Africa Media Review Vol. 1. No. 3. 1987©African Council on Communication EducationTheatre, Television and Development:A Case for the Third Worldby Hansel Ndumbe Eyoh*AbstractThis paper underscores the role of theatre as a tool for facilitating commu-nity education. It reckons that traditional African theatre had a functionalorientation. This African theatre, which is being reintroduced in various parts ofAfrica, was for many years suppressed by Christian and administrative leaders ofthe colonial era. It further observes that, in community education, the theatricalevent serves only a catalytic function, intended to stimulate critical analysis, ororganization and action. The paper discusses a number of experiments withpopular theatre for public education, identifying some related problems. It endsby outlining the responsibilities of theatre practitioners.ResumeCet article met en relief le role du theatre comme outil de developpementcommunautaire. II reconnait que le theatre traditionnel Alricain avait uneorientation fonctionnelle. Ce theatre, qui est en train d'etre rcintroduit dansdivers pays Africains, avait ete, pendant plusieurs annees. rcprime' par lesautorites administratives et les leaders Chretiens dc I'cre coloniale. I.auteurfait en outre remarquer que. dans le domaine de reducation communautaire,l'evenement theatral a seulement une function catalvtique. destines a stimulerl'analysecritique, a inciter a faction, et a ['organisation, I.'article analyse uncertain nombre d'experiences de theatre populaire a des fins do education, etidentifie quelques problemes qui y sont Ii6s. A la fin. il dcllnit lesresponsabilite's des praticiens de theatre.*Dr. Hansel Ndumbe Eyohis Senior Lecturer, Department of English. University of Yaounde.Cameroun.This paper is principally exploratory because it sets out to postulate possibleways of exploiting TV in the Third World where the need seems more to be gear-ed towards education rather than just entertainment. Besides, it should be under-stood that while Third World countries have no option than import TV techno-logy from Western Europe and Japan, there is most certainly no obligationwhatsoever to import software from the same source.Software developed in Europe and North America responds to a certaincultural milieu so different from that prevailing in most Third World count-ries. Whereas in Europe and North America, there is need for much escapistfare, the contrary ought to be true in the developing world where the mediaought to combine entertainment with education.Unfortunately, however, owing to cultural assimilation, absence of suffi-cient funds for production, ill conceived programming policies, unavailabilityof qualified manpower, displaced snobism, etc., the tendency in the ThirdWorld is to fill the box night after night with irrelevant even though sleekmaterial largely imported from Europe and North America.The problems of the developing world are complex and need not be comp-ounded by the cultural imperialism which passes for the global village. If therewere programme exchanges between the developed and developing world, onecould easily understand the anxiety to contribute to the creation of a universalculture. But this is not the case. As far as software for TV is concerned, ThirdWorld countries have become a perpetual dumping ground for third rate spha-getti westerns, soap operas, sitcoms, thrillers of the most alienating sort. Theseprogrammes can only negate the search for cultural identity and mortgage anygenuine form of development.Some two decades ago when many Third World countries were launchingtheir networks it was anticipated that TV would be the miracle needed to solvemany of the existing problems within these societies. In retrospect, the perfor-mance of TV networks have been appallingly short of the target. It is difficultto see how many countries in the Third World which have been able to developadequate programming policy which would reflect the aspirations of the masses.Rather, for the various reasons cited above, many Third World TV Networkshave contented themselves with broadcasting material which is irrelevant totheir communities and which has tremendous ramifications on attitude changes.The power of television is undoubtable. In the Third World it was expectedto accelerate the development process, contribute to the integration of societyand provide a means of preserving traditional cultures. Today, there is evidenceto show that the medium has even had a negative influence and enlarged, ratherthat diminished the gap between the rich and the poor and the urban and therural. And as Mytton (1983) puts it, instead of nurturing traditional culturalvalues it has eroded them by offering a large amount of imported programming.Television programming within the Third World increasingly seems to caterfor the needs of a "small" urban elite using taxes collected from the massesto whom the wrong messages are sent. In Zambia recently, Dickson Mwansa of50the University of Lusaka described what he saw as peasant JRs coming out ofthatched huts.It has been suggested that the failure of television in the Third World toachieve its full potential has been due to social, cultural, economic and mostespecially, political constraints. The kind of freedom of expression that isnecessary for the development of interesting programming tends to be mutedand there is hardly any encouragement for the marginalized people to validatetheir aspirations in the medium.With the exception of some Latin America countries, many TV networks inthe Third World are dependent on hightech/high-cast production models whichrestrict the possibility for producing locally generated material. With a lot ofheavy investment on production and transmission equipment, coupled withgeneralized suspicion on the critical bent of media producers, the predominanttendency is to purchase "safe" material from abroad.According to Iain McLellan (1986) African television, as a rule, rarely showsor explains Africa to Africans. What we often see... is Dallas, I love Lucy, San-ford and Son,French police films and other imports with no redeeming socialvalue.McLellan adds that on most evenings, the African content seen on the major-ity of African televisions is represented by political speeches, reports on visits offoreign dignitaries, "development experts" speaking over the average viewer inEuropean languages telling them how they should develop, or dramas featuringupper class characters