175
Media, Democracy and Development: Historical and Present Connections
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC14 Sociology of Communication, Knowledge and Culture (host committee)
Language: English
Session Type: Oral
In 1949, Daniel Lerner proposed a relationship between new media and the modern mentality in the Third World. Although much criticized, his insights survive and influenced optimistic views of the impact of television and the internet around the globe. Here, we ask a different question: what is the impact on the imposition of restrictions on the press and on book culture in general, in countries that had been witnessing reasonable economic development?
Do restrictions on the functioning of the media in the formative period of a nation have long-term impacts on economic development? Conversely, can a limited labor market, with few formal vacancies in competitive firms, discourage investment in education? What is the impact of low literacy and education rates on political culture and on the nature of the public sphere in a modern society? In this session, we would like to examine the multiple relationships between economic development, adoption of new media, and written culture and education.
We are interested in studies on so-called developing countries, and in particular those where there have been restrictions on the printing press, such as colonial Brazil and the Ottoman Empire, or which somehow differ from the Northern European and North American model of media development. We welcome papers using a variety of methods, particularly those bridging interdisciplinary gaps. Our goal is to discuss the problems of development, education, and the media pointing to new paths in the understanding of the apparently intractable obstacles to achieving a free and just society.