Communication For Social Change Research Articles

Interações sociais, comunicação e desenvolvimento rural de agricultores familiares

Este artigo analisa as interações sociais e o desenvolvimento de agricultores familiares sob a ótica de contribuições que o processo de comunicação pode trazer ao desenvolvimento, onde o embasamento teórico principal é o da comunicação para a mudança social. A pesquisa se baseia em dados coletados na Rede Xique Xique. Um dos objetivos propostos é verificar se, ao longo do tempo, a coletividade entre agricultores familiares seria reforçada ou se, ao contrário, haveria tendência à individualização. Outro objetivo é identificar se extensionistas e representantes de sindicato estão integrados à rede de relacionamentos dos produtores assentados. Parte-se das hipóteses de que existe uma rede consistente de interações sociais que inclui atores de diversos setores da sociedade local e também de que os agricultores familiares têm avançado no processo de emancipação.

Public Policy and Community Radio in Bolivia

Bolivia is one of the most successful examples of alternative media used for helping to create a “critical citizen movement” to dynamize the “social contract.” Through recovering historical Bolivian tradition based on radio experiences with communication for social change, this study works to describe the last legal and political changes referring to the community communication, its future lines of work, and the role of the alternative media networks on their change or their consolidation, based on the “reticular profit” concept, the study of their increased number of partners, and analysis of legal documents.

Communication and Engagement for Social Justice

From mass to interpersonal media, from citizen to governmental or corporate interactions, a communication for peaceful social change involves different screens, spaces, creative resources, means of...

Mobilizing Communication Globally

, grounded in a concern over the future of com-munication for development as a field of theorization and research tightly linked to practice the world over (Wilkins 2008 and 2009; Enghel 2011). Communication for development (Servaes 1999, 2002, 2007), also known as develop -ment communication (Wilkins 2008) and communication for social change (Gumucio-Dagron and Tufte 2006), has a well-documented history. Over time, critical approaches to the field have called attention to important issues, e.g. the implicit power dynamics at play in the development industry (Wilkins 2000); the relevance of scholarship on social movements for participatory communication research (Huesca 2001); the need to address conditions of absolute poverty in communication interventions (Thomas 2002); and the shift towards technological solutions in a context of increasing inequality (Chakravartty 2009). Dialogic, participatory and democratic approaches to strategic communication have been studied for years – see e.g. Ascroft & Masilela (1994), Lie (1997), Jacobson & Servaes (1999), Huesca (2002), Shah and Wilkins (2004), Gumucio-Dagron (2009). Since the publication in 1989 of an analysis by Fair of more than 200 documented stud -ies of media and development published between 1958 and 1986, a number of research assessments have attempted to illuminate several aspects of the field’s evolution

ComDev in the Mediatized World

Abstract In late 2011 we are in the beginning of a revolution that may or may not turn out to be more far-reaching than the one unleashed in 1989. A common denominator in this resurging revolution is the mobilizing power of the so-called social media. Even if labels such as the Twitter or Facebook revolution are rightfully refuted, the on-going Arab Spring is a clear-cut example of an unprecedented communication power, largely out of the authorities’ control. While the crucial role of media and communication in processes of social change at last becomes evident, it is however not associated with the field of communication for development and social change. While that field historically has been about developing prescriptive recipes of communication for some development, it is time attention is refocused to the deliberative, non-institutional change processes that are emerging from a citizens’ profound and often desperate reaction to the global now.

Social Entrepreneurship and Communication for Development and Social Change

Abstract This article argues that social entrepreneurship has not yet been adequately defined even though it is increasingly being used in social change/development practice. Muhammad Yunus, creator of the Grameen Bank and microlending, and Bill Drayton, founder of the global change agency Ashoka, have practiced social change through social entrepreneurship for more than 30 years. Increasingly, the development community has been adopting many of its practices. The basic process of social entrepreneurship involves: defining a social goal for the solution of a serious problem; innovation in solving the problem; ability to expand the organization to serve large numbers of people (scaling up); focusing on the social bottom line with empirical evidence (impact evaluation). Three cases are briefly reviewed to illustrate this process. Finally the article examines how these practices might help Communication for Development (C4D) to better adapt its own practices in achieving real change with people.

Movimientos sociales, comunidades virtuales y desarrollo

The text analyses the social networks and new technologies in the communication for development and social change. The mediated public space is deeply modifying current processes of communications: social movements of protest seem to be strictly related to technological changes. In this context, NGOs face a challenge, because they have to use contemporary technologies in order of keeping their function of mediation and guide in the social change path. Nevertheless, analyses of their communication practices show that they are in trouble especially with social networks participation, which on the contrary seem to have been a milestone in the current social movements and activism (i.e. Arab springs or the 15M in Spain). Following studies about technology and society, we identify the concept of virtual community like a key for the switch from the discourses to actions, considering communities as discursive buildings. Analyzing the discourses of social networks means to go into the socio-semiotics frame, as method and theory. Semiotics, which searches and analyses the making of sense, provides unexplored points of view about concepts like multimediality and interactivity.

Missing Marx: The Place of Marx in Current Communication Research and the Place of Communication in Marx’s Work

This study was designed (1) to test Marx’s theoretical statements on the nature of dominant ideas in a society by investigating the character of scholarly practices in academic publishing, and (2) to demonstrate the falseness of claims about Marx’s disinterest in communication by presenting and evaluating his writings on communication. The study combines quantitative and qualitative methods for data collection and analysis. It has two study populations and multiple samples. The first one includes the articles in communication journals cited by Thomson Reuters’ Social Sciences Citation Index. The second one contains all writings of Marx on communication. The findings indicate that (1) the articles are mostly functional to the ruling interests, (2) they mostly exclude Marx and critical issues that question the ruling material and immaterial mode and relations in communication and society, (3) most alternative approaches are controlled alternatives and overtly or covertly directed against Marx’s method and explanations. Regarding Marx’s interest in communication, contrary to the claims that he had no or minimal interest, Marx provided invaluable explanations about communication. Hence communication scholars should pay close attention if they want to understand the nature and function of communication in society and social change.

Pattern and levels of spending allocated to HIV prevention programs in low- and middle-income countries

BackgroundAIDS continues to spread at an estimated 2.6 new million infections per year, making the prevention of HIV transmission a critical public health issue. The dramatic growth in global resources for AIDS has produced a steady scale-up in treatment and care that has not been equally matched by preventive services. This paper is a detailed analysis of how countries are choosing to spend these more limited prevention funds.MethodsWe analyzed prevention spending in 69 low- and middle-income countries with a variety of epidemic types, using data from national domestic spending reports. Spending information was from public and international sources and was analyzed based on the National AIDS Spending Assessment (NASA) methods and classifications.ResultsOverall, prevention received 21% of HIV resources compared to 53% of funding allocated to treatment and care. Prevention relies primarily on international donors, who accounted for 65% of all prevention resources and 93% of funding in low-income countries. For the subset of 53 countries that provided detailed spending information, we found that 60% of prevention resources were spent in five areas: communication for social and behavioral change (16%), voluntary counselling and testing (14%), prevention of mother-to-child transmission (13%), blood safety (10%) and condom programs (7%). Only 7% of funding was spent on most-at-risk populations and less than 1% on male circumcision. Spending patterns did not consistently reflect current evidence and the HIV specific transmission context of each country.ConclusionsDespite recognition of its importance, countries are not allocating resources in ways that are likely to achieve the greatest impact on prevention across all epidemic types. Within prevention spending itself, a greater share of resources need to be matched with interventions that approximate the specific needs and drivers of each country's epidemic.

Towards a framework of sustainability indicators for ‘communication for development and social change’ projects

This article presents an overview of the emergence of sustainability themes in communication for development and argues that there is an urgent need for a framework of sustainability indicators for communication for development and social change projects around the world. It fills a crucial gap in the growing body of literature by first synthesizing the most relevant data currently produced by global and local institutions, NGOs, UN-based organizations, academics, and professionals regarding assessment indicators for development projects, and second, produces a framework of sustainability indicators that can be used by a wide variety of people in the field to assess the sustainability of existing projects and the sustainable potential of planned ones. It then tests the framework in two representative cases.

How Can Community Health Programmes Build Enabling Environments for Transformative Communication? Experiences from India and South Africa

Much research has examined how to empower the poor to articulate demands for health-enabling living conditions. Less is known about creating receptive social environments where the powerful heed the voices of the poor. We explore the potential for 'transformative communication' between the poor and the powerful, through comparing two well-documented case studies of HIV/AIDS management. The Entabeni Project in South Africa sought to empower impoverished women to deliver home-based nursing to people with AIDS. It successfully provided short-term welfare, but did not achieve local leadership or sustainability. The Sonagachi Project in India, an HIV-prevention programme targeting female sex workers, became locally led and sustainable. We highlight the strategies through which Sonagachi, but not Entabeni, altered the material, symbolic and relational contexts of participants' lives, enabling transformative communication and opportunities for sexual health-enabling social change.

Rediscovering the Latin American Roots of Participatory Communication for Social Change

The history of communication theory for social change has tended to adopt a Westernizing and colonial perspective when describing its origin, evolution and main paradigm shifts, as a US and European contribution complemented with peripheral ideas from other world regions – Latin America and, to a much lesser extent, Asia and Africa. All of the ideas from the periphery were underestimated, if not considered ideological or political disputes and, consequently, non‐scientific. Despite this lack of recognition, the Latin American legacy to communication for development and social change constitutes one of the main theoretical frameworks for building a more complex, participatory and democratic communication paradigm. Some of the first proposals of Latin American communication scholars in the 1970s and 1980s shared similar ethical/political aims. These involved a grassroots and critical basis and, above all, a constant a constant attention to praxis as the core of a new way of thinking, researching and planning communication.

Pan-Arctic TV Series on Inuit wellness: a northern model of communication for social change?

Objectives. This paper provides highlights of a utilization-focused evaluation of a collaborative Pan-Arctic Inuit Wellness TV Series that was broadcast live in Alaska and Canada in May 2009. This International Polar Year (IPY) communication and outreach project intended to (1) share information on International Polar Year research progress, disseminate findings and explore questions with Inuit in Alaska, Canada and Greenland; (2) provide a forum for Inuit in Alaska, Canada and Greenland to showcase innovative health and wellness projects; (3) ensure Inuit youth and adult engagement throughout; and (4) document and reflect on the overall experience for the purposes of developing and “testing” a participatory communication model.Study design. Utilization-focused formative evaluation of the project, with a focus on overall objectives, key messages and lessons learned to facilitate program improvement.Methods. Participant observation, surveys, key informant interviews, document review and website tracking.Results. Promising community programs related to 3 themes — men’s wellness, maternity care and youth resilience — in diverse circumpolar regions were highlighted, as were current and stillevolving findings from ongoing Arctic research. Multiple media methods were used to effectively deliver and receive key messages determined by both community and academic experts. Local capacity and new regional networks were strengthened. Evidence-based resources for health education and community action were archived in digital formats (websites and DVDs), increasing accessibility to otherwise isolated individuals and remote communities.Conclusions. The Pan-Arctic Inuit Wellness TV Series was an innovative, multi-dimensional communication project that raised both interest and awareness about complex health conditions in the North and stimulated community dialogue and potential for increased collaborative action. Consistent with a communication for social change approach, the project created new networks, increased motivation to act and provided new tools to do so, and increased local community involvement and “voice” in the discussion and dissemination of successful strategies to promote Inuit wellness.

Comunicación para el cambio social: clave del desarrollo participativo

This paper is a review of key concepts on communication for development and social change form its origins after World War ii, until today. Two main trends have dominated over the five last decades: on the one hand, communication models inspired by modernization theories and techniques derived from the information strategies used by the us Government during World War ii and by the industrial sector struggling to position its post-war products; on the other, communication approaches that emerged in the heat of the social and political struggles against colonial and dictatorial powers imposed on Third World countries, which find their academic and conceptual reference points in the dependency theories.

Out of the Loop: Why Research Rarely Reaches Policy Makers and the Public and What Can be Done

ABSTRACTMost of the world's population that derives their livelihoods or part of their livelihoods from forests are out of the information loop. Exclusion of public users of natural resources from access to scientific research results is not an oversight; it is a systemic problem that has costly ramifications for conservation and development. Results of a survey of 268 researchers from 29 countries indicate that institutional incentives support the linear, top‐down communication of results through peer‐reviewed journal articles, which often guarantees positive performance measurement. While the largest percentage of respondents (34%) ranked scientists as the most important audience for their work, only 15 percent of respondents considered peer‐reviewed journals effective in promoting conservation and/or development. Respondents perceived that local initiatives (27%) and training (16%) were likely to lead to success in conservation and development; but few scientists invest in these activities. Engagement with the media (5%), production of training and educational materials (4%) and popular publications (5%) as outlets for scientific findings was perceived as inconsequential (<14%) in measuring scientific performance. Less than 3 percent of respondents ranked corporate actors as an important audience for their work. To ensure science is shared with those who need it, a shift in incentive structures is needed that rewards actual impact rather than only ‘high‐impact’ journals. Widely used approaches and theoretical underpinnings from the social sciences, which underlie popular education and communication for social change, could enhance communication by linking knowledge and action in conservation biology.

Communicative action: the Habermasian and Freirean dialogical approach to participatory communication for social change in a post-1994 South Africa

Despite its almost four decade mainstay, the field of parti-cipatory communication for social change still experiences a definitional and pragmatic problem regarding what exactly participation is (cf. Jacobson & Storey, 2004; Chambers, 1994; Melkote & Steeves, 2001; Rogers, 1976; Lerner, 1964; Schramm, 1964; Servaes, 1995). What remains is a vastly under-theorised field of participatory communication for social change. This article examines the possibility of participatory communication approaching the Habermasian “ideal speech situation” in which people, as communicators, are seen as having a value in their own right and not simply regarded as a means to an end (cf. Habermas, 1984; 1987; 1989). Consistent with the Freirean “liberal pedagogy”, the praxis of dialogical communication or intersubjective communication is seen as putting right the “participative” quality of participatory com-munication (cf. Freire, 1970). For both theorists, transformative action can only occur if reflective and collective learning occurs in linguistically constructed settings where the normative dimensions of truth (logos), rightfulness (ethos) and truthfulness (pathos) are raised and met in the developmental conversation. This is especially significant in a globalised world and fragmented, post-bourgeois public sphere where debate among developmental stakeholders is becoming more marginal, in-strumentalist, and less public. Based on available analyses of development communication literature, this article proposes that the chosen dialogical approaches share a type of communi-cative behaviour (i.e. action theoretic), rather than representing a particular paradigm or school of thought. This could offer further definitional clarification of proper participatory communi-cation for social change in a post-1994 South Africa.

The state of the art in citizens’ communication for social change in Spain

In spite of its long history with different countries, ‘citizens' communication for social change’ is little known in Spanish academic and social institutions, so few communication professionals know how to address and undertake in-depth planning of communication for development. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing need to build truly participative communication in Spanish society. This article describes the main reasons for this widespread ignorance and offers a small ‘cartography’ of the field in order to advance towards full recognition of the sector in Spain.

Communication Activism, Volume One: Communication for Social Change and Communication Activism, Volume Two: Media and Performance Activism - Edited by Lawrence R. Frey & Kevin M. Carragee

Communication Activism, Volume One: Communication for Social Change and Communication Activism, Volume Two: Media and Performance Activism - Edited by Lawrence R. Frey & Kevin M. Carragee

Interdisciplinary Aspects of Climate Change

Contents: Solveig Mimler/Ulrike Muller/Stefanie Greis/Benno Rothstein: Impacts of Climate Change on Electricity Generation and Consumption - Roy Manoj/Ellis Geraint: The Role of Cross-Disciplinary Models in Reducing the Intensity of Environmental Release - An Example of the Irish Housing Sector - Frank Helten/Undine Giseke/Silvia Martin Han: Adapting the Modern City to New Challenges - Urban Agriculture as a Way out? - Walter Leal Filho/Franziska Mannke: Policy-making in Climate Change - Experiences from the ASTRA Project - Michael Dutschke: The Climate Stabilization Fund - Global Auctioning of Emission Allowances to help Forests and People - J. David Tabara/Francesc Cots/Xingang Dai/Maria Falaleeva/Zsuzsanna Flachner/Darryn McEvoy/Saskia Werners: Social Learning on Climate Change among Regional Agents - Insights from China, Eastern Europe and Iberia - Dalia Streimikiene/Remigijus Ciegis: Climate Change Mitigation Policies: Costs and Effectiveness - Evangelos I. Manolas: Campaign Strategies by Environmental NGOs in the Negotiations on Climate Change - A.C. Warnock/C.G. Warnock: The Role of Sustainable Buildings in Climate Change Mitigation - Balint Czucz/Gergely Torda/Zsolt Molnar/Ferenc Horvath/Zoltan Botta-Dukat/Gyorgy Kroel-Dulay: A Spatially Explicit, Indicator-based Methodology for Quantifying the Vulnerability and Adaptability of Natural Ecosystems - Frank Vanclay/Peat Leith/Aysha Fleming: Understanding Farming Community Concerns about Adapting to a Changed Climate - Melissa Nursey-Bray/Tony Ferrier: Risk Assessment and Local Government, Tasmania: Applying an Interdisciplinary Approach to Climate Change Adaptation - Lionel Boxer: Positioning Oneself and Others to Resolve Climate Change - Michael Belau/Jane Korck/Hans Weber: Climate Change and the Impacts on Flood Events at the Frankische Saale - An Interdisciplinary Case-Study - Harri Moora/Viktoria Voronova/Alvina Reihan: The Impact of Municipal Solid Waste Management on Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Estonia - Karina Yager/Daniela Ulloa/Stephan Halloy: Conducting an Interdisciplinary Workshop on Climate Change: Facilitating Awareness and Adaptation in Sajama National Park, Bolivia - Sandra T. Marquart-Pyatt: Differences of Degree? - Public Opinion on Climate Change in a Cross-National Context - Anjali Helferty/Amelia Clarke/Rosa Kouri: The Campus Climate Challenge - Innovative Multi-Stakeholder Approaches to Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions at Canadian Colleges and Universities - Susan R. Kephart/Catherine A. Collins: Fostering Interdisciplinary Inquiry, Communication, and Action Among Diverse Populations - Nitin Chaudhary: An Assessment of India's Efforts on Education, Awareness and Capacity Building on Climate Change - Estelle Gaillard/Jo-Anne Ferreira: Engaging Australians on Climate Change - The Role of Education and Communication in Social Change - Sam Wong: Linking Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Technologies to Develop a 'People-Centred' Intervention Framework - B. Rothstein/A. Scholten/E. Nilson/R. Baumhauer: Sensitivity of Bulk-Cargo Dependent Industries to Climate Change - First Results of a Case Study from the River Rhine.

Tres retos de la comunicación para el cambio social

Communication for social change faces three mayor challenges both in the academic environment and in the development field: naming things, develop ing discipline and to legitimize the communication for social change in the big agencies that make important decisions. A greater awareness regarding that programs can only be sustainable if the communities —the “ beneficiaries”— take over them, but this take-over-through-participation-process is only possible in the event that a communication witch strengthen the communities from there voice, identity and culture appears.