Transcript file

What is
Communication for
Development?
JMS3 JDD 2006
From: Melcote and Steeves
Communication for
development
 “People cannot be liberated by a
consciousness and knowledge other than their
own.” - Fals-Borda
 Emphasis on the organisational value of
communication (as opposed to its transmission
value) and how it may be harnessed to help
empower marginalized groups and
communities.
Modernisation paradigm
 Ironically, ‘development’ is nowadays
associated with greater poverty levels.
 The premise has been that when nations
develop, they reduce poverty – this hasn’t
happened in many parts of the world.
 This suggests that the nature and method of
development is wrong
 3 qualities of modernisation theory and practice
have contributed to a situation where
development produced deprivation and human
misery, especially in the Third World:
1. Blaming the victim
 Ideological process of justifying inequality in
society by finding defects in the victims of
inequality.
 “It is a brilliant ideology for justifying a perverse
form of social action designed to change, not
society, as one might expect, but rather
society’s victim.” (Ryan 1976)
2. Social Darwinism
 Believed that government interventions on
behalf of the poor would have catastrophic
results since they would interfere with the laws
of natural selection.
 Today’s victim blamers talk of ‘cultural
deprivation’ instead of the earlier notion of race
and class differences in intellectual ability and
laziness is often replaced by a new term: ‘culture
of poverty’ = provincial orientation, low formal
participation, a lack of integration into national
institutions, a strong present-time orientation,
inability to defer gratification, and fatalism.
3. Modernisation’s sustainance
of unequal class structures
 Blame the victim ideologists, social Darwinists,
and the top-down experts of development,
among others, have aimed to change the
individual but leave the structure of dependency
within and between societies intact.
 Poverty is, um, a lack of money!
 Ryan: “Poverty is an economic status
etiologically related to the absence of both
monetary input and access to income generating
resources.”
 So, surely the best strategy for overcoming
poverty would be to bring every poor person
above the poverty line through a transfer of
resources. In the US, 2% of GDP would be
required for this purpose.
 But, poverty not seen as a lack of money, but the
result of the lower-class culture of the poor or
the traditional culture of the peasants.
 The solution isn’t distribution of resources, but
on how to transform the “way of life” of the poor,
including deep-seated cultural beliefs and
lifestyles.
An ethical perspective on
development:
 Value traditional cultures;
 Consider all levels of society;
 Involve people at the grassroots in all facets of
the process;
 Aim for just and fair distribution of rewards;
 Prioritise basic needs as defined by those who
experience them.
 The focus on unequal power dynamics has
important implications – goal is no longer
information delivery and diffusion.
 Instead, goal is to work at the grassroots so
people and organisations there may eventually
have a voice in political, economic, and
ideological processes.
Community empowerment
paradigm
 Implies change where community
members influence the agenda, design
and processes
 But, empowerment requires:
 Long-term process - cannot be acquired in a
single workshop;
 It “evolves through practice in a real-life
situation” (Melcote and Steeves);
 Labour-intensive process.
 Role of DSC professional:
 Never the central figure
 A facilitator, collaborator, advocate
 Locus of control is moved from outsiders
(development experts, professional
communicators, journalists) and to the
individuals and groups directly affected
(citizens).
 Empowerment:
 Provides skills, confidence and countervailing
power to deal effectively with social change in
a world that distributes needs, resources and
power unequally.
 Privileges multiple voices and perspectives
and facilitates equal sharing of knowledge
and solution alternatives among participants
in process.
 Participation-as-end approach
 Participation as basic right (not merely means to
measurable development goal)
 Participatory action research methodology (PAR)
 Aims to initiate collaborative social action and
empower local knowledge
 Consciousness raising, followed by reflection, leading
to participatory social action.
 Understanding the importance of local organisations;
 Recognising that existing organisations are usually
more effective than new ones, given strong and
historic relational ties;
 Knowing how organisations may provide a context
and process for critical reflection leading to social
action.
 More specifically, the communication for
development practitioner may be of help in the
following areas:
 Suggesting and facilitating activities that enhance
experience and competence;
 Enhancing group structure and capacity;
 Removing social and environmental barriers;
 Enhancing environmental support and resources.
 In the end, the communication for development
practitioner’s role should become redundant and
he/she should withdraw.
Don Snowden, 1970s,
Newfoundland, Canada
 Video to build linkages and resolve conflicts
between scientists and indigenous groups, and
between fishing communities and politicians.
 Fogo Island process allowed rural
communities to express their demands and
share their predicament on video with
politicians in Ottawa.
 Non-professionals can become skilled at using
media: opens up opportunities for them to have
access to, and control over, the tools for
information and communication generation and
exchange.
 So what should be the role of the “journalist/
media professional/ development
communicator”?
 For some there is a role for the professional
media team, trained in participatory approaches
to act as facilitators with local communities.
 Others have based all their work on the handing
over of media skills to the community itself.
 BUT, whatever the strategies, there is a danger
of creating new exclusion zones. This can be
the result of several different factors:
 The location of equipment: In which town/village, in whose
offices? Male, young population often finds a way to control
resources. Children, women and the elderly less well
represented.
 Language: In a multilingual environment, development
intervention must envisage a multilingual communication
strategy - language of the community must play major role. What
language will people have to work in to operate and use the
technology?
 Technology "literacy": How to give access to basic skills to
large sections of the population? Focus on easy-to-use
technologies and cultivate different approach by professionals
who act as mediators/facilitators in the use of the technology.