Participatory Communication and Alternative Development in Nigeria

Abstract

Participatory communication has the potentials to promote traditional media as adaptable method of information and communication  strategies in rural settings over the traditional paradigms of modernisation theories of mass communication which normally promotes  top-down approaches to development issues. It encourages decentralization, endogenous and multisectoral approaches to planning and  decision making. When the promises of the modernisation paradigm failed to materialise, and its methods came increasingly under fire,  and the dependency theorists failed to provide a successful alternative model, a different approach focusing on people’s participation  began to emerge. This participatory model is less oriented to the political-economic dimension and more rooted in the cultural realities of  development. The development focus has shifted from economic growth to include other social dimensions needed to ensure  meaningful results in the long run as indicated by the consensus built in the definition of the Sustainable Development Goals.  Sustainability and people’s participation became key elements of this new vision. Paradigms of development derived outside the classical  theories of development have emerged as schools of thought that are largely seen as alternative theories of development. This paper  adopts a content analysis of secondary sources on the concepts of development and some alternative theories associated with it,  especially as it pertains to third world conditions. It also focuses on participatory communication and other alternative theories, namely:  The basic needs approach; the intermediate technology approach; the integrated rural development approach; the 21st century socialist  approach and the echo-economics approach. These approaches are overlapping in certain respects but by no means exhaustive. The  paper recommends ideological and mass mobilization as participatory communication strategy for alternative sustainable development  in Nigeria.