Development Communication Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The assertion is false and the reason is true. Development does not mean equal access to products, services and opportunities on purely economic terms, since that view of it as a matter of goods leaves out social, cultural and political aspects, and the critics of the older model say so. The reason, that bits and watts increase mass production and consumption and result in modernised poverty, is a statement of that criticism and is true. Option D is correct, and options A, B and C accept the assertion.

Answer: B

The stages in E.M. Rogers' model of the diffusion of innovations run in the order knowledge, persuasion, decision and confirmation. The adopter first learns that the innovation exists (knowledge), then forms a favourable or unfavourable attitude (persuasion), then chooses to adopt or reject it (decision), and after adoption seeks reinforcement for the choice (confirmation). Rogers' fuller list also has implementation between decision and confirmation. Option B gives the order in the key. The other options put decision before persuasion or confirmation before the decision.

Answer: B

The dominant model of development has in its focus elitist aims. This modernisation model concentrated on economic growth led by industry and the wealthy and educated classes, and the gains were expected to trickle down.

Basic needs is the focus of alternative models, and power politics and collective inaction are not the objectives of the dominant model. So the answer is elitist aims. The model came under criticism in the 1970s for ignoring the poor and for treating Western growth as the only path.

Answer: A

The dependency theory of development is understood in the context of the world system. It argues that poor countries on the periphery are kept dependent on the rich countries of the centre through trade, capital and communication.

The continental, regional and local systems are not the setting of the theory, which looks at the relations between nations in the global capitalist system. Writers such as Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein are linked with this view.

Answer: D

The key is that (A) is false and (R) is true. Newspaper managements prefer political stories, and so editors prefer them too, which is true.

Newspapers publish fewer stories on development, not more, and the reason is not that readers prefer them. So the assertion is false and option D is right. Development news is often seen as dull by newspaper managements, which is why it gets less space than politics and crime even though it matters more to the poor.

Answer: A

Both statements are true and the reason explains the assertion. In development communication, administrators and experts have not changed their strategies for long, since the role of communication in the existing system is negligible.

Because communication plays hardly any role in the way the system works, there is no pressure to change. So (R) is the correct explanation and the official option is A, both true.

Answer: A

According to the key, in John L. Woods's development support communication the sequence is the knowledge generators, then the political leaders, then the intermediate groups and then the knowledge users. Knowledge starts with the generators and ends with the users.

Options B, C and D put the users or the political leaders at the front of the chain, which is not the order of the flow. Woods wrote on communication support for development, and the chain moves information from those who produce it to those who use it.

Answer: A

The 1993 study of the Audience Research Unit of Doordarshan found that development-oriented programmes did not draw viewers because they lacked local specificity: they were made centrally and did not speak to the particular problems and speech of each locality. The keyed answer is (A). Absence of entertainment, language barrier and lack of diversity are other plausible reasons, but the study's finding named by the key is the lack of local fit.

Answer: D

The Western model of development is alleged to be characterised by infinite consumption: growth in output driven by ever-increasing consumption, which its critics say is wasteful. The option prints 'consumersion' for the word. Self-denial, equality and decentralisation are the opposites of what critics attribute to it, since they allege that it breeds inequality and centralisation and encourages indulgence. So the answer is (D).

Answer: C

The perspective of the pluralistic model of development is empowerment: it holds that there are many paths to development, chosen by the communities themselves, so people take part in decisions that affect them and gain control over them. Hierarchical, bureaucratic and top-down describe the dominant paradigm, in which plans are made by experts and imposed from above. Therefore (C) is correct. Under this view communities are not passive recipients of plans but take part, so the keyword that separates it from the older models is participation leading to empowerment.