Communication For Social Change Research Articles

Shared struggles, divergent paths: a comparison of grassroots and professional feminist advocates’ communication for social change in Argentina and the United States

Abstract Contemporary activism media research, largely focused on digital media's technological and discursive aspects, often lacks comparative studies and tends to overlook institutional or cultural factors in communication for social change (CSC). This study addresses these gaps by examining advocates’ sensemaking and communication praxis in contexts shaped by different advocacy traditions and sociocultural understandings of inequality. Through an analysis of 52 semi-structured interviews with Argentine grassroots advocates and U.S. professional ones, this study reveals similar media assessments across cases yet with different intersectional emphases: class in Argentina and race in the United States. Cross-case divergencies emerge in advocates’ positionality toward institutions and in their representational strategies: While grassroots advocates act as pragmatic agents of change and adopt a flexible communication style described as a “pedagogy of patience,” professional ones act as epistemic experts who offer a feminist critique of journalistic objectivity. I reflect on how these findings attend overlooked factors in CSC.

Integrating nutrition in the Sasakawa Africa Association extension services: Knowledge, attitude and practices among smallholder farmers

This survey aimed to establish nutrition-related knowledge, attitudes and practices, and to observe how gender influences household food-related decision-making processes in the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) intervention areas in the Oromia and Southern Nation Nationalities and People regions of Ethiopia. The findings would inform implementation of communication for nutrition social and behaviour change among small-holder farmers as part of the SAA corporate strategy on nutrition-sensitive agriculture. The study population was smallholder farmers supported by SAA from which 311 respondents were selected through multistage sampling. Data were collected via a mixed methods approach consisting of a household survey, focus group discussions (FGDs) and key informant interviews (KIIs). Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics while qualitative data was analysed using a narrative and content approach. The study focused on knowledge, attitudes and practices related to production and consumption of micronutrient-rich foods. Majority (59.5%) of the respondents were male. Men were the main decision makers on staple or commercial food crop production and proportion of produced crops to be consumed at home or sold in the market. Women mainly made decisions regarding production and consumption of fruits and vegetables, intra-household food distribution, preservation and storage. There was a lack of knowledge on iron and vitamin A fortified or biofortified sources of food. Nearly three quarters (72%) of women did not meet the minimum dietary diversity for women, a proxy indicator of adequacy of micronutrient intake and diet quality. The mean dietary diversity score was 3.8 with animal source foods being the least consumed. Not having sufficient money to buy food, unavailability of different food groups and poor intra-household food distribution were among the key reasons for lack of diverse diets. Majority of the respondents were aware of the importance of production and consumption of micronutrient-rich foods. However, there was a gap in practice and awareness about biofortified and fortified foods. While most of the respondents had produced fruits and vegetables in home gardens in the three months prior to this survey, more than half (54%) of the respondents thought it was not likely that they would produce fruits and vegetables for home consumption. More targeted nutrition campaigns are required to increase the ability of small-holder farmers to adopt best practices while reducing the barriers associated with access and consumption. Promotion of fruit and vegetable production in home gardens could be considered as option for improving household dietary quality as well as empowering women to make more decisions. Key words: Sasakawa Africa Association, Small-holder farmers, Nutrition, Knowledge, Practices

Challenge or resist dominant discourses: Authenticity as a strategic component of activist public relations

Although there is evidence that perceived authenticity has a positive impact on corporate reputation, the implications of authenticity in activist communication for social change have not been addressed. Within a sociocultural theoretical approach this paper provides an ethnographic account of how and why human rights activists enact authenticity and aims to better understand the implications of authenticity in activist communication oriented towards social change. An ethnographic study was carried out during 6 months, with two human rights activist organizations. In addition to participant observation, documents produced by the organizations were also analyzed and twenty-five semi-structured interviews were carried out. The role of authenticity in the public relations activities of this organizations was observed at two main levels: (a) as an intentional strategic choice and, (b) as a challenge or resistance to dominant discourses. Findings place authenticity as a strategic component of activist public relations illustrating the contributions of the field for civic participation dynamics.

Traditional tikuna medicine in post-pandemic times. A perspective from communication for social change

Con el objetivo de comprender las diversas formas de mantener y transmitir los conocimientos tradicionales sobre el manejo de los recursos naturales silvestres y domesticados para prevenir y tratar la enfermedad de los miembros de la comunidad tikuna del Resguardo de San Sebastián de los Lagos, en Leticia (Amazonas), esta investigación utiliza elementos del método etnográfico y la Investigación- Acción- Participativa (IAP). Este proyecto se desarrolló en tres fases: diagnóstica, acción participativa y sistematización de la información. En el contexto del trabajo de campo con la comunidad se realizaron visitas en julio de 2022 al huerto, la chagra y el bosque con las mujeres de la comunidad, recolectando hojas de un herbario que funcionó como pretexto para el diálogo sobre las propiedades medicinales de las plantas. Los resultados muestran que las personas que lograron mantenerse dentro de la comunidad, realizando cuidado a partir de la medicina tradicional con hojas, sahumerios y cuidado, lograron recuperarse del Covid-19.

La Agenda 2030 en la Organización Mundial del Turismo: comunicando sostenibilidad

Tourism is an international asset that generates incomes that place it among the main economic activities of many countries. There is growing concern about the sustainability of tourism. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is the international reference organization in charge of aligning this economic sector with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This research has focused on showing how the UNWTO follows the 2030 Agenda in the design of its campaigns. Through the review of academic sources, UNWTO campaigns and the semi‐structured interview conducted with its communication director, the type of communication for social change that the institution carries out to promote sustainable tourism has been identified. The UNWTO has made a great effort to communicate the 2030 Agenda as its effective roadmap, despite not giving the task as concluded. The communication designed and implemented is a tool for sustainable development.

Pemberdayaan Masyarakat melalui Komunikasi Perubahan Sosial

Indonesia is one of the countries with the largest Muslim population, the mosque is a place intended to carry out worship and religious activities for Muslims. Activities in this community service journal are conducting community service activities which are located at the Al-Raudlah Mosque, Kasemen, Sawah Luhur, Serang. The service method used is the coordination of activities, implementation of activities and community empowerment, distribution of cleaning facilities, evaluation of activities, and preparation of reports. The problems found are the lack of public concern for the cleanliness of the worship environment, inadequate facilities and infrastructure, and security that has not been guaranteed. The implementation team hopes that in order to realize the image of the Al-Raudlah mosque, which is a place of worship and a center for Muslim religious activities, it will be kept clean and safe. Because the mosque environment has a function as a place to foster society to become a united people based on faith and piety. For this reason, through communication for social change, the implementing team hopes that the purpose of their service can be achieved, namely helping the community to be persuaded and aware of caring more in the future in maintaining the maintenance of the mosque environment.

Design for Narrative Change. A Pedagogical Model for Interactive Digital Narratives

AbstractNarratives mirror shared interpretations of the world. Still, dominant narratives prevail, pushing non‐hegemonic narratives in the corner. A change in the creation, interaction and distribution of narratives can support the design of counter‐narratives able to feed social change. Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) can be considered an emerging experimental context in which designers, researchers and practitioners from various domains operate to develop story‐based content addressing relevant social or societal issues. The IDN social constructivist role in encouraging or influencing individuals and collectivities towards social change is a relevant design issue especially from an educational perspective. Specifically, it features methodologies and praxis not yet systematised, in need of exploration and formalisation. Recognising the contribution of an approach combining transdisciplinary methods and tools, the article presents a pedagogical model for designing IDNs as complex interactive systems able to impact culture and society based on empirical study from a design course in the higher education context. Composed of theoretical and operational frameworks, the pedagogical model orients the multilayered design process for building engaging, interactive narrative artefacts systematising and operationalising knowledge from the domains of Communication for Social Change, storytelling and IDN in an iterative design process.

Paralympics as a Tool for Communication for Social Change

The Paralympics was broadcast in Sub-Saharan Africa for the first time during the 2020 Tokyo Games. This offered a unique opportunity to approach this phenomenon from a communication for social change perspective. Specifically, in this paper we conceive of the Paralympic broadcasts as a form of Edutainment. This conceptual intervention raises a number of pertinent empirical questions. Would the Paralympics be relevant and meaningful to these audiences? How would this new audience interpret the Paralympics? What are the dialogical processes required to engage communities in processes of change?  Drawing on findings from an action research project, we explore the extent to which the Paralympics can be a useful and relevant platform for addressing disability stigma. We argue that mobile screenings of the Paralympics created a critical awareness and served to spark plans for collective action.

From Millennium Development Goals to Sustainable Development Goals: Transforming development communication to sustainability communication

At the highest international political level, the United Nations declared the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 after having announced (and later not fulfilled) the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000. This shift from the MDGs to the SDGs, in which the term development was replaced by the concept of sustainability, also demands a paradigm shift within the research field of development communication and communication for social change which needs to put the focus on sustainability, embracing the concept of sustainability communication as key when analyzing and practicing social change by the use of communication and media. The article unfolds this argument by explaining the political shift from the MDGs to the SDGs and the relevant research fields analyzing these different goals and then sketching the research areas of development communication and communication for social change as well as the one of sustainability communication. In bringing all these areas together, it is argued that the change of the political goals provokes the above mentioned paradigm shift in the research area of development communication. Transforming development communication into sustainability communication also allows to focus the broad term of communication for social change on a specific aim – which is sustainability.

Activist Public Relations in Theory and Practice: Communication for Society and Social Change

Activist Public Relations in Theory and Practice: Communication for Society and Social Change

Bibliometric analysis of Spanish research on Communication for Development and Social Change (2014-2020): emerging thematics or field in implosion?

Resumen El campo de la Comunicación para el Desarrollo y el Cambio Social, en los últimos años, ha sido analizado bibliométricamente, con el fin de identificar los rasgos característicos de su producción científica. No obstante, los estudios previos realizados no han incorporado las metodologías específicas propias de la bibliometría y de la investigación documental. Este artículo viene a cubrir ese vacío, mediante el análisis de la co-ocurrencia de palabras-clave del dominio científico de la CDCS. Se estudia la aparición conjunta de dos o más palabras representativas en campos tales como títulos de artículos, resúmenes, palabras-clave o en el texto libre. Posteriormente, el análisis se representa en mapas y redes de palabras, donde se identifican los grupos de palabras y las relaciones existentes entre ellas. Las preguntas de investigación de este trabajo son las siguientes: ¿cuáles son los textos de la muestra, a partir de la cual realizar el análisis bibliométrico indicado?; ¿qué palabras-clave sirven para llevar a cabo el análisis de co-ocurrencia y la representación gráfica de este dominio científico?; a la vista de las tendencias identificadas, ¿estamos ante un campo emergente o ante un campo en proceso de implosión? Las conclusiones apuntan hacia el segundo término de esta disyuntiva. Asistimos a una destrucción poco creativa del campo, en la medida en que han sido demolidos los frágiles cimientos teóricos a partir de los cuales se empezaba a levantar este campo incipiente en la investigación española en comunicación.

Repensar la promoción del turismo rural como estrategia en las políticas de comunicación para el cambio social

The tourism industry represents a great engine of sustainable development for the markets of the 21st century, so that it is a promising industry where a differentiated set of actors and factors interact: the State, the business sector, organized communities and tourists. The objective of the research is to rethink a coherent public policy for the promotion of rural tourism in general, with special emphasis on communication for development and social change. The documentary research methodology and the SWOT analysis technique were used as a condition of possibility to visualize the strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats that the implementation of a policy such as the one proposed would have in a specific context. The authors conclude that, in any imaginable scenario, political communication always enters into the equation for the formulation of tourism sector policies: (rural tourism + sustainable development = social change), as a space of synthesis that articulates in the collective imagination, ideas, concepts, feelings and objectives that create and recreate the conditions for social change, as a higher stage of sustainable development in the 21st century.

Social Behavior Communication Change (SBCC) for Handling Infectious Diseases in Bandung

The rapid and widespread spread of infectious disease outbreaks in society is influenced by two main factors, namely physical conditions and behavior (behavior). Infectious disease is an epidemic that is being handled seriously by the Bandung City Government, West Java Province. This study examines the Social Behavior Communication Change (SBCC) approach which concentrates on behavior to facilitate individuals, households, groups, and communities in adopting and maintaining practices related to improving health and nutrition. Objective: The research intends to describe the communication program for handling infectious diseases in the city of Bandung using the SBCC approach. Methods: descriptive qualitative research by conducting a systematic literature review (systematic review) in the form of a conceptual study of the condition of infectious diseases in the city of Bandung, Social Behavior Communication Change (SBCC), the SBCC framework, and the Strategy for Handling Infectious Diseases. Concept definitions are obtained through searching primary data sources in the form of journals and other scientific references. Result: The handling of the outbreak can be done through three main strategies, namely Advocacy, social mobilization, and behavior change communication. Advocacy is in the form of enforcing policy commitments and supporting collaboration with the mayor, parliament, Health Service, Sub-district in Bandung. In the form of social service activities and free medical treatment. For community or social mobilization, the Bandung city government involves health cadres, community leaders, and religious leaders. As well as behavior change communication, namely informing and approaching the patient, the patient's family and the community in the surrounding environment. The conclusion is that the handling of infectious diseases can be done through collaboration between the government and the community through advocacy strategies, social mobilization and communication for social change

Participatory communication for social change

None

Communicating for social change: A model of communicative power

There are two fundamental concerns about global communication for social change (CSC) research and practice that guide the present study. The first is whether CSC researchers are collecting evidence regarding whether interventions work, the second is whether the sub-field is building theory about how CSC interventions work to promote community-led change. Based on a scoping review of peer-reviewed journal articles on international participatory development interventions, this analysis shows the field continues to lack a convincing explanation of the relationship between participation, communication, empowerment and social change. A model to elucidate this relationship is offered.

Radio edutainment and participatory communication for social change: A case of lived reality among a rural Malawian audience

This article draws upon research exploring a project that combines edutainment and participatory communication strategies as an approach to social change in Malawi. Throughout the research, I take a critical stance that seeks to uplift voices of an audience attending a radio listening club (RLC) and therefore utilize participatory methods to co-create the body of knowledge with study participants. In this article, I query RLC audience’s thoughts of the project’s relevance and influence in their daily lives. Oriented by Hall’s concepts of encoding and decoding, I analyse my data focusing on the dynamics between the objectives of the producers and the lived reality of the participants. Findings reveal that audience’s motivation for continued attendance of the RLC is different to that intended in the encoding process; rather audiences negotiate the relevance of messages to their own needs, those of their children and utilize the space to extend their social capital.

Communication in Health and Communication for Social Change

As a result of the construction of a doctoral thesis with a purely theoretical corpus ongoing, this paper propose a journey from some models and theory of Communication and Health. The two central axes are Communication for Social Change and Communication in Health, in order to recognize how they present Participation in Health in the middle of their theoretical postulates. The methodology is based on a bibliographic review of the theoretical foundations of the both axes, from where it is intended to distinguish which positions the literature found shows on the importance of participation in order to favor health processes. The literature reveals that Communication has a great space and a great theoretical-practical review in the field of participation. Through it, communities are invited to propose, design, formulate, implement and evaluate communication processes. This is what the authors refers as ‘Participatory Communication’. It is concluded that communication for Social Change and Communication in Health are a key tool and that it allows us to dimension health as a process where participation is necessary in order to transform reality.

Paralympic Broadcasting in Sub-Saharan Africa: Sport, Media and Communication for Social Change

The purpose of this commentary is to discuss how Paralympic coverage in sub-Saharan Africa can be effectively mobilised to stimulate discursive and structural change around disability. Paralympic coverage has demonstrated its pedagogical power to engage public(s) and challenge stigma toward disability. Yet, the Global picture of Paralympic broadcasting is deeply uneven, with audiences in parts of the Global South afforded limited opportunities to watch the Games. Considering this, the International Paralympic Committee has begun to broadcast Paralympic coverage across sub-Saharan Africa with an explicit aim to challenge stigma toward disability. In this article, we draw on examples from research to argue that ideas from the field of Communication for Social Change (CfSC) can add value towards this aim. We begin by providing a brief overview of CfSC before critically examining one of the field’s key concepts – Communicative (E)ecologies. Following this, we critically reflect on the potential of Paralympic broadcasting as a vehicle for social change and disability rights agendas in sub-Saharan Africa. We argue that thinking with CfSC concepts show the importance of a ‘decentred’ media approach that engages with disability community advocacy groups, localised communication activities and practices, and culturally specific disability narratives.

Breaking cultures of silence: Learnings from a participatory community-centred approach to leveraging and researching documentaries for social change

This article offers new learnings and recommended practices for documentary-centred grassroots engagement and social change research. These learnings were developed through a community engagement effort in 2020 that centred around a documentary film about racial violence and injustice, Always in Season. Shaped by extended dialogues with industry experts, the filmmaker, local community organizations and more than 100 community participants, these learnings should be of interest to researchers, media makers, organizers, activists, and engagement specialists who wish to engage publics in critical social justice conversations that are not possible through traditional top-down, externally driven methods and engagement approaches alone. Organized around an urgent question – ‘How can participatory methods shift how media is employed and researched for social change purposes?’ – this article responds to a recent call for researchers to avoid ‘re-inventing the wheel’ and to align new work with existing knowledge produced in the field of communication for social change and the long-tradition of community engagement work in the field of documentary.

Giuliana Sorce (Ed.). Global perspectives on NGO communication for social change

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) face an increasingly challenging and complicated context in which to achieve social change. Current trends toward illiberal populism and rising authoritarianism combine with the challenges of fake news and the protracted difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In these circumstances, the critical role played by NGOs in civil society has only been heightened. Global Perspectives on NGO Communication for Social Change provides us with a timely and comprehensive examination of the key role that communication plays in enabling NGOs for social change to engage with their stakeholders and to impact society. This edited volume examines how NGOs strive to achieve this. Structured in two parts, the book first focuses on thematic perspectives before then devoting the second half to case studies, which provide the reader with a rich array of initiatives used to communicate and engage audiences. It presents clear global perspectives, as well as giving us nuanced national and local viewpoints from a broad range of countries, including cases from Brazil, Bangladesh, Nigeria, South Africa and China.