Communication policy and planning in Singapore. Eddie C. Y. Kuo and Peter S. J. Chen. Kegan Paul International, London, 1983, 111 pp
| Date | 01 October 1984 |
| Published date | 01 October 1984 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230040415 |
| Author | R. A. Raitt |
388
Book
Reviews
services required by the lower income groups.
Inessential development,
by the same criterion
signifies the type which caters for the needs of the richer members of the community. The
ideal has been pursued with great sincerity in Tanzania for two decades; but in terms
of
development the precedent does not appear to have been the happiest. Moreover the text is
explicit that few developing countries are in practice likely to pursue policies designed to
achieve these ends.
When he turns from ‘in theory’ to ‘in practice’ Mr. Eshag makes many acute observations.
For example, he rightly castigates the failure to stimulate agricultural production as a serious
bar to development. And the warnings in Chapter 3 and elsewhere about the need to match
fiscal and other measures to a country’s administrative competence and honesty are vitally
important.
However my general impression is that, partly because the ‘in theory’ is
so
often negated by
the ‘in practice’, the book is uneven in quality and content. Too much space is devoted
to
the
polemics of the Keynesian-Monetarist debate. Bright students would learn more about
development if some of it were used to pursue the practical issues raised in Chapters 3 to
6
and
to suggest ways of resolving the difficulties in the context
of
the real world in which, for better
or
for worse, we live.
To
sum up,
I
found the book interesting and provocative and enjoyed it as much for what
I
rejected as for where
I
agreed. I doubt, however its value to tiro aid administrators
or
sorcerer’s apprentice administrators in the developing world. As for the intelligent
undergraduates and interested general readers, I would say ‘Read and be stimulated but be
quite sure to balance it with
a
suitable antidote prescribed by, say, Professors Bauer and
Yamey and possibly
a
fair dash of Friedman’.
K.
W.
S.
MACKENZIE
COMMUNICATION POLICY AND PLANNING IN SINGAPORE
Eddie
C.
Y.
Kuo
and Peter
S.
J.
Chen
Kegan Paul International, London, 1983,
11
1
pp.
This book reports the outcome of
a
study of communication policy and planning in Singapore
and describes the operation of the formal communication network. It forms part of an
international research activity organized by the Communications Policy and Planning
Project, at the East West Communication Institute, Honolulu.
The study is descriptive and entirely empirical, and the results are presented here in
a
clear
and readable style, with no reference to esoteric communications theory
or
indeed hardly any
use of sociological concepts, although the authors are sociologists by training. After a short
overview
of
Singapore society and
a
description
of
the components
of
the formal
communication network-press, broadcasting, film, postal services and
telecommunications-the results
of
an audience analysis are presented, giving data on media
use from previous fieldwork conducted by the authors in 1977. The pattern of use which
emerges would seem to be rather dated, given the rapid pace of development in Singapore
since 1977.
Following chapters describe the development of communication policy, the government’s
strategy regarding communication and two case studies-communication planning at the
institutional level (Radio Television Singapore) and at the project level (family planning). The
problems posed by the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the population feature throughout,
but these appear to be more than offset by the fact that prolonged political stability and the
compact nature of the city state facilitate communication planning. The government of
Singapore has frequently received criticism for its degree
of
central control and censorship
of
the media, and this report clearly describes the one-way pattern of communication from
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