In working with one of my graduate students on the history of communication theory, we were going through some of the seminal texts (Delia, Rogers, Glasser) that narrate the story of the discipline. When these texts are interrogated to examine the ideological assumptions, it becomes fairly clear that explicit in the narratives of these texts is the articulation of the superiority of Western American thought as the savior of the world. That America will lead the world into development and Enlightenment becomes the key thread in the early strands of the discipline, and somehow gets ingrained in the key thoughts of the discipline. So when one goes back to Lerner and Schramm and Rogers (and the list goes on), one learns about the fundamental assumptions they made in their understanding of communication in terms of rational processes and frameworks of persuasion (as defined by Ameri-centric criteria) that would remove darkness in the Third World. Of course, during the times when these aut...
This blog offers Mohan Dutta's reflections on the theoretical framework of the culture-centered approach, examining the interplays among Structure, Culture, and Agency in shaping marginalisation and the ways in which communities at the margins challenge structures. Writings on the blog are continually being revised to reflect the organic analysis of structure and agency.