Africa Media Review Vol. 1. No. 1. 1986 
©African Council on Communication Eduration 
Compelling Impacts of the Telephone, 
Literacy and Other Related Factors on 
the Development of Mass 
Communication Media 
by David 0. Edeani* 
Abstract 
The article explores the role which literacy, roads, public education, 
telephones and electrification play in the development of the mass media. 
It contends that these predictor variables or media stimulators are 
important in influencing mass media development, but that this influence 
is disproportionately exerted by telephones and levels of literacy. The 
article concludes that in trying to bridge the mass communication gap 
between the developed and the less-developed countries, better results will 
be achieved in investing more on telephone services, literacy programmes, 
electricity systems and other extra-media stimulators along with media 
investment. 
Risumi 
Cet article fait le point du r61e que joue l'alphabetisation, les routes, 
l'education, le telephone et 1'electrification dans le developpement des mass 
media. II affirme que ces variables explications ou stimulations sont 
inportantes influent sur le developpement des medias, mais cette correlation 
s'avere positive pour le telephone et le niveau d'alphabetisation. 
L'auteur arrive a la conclusion selon laquelle le fosse entre pays developpes 
et sous-developpes peut etre comble grace a des investissements dans le services 
t61ephoniques, les problemes d'alphabetisation et 1'electrification ainsi que 
dans d'autres facilitateurs dans le cadre des projets d'investissement dans les 
systemes de communication. 
•David 0. Edeani is a Reader and Head of Department, Department of Mass' 
Communication, Institute of Management and Technology, Lnugu, Nigeria. 
20
Development of mass communication media in the nations of Africa, 
Asia, and Latin America, has continued to engage the attention of communication 
scholars. A great deal of work has been done in the broad area of 
national development, including mass media development. The bulk of the 
research has usually been in the typical Lerner (1964) tradition of matching 
an index of mass media development against indices of other aggregate level 
factors in a recursive model with the aim of finding out which factors 
precede which in the national development process. 
Most of the studies have consistently shown that the level of literacy in 
any society is an important variable accounting for mass media 
development. However, beyond this importance of literacy, very little else 
is known about the configuration of aggregate-level factors responsible for 
the development of the mass communication media.1 Knowledge of such 
factors will provide an insight into the proper place of the mass media in the 
national development equation. Thus, the issue of which critical variables 
operate with literacy to stimulate mass media development deserves 
empirical research attention. 
The purpose of this study is to explore the role which certain aggregatelevel 
factors, including literacy, play in the development of the mass media. 
The factors, which Schramm has called "extenders" of, and "auxiliary 
services" for, the mass media, are roads, level of literacy, public education, 
telephones and electrification. According to Schramm (1964) :2 
"How fast the mass media grow depends in part on how fast certain 
elements of society grow. For example, the printed media are limited by 
the growth of literacy .... where electrical mains are available in a 
country, there it is easier to install radio transmitters and receivers, film 
projectors, and printing machinery. Growth rates of all the media are 
immensely stimulated by the spread of public education, and slowed by 
the lack of it" (p. 106). 
Schramm states, in other words, that roads, telephones, literacy, 
public education and electrification are among the "extenders" and 
"auxilliary services" which no nation can afford to ignore in its 
development planning if it wants to "stimulate" the growth of its mass 
media system. 
No substantive empirical tests of Schramm's hypothesis as it pertains to 
the role of "extenders" and "auxilliary services" have been undertaken 
since it was formulated 20 years ago, but communication scholars have very 
often taken the hypothesis as a truism and readily cite a lack of the factors 
enumerated by Schramm as formidable barriers to mass media 
development. An empirical test of the hypothesis is called for to see if it 
21
represents an accurate conception of the reality of mass media 
development. 
In many less developed countries, the private potential investor in a 
newspaper or radio station often hesitates to do so because he or she feels 
that the business venture is not likely to be a profitable proposition, in view 
of the lack, or poor conditions, of such basic facilities and indicators as 
roads, telephones, electricity, and widespread literacy (Nair, 1967; Edeani, 
1970).3 For the private investor, therefore, it is more prudent to invest in 
other business enterprises than in the mass media. Also government 
harassments of editors and other professionals of privately owned media 
can often culminate into a premature death of a newspaper or radio broadcasting 
company 
Such harassments sometimes result from irresponsible reports and 
comments in the privately owned press by journalists who are not well 
trained to exercise necessary restraint in their writing. But more often the 
harassments occur because officials themselves are not sufficiently 
experienced to tolerate unpleasant news and commentaries with grace, but 
rather are quick to pounce on offending journalists in the belief that by 
suppressing them the chances of the press succeeding in inciting the 
population to revolt might be forestalled or at least minimized. 
The direct result of this state of affairs usually takes one of three forms: 
first, the government may step in to establish its own mass media and 
often in the process end up monopolizing the business (Hachten, 1971; 
Wilcox, 1975; Pierce, 1979) ;4 second, if the government does not go into 
the business, foreign media interests may try to fill the vacuum (Hachten 
1971; Beltran and Cardona, 1979).5 One might well argue that investments 
by governments and by foreign business interests in the mass media would 
help to develop the system. 
But the problem is that foreign owned media are often highly suspect in 
most less developed countries today as not being in the best interests of the 
people's self-determination. That is foreign owned media are usually 
greeted with hostility by the government and sometimes by the public, too, 
and government owned media suffer from lack of credibility in the eyes of 
the general public. Finally, if the government is unwilling or unable to 
establish the media, and prevailing conditions make it unfeasible for foreign 
interests to establish the needed media, the country may simply slide along 
without any meaningful media system in place. 
Assume that government interference is absent and that a potential 
investor in the mass media business could find the necessary capital to 
establish a newspaper or a magazine or a book publishing business. If the 
available road and transportation facilities are in very poor conditions, if 
the telephones and electricity supply are severely limited in scope and 
functionally erratic, and if only a minuscule proportion of the populace is 
22
sufficiently literate to use the mass media effectively, it would still be 
difficult, if not impossible, for serious-minded entrepreneurs to be attracted 
to the mass media as profitable investment outlets. These infrastructures 
are usually provided by governments in less developed countries, and as the 
governments typically lack the necessary financial resources or the political 
will and wisdom to speed up their development and modernization, the 
services and facilities stagnate in their ineffectual conditions for years, thus 
contributing substantially to the slowing down of the national development 
process, including mass media development. 
However, it is not likely that all of these factors will be equal in 
predictive strengths in influencing mass media growth. For example, while 
all of them may be important in influencing newspaper and book development, 
only telephones and electrification are likely to affect the 
development of radio and television to any appreciable extent. But all the 
factors operating in concert may be important in influencing the 
development of the mass media system as a whole. Following Schramm, one 
could christen these factors "media stimulators." 
Hypotheses 
The following hypotheses were formulated to reflect the relationships 
conjectured here for the mass media stimulators on the one hand and mass 
media development on the other. 
HI: Mass media development is a function of media stimulators 
(composed of roads, telephones, literacy, public education, and 
electrification). 
H2: Roads, telephones, literacy, public education, and electrification 
will each exert a statistically significant influence on mass media 
development. 
While Hypothesis 1 is aimed at finding out the extent to which roads, 
telephones, literacy, public education, and electrification can combine in a 
single index to predict mass media development (itself made up of radio, 
television, cinema, newspaper, and book), Hypothesis 2 is meant to explore 
the relative contributions which the five predictor variables are likely to 
make in the determination of mass media development. 
H3: Roads, telephones, literacy, public education, and electrification 
will each exert a statistically significant influence on newspaper 
development. 
H4: Roads, telephones, literacy, public education, and electrification 
will each exert a statistically significant influence on book development. 
Electrification is important in the physical setting-up of newspaper and 
book publishing plants, both electrification and telephones are important in 
the smooth functioning of such plants, good roads are necessary for the 
23
distribution of products of the plants, and literacy and public education are 
necessary if newspaper and book copies are to circulate widely in the 
population. 
H5: Roads, telephones and electrification will be more important 
than literacy and public education in predicting to the development 
of the cinema. 
Telephones and electrification are important in the building and operation 
of cinema houses, while good roads facilitate people's ability to attend 
cinema shows. But one does not necessarily have to be literate or to be 
attending school in order to attend and enjoy cinema shows. 
H6: Telephones and electrification will be more important than 
roads, literacy, and public education in predicting to radio 
development. 
H7: Telephones and electrification will be more important than 
roads, literacy, and public education in predicting to television 
development. 
While in the long run, roads, literacy, and public education will contribute 
towards the growth of radio and television in any society, they are probably 
not as crucial as telephones and electrification are in making it possible for 
the physical establishment and operation of radio and television 
broadcasting. It has often been said that radio and television can "leapfrog" 
the barriers of bad roads and illiteracy, but they don't seem to be able to 
bypass the influences of telephone and electricity development. 
Method 
Data were collected on 55 African and 43 Asian and Middle Eastern 
nations, for a total of 98 countries. The data were taken from the United 
Nations Statistical Yearbook, the United Nations Demographic 
Yearbook, the UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, The Europa 
Yearbook, a World Survey, and the Britannica Book of the Year. The 
latest issues of these documents were used, except that in a few instances 
where information on some countries were reported as unavailable in the 
latest issues, previous issues of the publications containing the information 
were used. In a few cases where information was lacking for a number of 
countries and territories on some variables, means of the data on those 
variables were used in place of the missing information. 
The data defining the variables are as follows: 
Radio, number of radio receivers per 1,000; Cinema, number of cinema 
seats per 1,000; Newspaper, number of daily newspaper copies per 1,000; 
Book, number of book titles per 1,000; Roads, road mileage per 1,000; 
Telephones, number of telephone receivers per 1,000; Literacy, 
percentage of the adult population able to read and write; Public 
24
Education, percentage of school-age children enrolled in schools; and 
Electrification, percentage of households having electricity. The 
composite variable Media Stimulators, is composed of the predictor 
variables roads, telephones, literacy, public education, and electrification, 
while the other composite variable Mass Media Development is made up 
of the criterion variables radio, television, cinema, newspaper, and book. 
One must note the limitations of the data collected from the United 
Nations publications listed above. The information used in compiling the 
yearbooks are usually supplied by officials of member-nations, and the 
accuracy of every bit of the information cannot be guaranteed. Also, some 
of the information may not necessarily be up to date when the yearbooks are 
published. Nevertheless, the sources listed are among the best available for 
the kind of cross-national aggregate data used in the present study, and 
many previous researchers (Fagen, 1964; Farace and Donohew, 1965; 
Farace, 1966; Schramm and Ruggels, 1967; Edeani, 1980)6 have used them 
as sources of such macro-level data. 
Since the variables were measured with different kinds of data, the data 
were standardized in z-scores in the interest of comparability of results, and 
analyzed with the multiple regression programme to test the hypothesis 
presented above. 
Results 
Hypothesis 1 states that mass media development is a function of media 
stimulators. The percentage of variance in the composite criterion variable 
"mass media development" accounted for by the composite predictor 
variable "media stimulators" is 53 percent (F- 109.21: df= 1,96 p <.001), 
and Hypothesis 1 is lent support. 
The result of the test of Hypothesis 2 is presented in Table 1. That 
hypothesis states that each of the five original predictor variables - roads, 
telephones, literacy, public education, and electrification - would account 
for a statistically significant proportion of variance in mass media development 
by the five predictor variables is 77 percent, but almost all of this 
variance was accounted for by telephones, 43 percent (F = 73.82; df = 1,96; 
p< .001) and literacy, 30 percent (f= 41.73; df= 1,96; p <.001),and none 
of the three remaining predictors - roads, public education, and 
electrification - accounted for a statistically significant variation in mass 
media development as defined. Thus, Hypothesis 2 is lent only a partial 
support. 
The results of the tests of Hypotheses 1 and 2 indicate that whether they 
are operating collectively in a composite index or individually, the predictor 
variables are important in influencing mass media development, but that 
this influence is disproportionately exerted by telephones and level of 
literacy. 
25
Hypotheses 3 and 4 state that roads, telephones, literacy, public 
education, and electrification will each account for a statistically significant 
variation in newspaper development and book development. Also here, 
only telephones and literacy exerted statistically significant influences on 
newspaper and book development. Of the 82 percent of the variance in 
newspaper development accounted for by the five predictors,telephones alone 
was responsible for 47 percent (F = 86.76; df = 1,96; p < .001) and literacy 
explained 33 percent (F = 47.41; df = 1,96; p < .001). None of the three 
other predictors made a statistically significant contribution of variance to 
the prediction of newspaper development. In book publishing, the total 
variance accounted for is 34 percent, and telephones explained 23 percent 
of this (F = 28.48; df = 1,96; p < .001) while literacy explained 10 percent 
(F = 10.53; df = 1,96; p < .001). Here again, the dominance of telephones 
and literacy is clear. 
Hypothesis 5 states that roads, telephones and electrification would be 
more important than literacy and public education in predicting to the 
development of the cinema, and the results of data analysis does not lend 
support to the hypothesis. Of the total variance of 17 percent explained in 
cinema development by the five predictor variables, roads, telephones, and 
electrification accounted for 10 percent (F = 3.41; df = 3,94; p < .03) while 
literacy and public education explained the remaining 7 percent (F = 3.5; 
df = 2,95; p .03). Thus, roads, telephones, and electrification accounted 
for 3 percent of variance more than did literacy and public education, but 
this 3 percent difference is not statistically significant (F = 0.90; df = 3,94; 
p < .05). 
Hypotheses 6 and 7 state that telephones and electrification would be 
more important than roads, literacy, and public education in predicting to 
radio development and television development, and data analysis lent 
support to these two hypotheses. Of the total variance of 41 percent 
explained in radio development by the five predictor variables, 25 percent 
(F = 15.88; df = 2,95; p < .001) was explained by telephones and electrification, 
while 16 percent (F = 6.16; df =3,94;p< .01) was accounted for by 
roads, literacy, and public education. This means that telephones and 
electrification's contribution of variance is higher than that of roads, 
literacy, and public education by 9 percent (F = 5.47; df = 2,95; p < .01). 
The total variance accounted for in television development by the five 
predictor variables is 77 percent, and telephones and electrification 
explained 50 percent (F = 48.30; df = 2,95; p < 001) while roads, literacy, 
and public education explained the remaining 27 percent (F = 11.41; df = 
3,94; p < .001). Thus, telephones and electrification accounted for 23 
percent (F = 22.73; df = 2.95; p < .001) more than did the other three 
predictors. 
26
Table 1 
nummary Table of Analysis of Variance for Effects on Mass Media 
Development 
criterion 
/ariable df 
Source of 
Variation R2 
lass Media 
)ev. 
Total 97 1.00000 
Table 2 
¥ df 
Source of 
Variation 
Criterion 
/ariable 
Total 97 1.00000 
F 
Roads 1 .00813 0.79 > .05 
Literacy 1 .30295 41.73 < .001 
Telephones 1 .43482 73.82 < .001 
Electrification 1 .01943 1.90 > .05 
Pub. Education 1 .00390 0.38 > .05 
Residual 92 .23076 
Nummary Table of Analysis of Variance for Effects on Newspaper 
and Book Development 
Roads 1 .00952 0.92 > .05 
Literacy 1 .33043 47.41 < .001 
Newspaper Telephones 1 .47459 86.76 < .001 
Electrification 1 .00388 0.38 > .05 
Pub. Education 1 .00095 0.09 > .05 
Residual ^2 .18063 
0.09 
10.53 
28.48 
0.42 
0.92 
Roads 
Literacy 
Telephones 
Electrification 
Pub. Education 
> .05 
< .005 
< .001 
> .05 
> .05 
.00011 
.09886 
.22866 
.00436 
.00941 
11
1
11
Jooks 92 .65860 
1.00000 
Residual
Total 
27
Discussion 
In the nations of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, the supporting facill 
ties, services, and social indicators, such as roads, telephones, literacf 
public education, and electricity supply, are important factors influencirj 
the development of the mass media. All of them operating in concej 
contribute toward the stimulation, or retardation, of the growth of the maa 
media, depending on their levels of development. On the whole, as syster 
of roads, telephone services, levels of literacy, public school enrollment! 
and electrification systems increase in numbers, radio broadcastinj 
television broadcasting, book publishing, newspaper production, ar 
cinema facilities will likewise grow. 
However, some of the stimulating factors are more crucial for tl 
growth of some of the media than for the growth of others. Telephones ar 
literacy are clearly much more important for the development of boc 
publishing and newspaper production than are all the other three facto| 
combined. Also, telephones and literacy are far and away the mol 
consequential when the development of the media is examined together as" 
single index. For the development of radio and television, it is telephone 
and electrification which are the most consequential, thus indicating th! 
while roads, literacy, and public education may contribute to the long-ri 
growth of radio and television broadcasting, it is telephones and electricij 
supply which help more than any of the other factors to propel tl 
development of these electronic media at the present time. 
However, the development of the cinema is not markedly influenced 1 
any of the five predictor variables, not even roads, telephones, ar 
electrification which ordinarily would be expected to stimulate t| 
establishment and operation of cinema facilities. Even though tl 
influences of telephones and electrification on cinema growth are ead 
statistically significant, none of the variances explained in cinema growl 
by these two predictors is above 4 percent, and roads influence on ciner 
development is virtually zero. The total percentage of variance accountJ 
for in cinema growth by the five predictor variables is only 17 percel 
(F = 3.71; df = 5,92; p < .01), which means that a whole 83 percent remaij 
to be accounted for. In other words, the variables used in the present stuq 
are not the ones crucial for the growth of the cinema industry. Why is tlj 
case?
The relatively recent emergence of television on the im 
communication scene in many parts of the Third World may have result! 
in many substantive and potential cinema goers preferring to sit back[ 
home watching television as an alternative form of entertainment. 
28
economic situation of the populace may be an important predictor of 
cinema growth. Other factors may include availability of appropriate films, 
and government policies toward the cinema industry. 
But while the influences of the predictor variables are at best minimal 
on cinema development, they are optimal on newspaper development (82 
percent of the variance), on television development (77 percent of the 
variance), and of course on the overall development of the mass media. 
It is telephones and literacy, of all the predictor variables, which are 
mainly responsible for these results, ana which throughout this study 
have exerted by far the most compelling effects on the development of 
the mass media. 
Literacy's performance is not entirely surprising, since it has been 
shown in previous studies to be closely related to mass media development. 
The telephone, whose impact on the development of the media are even 
stronger than those of literacy, is by itself a kind of communication channel 
as well as a technical source of power and performance fidelity for a humbler 
of the mass media channels included in this study. This may well explain 
telephone's superior performance, for its development has more direct 
implication for the mass media than is the development of any of the other 
predictor variables. 
The magnitudes of telephone's beta weights, which were found to be 
consistently larger than those of the other independent variables, more 
clearly reflect its dominant influences on the mass media units, since a beta 
weight represents the direct effect of one variable on another. The weights 
are: 752 on mass media development, .534 on radio development, .823 on 
television development, .597 on book development, .801 on newspaper 
development, and .214 on cinema development. 
In view of the surprising and consistently dominant impact of the 
telephone, including its relatively high zero-order correlations with the 
other variables in the study (Table 3), a check was made to see if there was 
any spuriousness in its relationships with the criterion variables. This 
involved holding all the other predictors constant and correlating 
telephones with each of the five original criterion variables. If spuriousness 
was present in any of its correlations with these variables, such 
correlations would have disappeared when the other predictor variables 
were held constant. 
The results showed that its correlations with the original criterion 
variables were not altered in any substantial way, except for its partical 
correlation with cinema which was depressed from .32 (p <.01) to (p < .05). 
The partial correlations were: .50 with radio, .82 with television, .52 with 
books, .84 with newspaper, and .19 with cinema, most of which were not 
29
markedly different from its zero-order correlations with these variables 
(Table 3). 
Of all the predictor variables, public education and roads exerted the 
least impacts on the mass media channels. These two predictors and the 
cinema have relatively very low correlations with other variables in the 
study (Table 3), and either they are in reality unrelated to the 
developments of those other variables or their measurements were in error. 
For example, the use of percentages of school age children enrolled in 
schools to measure public education might well not have been fully tapping 
the real character of public education, and such other index as the 
percentage of graduates from public schools may be a more accurate 
representation of public education. 
Whatever must have been the reasons for the poor showings of these 
variables in the present study, they deserve to be probed more closely in a 
future study with perhaps different definitions from the ones used here and 
hence different complements of data. For instance, transportation could 
include not only road mileage but also distances by sea and rail, and cinema 
attendance might provide a more functional and realistic measure than does 
cinema seats. 
In terms of Schramm's hypothesis, however, there is support for it 
when the "extenders" and "auxiliary services" are considered together in 
an index as predictors of an index of mass media development. When the 
factors are considered as individual predictors of the growth of individual 
media outlets, however, only telephones and literacy are consistently 
crucial for all the media, both print and electronic, and electrification is 
important only for radio and television development. 
On the whole, the results demonstrate that the less developed countries 
of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East can ill-afford to neglect the 
development and modernization of their road systems, their adult literacy 
programmes, their public school systems, their telephone services, and 
their electricity supply systems if they hope to speed up the development of 
their mass media systems. They would do well to pay particular attention to 
the improvement of their literacy programmes, and even more special 
attention to the improvement of their telephone systems, and electricity 
generating and supply facilities, for these are the outstanding stimulators of 
the growth of the mass media. 
As Pool (1971)7 has observed, "the importance of the telephone cannot 
be underestimated .... A call that saves a trip produces quantifiable savings 
in terms of travel expenses, vehicle depreciation, time spent, etc A 
telephone can make possible a significant increase in the feedback for 
developmental programming on radio and television" (p. 21). 
30
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
9. 
10. 
11. 
12. 
Any correlation coefficient below .21 is not statistically significant. 
Zero-order Correlation Matrix for the Predictor and Criterion Variables 
2 1 3 
.81 .73 
1.00 .55 
1.00 
Mass Media Dev. 1.00 
Media Facilitators 
Radio 
Television 
Books 
Newspaper 
Cinema 
Literacy 
Telephones 
Electrification 
Pub. Education 
Roads 
Table 3 
5 4 
.84 
.64 
.64 
.51 
.35 
,51 
.48 1.00 
1.00 
8 7 6
.86 
.73 
.60 
.86 
.64 
.60 
.38 
.32 
.30 
.02 
.26 1.00 
.56 
.82 
.39 
.50 
.31 
.58 
.28 1.00 
1.00 
11 10 9 12 
.85 
.71 
.62 
.87 
.57 
.89 
.32 
.53 
.33 
.50 
.27 
.22 
.06 
.26 
.28 
.28 
.20 1.00 
.53 
78 
.41 
.49 
.22 
.53 
.25 
.68 
.50 
.19 1.00 
1.00 
.09 
.42 
.09 
.02 
.01 
.10 
.12 
.17 
.06 
.03 
.17 
1.00
It is perhaps the ability of the telephone not only to stimulate savings in 
cash and kind but also to facilitate the flow of communication which 
particularly recommends it as one of the most important energizers of mass 
media development. It is in view of this importance of the telephone that 
MacBride and other members of UNESCO's International Commission for 
the Study of Communication Problems have expressed concern over slow 
development of the telephone in many nations of the Third World when 
they state as follows in their report (1981) . 
It appears to us that the slow development in many countries of 
telecommunication facilities and services is a real obstacle both to 
persons and societies. It is not sufficiently recognised that these 
facilities and services are .... a precondition of overall development and 
even of domocratic life Here is an area of communication which 
needs to be reconsidered in many countries, particularly in view of its 
social, economic, and cultural significance (p. 55). 
The neglect of the development of the telephone may well be an 
important factor contributing to the slower pace in the growth of the mass 
media in the Third World recently described by Pye (1980).8 It is a matter 
for concern that this neglect of telephone development is occuring at a time 
when there is rapid growth of telephone communication in the advanced 
countries of the world (MacBride el al, 1981),9 and the situation is 
contrary to objectives of the much-talked-about New World Information 
and Communication Order. 
Many Third World governments invest relatively little of their annual 
budgets in their telephone systems, while some others claim to recognize 
the importance of developing their own systems but pursue policies which 
constitute formidable obstacles to the growth of those systems. For 
example, while Nigeria has sunk millions of Naira into the country's erratic 
telephone system (with very little to show for the huge expense) and federal 
government officials talk big on how the government will soon expand and 
modernise the system in order to make telephone services available to most 
Nigerians, the Posts and Telecommunications Department has quietly 
increased the application fee for personal telephone service from $250 to 
the inexplicable figure of $685. The fee for business telephone has of course 
been increased to a figure far higher than this - around $1000. 
This single action will no doubt ensure quite effectively that telephone 
communication, instead of being made affordable for most Nigerians, will 
continue more than ever to remain a luxury enjoyed by only a very few, and 
this includes a very few business enterprises. Other telephone problems 
similar to Nigeria's abound in most other less developed nations. 
32
However, the results of this study provide a strong support to the view 
that telephone development is a powerful stimulant to mass media 
development. The results suggest that in trying to bridge the mass 
communication gap between the developed and less developed countries as 
spelled out in the objectives of the New World Information and 
Communication Order, Third World nations are likely to achieve better 
results if they channel substantial proportions of their investment capitals 
to the development of their telephone ser.vices, literacy programmes, 
electricity systems, and other mass media stimulators as well, than they 
would if they were to invest in mass media per se while neglecting these 
stimulators of the mass media. 
Investing in both sectors at once, as well as in other national 
development projects, is not an easy task for any nation,especially for a less 
developed nation. But if the carefully articulated aims of the New World 
Information and Communication Order which the less developed countries 
have been vigorously defending are to be attained, the investments have to 
be made. Most of the nations, especially those which have not committed 
themselves to socialism, would do well to encourage private enterprise to 
share in the investment task. 
REFERENCES 
'Urbanization was at a time regarded as an important predictor of mass communication development, 
but recent research tends to indicate that urbanization is not a crucial factor in the 
growth of mass communication process. 
2Schramm, W. M^ass Media and National Pevelopment. Stanford: Stanford University 
Press, 1964; and Schramm, W. and Ruggels, W.L. "How Mass Media Systems Grow". In 
Daniel Lerner and Wilbur Schramm, eds., Communication and Change in the Developing 
Countries. Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1967, 57.75. 
3Edeani, D.O. "Ownership and Control of the Press in Africa". Gazette, 1970,16, No. 2,55- 
66. 
Edeani, D.O. "Priority Position of Communication in the African Development Process". 
African Studies Review, 1980, 23, 63-79 and 
33
3Nair, L.R. "Private Press in National Development — The Indian Example". 
In Daniel Lernerand Wilbur Schramm, eds., Communication and Change in the 
Developing Countries. Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1967, 168-189. 
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