ABSTRACT
Simple models of direct media effect on attitudes and behaviour, at last being questioned in research on mass communication in industrialized societies, still dominate research on communication and development. The economist M. F. Millikan's claim, that 'of all the technological changes which have been sweeping through the traditional societies of the underdeveloped world in the last decade ... the most fundamental and pervasive in their effects have been the changes in communication' (Millikan 1967), is an uncompromising example of the importance typically attached to the media as indices of development or crucial catalysts of change.
