Mass communications are considered by many western scholars to be among the most potent tools for modernization of an underdeveloped country. This belief is based on two assumptions: that the mass media are large-scale operations which enjoy massive circulations or audiences and that they are primarily controlled by forward-looking, progressive governments and by people who share the governments' commitment to economic and political development. In the case of India, at least, these assumptions are false. Although broadcasting is controlled by the government, the popular press is composed of more than 10,000 newspapers and periodicals, and the major proportion of these publications consists of small publications with small circulations, stemming from small towns, written in one of the local vernacular dialects, and concerned with local more than national issues and themes. The vernacular press has also shown a general tendency to make steady gains over the English language press which is metropolitan based and may be said to be most concerned with national issues and events. As a result of these provincial loyalties and interests, it will be harder to use the mass media as instruments of progressivism and modernization than many western communications scholars suggest. (JK)