Voice Of America : an inside look at its Africa Division

Abstract

Communication is a very intricate phenomenon, especially when there is any amount of "noise" in the channel of communication. The best communication is probably between people who have been in the same place throughout their lives, so much so that their field of experience, their value constellation or cognitive style is more or less the same. But even communication within a homogeneous society is not without its problems. People within the same society or country may have different value systems, more so when we talk about political values or political communication.

Continuous research has come to show that the audiences of mass communications are "selective" in their use of information. And that mass communicators have usually failed in trying to convert people of different beliefs, political or otherwise, to their side.

International communication like VOA broadcasts to Africa is .much more complex, and therefore we may assume that the problems of communicating will be much more complex.