Comm social change

COMMUNICA TION for DEVELO MENT

A pocket guide

COMMUNICA TION for DEVELO MENT

Nora Quebral (1975) defined development communication as the art and science of human communication applied to the speedy transformation of a country from poverty to a dynamic state of economic growth and makes possible greater economic and social equality and the larger fulfilment of human potential.

Communication for dev communication whethe mass communication or carious levels ; individua international, national, program or at the grass

velopment uses human er it be interpersonal or whether it is practiced at l, group, organizational, , provincial, sectorial, sroots.

3 approaches

1

Media for development:

Emphasizes the development and expansion of usually Western media systems and structures.

It’s the centralized process of reporting and communicating development in which the mass media formulates the central strategy in public communication, campaigns and advocacy on and about development issues.

KEY CONCEPTS • Entrainment/educational • Behavioral change communication • Modeling • Para-social interaction

2

Media Development

Revolves around the generation and circulation of development content from international public goods institutes through media in order to increase the adoption of best-bet practices.

Involves supporting and building the capacity of media policies, structures and ownership as a way of strengthening good governance and transitional or fragile democracies.

KEY CONCEPTS • Media and political pluralism • Media power • Freedom of speech • Media freedom • Censorship • Intellectual property rights • Media policy law and regulation • Internet governance • Global information infrastructures • Community Radio • Information Societies • Rights and citizenship

3

Participatory community / communication

Emphasizes the consolidation of communication between men that enables the rescuing of subaltern voices in development policy formulation and implementation.

A community based engagement approach through which development stakeholders employ participatory communication in order to author development from below.

KEY CONCEPTS • Agriculture extension • Rural communication • Community engagement • Community-bases natural resource management • Participatory action research • Indigenous Knowledge

COMMUNICA TION for DEVELO MENT ISSUES • No one-way transfer of information • Centrality of participation and • • • •

empowerment Speaking alongside communities Socially-acceptable methodologies and relevant theory People recognizing themselves in representations Learning versus evidence

Modernisation Theory

Is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. It refers to a model of progressive transition from a pre-modern or traditional to a modern society. Modernization theory originated form the ideas of German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) The theory looks at the internal factors of a country while assuming that with assistance traditional countries can be brought to development in the same way more develop countries have been.

It attempts to identify the social variables that contributed to social progress and development of societies and seeks to explain the process of social evolution.

Modernization theory stresses not only the process of change but also the responses to that change it loos at internal dynamics while referring to social an cultural structures and the adaptation of new technologies.

This theory maintains that traditional societies will develop if they adopt more modern practices it claims that modern states are wealthier and more powerful, and that their citizens are freer to enjoy higher standers of living, development of technologies, transport and communications.

Assumes that all countries follow a similar path to development or modernization advancing through five stages of development.

1. Society is traditional, and the dominant activity is subsistence farming 2. Preconditions to takeoff, new leadership moves the country towards openness and diversification 3. Takeoff, the country experiences a sustained growth that takes hold. (Economic growth) 4. Drive to maturity, technologies diffuse industrial specialization occurs and international trade expands.

5. High mass consumption, higher incomes and widespread production of many goods and services.

Critisism

This model does not takes geographical differences into consideration.

The conceptualization of development has a Western bias.

It does not consider the ability of some countries to influence what happens in other countries.

PATHS OF DEVELOPMENT

Structuralist School of Thought Their basis is the international division of labour. It states that, the developed core countries productivities in all sectors are equally high unlike the underdeveloped peripheral countries where the primary export sectors are comparatively highly productive with having strong labour union, monopoly power in manufacturing sectors and most importantly existence of a large groups of people out of the market who live at subsistence level and the wealth are concentrated to a small groups of people who mainly spend the money for foreign luxury goods. And this dualism is not a natural process rather is colonial heritage which leads to a structural (non-market) problem that can’t be removed by the market.

Dependency School of Thought Established as a response to the failure of Latin American structuralism and hugely influenced by US monopoly capital school and they offered a radical critique of capitalism in the periphery in the context of post second world war boom in the centre and collapse of ISI in peripheries. It is concerned primarily with the exploitation of the periphery by the centre, including the different form of extraction of economic surplus and the mechanisms of surplus of transfer to the centre.

The Power of Communication

Power

A network of relationships between an individual or group and the invisible and visible structures that influence our institutions, discourses, practices and capacity for self-awareness and self-determination.

Pluralist Whoever wins and argument, or an issue, has the power.

Two dimensional Setting the Agenda gives you the power Three dimensional power how power can covert manipulate others to do something they might not actually want to do by changing what they want.

Symbolic power

Motifs/words/symbols used to construct a reality used to exert power over / manipulate / influence others. The semiotics of social integration.

“Construction of power in such a way that it appears to be invisible.”

-Pierre Bordieu

Ideology and hegemony

Ideologies can become hegemonic, the norm. White supremacy, gender equality, Christianity, etc.

Ideology is the glue or the spine that holds the hegemonic social formation today.

System of values and beliefs Hegemony’s ascendency commands widespread consent and appears natural and inevitable (Hall).

Orientalism

An evolving framework/lens/mode of discourse through which the west creates a static, simplistic view of the east in order to justify oppressive actions towards it.

An organised form of communication. The power to define and see the orient.

Subaltern

In critical theory and postcolonialism, the term subaltern designates the populations which are socially, politically and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure of the colony and of the colonial homeland Spivak adds to this definition and argues that the subaltern is also a political position, a perspective. It does not just mean the oppressed person. The subaltern perspective can be acquired, “walking in their shoes�.

Otherness and difference

How we relate to others and what it means to relate to others.

How others can relate to us and through us have a voice or create respect. How well we can identify with each others ideas an believes.

Separate identities from who you were what you did and what you have been, so accepting change and do change doesn’t affect our identities.

CHANGE IN THE COMMUNITY

Investment Thinking Getting return on investment. Understanding the problem, the monetary investment required, the impact (and ongoing effects).

Has to be cost effective, has to yield long term results the least amount of resources needed while yielding the most results.

ACADA Framework Assessment - situation report Communication analysis - problem analysis, communication channels Design strategy plan - advocacy, social mobilisation Select/determine strategies, activities, channels, pre-testing Action implement plan

Socio-Ecological Model

The Socio-Ecological model follows from the need of the individual, out to public policy at national and state level. The hierarchy or structure of this model is as follows: • Individual knowledge, attitudes, skills • Interpersonal families, friends, social networks • Organizational organisations, social institutions • Community relationships between organisations • Public Policy national, state and local laws and regulations

Social and behaviour change communications (SBCC)

1. Five Stages of Behaviour Change (for an individual) 2. Knowledge receiving information 3. Approval approving of the information 4. Intention the intention to implement the information or proposed behaviour 5. Practice repetition of the behaviour until it is ingrained 6. Advocacy encouraging others to engage in the behaviour

Community engagement versus community development

Community development includes a whole range of possible programs and interventions aimed at identifying a problem and implementing a solution.

The facilitator and participants are invested either by topography, values, rituals or activity.

One crucial process of developing a community project is engagement. This form of multi-level decision making involves key stakeholders in communication-based initiatives to distribute power and drive outcomes within the community.

Systems vs empowerment approach

Systems Approach: top-down, problem solving • Utilitarian, instrumentalist - patients must engage with a pre-determined agenda which is set by the institution or government • Community can be an agent of the government/ institution • Institution decides when the community is present in the decision making process e.g. only included during a set ‘consultation’ phase, not the design, research, or implementation stages.

Empowerment approach: people centered, bottom up • Agenda is set by the community • Aims to build the capacity of the community to participate in decision making

Participatory communication

Process of communication between stakeholders and institutions.

Different levels of participation exist within the scale of participatory communication, going from total community control over the process, to manipulation.