Abstract
Efforts to relate the concepts of human development and human communication are complicated by their processual nature. The fact that in most cases communication has become synonymous with media and the need to take contexts into account further complicate such efforts. How the two well-meaning concepts interact in both developing and developed countries with oftentimes unintended, or even unwanted, effects is the subject of this paper. The underside of communication in development is discussed as the failure to address those forms of poverty that threaten equality, social cohesion, and the free flow of knowledge and information.