4             NEEDS ASSESSMENT

Often, audiences and their needs are determined from outside the media projects, mostly by government departments. This identification tends to be at a very general level and in terms of very broad objectives. Media planners and producers, however, require much more detailed information about the characteristics of the audience and their specific needs to translate broad objectives into implementation. This requires research. 

How Do Media Projects Usually Begin? 

Projects usually begin with the preparation of a software plan. The plan outlines the policy for the use of the medium; identifies the target area and the target audience; suggests broad goals, objectives and approaches; and recommends salient themes of the programmes. A high-level government body comprising policy makers, administrators, academicians and broadcasters generally does the planning at this stage. This is followed by meetings, brainstorming and workshop sessions of educationists and broadcasters. Taking the software plan prepared by the high level body as the basis, they identify specific themes, series and topics for programme production; transmission plans and operational aspects. 

In yet another workshop of subject matter experts and the media persons, programme briefs on the suggested themes and topics are prepared. 

The programme briefs thus prepared are finally passed on to the media producers to produce the programmes. 

At times, the software plan may be very sketchy just giving the target area, the target audience and the broad objectives of the use of the medium, leaving the specifications to the discretion of the individual producers.

What Else Should Be Done?

The described procedure of developing a software plan and programme briefs may sound impressive. But in actual implementation, it may be found lacking in many respects for it has omitted a thorough analysis of the actual situation and the community needs. 

It is just like a doctor writing a prescription without first fully knowing the patient, understanding the disease, examining the symptoms and feeling the pulse. 

The prescription written in this manner may work, but the chances of mishap are even greater. Surely, there are far more chances of success, if the doctor first does some probing with the patient.

The policy planning group and the groups formulating specific programme topics and briefs would be better equipped if they had well documented findings that describe the audience. More specifically, they need different types of information for formulating relevant and realistic recommendations. For instance, they require information on:- 
  • Needs of the audience for media support 
  • Audience profiles and other background information about the audience. 

A good media project thus evolves itself by going through various stages: from the first idea to greater and greater clarification of the setting, problems, needs, constraints, objectives, choices and actions.

We will first describe the problems and specific educational needs of the audience for media support.

Needs are of Different Types 

There are generally four types of educational needs: 

Felt or Manifest Needs 
Felt needs are directly perceived by the people. They are conscious about these and are able to express them. It is another matter that they may not be sufficiently motivated to meet them. 

Students, for example, would tell about the portions in each subject area, which they find difficult to learn.

Farmers would be able to talk about the problems faced by them in raising the yield of their crops.

Mothers would come out with their concerns about the ill health of their children, and so on. 

On a little probing, people are able to talk about the needs uppermost in their mind. Among them the community leaders are generally more articulate in expressing the needs. 

Unexpressed or Latent Needs 

There are always some needs that are important for the well-being of the people, but may remain unexplored. These are latent needs, all or some of which are unexpressed, but require urgent attention. 

Safe drinking water may be a genuine need of the rural people, but they may not be able to articulate it to the agency or the officials concerned. 

Farmers may not realize that the yield of their crops is limited by certain soil borne pathogens.

Mothers may not be aware that dehydration following diarrhea in children is the major cause of mortality among them. 

Students may clear examinations without realizing the need to master the content of the subjects they study. Teachers may continue with their routine without realizing the need to review and revise their methods of teaching. 

At times, unfelt needs may outnumber the felt needs, and these may be even more relevant to the development of the people. 

For realistic programme planning, it is imperative that the planners form a clear idea of the different needs of the people.
And it is your responsibility as a researcher to determine the needs of the people, and let the programme planners and producers know about these.

Real Needs or Constraints to Development 

The cause of some problems at times may not be the inadequacies or the ignorance of the people, but may be due to the inadequate infrastructures, lack of facilities and services and wrong political priorities. Also, there may be some vested interests in the society or institutions that want to maintain the status quo for their advantage. These vested interests often try to under play or cover up the real needs of the people. 

For example, the children may not be able to complete school education because of inadequate physical infrastructure, insufficient attention by the teachers, fear of corporal punishment, failure in the examination etc. Educational institutions may keep silent about the real needs of the students for fear of taking extra responsibility or losing their grip over the students. And students may not articulate their needs in clear terms. 

Farmers may not be able to diversify to more income generating propositions for lack of credit facilities and marketing avenues. Similarly, they may not be able to adopt high yielding varieties of crops due to non-availability of improved seeds. 

In other words, the backwardness of the people may be more a symptom rather than the cause of their existing situation. The various constraints to their development are the real needs of the people that need to be determined by you. 

Your duty as a researcher is to help the producer use the media to conscientise the people about the oppressive and inequitable socio-economic and political structures which pose obstacles to their development, and motivate them to move out of inertia and take individual and collective action about the removal of the constraints. 

Social and Cultural Needs 

For any social order to remain organized, most of its members should hold certain values and attitudes close to their heart. Development of cultural identity and fostering a basic common set of values and goals among the members of a society should be considered another important role of the medium. These values differ from one society to another, and therefore also need to be determined.

While social values may change with time and from society to society, some other values such as hard work, honesty, caring for others and the like are more abiding in nature and are held in great esteem by all organized and civil societies. 

Similarly, every nation expects its citizens to pursue certain aspirations considered necessary for its all round development. 

It is also your duty to sensitize the producer about the social, moral and ethical issues confronting the given society, relevant national and global issues.

This is, however, not to suggest that a series of value-based programmes may be designed separately and exclusively. What is intended is that the desirable values may be woven and built into the programmes while developing scripts based on felt, unfelt and real needs of the people. Creating desirable images on the mind of people in a subtle manner could be more effective than teaching them about the values directly. 

Projects based on systematic assessment of the needs of the people have far greater chances of success. After having assessed the gamut of needs of the people, and the project objectives having been formulated based on that, your next job is to determine the current situation with respect to the stated objectives. This is covered by baseline study, which is the subject matter of the next chapter.