Communication policies and planning-some observations and recommendations

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One of the notable developments in the Asian communication scene during the last few years has been a power-packed thrust to tempt media people into taking a second and critical look at their own role in a nation’s development. For the private media that often looked at the watch-dog function as their major role in society, the concept of mixing communication with national development seemed an embarassing new thought. For those who lived under the shadow of governments, sending packages of information programmes down their communication conveyor belts, development communication philosophy appeared more or less like an academic invention aimed at sending them back to school. Today, the value and practicability of the idea has not only been proven among mass communication people in the Asian region but has also attracted development planners and administrators into including communication programmes in their development strategies. In between the emergence of the concept and its acceptance today, there have been scores of seminars, conferences, academic dissertations, and controversies (some yet unresolved). The intensity of thought and action has brought the so far unquestioned issues regarding the role of information and information-givers into clear public focus. In the active search for an acceptable synthesis, AMIC has been running seminars, workshops, and conferences on the many aspects of development communication. One of the recent meetings was a conference on Development Communication Policies and Planning. The conference aimed at pooling ideas on how to stimulate a process of communication planning at a national level and integrate communication planning with overall development planning. The conference participants, working in three groups, came up with observations and recommendations which could, if followed up, lead not only to putting communication efforts in the right directions in developing countries but also to an increased integration of communication and development goals and resources.