施拉姆大众传播媒介与社会发展.doc

施拉姆大众传播媒介与社会发展.docMass media and national development: the role of information in the developing countries
Schramm, W 1964 大众传播媒介与社会发展：信息对发展中国家的作用
一、 写作背景
In the 1960s there was a strong belief in the power of mass media to easily propagate ideas on social change. Calls to improve mass communication systems of underdeveloped countries were made as a response to the UN General Assembly Report saying that 70% of the world' s population had inadequate access to information. Said calls came with the need to write a guide on how underdeveloped countries could optimise the power of the mass media for development. Wilbur Schramm accepted the task. He was then connected with the Stanford Institute of Communication Research. The product was this book, Mass media and national development: the role of information in the developing countries. This book implicitly argues that the nation-state promoting development is ideal, and that the media can hasten the process. Schramm argues the media entice people to change. However, media can only do so much when it comes to influencing people in making major attitudinal change. The book discusses campaigns on agriculture, health, literacy and formal education using mass media. Just like works of Lerner, Rogers and other modernists, ideas put forward in this book have been widely contested worldwide, especially when it comes to the power of mass media in influenci