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CHAPTER ONE Introduction The Rise of Modernization Theory Modernizing the Middle East. — Subtitle of Daniel Lerner’s 1958 book, The Passing of Traditional Society Modernizing the Mideast. — Headline for a December 13, 2002, news story on CBSNews.com reporting the George W. Bush administration’s plans for Iraq and beyond T HESE EPIGRAPHS highlight the persistence of an idea in the American imagination. The idea is that the Middle East—and, by extension , much of the postcolonial world after the end of the Second World War—was and remains a relatively backward place populated by people mired in “traditional” practices and values. Their only hope is to be modernized by an injection of Western values and expertise. Postwar modernization theory posited a model of societal transformation made possible by embracing Western manufacturing technology, political structures, values , and systems of mass communication. As a policy initiative, modernization was the centerpiece of Cold War efforts to thwart the spread of Soviet Communism in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. A package of Western industrial organization, patterns of governance, and general lifestyles was conceived and offered up as an irresistible and obviously superior path to entering the modern postwar world. Daniel Lerner’s 1958 book, The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East, was among the first book-length publications to set out a psychosocial theory of modernization.1 The book was based on research that the U.S. State Department funded in the late 1940s. The original purpose of the research was to determine whether people in the Middle East Portions of this chapter were published previously in Hemant Shah. “Race, Mass Communication , and Modernization: Intellectual Networks and the Flow of Ideas.” In Anti-Racism and Multiculturalism: Studies in International Communication, edited by Mark D. Alleyne. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2010. 2 CHAPTER ONE were listening to Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts and, if so, to ascertain their reactions to the programming. In the mid-1950s, Lerner reanalyzed the data in light of a new conceptualization revolving around the notion that Western values and ideas disseminated by Western mass media could help transform countries of the Middle East from traditional and primitive nations into countries with modern forms of social, economic, and political organization.2 The first epigraph at the head of this chapter obviously refers to the subtitle of Lerner’s book, in which he introduced readers to the Chief of Balgat, a man steeped in traditional values that were depicted as antiquated and out of step with the modern world. Lerner presented the Chief as hopelessly parochial, judging all issues and events from the perspective of his “traditional virtues” and possessing quaint wisdom about “wives and cows.” The Chief had no desire to leave his village and only wanted his sons to be good soldiers and his daughters to marry well. The Chief had the only radio in the village, and he carefully monitored and controlled the use of this “Devil’s Box.” Although he invited village elites to his home to listen to the news from Ankara, he alone interpreted its meaning and significance for the gathered crowd.3 Against this setting, Lerner discussed in broad strokes his idea of traditional-to-modern social change catalyzed by mass media. The logic underlying the transformation comprised the following arguments: “No modern society functions efficiently without a developed system of mass media”; mass media “open to the large masses of mankind the infinite vicarious universe” of modern ideas and experiences; media exposure produces “desire . . . to live in the world ‘lived’ only vicariously”; when many people experience this desire, “a transition is under way” toward modernization . And because “what the West is, the Middle East seeks to become,” “Islam is absolutely defenseless” against “a rationalist and positivist spirit” embodied in Western-style democratic institutions.4 In the second epigraph, a headline from a CBSNews.com posting mirrors the subtitle of Lerner’s book. The accompanying news story described the George W. Bush administration’s efforts to emphasize “political, economic , and educational reform throughout the Arab world.” With sentiment reflecting Lerner’s, the news item claimed Arab leaders cared little about modern ideas, such as improving the lives of girls and women, instituting literacy training, and connecting schools to new media, such as the Internet. The story also said that democracy and transparency were “not normally associated with governments in the Arab Middle East. One small but telling example of the region’s reluctance to open itself up to the outside world...

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