OVERVIEW* of educational materials used in Francophone Africa

By Kaarle Nordenstreng, Aggrey Brown and Michael Traber
 

Kaarle Nordenstreng is Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Tampere, Finland, and former President of the IAMCR Professional Education Section.
Aggrey Brown is Professor of Mass Communication and Director of the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.
Michael Traber is former Director of Studies and Publications at the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) and Editor of its journal Media Development.
 

* This article was first published in Javnost - The Public (quarterly journal by the European Institute for Communication and Culture, Ljubljana, Slovenia), 1/1998, pp.79-89 (under authorship of Nordenstreng and Brown).
 
 

Abstract

Introduction

"Promotion of educational materials for communication studies" was the title of a project of unique collaboration between media scholars from all parts of the world brought together by the IAMCR Professional Education Section between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s. This article is a summary of the project, the point of departure of which was explained in a progress report as follows:

While it was common knowledge that journalism and mass communication were fields with American domination, we wanted to know in detail how this domination manifested itself in different regions and across various topics. In other words, the disease was known, but there was a need for a proper diagnosis in order to identify the effective treatment. Thus from the beginning our textbook study was an action-orientated project to bring about change.

Specifically, we wanted to identify where and how to promote more socio-economically and culturally relevant educational materials, particularly texbooks in each region (textbook understood as a book prescribed or recommended for a certain course; see Nordenstreng and Traber 1991, 3). Moreover, we wanted to promote South-South cooperation and to see whether something could be done by putting existing textbooks from other regions at the disposal of those who were under Western and Northern dominance. And this drive for Third World emancipation was far from a uniform, "totalitarian" approach painted by the opponents of NWICO in their propaganda in the 1980s (see e.g. Nordenstreng 1999). It was rather an ecumenical drive towards pluralism and global diversity in the sense of the MacBride Report (UNESCO 1980).

The "textbook project," as it was briefly called in the IAMCR, was initiated in 1982 at the IAMCR conference in Paris and endorsed the following year by UNESCO's meeting of experts on cooperation among regional communication training institutions. In 1984, the IAMCR Professional Education Section organized in Prague a workshop on the topic, leading to a regional project in Anglophone Africa with the financial assistance of UNESCO's IPDC (Nordenstreng and Boafo 1988). The African survey was followed up by the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA) with a major two-phase project through the African Council for Communication Education (ACCE) to develop communication curricula and replace textbooks produced in North Atlantic countries by those produced specifically for the region (Boafo 1991).

The IAMCR for its part applied for, and obtained, a substantial grant from UNESCO's IPDC in 1989 to carry out an interregional survey for "the promotion of adequate textbooks and other resource materials in the education of communicators in developing countries, in accordance with their authentic needs and interests" and for "the introduction of appropriate and culturally relevant materials produced specifically for the country/region concerned" (as stated in the long-term objectives of the project; see Nordenstreng and Traber 1991, 4). Phase I of the project produced bibliographic surveys of Anglophone Africa, the Arab world, Asia and Latin America (reported in Nordenstreng and Traber 1991). In 1992-94 the Finnish International Development Agency (FINNIDA) generously financed Phase II of the project, facilitating the extension of the surveys to Francophone Africa, South Africa and the Caribbean, and facilitating a cross-regional examination of the bibliographies. (1)

Accordingly, the inventory reported here is based on literature recorded in the early 1990s. Although the situation may have somewhat improved since then -- in part thanks to this project -- the overall picture remains obviously more or less the same as five years ago. After all, there has been a decline in the economies of many if not most developing countries of the so-called South (to a lesser degree also in the North), which has severely affected indigenous book production and increased the cost of books. Despite much talk about new communication technologies it is obvious that no fundamental changes have taken place in the institutional and curricular context of communication studies around the world -- a decade of shaky economies is too short time for that. Therefore we see no reason to disregard the data as outdated. We are convinced that the overall picture of the inventory is bitterly true still today.
 
 
 
 
 

Profile of Existing Textbooks

The overall picture based on data from the regional bibliographies is given in Table 1.
 
 
 

Table 1: The Regional Origin of Textbooks

AA - Anglophone Africa (8 countries, 35 schools, 316 books)
FA - Francophone Africa (4 countries and schools, 99 books)
AR - Arab world (6 countries and schools, 179 books)
IN - SAARC (India + 3 countries, 23 schools, 952 books)
AS - ASEAN (3 countries, 11 schools, 2285 books)
CA - Caribbean (1 regional school, 97 books)
LA - Latin America (11 countries, 90 schools, 130 books; only selection of most commonly used in the region)
 

The seven regions listed above provided representative samples of commonly used textbooks (ASEAN even produced a comprehensive bibliography). (2) The regional teams then judged according to common criteria, whether or not the textbooks in question were regionally relevant and where and when they were published.

Table 1 shows that by far the highest regional relevance is to be found in the Arab world (92%) and that most of the textbooks were also published in the region (94%). In fact, 90% were books authored by Arab writers, while 10% were translations (most from American sources, often without acknowledgement). The Arab literature was also relatively current: two-thirds of the textbooks were published after 1970 and nearly one-third in the 1980s.

The high regional relevance of textbooks produced in the Arab world is obviously due to language: textbooks in Arabic, the lingua franca of the region, cannot be substituted by foreign books (in English, French, etc.) as easily as in many other regions. The same dependency on -- or protection of -- language is true in Latin America, where Spanish, and Portugese in Brazil, facilitate regional publishing (70%). However, unlike the Arab world, Latin America can also resort to Spanish or Portuguese language books published in Europe (30%). The relatively low figure for regional relevance in Latin America (29%) for its part reflects the tradition of communication studies in this region: textbooks are mostly on general theories and concepts, not so much bound to specific conditions of the media (for details, see the regional report by Joaquin Sanchez and Mariluz Restrepo in Nordenstreng and Traber, 39-51).

Returning to the Arab world, a closer look at the impressive regional relevance reveals a number of problems. First, it is one country -- Egypt -- that dominates in textbook production, as pointed out by Awatef Abd El Rahman in her regional report: "Replies from Algeria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Syria mentioned that they were dependent on Egyptian textbooks, plus some foreign reference works." (Nordenstreng and Traber 1991, 58). Accordingly, institutions with an overtly Islamic approach also rely on Egyptian textbooks. Moreover:

The lowest regional relevance is in Francophone Africa (8%). This can also be explained by language, French, and perhaps by the educational system in general, which is closely aligned to that of France (of the European production of 84% as much as 74% is made up of publications from France). These textbooks in French are quite current: nearly 60% were published after 1980 (the period when most of the schools in question were established). Francis N. Wete concludes his report of the region:

The same dire need was expressed in all regions surveyed -- not least those heavily dependent on the USA (Anglophone Africa 69%, India & other SAARC countries 62%, ASEAN countries 58%). On the other hand, India and the SAARC countries have already about half of their textbooks regionally relevant (49%), suggesting that a good deal of the textbooks published in the USA (62%) are not alien but in fact deal with this region. Yet this does not do away with the problem of foreign domination. The point was well made by K.E. Eapen in an Indian comment on the texbook project:
 
 

The last line in Table 1 speaks for itself: textbooks from other regions of the developing world -- the South -- are practically nonexistent. This suggests that there is an urgent need for what is known as South-South cooperation also in this particular field.
 
 

Cross-regional Selections

The first step in South-South cooperation as well as North-South cooperation is simply mutual awareness -- that schools in each region are aware of the existing textbook supply in the other regions. Therefore the IAMCR textbook project listed among its immediate objectives:
 
 

The regional surveys and bibliographies, when distributed in reports such as Nordenstreng & Traber (1991), already made quite an impact by showing what was available elsewhere and what the immediate needs and plans for new textbooks were in each region. But the IAMCR project went further by organizing a systematic cross-examination of the annotated bibliographies: each regional team was asked to select up to five entries from each of the regional bibliographies. The idea was to identify the potentially most interesting and useful titles across regions. The exercise was, as stated in the instructions, "naturally supposed to point out primarily indigenous materials from each region (although most of the textbooks used may come from the North)."

The assessment was done from annotated bibliographies of each region listed in Table 1 above plus South Africa, which also compiled a bibliography of 49 commonly used books. (5) The judges were members of the textbook project team in each region except SAARC, which at this stage could not participate. In addition, teams were also recruited from Europe (3 experts) and the USA (2 experts) to go through the regional bibliographies from the point of view of the North and to select, like the other teams, up to five most interesting textbooks from each region.

The results are shown in a composite interregional bibliography, listing all textbooks chosen by at least one regional team, with marks under each book showing which team(s) had selected it. A summary of the results is provided in Table 2. (6)
 
 

Table 2: Selection of Textbooks from Other Regions

AA - Anglophone Africa
FA - Francophone Africa
SA - South Africa
AR - Arab world
AS - ASEAN
CA - Caribbean
LA - Latin America
EU - Europe
US -USA
 

The ten subject areas are those used throughout the textbook project as explained in Nordenstreng and Traber (1991, 7-9). Such categories are always somewhat arbitrary and difficult to apply particularly for books from different cultures. For example, category I covers not only general books on the press (including its history, role in society, etc.) but also skills-oriented books on reporting, etc., making the borderlines between areas I, V, IX, and X fluid. Category VII covers basic theories of communication as well as research methods, whereas category IX focuses on the role of media in society and culture as well as international communication. Yet the classifying of textbooks into the 10 categories was quite reliable as proved by several independent coders.

The figures in Table 2 indicate how many times books in each subject area were selected by the regional teams across all the bibliographies. Thus the table shows the topical direction of interest among each regional team, rather than the regions where the books were used. The latter aspect was irrelevant, because practically all teams made maximum selections of five books from each regional bibliography. The only notable exception was the Caribbean team with one bibliography:
 
 

Of all the bibliographies the nine teams selected nearly 250 books -- some of them by just one team but many of them by two or more teams. The lists include 37 books selected from the bibliography of Anglophone Africa, 29 from Francophone Africa, 29 from South Africa, 22 from the Arab region, 34 from the SAARC region, 40 from the ASEAN region, 21 from the Caribbean, and 34 from Latin America. The individual books which were most often selected (at least by five teams from other regions) were the following:

This list tells clearly about a hunger for general and theoretical presentations of the media in other cultures. The selections tell also about the need for better South-South contacts as well as North-South contacts.

An analysis of Table 2 reveals a number of interesting points. Firstly it confirms the fact that theoretical materials (areas VII, VIII and IX) are given higher priority over non-theoretical or skills-oriented materials. A notable exception to this is the selection of textbooks dealing with electronic media: total of 72 selections was made from this area (II), which rated highly on most of the lists derived from the different regions.

However, it is to be noted that the highest scores in area II were from South Africa, Latin Ameria, Europe and the USA -- the regions of the North and those in the South with highly developed electronic media. In addition, a reasonable explanation for the priority placed on textual materials dealing with the electronic media is that these media are almost ubiquitous throughout the world and have particular relevance in the non-industrialised countries where levels of literacy of citizens varies considerably within and between countries. Greater reliance is therefore placed on developing skills and knowledge of these technologies, within training institutions whose graduates must operate in relatively stratified environments in this regard.

It may also be the case that high priority is given to the electronic media because of the revolutionary technological developments that are occuring within this segment of the infocom industry globally. New technologies are revolutionising the field and creating increasing access of citizens throughout the world to new sources of information, albeit with heavy emphasis on entertainment.

If this explanation of the popularity of the electronic media subject area is correct, it points to the need for greater attention to be paid to new infocom technologies as they affect the discipline of mass communication and the process of professional formation of practitioners within it. It is already evident that some of the new technologies bring with them new ways of producing, storing and retieving information and, consequently, new ways of relating to them individually and organizationally.

With the exception then of the electronic media subject area, which was the most popular, and the print media as an area combining press and journalistic writing, theoretical subject areas ranked high in the selections from all regions. And perhaps it should not be surprising that "media and society/culture and international communication" (IX) ranked highest among the theoretical areas, with 65 selections being made from this category.

The emphasis placed on the theoretical subject areas may be explained by the narrow technical resource base of many professional education institutions in the non-industrialised countries. The fact, however, that 65 selections were made from the area IX would seem to suggest a more positive explanation for this emphasis. The obvious cultural differences between the majority of the world's people and Westerners in an increasingly globalised economy places a priority on intercultural communication as a field of study. Contact with the Western cosmology is hardly serendipitous today. On the contrary, it is inevitable and persistent especially in light of the ubiquity of new technologies.

That "communication for development" and "communication theory and research" would follow closely as important areas is also quite natural since they are both complementary and associated fields of study that overlap with the subject area "media and society/culture and international communication." It is also to be noted that development ranks relatively high in most developing regions, but particularly in the least developed regions of the South, whereas it was of less importance for the EU and US teams as well as the more highly developed regions of ASEAN, Caribbean and Latin America.

While the range of textbooks in the field of media management is limited, it is also likely that this second least popular of all subject areas (16 selections) warrants its status on the basis of its rather specialised nature as well. Curricula of media training institutions in environments with few media are not likely to pay much attention to media management as a subject area for general instruction and study. Few work-related opportunities for graduates combined with limited available expertise for teaching are obvious deterrents.

While the subject areas "media law and ethics", and "media history" are inherently important, they are the most context-specific subject areas and therefore the least generalisable, cross-culturally. The relatively high selections in both categories by EU probably reflects a genuine interest among European educators in these aspects in other parts of the world, whereas no interest is shown by Europeans in "public relations/advertising" and "media management."
 
 

Conclusions

First, we subscribe to the conclusions previously drawn in Phase I of this project:

The progress report went on to list a number of concrete measures to accomplish this including the establishment of regional editorial centres and fundraising committees. And it ended with a note on broader perspectives:

After completing Phase II of the project, and gaining seven years of additional experience, we recognise that all this and more still needs to be done.

However, the project has helped to make a start. We can proudly point to the fact that a new cross-cultural text, Communication Ethics and Universal Values (Christians and Traber 1997), resulted from regional seminars organized by WACC, and as a response to the textbook project. We can also refer to two global textbooks which were initiated by the project and which will soon be completed -- one on environmental reporting and another on multicultural theories. (8) Furthermore, the project gave rise to an American initiative to solicit new books and journals from publishers to be donated to selected institutions around the world, thereby realising an international system of depository libraries in communication studies. (9) Finally, an international network of journalism schools -- "JourNet" -- is being established with UNESCO's IPDC support and with the ACCE as a focal point. (10)

However, despite these examples and many optimistic plans, the main problems have not yet been solved. One may even say that on a global scale there has not been real follow-up nor implementations -- though the diagnosis is complete, the patient still awaits treatment. Such a gloomy conclusion is inescapable considering the enormous growth of media research and publishing in Europe and the USA, especially on the information society and other policy issues of the North.

On the other hand, while we should be careful not to exaggerate the benefits of the Internet, World Wide Web and the rest of multimedia driven cyberspace, it is obvious that new technologies do offer an important means of South-South as well as South-North information sharing. And it is clear that, if used creatively, these technologies can help to mitigate the high cost of printing educational materials. Standard textbooks will obviously continue to be needed and used (not least because of copyright reasons), while materials reached through the Net serve as supplementary aids. Although access to the Internet and World Wide Web is still quite limited in the South, universities are among the first users, thereby strengthening the position of those institutions of communication studies which operate under an academic umbrella.

Despite all the talk about globalization however, indigenous cultures remain crucial and diversity is even more highly valued than hitherto, as noted by the World Commission of Culture and Development (chaired by Javier Perez de Cuellar) in its report Our Creative Diversity (UNESCO 1995). Thus the original raison'd'etre of this project, instead of becoming outdated during the past decade, has only become more vital.

Last but not least, the general importance of educational materials cannot be overemphasized. It is through them and particularly textbooks, that both teachers and students acquire the concepts and paradigms which allow them to confidently participate in, and substantially contribute to enriching the world through communication studies.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Notes

1. Annotated bibliographies of commonly used textbooks in Anglophone Africa, Francophone Africa, South Africa, and the Caribbean, with background reports by Tony Nnaemeka, Francis Wete, John van Zyl and Hopeton S. Dunn respectively, are reproduced as appendix to the present report.

2. These bibliographies are to be found in the progress report by Nordenstreng and Traber (1991; also reproduced in this Website) and in appendix to the present report.

3. See his chapter in the present report.

4. Eapen's unpublished paper of 1991 is reproduced in the present report.

5. The bibliography examined for Anglophone Africa was a new version produced in 1991 by ACCE, whereas the data in Table 1 above are from the original 1986 survey. The annotated bibliographies examined for the SAARC and Arab regions were those published in Nordenstreng and Traber (1991), instead of the extensive versions on which the data of these regions is based in Table 1.

6. The selected bibliography for all regions is is reproduced as Appendix I to the present report.

7. An explanatory note in the letter of selections by the Caribbean team from CARICOM (sent to the project coordinator at the University of Tampere).

8. The textbook on environmental reporting was sponsored by the original FINNIDA grant and its editor is Kaarle Nordenstreng. The textbook on multicultural theories was sponsored, in addition to FINNIDA, by WACC and its principal editor is Michael Traber.

9. The Communication Depostitory Library System was created by Robert Picard from the State University of California, Fullerton, in collaboration with the IAMCR Professional Education Section and its links to relevant regional associations and institutions.

10. JourNet was planned at a meeting in Nairobi in January 1997 and it was granted an initial funding by the IPDC in December 1997.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

References

Boafo, S.T. Kwame. 1991. Anglophone Africa: Progress Report. In K. Nordenstreng and M. Traber, 67-77.

Christians, Clifford and Michael Traber (eds.). 1997. Communication Ethics and Universal Values. Thousand Oaks/London/Delhi: SAGE Publications.

Nordenstreng, Kaarle. 1999. The Context: Great Media Debate. In R. Vincent, K. Nordenstreng and M. Traber (eds.), Towards Equity in Global Communication: MacBride Update. Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press

Nordenstreng, Kaarle and Kwame S.T. Boafo. 1988. Promotion of Texbooks for the Training of Journalists in Anglophone Africa  Progress Report of an IPDC Project. Budapest: Mass Communication Research Centre (IAMCR Occasional Papers No. 5/1988, 45 pages – out of print but available in this Website).

Nordenstreng, Kaarle and Michael Traber (eds.). 1991. Promotion of Educational Materials for Communication Studies. Tampere: University of Tampere (Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Publications Series B 34/1991, 126 pages).

UNESCO 1980. Many Voices, One World: Report by the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems. Paris: UNESCO Press.

UNESCO. 1995. Our Creative Diversity: Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development. Paris: UNESCO Press.
 
 

Appendix I: Selected bibliography for all regions

Back to Main Page