. Giving more freedom to Moroccan media can lead to democracy. When the media enjoy freedom and independence it can criticize government rules and public officers who are looking for their self interest instead of serving public interest. By this strategy officers will start to work for the public interest because they know that they can be removed from their positions if citizens are not satisfied. If we say it from the other side citizens’ participation in the decision making of the state will increase along with the level of democratization. I think that by freeing the media, Morocco could develop and move from the periphery to the semi periphery because every body in the country will start to work in the exact way to serve the public interest and the media will have the right to target and discuss the subjects that were in some how shameful in the past when Hassan the second exerted his authoritarian regime. Democracy is the base of development and modernity of the country and without liberalizing media there is no democracy. We can say that Morocco is starting liberalizing the media system and that by applying the concept of globalization of the telecommunication that I learned in the International communication class.
First the telecommunication in Morocco was controlled or regulated by the ministry of communication, in other words the state who was in charge of regulating. After noticing that globalization and development in that sector, telecommunication should be liberalized, privatized and then deregulated. Moroccan government applied this concept by liberalizing the telecommunication sector form states and privatized it by creating an organization “HAKA” that will deal with these issues. The HACA is haute autorite de la communication audiovisual which is responsible for regulating the telecommunication sector in Morocco.
I wanted to apply this concept to Moroccan context and I hope that succeeded in explaining it.
I think that in Morocco there is no freedom of press because when people try to critic or write about an elite, automatically government punish him or her. For instance, the case Nichane the Moroccan magazine that targeted indirectly a topic about religion and that‘s was by writing a jock about Islamic religion. The magazine published an article about the late king Hassan the second. These two publications resulted on some riots and protestation about the Nichane magazine. The government did not miss the opportunity to attack the magazine along with the author by sending them to jails and paying a fine. This event was on December 20th, 2006 where the Prime Minister Driss Jettou prohibited the magazine from publications and closes their website. From this statement one can notice that press expression is very week in Morocco because states is controlling the media. I think that democracy means giving the rights to very body to express their opinions and ideas without any restrictions, but unfortunately it is not the case in Morocco.
To conclude, I think that Media in Morocco should be more liberalized in order to have a developed and democratic society because as lippmann said “A free press is not a privilege, but an organic necessity in a great society." From this statement media play an important role in our society, so liberalizing it will help citizens to express their opinions and also get the exact information without state influence. According to a friend Freedom of press helps in reaching and telling the truth. The truth that journalist could not reach without freedom. I think that I succeeded in reaching the purpose of writing this paper which is “there is no freedom of media in Morocco”.
Reference list
Yahya R.Kamalipour 2007. Global Communication. Purdue university calumet
Individual freedom and the bill of rights: Freedom of the Press. Retrieved May 5, 2008 from international information programs: USINFO.STATE.GOV.
UNDP reports on Morocco 2006
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Nicholas Negroponte and the One laptop per Child in Moroccan Context
The idea that Negroponte promoted is the one laptop per child. The professor want to produce a low cost laptop that will help children to aquire more knowledge and skills. I think that with this idea the gap between rich and poor will decrease because everybody will have access to computers and then to information. This procedures will be very helpfull for children to have access to sofisticated materials, but in the case of Morocco I am not sure that it will work. Morocco has many problems such as bad managment and corruption that can affect negatively Negroponte idea. in other words, if we ignore these problems that Morocco is facing we can say that Moroccan children can benefit a lot from this iniciative, but we have to teach them how to use this computers in order to have a maximum profit. So, I think that before applying this idea in Morocco, we have to overcome many barriers.
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