People Must Change

Abstract

This is the first of four articles under the general title “Literacy–And Then?” which deal with the problems and possibilities of the use of mass media in bringing about needed change in African countries. These articles will be published in successive issues of PA. Though the approach is not anthropological in the strict academic sense, it is a valid and scholarly one grounded in serious theory and empirical research, and it emphatically deals with cross-cultural communications, which is the reason for PA's existence. We feel therefore that these articles enter into our purpose and will be of interest to our readers. In this first article, the author underlines the fact that needed changes to develop in African countries the capacity to create wealth must come from the people themselves, who will need to change their attitudes. The mass media ought to help bring this about, but there are problems; the reading habit is practically non-existent in Africa because of illiteracy, high costs of publications, poor teaching, bad material conditions for learning and reading, inadequate format, and irrelevant content. In subsequent articles approaches to a solution will be outlined.