This paper attempts to assess the influence of development communication theory on the planning and implementation of technical assistance projects in the Third World that utilize mass communication as an agent of change. Like political development theory, communication theory has often been applied in an ethnocentric manner in less developed countries by those who assume that increasing urbanization will lead to literacy, wealth, and increased participation, which can be interpreted as progress. Proponents of this theory encourage a one-way communication approach, whereby locals are given information through the media in order to bring them up to the standards of the assisting nation. More recent research has suggested such populations should not be treated as blank slates but must instead be considered in light of their culture and ethnic values. The Basic Village Education (BVE) project, a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) supported experiment conducted in Guatemala between 1975 and 1978, supports this theory. In this study, researchers selected two rural, agricultural sites in Guatemala, one inhabited by the Ladinos, who are of Hispanic extraction, and the other inhabited by native Indian farmers. Both groups were given instruction by radio in agricultural techniques to improve farming and production, and both had the benefit of local intermediaries who listened to their suggestions concerning how the radio instruction could change to suit their needs and concerns. A control site received no instruction. Although the project was based on some older, ethnocentric assumptions of what progress means, it proved to be more successful because of the room for change that the intermediaries offered. (JC)