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Manifesto for Development

Communication: Nora Quebral and
the Los Baos School of Development
Communication EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS
ARTICLE GIVES A CRITICAL REVIEW
OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT
DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION IN
THE 1970S UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF
PROFESSOR NORA QUEBRAL. AS PART
OF THIS RETROSPECTIVE, WE ALSO
REPRINT THE ORIGINAL 1971 ARTICLE
DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION
IN THE AGRICULTURAL CONTEXT
BY NORA QUEBRAL, WITH A NEW
FOREWORD BY HER.
Linje Manyozo
Published online: 17 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Linje Manyozo (2006) Manifesto for Development Communication: Nora Quebral
and the Los Baos School of Development Communication EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS ARTICLE GIVES A
CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION IN THE
1970S UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF PROFESSOR NORA QUEBRAL. AS PART OF THIS RETROSPECTIVE, WE
ALSO REPRINT THE ORIGINAL 1971 ARTICLE DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION IN THE AGRICULTURAL
CONTEXT BY NORA QUEBRAL, WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY HER. , Asian Journal of Communication,
16:1, 79-99, DOI: 10.1080/01292980500467632
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01292980500467632

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Asian Journal of Communication

Vol. 16, No. 1, March 2006, pp. 79 /99

RETROSPECTIVE: DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION

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Manifesto for Development

Communication: Nora Quebral and
the Los Banos School of Development
Communication
Linje Manyozo
EDITORS NOTE: THIS ARTICLE GIVES A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE
EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION
IN THE 1970S UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF PROFESSOR NORA QUEBRAL.
AS PART OF THIS RETROSPECTIVE, WE ALSO REPRINT THE ORIGINAL
1971 ARTICLE DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION IN THE
AGRICULTURAL CONTEXT BY NORA QUEBRAL, WITH A NEW
FOREWORD BY HER.

How did the discipline and practice of development communication begin? Who were the
founders and how were the first experiments implemented? Rejecting the ideologically
populist views that locates development communication origins within western
development scholarship, the following postcolonist expose appraises various communication uses in development that emerged from different parts of the world in the past
50 years. The discussion holds that the pioneering development communication
experiments were located between postcolonial and underdevelopment theories, and as
such, to understand its origins, a study must focus on the earliest non-commissioned and
community-originated experiments, as this study purports to do.

Introduction
This critique seeks to outline a manifesto of development communication as
developed by the pioneers of the practice at Los Banos from the 1950s under the
leadership of Nora Quebral. The discussion contends that Quebrals role in
conceiving and shaping up development communication practice, education and
training cannot be discussed in isolation from the University of Philippines College
Correspondence to: Media Studies Programme, La Trobe University, Bundoora, 3086, Melbourne, Australia. Tel.:

/61 3 9479 3650; Fax:
/61 3 9479 3638; Email: lmanyozo@hotmail.com
ISSN 0129-2986 (print)/ISSN 1742-0911 (online) # 2006 AMIC/SCI-NTU
DOI: 10.1080/01292980500467632

Downloaded by [University of Hyderabad] at 18:49 19 March 2015

80

L. Manyozo

of Agriculture. Even though Quebral herself has been acknowledged by the Clearing
House on Development Communication (CHODC) as the originator of the term
development communication and for having defined it for the first time (Bessette &
Rajasunderam, 1996; Lent, 1977) in death, Everett Rogers (1962, 1993) was termed
the father of development communication or the pioneer in the field of
communication for development (Communication Initiative, 2004; Adhikarya,
2004: 123). The discussion propounds two hypotheses. First, it contends that
different development communications emerged in other parts of the world
independent of Paulo Freire, the dominant modernization paradigm and even before
Latin American scholars challenged the dominant paradigm. Second, the 1950s Los
Banos pioneering reflexive, method-driven and theory-based nature of development
communication experiments were participatory and conceived as rural development
interventions in themselves, concepts that formulate foundation stones of modernday global discourse in development communication.

Development Communication: The Politics of Definition

Defining development communication (devcom) has varied with time and place
since Quebral coined the term in the 1950s, to an extent Keval Kumar (1994) laments
the extant confusion over the lack of agreement on the concept. Such confusion
exists because scholars attempt to fix and locate devcom definitions within Western
development scholarship, post-war aid projects and the dominant paradigm.
Whereas devcom used to be seen as communicating development to illiterate
societies, non-Western and modern development communications have focused on
right-based, gender-sensitive and method-informed approaches, focus being on the
involvement of local people in making their own road (Freire & Horton, 1990).
Concurring with Kwasi Ansu-Kyeremehs (1994) rejection of post-colonial eurocentralization of knowledge, Linje Manyozo (2004) deliberates devcom in plural and
in six schools: Bretton Woods, Latin American, Los Banos, Anglophone Africa,
Indian School and the Participatory Development Communication School.
The Bretton Woods School of devcom can be located within the post Second World
War Marshal Plan economic strategies and the subsequent establishment of the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1944 (Melkote & Steeves, 2001).
This Hampshire conference marked the beginning of Western-driven systematic and
strategic employment of linear communications in Third World development
experiments. Led by scholars like Daniel Lerner (1958), Wilbur Schramm (1964)
and Everett Rogers (1962, 1993), the Schools development paradigm propagated
production and planting of development in indigenous and uncivilized societies
(Melkote & Steeves, 2001). Failure of many development projects from the 1960s,
despite increasing donor aid, compelled the School to re-evaluate its top down
methods. Today, the Schools largest institution, the World Bank (nd), conceptualizes
devcom as an integration of strategic communication in development projects that
is based on a clear understanding of indigenous realities. The Schools other financial
/

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Asian Journal of Communication 81

and academic institutions have, over the years, comprised UNESCO, FAO, Rockefeller
Foundation, DFID, Ford Foundation and universities like Michigan State, Texas,
Cornell, Ohio, Wisconsin, Leeds, Colombia, Iowa, Southern California, and New
Mexico. Among the Schools major publications have been the works of Wilbur
Schramm and Everett Rogers as well as important Development Communication
Report which was published by the USAID-funded Clearing House on Development
Communication under the Academy for Educational Development (AED).
Emerging in the 1940s and independent of the Bretton Woods School, the Latin
American School can be traced to Colombias Radio Sutatenza, and Bolivias Radios
Mineras which pioneered the employment of systematically designed radio communications in empowering economically and socially marginalized campesinos, helping
them to lead decent and healthy lives (Gumucio, 2001; Vargas, 1995). These
community-based radios implemented radio-based rural development education,
which in some cases was supported with print material. The Sutatenza-Radios
Mineras model of radio-based adult literacy was joined on the scene in the 1960s by
Paulo Freire and his theories on critical pedagogy and Miguel Sabidos 1970s
entertainment-education method, itself a change-based approach in the design and
production of educational broadcast dramas focusing on social development issues
(Melkote & Steeves, 2001). Other theorists of the school are Juan Daz Bordenave,
Luis Ramiro Beltran, and Alfonso Gumucio Dargon.
The African School emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, out of the
continents post-colonial and communist movements, which provided a partial
springboard from which African scholars began to rethink concepts of culture,
communication and development (Kamlongera, 1988; Mlama, 1971). Early studies
from the continent point to the employment of radio and theatre in community
education, adult literacy, health and agricultural education. Whilst African rural radio
was slowly being developed in Francophone and West Africa as a devcom component,
Anglophone African Universities were swiftly developing the concept taking theatre
to the people, known as theatre for development and locating it within rural
development (Kamlongera, 1988).
The Indian School can be traced to the late 1960s, though from the 1940s,
disorganized rural radio listening communities were formed in Bhiwandi to listen to
the rural broadcasts in the indigenous Marathi, Gujarati and Kannada (Kumar, 1981,
p. 259). Central to this Schools devcom is that it was located within radio,
development journalism and rural development. Like in the Philippines, Indonesia
and Sri Lanka, the School also used the academy to experiment development
communications. Notable among the academic centres were the University of Poona,
the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi University, the Christian
Institute for the Study of Religion and Society, and University of Kerala.
Without mentioning the word School, Quebral was well aware that other devcom
experiments were going on the world over, and thus discussed development
communication, the Los Banos style (1988, p. 158). Careful examination of the
Schools action research projects from the 1950s establishes that when the Bretton

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L. Manyozo
The Latin America School
(Radio Sutatenza for rural education; Miners Radio Network in Colombia;
Television and radio entertainment-education. Theorists: ACCPO, Luis
Ramiro Beltrn, Juan Daz Bordenave, Miguel Sabido, Paulo Freire, Jose
Barrientos

1940

1950

The Bretton Woods School

Theorists
: Everett Rogers, Daniel Lerner, Wilbur Schramm, Jan Servaes,
Steeves & Melkote, UNESCO, WB, UNDP, FAO, John Hopkins Centre for
Communication Programs, SADC Centre of Communication for
Development. IDRC.

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1950s

1960

The Los Baos School

(Development broadcasting; agricultural development communication; ).
Theorists: Felix Librero, Alexander Flor, Ely Gomez, Nora Quebral, Juan
Jamias, Madeline Suva, Virginia Samonte, Communication Foundation for
Asia, Philippine PressInstitute, International Rice Research Institute.

The African School

(Rural radio; Theatre for development). Theorists: Penina Mlama,
Christopher Kamlongera, Zakes Mda, Robert MacLaren, Ngugi wa
Thiongo, Mapopa Mtonga, Derek Mulenga, David Kerr, Jean-Pierre
Ilboudo, CIERRO,

1970

The Indian School

Radio/television for rural development, development journalism Theorists:
Mehra Masani, George Verghese Keval Kumar, University of Poona,
Joseph Velacherry, Delhi University, University of Kerala.

>1980

Post-Freire School: Participatory Development Communication

(Communication for social change/development-Visual anthropology,
community theatre, public journalism, radio for development, development
radio broadcasting). Theorists:UPLB College of Development
Communication, IDRC, FAO Communication Project, UNESCO,
Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, World Bank.

Figure 1 Mapping Out the Emergence of Development Communication.

Woods School was still exploring poverty and its depths within the different parts of
the world, whilst searching for appropriate communication interventions, the Los
Banos School was conducting groundbreaking participatory communication research
experiments in and as development interventions. The School thus pioneered the
design and implementation of communication tools in the promotion of sustainable
development that were based on coherent method and theory (Gomez, 1975; Jamias,
1975a, 1991; Librero, 1985; Quebral, 1975a, 1975b, 1988, 2002).
The Participatory Development Communication School comprises institutional
collaboration between First World and Third World devcom organizations, though
with increased financial prowess, the Bretton Woods School seems to be re-colonizing
the devcom agendum (Ansu-Kyeremeh, 1994). Replacing the Development Commu-

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Asian Journal of Communication 83

nication Report has been MAZI, a newsletter being published by the Ford Foundation
Funded Communication for Social Change Consortium. It is yet to be seen whether
MAZIs interview page will feature the major contributions and pioneering heroes
from South East Asia and Africa. Guy Bessette (2004) describes participatory devcom
as a communication tool with which to facilitate community involvement in local
development. Drawing from Freirean critical pedagogy which situates the learner and
his environment at the centre of education, modern devcom is characterized by
diverse methodological and theoretical trajectories but still centres around participatory production and utilization of indigenous knowledge in local development
(Mulenga, 1999).
Karin Gwinn Wilkins and Bella Mody (2001) define devcom as a process of
strategic intervention toward social change initiated by institutions and communities.
Neville Jayaweera (1987) conceptualizes the same as communication strategies of a
whole society or the communication component of a national development plan. The
realization has been, even during the emergence of the dominant development
paradigm, that communication involving community participation formulates a very
important facet in the promotion of sustainable development (Bessette & Rajasunderam, 1996; Cadiz, 1994; Mayo & Craig, 1995). Acknowledging the many changes
her own concept and definition of devcom has undergone during the 30 years of
jostling with reality, Quebral (2002, p. 16) defines the devcom as the art and science
of human communication linked to a societys planned transformation from a state
of poverty to one of dynamic socio-economic growth that makes for greater equity
and the larger unfolding of individual potential. Informed by Freires critical
pedagogy, Quebrals Los Banos School and further developments in visual anthropology and other participatory field practices, Linje Manyozo (2004) defines modernday devcom as describing a group of method-driven and theory-based praxes that
employ participatory foreground and backdrop communication tools in strengthening community decision-making processes and structures with the aim of improving
livelihoods and promoting social justice.

Beginnings of Development Communication in the College of Agriculture

The University of Philippines was established in 1908 by an act of the First Philippine
Legislature Act No. 1870, otherwise known as the University Charter, to provide
instruction and give professional and technical training (University of the
Philippines, nd). The University (UP) observes that initially, it started with four
colleges: the College of Fine Arts, the College of Medicine and Surgery, the College of
Liberal Arts and the School of Agriculture at Los Banos, Laguna. Over the years, the
UP established other campuses in Manila, Los Banos, Baguio, Visayas and Diliman.
The Open University was established at Los Banos in the mid 1990s as an econstituent of the University. Of the College of Agriculture, which is now the
agricultural centre for Asia, the UP notes that from 1908, the College was the first of

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L. Manyozo

its kind in the tropics and classes were held in the homes of faculty members
(University of the Philippines, nd).
Also known as the College of Development Communication (CDC), the Los Banos
School (CDC, nd) details its historical development from the time it began as the
Office of Extension and Publications of the College of Agriculture in 1954, under
which some staff members began to carry out research in how communication could
be used to address problems of rural development. Quebral (1988, pp. 113 114)
reminisces about the contribution of a little nudge from Cornell University and a
visiting extension professor from Tennessee and the subsequent establishment of a
Unit which ended up being the Extension and Publications office. In 1960, the first
devcom courses were introduced in the Agriculture curriculum after which, in 1962,
the College of Agriculture elevated the Extension and Publications Office into a
Department of Information and Communication (DAIC). In 1968, DAIC was
renamed the Department of Agricultural Communication (CDC, nd).
In 1974, the Department changed its name to Department of Development
Communication. Between 1987 and 1998, the Department was elevated into an
Institute and then later a College, a process of transformation that involved
progressive decisions, some of which were rational and some not (Quebral, 1988,
p. 113). The origins of development-oriented communication practice at Los Banos
should also be understood as an intensification of efforts by the then teaching staff
who were interested in extending the results of research in the agricultural sciences to
the farmers and other end users of the new knowledge and technology (Jamias,
1975b, p. vii).

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Nora Quebrals Manifesto of Development Communication

The earliest UPLB College of Agriculture lecturers who pioneered experimenting with
method-driven and theory-based extension efforts in using communication to
promote sustainable development comprise mostly of Western trained agricultural
doctorates (Quebral, 1988, 2002). This group, comprising Nora Quebral (1975a,
1975b, 2002), Felix Librero (1985), Juan Jamias (1975a, 1991), and Ely Gomez (1975)
among others, were the first to use the term development communication in
reference to an organized and systematic art of human communication applied to
speedy transformation of a country and a mass of its people from poverty to a
dynamic state of economic growth so as to achieve greater social equality (Bessette,
1996; Freire, 1972; Freire & Horton, 1990; Quebral, 1975a, p. 2). The current Los
Banos School however contends that devcom cannot really change people, but can
only help them change themselves at their own enlightened pace and that there is
no speedy transformation of societies as development is a protracted and long
process (Freire & Horton, 1990, p. 216; Quebral, 2002, pp. 5, 18; 1988, p. 10).
Alongside or with the Los Banos School were Philippine Press Institute, Press
Foundation for Asia, the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication (AIJC),
the Asian Institute for Development Communication (AIDCOM), Asian Mass
Communication Research and Information Centre, UNDPs Development Commu-

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Asian Journal of Communication 85

nication Support Service, the International Rice Research Institute, the Universities of
Singapore and Malaysia and the Manila-based Communication Foundation for Asia
(CFA), which comprised Alfredo Cafe, Pedro Chanco III, Teresita Hermano, Noel de
Leon, Demetrio Maglalang, Genaro Ong and Raphael Vallejo (Jamias, 1991;
Maglalang, 1976; Quebral, 1988). AIJCs Crispin Maslog (1999) traces the role of
what he calls heroes of Asian journalism by looking at the contribution of people
like Amitabha Chowdhury Mochtar Lubis, Tarzie Vittachi, Zacarias Sarian, Ton That
Thien and Gour Ghosh. The School has been responsible for publishing groundbreaking devcom research, manuals and journals, the most notable being AIDCOMs
Journal of Development Communication.
The Los Banos experiments in agricultural communication therefore provided a
springboard for the birth of the devcom discipline (Quebral, 1988). Having
experimented with using strategically and purposively designed communication
tools in agriculture extension, Nora Quebral, then a PhD and Chairman of the
Department of Development Communication, proposed a four-year Bachelor of
Science Degree curriculum in Development Communication, which was approved by
UPLBs Council on 11 March 1974 and courses began to be offered in the 1974 1975
school year (Quebral, 1975b). By offering this full fledged curriculum, the
department became the first to offer devcom degree training in the world. From
the very beginnings, the devcom syllabi was broad-based and multidisciplinary, with
roots in sociology, psychology, economics, agriculture, linguistics, philosophy,
anthropology, theatre arts, political science and other social sciences, information
technology and multimedia (Quebral, 1975b, 2002). This pioneering undergraduate
curriculum was interdisciplinary which, Quebral herself (1975b, p. 31) argues, was
designed to enable students to:
/

Acquire a theoretical base in the sciences and applied arts that underlie the study of
human communication. Learn practical skills in interpersonal and mass communication. Gain a basic grasp of the issues and problems of development in general
and of the subject matter of one developmental area in particular. Apply the
concepts, principles and skills of communication in the solution of problems in a
developing society.

The 1974 curriculum included general courses in English and Spanish communication
skills, biology, chemistry, mathematics, political science, economics, physics, humanities, social and political thought, English literature, speech, and statistics (Quebral,
1975b). The core courses comprised Introduction to Development Communication,
Fundamentals of Development Communication, Community Broadcasting, AudioVisual Communication, Communication and Society, Communication Campaigns
and Programs, Testing and Evaluation of Communication Materials, Communication
Research, Basic Photography, Print Production, Broadcast Speech and Performance
for Community Radio, Playwriting, Science Reporting, Publications Writing and
Editing, Management and Production of a Community Newspaper, Advanced
Development Writing, Visual Aids Planning and Production, Radio Drama and
Documentary, Educational Broadcasts (Quebral, 1975b, pp. 35 36). The curriculum
/

86

L. Manyozo

also included social science electives in Sociology of Developing Countries, Social

Psychology, Politics of Developing Countries, Social Anthropology, Community
Survey and Program Planning, Rural Sociology, Economics and World Agriculture,
Agricultural Policy, Rural Development Programs, Agricultural and Economic
Development (Quebral, 1975b).
The Schools devcom targeted a mass of people with a low rate of literacy and
income and the accompanying socio-economic attributes (Jamias, 1975a, p. 13;
Quebral, 1975a, pp. 2 3). Though seemingly massifying people, Virginia Samonte
(1975, pp. 101, 103, 111) used what could be today confused as Freirean terms,
describing devcom research as problem-oriented, issue-involved, strategy-conscious
and multidisciplinary, during which, the research itself is theoretical, methodological
and pragmatic, and whose results are used in implementation and theory-building.
Freires notions of critical pedagogy could, however, unlikely have influenced the
pioneering Los Banos experiments because, though Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1972)
was published in Spanish in the late 1960s, the English version would not be available to
much of the world until the mid 1970s and, for South East Asia, until the late 1970s.
Evidently, Freire is absent from the Schools agricultural communication research,
though notions of participation loom large (Bunnag, 1975; Byrnes, 1975; Childers &
Vajrathon, 1975; Cuyno, 1975; Gomez, 1975; Jamias, 1975b, 1991; Librero, 1985;
Quebral, 1975a, 1975b, 2002; Ross, 1975; Samonte, 1975). Though Freires critical
pedagogy has provided rewarding insights into the theory and practice of devcom, it
is an academic and humanitarian injustice to overlook the Los Banos origins of
theory-based and method-driven devcom. The absenting and footnoting of Los
Banos should raise ideological concerns on Western re-colonization of devcom
debates and programs (Manyozo, 2004). Actually, Luis Ramiro Beltran (2004)
laments the deliberate ignorance and footnoting of other devcom schools especially
Latin American theorists through a system in which academic publications in
Spanish and Portuguese, papers on communication for development were seldom
printed and in which Western publishing industries do not grant any validity or
trustworthiness to Latin American research, as empirical as it may be. It is not
surprising therefore that even when the Los Banos School had introduced degree level
professional training in development communication both at masters and undergraduate level by 1974, writing for the October 1976 Information Centre on
Instructional Technology (ICIT) Report, Erskine Childers observed that as far as I
know, there is no academic or technical training institution that fully provides all the
essentials (of development communication training) in an integrated program
(Childers, 1976, p. 5). This brings up concerns over the achievements of Third World
development communication scholars being ignored because of inability of Western
scholars to understand or learn of global developments in the field.
Manyozo (2004) again observes that the School conceptualized devcom at three
major levels, considerations for which provides modern-day scholars with the context
in which the concept evolved as a practice. None of the members of the pioneering
and current Los Banos Schools use the word manifesto, yet critical examination of

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Asian Journal of Communication 87

their published and unpublished literature does establish that the devcom, Los Banos
style was centred around three cornerstones of agriculture, rural development
journalism and educational broadcasting.
First, the location of the Department of Development Communication within the
College of Agriculture determined the agricultural orientation of the early experiments. Most of the Departments staff were Communication PhDs who had
Bachelors or Masters degrees in Agriculture, Agricultural Journalism or Extension
Education, like Quebral, Juan Jamias and Rogelio Cuyno. In fact, most staff got their
PhDs under a Cornell Los Banos contact funded by Ford and Rockefeller
Foundations (Quebral, 2005, personal communication). The early experiments
would thus focus on areas like dairy farming, forestry management, agriculture
leasehold, livestock, farmer constituents (Jamias, 1975a). Quebral and Ely Gomez
(1976, pp. 1 2) outline this agricultural focus, noting:

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When we speak of development communication today, we are mainly concerned

with the mass of people in the so-called developing societies [which have] a
colonial past, a basically agricultural economy and a galloping birth rate. We focus
[. . .] on the small farmers, labourers, fishermen and others [. . .] who make up the
greatest number in any developing country [and are] poor.

About 30 years later, one of Quebrals students, Celeste Cadiz, would add to Quebrals
and Gomezs list, a category of rural and cultural minorities, and then term the whole
grouping as development beneficiaries (Cadiz, 1991). Quebral (1988, p. 35) would,
also, years later, clarify the relationship of development and rural communities,
contending, development communication is not rural communication per se.
Second, the Los Banos School focussed on rural development journalism with
emphasis being placed on the development communicator and community media
(Quebral, 1975a, 1988). The School developed its list of priority areas for the
development communicator and community media from the 1970s Four-Year
Development Plan of the Philippines, which primarily aimed at uplifting the general
well-being of every individual citizen, as Quebral and Gomez (1976, pp. 1, 8)
observed, that:
One look at our national development plan and they [development communication topics] are easily named. The priority topics in the Philippines at this time are
food production, family planning, health and nutrition, agrarian reform, national
unity, relevant education, the wise use of the environment, more rational attitudes
and values.

To achieve these development objectives, Quebral and Gomez (1976, p. 4) outline the
requirements for the kind of communication that can bring about desired change.
They distinguish advertising and propaganda from devcom in that the latter educates
for purposes of greater social equality and larger fulfilment of the human potential.
Focussing on a branch of devcom called development journalism, Quebral and
Gomez (1976, p. 6) seek their development journalism to:
Circulate knowledge that will inform people of significant events, opportunities,
dangers and changes. [. . .] Provide a forum where issues affecting national or

88

L. Manyozo
community life may be aired. [. . .] Teach those ideas, skills and attitudes that
people need to achieve a better life. [. . .] Create and maintain a base of consensus
that is needed for the stability of the state.

Like Freire in Brazil, Quebral and Gomez (1976, pp. 7 8) realize the inadequacy of the
formal school system in energizing its Pilipino student citizens. They propose the
supplementation and reinforcement with other non-formal schooling. The responsibility of designing this out of school system was conceived as a central government
responsibility, for it was already framing national development goals; thus it was
responsible for explaining to people why certain projects are needed, how each of the
projects may benefit individuals and their communities and the required sacrifices
from the people. Placing the responsibility of designing development projects
unilaterally may seem to suggest that the Schools devcom was only a mask over the
modernization paradigm, but Quebrals (1988) emphasis on community consultation
in development interventions only demonstrates the different positioning of participation as a practice. Whereas in participatory development, indigenous peoples are
conceived as capable of taking an active part in planning, implementing and evaluating
interventions, the Los Banos devcom conceived participation as a precondition to
implementation, in which case if a project was rejected, the government could modify
its plans and take it back to the community (Quebral & Gomez, 1976).
The School grounded its conceptualization of rural development journalism
around three cornerstones, which Juan Jamias (1975a) identifies as purposive, valueladen and pragmatic communication, and in which the whole field of study was
structured around innovation, dialogical communication and performance. The
Schools 1960 1970s conceptualization of devcom could therefore be only positioned
within the context of developing economies (Quebral & Gomez, 1976). The
positioning of devcom curriculum within low economic levels and human aspects
of communication was made in light of the Philippines rising poverty and agrarian
economy. Such positioning could also have been meant to produce a competent and
truthful development communicator who would not pass off someone elses ideas as
their own otherwise without being accurate and honest, one who professes to be a
development communicator forfeits the title, a diploma notwithstanding (Quebral,
2002, pp. 2, 4). The preference of rural over urban development was justified by
Quebral and Gomez (1976, p. 5), noting:

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There also certainly is urban development. Years from now it could be that urban
development will take precedence over rural development at the national level,
when thirty percent now living in the cities will have doubled in number. Right
now, however, its sheer number and its central role in the economy give the rural
family the edge. Our statistics [show that] seventy percent of Filipinos live in the
rural areas. This makes the rural family the foremost users of development
communication.

Years later Quebral (1988, p. 161) would acknowledge that devcom methodologies
can be used to solve development challenges of the First World. The essence of the
Los Banos devcom lay therefore in consciously diminishing poverty, unemployment

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Asian Journal of Communication 89

and inequality, goals that have not changed a bit even in modern-day practice
(Quebral & Gomez, 1976).
The third factor in the Los Banos devcom was the notion of development
broadcasting, emphasis being placed on community broadcasting and educational
programming. Referring to a community radio, Quebral and Gomez (1976, p. 10)
argue that the station serves as a facilitator of interpersonal relationships in a rural
community. The UPLB-based community radio DZLB itself was established for
purposes of non-formal education in the rural setting (Librero, 1985, p. 1). Local
media, of which community radio is an important part, were thus conceived as
excellent teaching channels (Quebral & Gomez, 1976, p. 9). Between the 1960s and
the early 1970s, the Los Banos School produced much action research in devcom.
Mentioning the notion of development broadcasting for the very first time whilst
focussing on the role and nature of local community radios in community
development, Gomez (1975, p. 91; 1976) conceptualizes the role of radio practices in
micro level development through what she terms localized programming and
personalized broadcasting which would in the end encourage audience involvement
and participation.
Though Gomez (1975, p. 92) seems to have located the role of radio and rural
development within the contemporary dominant Lerners modernization paradigm
through her labelling of radio as greater multiplier, smoother of transition and
provider of climate of development, she however advocates bottom up programming. She conceives a community radio as serving a specialized and an identified
audience, providing them with relevant programs that concern and help them deal
with their problems and importantly, programs in which they participate in making
(1975, pp. 93 94; Librero, 1985, p. 8).
When the World Bank produced its first detailed study of the role of radio in Third
World rural development (Spain, Jamison, & McAnany, 1977), the Los Banos School
had already, in the early 1960s, executed its rural education broadcasting project. In
1962, Radio DZLB was conceived as an experimental rural radio station primarily
established to serve as an agricultural extension tool and assisting the School in
conducting rural broadcasting research relating to the effective dissemination of
agricultural information (Librero, 1985, pp. 2 3). With financial assistance of
US$7800 from a New York-based Agricultural Development Council Incorporation
for establishing and operating the radio for a year, DZLB went on air in 1964. By the
1970s, the station had been turned into a community broadcaster, with communities
requesting specific programs and the School was already conducting radio schools
and instructional broadcasts (Flor, 1995; Librero, 1985).
Felix Librero conceives rural educational broadcasting as the use of radio for nonformal education purposes primarily to support planned social change in the rural
setting, focus being on promoting human development consciously through the
broadcast of programs designed to help people diagnose their problems and clarify
their objectives so that they may be able to make wise decisions (1985, p. 1). As if
/

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L. Manyozo

concurring with her colleague, Quebral (1988, p. 80) elaborates on an ideal rural
education broadcaster:

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The broadcast media that I propose will not stand alone beaming disjointed
information to a mass, faceless rural audience. They will be components of a
distance learning system for small groups in which the field worker, the subject
matter specialist, the non-broadcast media, among others, are bound together in an
educational plan. To remove them from the political propaganda charge, let them
be housed in the universities, which are more neutral institutions.

As a rural development project itself, Radio DZLB, also known as The Voice of the
Village, became a pinnacle of local development collaboration, coordination and
cooperation with government agencies and other institutions, conducting localized
and personalized broadcast programming, encouraging audience involvement, as well
as conducting evaluations and research (Gomez, 1975, p. 91). The radio enabled local
villagers to introduce new programs and use some airtime as fora for conflict
resolution over agricultural disputes (Librero, 1985). The location of radio practices
in development was therefore based on the philosophy of development through
shared education, as noted by Felix Librero (1985, p. 17) himself:
Radio as an educational medium should be employed as a tool for non-formal
education, with the concept that most people must be reached at their present state
of educational development and level of interest and understanding in order to
help them attain their articulated needs and interests. [. . .] The success of rural
educational broadcasting depends on two equally important factors */the knowledge and understanding of subject matter, and ones understanding of the people.
[. . .] This is accomplished through programs, which the audience and broadcaster
work out together, and not merely through schemes thought out and planned
entirely by the broadcaster for his audience.

To achieve these objectives, DZLB broadcasters used to execute semi-structured and

interactive research activities through which they attempted to understand the
ethnography of their intended audience by, for instance, asking them what they
would like to hear on the radio, length and format of programs (Librero, 1985).
Though not mentioning participatory development or Freires critical pedagogy,
Librero argues that rural educational broadcasting is purposive, audience-oriented,
service-oriented, research-based, participatory and strategic with well-defined
objectives. He contends that such a radio must inspire individuals, families and
communities to work together in identifying needs and problems and help them
determine their objectives and counsel and supply technical knowledge since the
radios philosophy was based on the principle of serving peoples interests and needs
(Librero, 1985, pp. 18 21).
Like the miners radios in Bolivia, Gomezs community radio became the
communitys representative or what she terms as a social lubricant, through which
radio provided a sphere on which people could share experiences and facilitate
interpersonal relationships (Gomez, 1975, p. 94). Gomezs social lubrication also
involved peace and conflict resolution, like the case of three farmers who visited
DZLB in 1969 to air their problems with regards to pests that were destroying their
/

Asian Journal of Communication 91

rice, having escaped from a neighbouring farm that was sprayed with pesticides and,
secondly, their fears of being evicted by some landlords (Librero, 1985, p. 37). By
bringing in relevant stakeholders to conduct dialectical discussions in a radio
program, the farmers and representatives from the government and the larger farms
resolved their differences amicably, and importantly, the poor farmers were never
evicted (Librero, 1985, pp. 37 38). At the time when the notion of participation was
heresy in the modernization paradigm, Radio DZLB was already engaging in what
would be termed today as participatory broadcasting.
One of the important aspects of Radio DZLB was the school on the air, a concept
of which was borrowed from USs Columbia Broadcasting Corporations (CBC)
1920s rural broadcasting series (Flor, 1995). Under the Philippine governments
Bountiful harvest campaign, Masagana 99, a countywide and extensive rice
production scheme was launched in the 1970s with the aim of creating selfsufficiency in rice as the staple food in the country. Leading the project, the Ministry
of Agriculture embarked on a food production initiative which involved a complete
package of technology, an elaborate credit system without collateral, a market
system and a comprehensive communication campaign that included and largely
involved radio (Librero, 1985, p. 43). Radio DZLB was responsible for training the
Ministrys farmcasters from 1976 to 1979 and it also organized and conducted several
schools on the air after which every student received a Certificate of Graduation
(Librero, 1985, p. 68). The school on the air was based on objectives, short and wellplanned programs, each of which composed of one subject matter. Librero (1985,
pp. 67 72) observes that the school on the air must be a cooperative project such
that their establishment should be preceded by ethnographic research to understand
audiences, their compositions, preferred listening patters and behaviours, family
structures and the level of importance of the subject matter to them
The Los Banos School acknowledges the Latin American radio forums and farms
radios, as comprehensive and well documented (Flor, 1995, p. 17). Still, by the early
1980s, numerous dissertations and other staff reports on rural educational broadcasting had been produced in the School, focus being on rural development
listenership, radio developmental messages, farmers radio sessions, radio learning
group campaign, development broadcasting and broadcast-based distance learning
systems.

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The Los Banos School Today

Acknowledging the Latin American influence, especially Freires humanism, Quebral
(1988, p. 160; 2002, p. 2.) outlines the central ideals of the Los Banos School,
observing:
The program we created was not meant to be all things to all men and women.
Neither was it meant to do what others were already doing, perhaps better than we
ever could. We focussed on a segment where Los Banos had a comparative
advantage and took off from there. Within the general field of communication,

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L. Manyozo

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development communication now occupies a niche where Los Banos has a

reputation for pre-eminence.

Today, the Los Banos School has been joined in the arena by many schools and
institutions in Europe, Africa and the Americas in propagating people-centred
development communications though the School continues to stand out as a pioneer
in development communication teaching and the most productive in development
communication education in the world (Cadiz, 1991, p. v; CDC, nd; Quebral, 2002,
p. 1). Most Bretton Wood organizations have worked with or are indirectly linked to
the School. The School is now a full College on its own, and its curricula offer
training in development broadcasting, educational communication, science communication and development journalism.
The School offers Bachelors, Masters, Masters of Professional Studies and
Doctorate degrees in Development Communication (CDC, nd). For the Bachelor
of Science, the School seeks to help students to acquire a theoretical and ethical base
in the sciences and arts that underlie the study of development communication. This
involves training students in principles on development as well as giving them
practical skills in communication. The Master of Science program attempts to
Synthesize knowledge, theories, principles and strategies of communication and
apply them in addressing problems of development at different levels (CDC, nd).
Focus is also on developing innovative and integrative leadership and research skills.
Though students in the Master of Professional Studies in Development Communication will also acquire strong foundation in both theory and practice, the
programs is geared towards communication practitioners who are in government
and non-government research and development institutions, community media
outfits, state colleges and universities, and other communication schools (CDC, nd).
For the Doctorate program, the Schools candidates Acquire and advance a broader
and deeper understanding of theories, principles and approaches of devcom objective
is to have candidates (CDC, nd). This involved broadening research, analytical and
evaluation skills of candidates.
Like the pioneering 1974 curriculum, the current curriculum is broad-based, as
Quebral (2002, pp. 15 16, 18) observes:
/

A curriculum is not a random patchwork of courses. It is a representation of a

worldview that the curriculum developers think their intended learners should
have. [. . .] Reciprocity of thought is the very essence of communication, and its
practice is central to genuine human development. [. . .] Because in the academic
scheme, development communication is classed as a branch of communication, we
teach our students that communication derives from sociology, psychology,
linguistics and other social sciences and we try to steer them to study those basics.
[. . .] Development communication would not stay development communication
for long if it were cut off from ideas coming from various sources and disciplines */
and by which it is nourished. [. . .] The field was never meant to stay in place. It is
expected to branch out, to reinvent itself from time to time, even to lead the way as
we grow in wisdom.

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Asian Journal of Communication 93

In development broadcasting , the Schools College trains students to purposively and

strategically design and test innovative techniques and approaches using radio and
television as educational mediums (CDC, nd). Courses in this department include
development writing, broadcast speech and performance of community, writing and
program planning for community radio, radio drama and documentary, broadcastbased distance learning systems and telecommunications (CDC, nd). In science
communication, the College trains students in using science for development, with
focus on the content, product and process of science (CDC, nd). Courses in the
department include scientific reporting, telecommunication, scientific and technical
information processing, scientific and technical publications editing, and knowledge
management. In development journalism, focus is on training students in ethicsconscious and reflexive reporting of development news for print and electronic
media (CDC, nd). Courses include development writing, publications writing and
editing, science reporting, management and production of a community newspaper,
advanced development writing.
For educational communication, which Cadiz (1991, pp. 2, 22) identifies as a major
field in devcom, the College provides training in the audio-visual component of
devcom. The focus is on exposing students to methodologies in innovating, piloting,
testing, refining and assessing mediated and non-mediated approaches in inducing
and enhancing leaning among disadvantaged groups, who make up a substantial
segment of populations in Third World countries. The courses in the department
comprise writing for educational communication media, basic photography, broadcast-based distance learning systems, visual design and techniques, visual aids
planning and production and video production.
Quebral (1988, p. 22) also observes that devcom has reoriented itself to focus on
emerging issues of development, like child prostitution, art forms, human rights and
culture, since, by being seamless in nature, human development entails economic,
social, political and cultural independence. Emphasis is thus on collaborative,
interactive and participative production of communication materials and participatory management of the communication programs themselves (Quebral, 1988, pp.
18, 21, 46). Quebral however notes some factors that impede successful design and
implementation of devcom interventions as being: the undervaluing of notions of
rural, agriculture and indigenous media programs and people; lack of unified policy
frameworks on communication and information technology and their role in
development; the rising commercialism in both public and community media;
misunderstanding over what devcom entails, resulting to equating the practice with
public relations or publicity especially by administrators; inadequate training
opportunities; and misconception about development communicators as constituting
producers of educational materials only (1988, p. 38).
Importantly, the School acknowledges and supports the growth of other devcom
training institutions in the world. Probably taking a swipe at the patent hysteria in the
West, where corporations are seeking ownership of biological and scientific
discoveries even on the human body, Quebral (2002, p. 16) unselfishly notes that

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L. Manyozo

the School does not own the intellectual property rights to development communication as a field of study or teaching. This unselfishness is manifested in the
willingness of the old guard of Los Banos in helping other training institutions in the
region to establish their own postgraduate devcom programs seen from your own
background a case in example being Professors Felix Librero and Ely Gomez, who are
working with the Department of Agricultural Extension and Communication of the
Kasetsart University in Thailand (Kasetsart University, 2004; Quebral, 2002, p. 17).
Kasetsarts devcom courses like broadcasting for development, writing for development, management of communication system, and scientific information management for development do indeed reflect the influence of Los Banos, more so
considering the agricultural origins of the Los Banos devcom.
Perhaps it is old age and, consequently wisdom, but Quebral is not worried about
socio-economic changes that will necessitate changing the nature of devcom teaching.
She is however very worried about global imperialism and how it is already affecting
the poor of the poorest. She recalls listening to a handicraftsman from a municipality
in Laguna whose cottage industry that had started exporting to other countries had
been virtually wiped out by globalization (2002, p. 11). Quoting Thomas Friedman
(2000), Quebral (2002, p. 25) therefore worries about a borderless world in which
no one is in charge. She outlines the implications for the devcom curriculum, like the
further complication of the development process, the rising importance of cultural
component of development, the vitality of peace as a prerequisite to development and
the contradiction of globalization itself in pushing the individual in a regional and
world societies in which one must learn to co-exist (2002, pp. 25 26).
/

Afterthoughts
Development communication is the in word for many development and communication planners and researchers, to borrow Juan Jamias term (1975b, p. vii). From
its humble beginnings as a course, then a unit, then a department, an institute and a
full college today, the Los Banos School pioneered the development of a field that has
outgrown itself today. Even during the heat of the dominant development paradigm,
the Los Banos devcom research, despite viewing people as audiences or special
audiences, rejected the massifying of people and advocated problem-oriented, action
and participatory research (Quebral, 1988, p. 74). From as early as the 1970s and
1980s, this brand of devcom became an official development policy in the Philippine
national development plans. The emergence of this practice-based field of study and
research cannot be objectively discussed without mentioning the College of
Agriculture scholars, especially Quebral.
This discussion has established that Bretton Woods devcom may have its roots in
the post-war aid initiatives, but due to geographical, cultural, colonial and historical
differences, different development communications evolved from different parts of
the world. Thus it is a scant disregard for the efforts of the broadcasters of Radio
Sutatenza and Radios Mineras, the travelling theatre troupes of Africa, the extension

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Asian Journal of Communication 95

workers of Bhiwandi in India to discuss devcom as having emerged as a homogenous

field. When David Lerner was publishing his The Passing of Traditional Society in
1959, Radio Sutatenza had already provided radio-based non-formal education to
thousands of Colombian campesinos and the College of Development Communication was already established as an Office of Extension and Publications, and had
already initiated many rural devcom projects. These are historical facts, which the
Third World should hold dear to its heart for fear of revisionism, which itself is a
form of global imperialism. Ansu-Kyeremehs (1994) concern with the First World
determining the world communication agenda becomes relevant in that even in the
face of available and published evidence, the Los Banos manifesto of devcom
continues to be deliberately ignored by major Bretton Woods School institutions and
publications. Few Bretton Woods School institutions acknowledge the origins of the
devcom manifesto, IDRCAs publications and collaboration with the Los Banos
School on the Igsang Bagsak community-based natural resource management being
cases in example.
Quebrals thoughts formulated the foundation glue that erected the Los Banos
School, and though she has never blown her own trumpets, she and the Los Banos
School are the manifesto of devcom itself. This discussion thus makes two bold
conclusions. First, it acknowledges the different development communications that
emerged in other parts of the world independent of Freire, the dominant
modernization paradigm and even before Latin American scholars challenged the
dominant paradigm. Second, the Los Banos experiments from the 1950s were not
meant to test the modernization paradigm but were an attempt to grapple with the
rising poverty in Philippines, and the Schools pioneering reflexive, method-driven
and theory-based nature of devcom practice was very original and defined the shape
of global discourse, practice and training in devcom. Let it be emphasized here that,
with due respect to the late Rogers, Schramm and Daniel Lerner for their role in
conceptualizing the linear communication approaches in development, different
development communications evolved at different times the world over, and that, if
there is anyone who has to be accorded the honour of being the father of
development communication, then it is none other than Nora Quebral.

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Appendix

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Professor Nora Cruz Quebral, a Pioneer in Development Communication

Nora Cruz Quebral, a leading pioneer in the field of development communication, is
Professor Emeritus of Development Communication, University of the Philippines
Los Banos (UPLB), President of the Nora C. Quebral Development Communication
Centre, and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of Communicating
for Development Social Change.
Quebral was the first Chair of the then Department of Development Communication, when it was based in UPLBs College of Agriculture. This department has
since become the College of Development Communication (CDC). In the early
1970s, Quebral developed the curriculum for the Development Communication BSc,
now a CDC offering very relevant to the needs of developing nations.
Nora Quebral has consulted for UN agencies, national and international
governmental organizations, and NGOs. She has served as communication specialist,
resident advisor, communication director, training resource specialist, external
examiner, and evaluator for numerous organizations and projects at home and
around the world. Quebral and her college colleagues established important
periodicals on communication, development, and knowledge exchange, such as the
ILEIA newsletter and the 1980s Agriculture at Los Banos, DevCom Quarterly.
The Nora C. Quebral Development Communication Center Inc. helped plan and
implement the IDRC-supported Participatory Development Communication Learning and Networking Program in community-based natural resource management,
known as Isang Bagsak, for researchers and practitioners in Southeast Asia and
Eastern and Southern Africa.
Her pioneering definition and her many other contributions to development
communication are widely acknowledged in academia and appreciated by scholars
and organizations in the West as well as the developing world. However, Quebral
acknowledges the personal and theoretical influences that shaped her thinking and
inclination towards development communication. She gives special mention to her
research advisor, Professor Bryant Kear at the College of Agriculture, University of
Wisconsin who, she says, broadened her perspective.
Alongside Kear, she acknowledges the influences of UNDPs Erskine Childers; Dr.
Wilbur Schramm, who started all this talk on communication and development;
and the Philippine rural sociologist Gelia Castillo, who wrote the book on how
participatory participation can be. She also drew inspiration from the works of Paulo

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Asian Journal of Communication 99

Freire. She says, when we started development communication experiments in the

1960s, we hadnt heard about Paulo Freire, but as we went along, Freires writing
became available. From among her contemporaries, Quebral acknowledges the
support and encouragement of Gloria Feliciano, Jan Servaes, Louis Ramiro Beltran,
and others.
Nora Quebral was saddened by the uncertainty in the 1980s and 1990s, when
development communication was confused with government communication, which
compelled her to publish papers like Development communication: Where does it
stand today? in 1975.
Some of her major works include: Asian university network in development
communication (1988); Development communication: Status and trends, the time is
now (l976); Development communication primer, with Ely Gomez (1976); Exploratory
study on communication technology for rural education (1978); IPM farmer field
schools: A work in progress (2002); Promoting agricultural productivity: The case of
National Azolla Action Program (1987); Reflections on development communication,
25 years after (2002); Research in development communication (1978); Science
reporting as a development tool (1974); The CTRE study: Piloting a distance learning
system for small farmers (1982) and The making of a development communicator
(1974). Among her many other publications is Development communication (1988),
seen as the Magna Carta of the practice and field, in which Quebral reflectively
discusses development communication as a concept, an academic discipline, and as a
practice.
Quebral strongly believes development communication emerged in response to
development challenges facing the Third World, arguing, as citizens of developing
nations, we need to pull resources together so that our countries will be able to fulfill
the goals and dreams of our citizens.
Quebral continues to spend time at Los Banos, where she maintains a desk and
gives inspirational talks on the role of development communication in todays world,
which suffers from growing globalization. She gave a memorable talk, Development
communication in the new millennium, at the Grand Annual Convergence of
Development Communicators at CDC in October 1999. In November 2001, Quebral
presented Development communication in a borderless world at the National
Conference Workshop on the Undergraduate Development Communication Curriculum at UPLB.
Nora Cruz Quebral continues to zealously advocate for the field she and others
pioneered in the 1950s and 1960s. With the immense amount of innovation her
career has spurred and the honors she has received, Quebral personifies the current
and future importance of development communication in discourse and practice.