"This publication is an important contribution to literature on disaster and humanitarian crisis communication. It analyses in detail the response to two major but very different emergencies in Haiti: the 2010 earthquake and, later that year, the outbreak of cholera. While humanitarian agencies stil
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l see 'communication' as primarily the process of delivering or extracting information, for the affected population, the process of communication seems to matter as much as the information itself. The best communication strategies, whether highly localised or nationwide, were those that meshed a number of different communication channels, says this report. However, more coordination is needed, and monitoring and evaluation practice in communication projects was quite weak." (CAMECO Update 1-2012)
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"Betrachtet man die Beliebtheit und den Hörerzuspruch für Loke Pol, kann man von einem Erfolg des Programmes sprechen. Auch wenn einige Aspekte des Senders Mega FM wie die quasi-Monopolposition die Rezeption des Programmes begünstigen, zählt Loke Pol sowohl in den Augen der Produzenten, angesich
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ts der prominenten Platzierung im Programmplan, und auf der Seite der Hörer durch die hohen Einschaltquoten und hohe Sendungskenntnis zu den populären Formaten. Obwohl insgesamt Nachrichtensendungen häufiger eingeschaltet werden, ist Loke Pol für Informationen zu den beiden Themenkomplexen der Sendung, Reintegration und Rücksiedlung, als Informationsquelle relevanter. Informationen vermittelt über Loke Pol sind für die Hörer zugänglicher und können leichter in Handlungen übersetzt werden, wie sich besonders in den Fokusgruppendiskussionen gezeigt hat.
Daraus lassen sich drei Schlüsse ziehen. Erstens kann Loke Pol erfolgreich sein, dieser Erfolg aber nicht auf das Format EE übertragbar sein. Zweitens kann der spezielle Kontext, in dem das Programm eingesetzt wird, unterstützend wirken, aber ein ähnliches Programm wäre in einem anderen Kontext nicht erfolgreich. Drittens können Evaluationsmethoden nicht sensibel genug gewesen sein, um sämtliche Effekte zu erfassen. Schlussfolgerung Nummer eins kann sicherlich bestätigt werden. Zwar sind die Ergebnisse für Loke Pol ein Hinweis darauf, dass das EE-Format wirken kann. Jedoch ist es kein Hinweis darauf, dass es wirken muss. Effekte können nicht nur dem Format EE direkt zugeordnet werden, sondern ergeben sich erst aus dem Zusammenwirken von Sendungsformat und Kontext. Dies wird deutlich, wenn man die „Extremen“ bei den Hörergruppen, nämlich Frauen, über 45-Jährige und Jugendliche betrachtet. Die zweite Schlussfolgerung trifft im Falle von Loke Pol in dem Sinne zu, dass der Kontext unterstützend auf die Rezeption und Popularität wirkt. Der Kontext, in den die Sendung eingebettet ist, unterstützt in zweierlei Form die Rezeption. Zum einen begünstigt die Ausgestaltung der nordugandischen Medienlandschaft die Loke Pol Einschaltquoten. So spielt die geringe Menge an Lokalnachrichten in den Nachrichtensendungen der Sender Gulus eine Rolle. Die einfachere Zugänglichkeit der Informationen aus Loke Pol hängt sicherlich auch nicht nur mit Formatbedingten Aspekten der Darstellung, sondern auch mit einer größeren inhaltlichen Nähe für das Alltagsleben der Hörer zusammen. Zudem wirken der offizielle Diskurs und das politische Klima fördernd auf die Unterstützung der Botschaft. Regierung und ein Großteil der NROs in Norduganda unterstützen die Rücksiedlungsprozesse." (Fazit, Seiten 75-76)
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"Serious communication gaps between the humanitarian sector and refugees in Dadaab, Kenya, are increasing refugee suffering and putting lives at risk. There are clear indications that these information gaps are hampering the aid response and that despite important efforts from individual agencies, c
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urrent communication strategies for affected communities are not working as effectively as they could, and critical coordination needs to be improved. These are the clear indications from the joint Communications Needs Assessment led by Internews in collaboration with Star FM and Radio Ergo/IMS and with support from NRC. The assessment included an extensive survey of more than 600 refugees in all three of Dadaab’s camps. Overall results from the survey show that large numbers of refugees don’t have the information they need to access basic aid: More than 70% of newly-arrived refugees say they lack information on how to register for aid and similar numbers say they need information on how to locate missing family members. High figures are also recorded for lack of information on how to access health, shelter, how to communicate with family outside the camps and more." (Executive summary, page 4)
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"Radio Veritas Asia (RVA) is hailed as 'the Voice of Asian Christianity' and the Hindi Service has defined its vision and mission to proclaim human development based on Gospel values. Spiritual, social, economical, human and environmental messages are important for overall development of a person an
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d these messages are being proclaimed by 'Satyaswar'. In its morning 27 minutes and evening 30 minutes daily broadcast 'Satyaswar' has given adequate time and duration for Devcomm messages. The respondents are working in communication organizations and therefore, they are well educated, trained and exposed to multimedia world. They have been broadcasting development messages and therefore, they have knowledge about Devcomm and Devcomm programming. Though, they may not be able to define the concepts and principles of devcom, they are already practicing Devcomm. 'Satyaswar' is a charity broadcast and most of respondents have joined the organization for the purpose of service. Therefore, they have genuine interest in development of people. This is reflected in their attitude towards Devcomm; Devcomm programming and 'Satyaswar' programming. Three communication centers collaborate in the production and broadcast of 'Satyaswar' programs and most the respondents have positive attitude towards Devcomm management." (Conclusion, page 73-74)
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"Between 2008 and 2011, CommunityBased Adaptation in Africa (CBAA) – an action research project – tested tools for community adaptation and knowledge generation in eight African countries while building the capacity of its partners and local communities. Through participatory methods, the proj
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ect helped the selected communities to adapt to climate change and share lessons learnt with key stakeholders at local, national, regional and international levels. The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) invited InsightShare to pilot participatory video for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of this project to support their internal learning processes, inform the action research, and amplify community voices in relation to local adaptation to climate change. Between 2009 and 2010, InsightShare held workshops in four of the eight participating countries: Malawi, South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe. InsightShare passed on skills in participatory video and monitoring and evaluation to build the capacities of community members and staff from the communitybased organisations (CBOs) and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) implementing CBAA in each country. This enhanced the partners capacity to listen to the community members in their search for local adaptation strategies, and to monitor their pilot projects and climaterelated indicators." (Initiative overview, page 1)
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"By assessing edutainment as a space of cultural translation, Drama for Development advances an often neglected perspective in this topics' research. It focuses on what happens when various goals, worldviews and needs from donors, producers and the audiences come together in the production and meani
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ng construction of soap operas. The perspective is illustrated by examples from the largely South Asian experiences of the BBC World Service Trust, itself seen as a cross-cultural contact zone. Tensions between western scientific paradigm and local researcher in the audience research process (chapter 3), the cosmopolitan competencies of the production team in harmonizing the urge for authenticity, cultural sensitivity and development objectives (chapter 6) and the construction of social realism as an interplay of the observed realities of the audiences and the neo-liberal themes of donors (e.g., opium in ch.6 and forced marriage in chapter 11) exemplify some of the processes taking place in that zone. The epistemological position of the book is complementary to the more technical perspective of the existing body of literature, which sometimes fails to capture the complex processes of meaning construction and link it to the wider social context." (commbox)
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"In 2007 nearly 17,000 people died because of natural disasters and more than 211 million others were directly affected. News media play a basic role in giving publicity to these numerous instances of global suffering as it is mainly through media reports that the world perceives international crise
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s. Drawing upon theories on distant suffering, this study investigates the mediated representation of international crises, with a focus on natural disasters occurring in Australia, Indonesia, Pakistan and the USA. Applying critical discourse analysis, this article explores how discourses of hierarchy and inequality are realised in news texts about distant suffering. The cases of analysis are nine news items that were broadcast on a public and a commercial Belgian television channel on 2 January 2006. The comparative analysis of these news texts reveals glaring differences that reflect global hierarchies of place and human life. Suffering in the West (USA and Australia) was portrayed as comprehensible and close to the spectator, who could identify with the distant sufferers as if they are like us. While being of a greater magnitude, the Indonesian disaster was in contrast presented as no cause for concern or action, which blocked the engagement with the distant sufferers who were portrayed as ‘Others’, with a capital ‘o’. Pakistan sufferers were also articulated as distant others, but close-ups of gazing children urged the spectator to care for them and potentially act on the represented misfortune. In general, the critical discourse analysis supports the claim that Western news media reproduce a certain kind of global hierarchy, mainly a Euro-American-centred world order, and that news discourse normalises inequalities. This article argues that mediated representations of international crises reflect and consolidate the power relations and divisions that characterise our contemporary world." (Abstract)
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"The 52-page report summarised here is the result of the three-year partnership between UNDP Oslo Governance Centre and the Communication for Social Change Consortium in piloting the C4E approach in five least-developed countries: Mozambique, Madagascar, Ghana, Lao PDR, and Nepal. The report present
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s key learning from the information and communication needs assessments conducted in these five countries, funded by a grant from the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF). The implementation of the C4E approach consisted of: (i) information and communication assessments to identify the information and communication needs and identify gaps in meeting those needs; (ii) review of the media context based on the existing research at the national level; (iii) programme interventions informed by the findings of the assessment to ensure economically poor and marginalised groups' participation in decision-making processes. Experiences and lessons from testing the C4E approach in Madagascar and Mozambique in 2007-2008 enabled further refining of the C4E approach and informed the information and communication assessments carried out in Ghana, Lao PDR, and Nepal. As a result, the concept of C4E also widened: from an initial conception as part of UNDP's Access to Information work primarily geared to meeting the information and communication needs of the people through specific media strategies - to an approach that promotes inclusive participation, empowerment of economically poor and marginalised people, and accountability of the state to its citizens. These aspects of C4E, thus, make it an integral part of broader democratic governance and development work." (Summary at the "Communication Initiative" website)
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"InterMedia conducted in-depth interviews with 15 senior Ghanaian policy actors, comprising mostly senior politicians and bureaucrats, as well as a few influential figures outside government. The interviews focused on how the policy actors gather, assess, share and disseminate information critical t
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o development policy work. The aim was to understand how external stakeholders, particularly members of the international development community, can most effectively engage and assist these policymakers. The policy actors showed substantial overlap in information source preferences and media use habits, as well as in the ways they share information with fellow policy actors. They highlighted several actions that development organizations could take to improve the policy information environment. They also described many challenges in communicating with the public about development issues, as well as offering some creative solutions." (Report summary, page 7)
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"Many professionals in health, education, and community service roles are caught in a particular bind of identity-they live in a complex social borderland of credibility and professional authority while experiencing or having experienced the same discrimination, violence or trauma that they are comm
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itted to conquering. For some, the disclosure of their own stories of marginalization has become a tool for advocacy, for telling a larger truth; for others, self-disclosure is a more personal action, intended to assist isolated others in developing trust and connection. Linde Zingaro, a lifelong social service worker and activist, interviewed several colleagues who have chosen to speak out in this way, talking with them about their ethics and intentions, and collaborating to identify some of the risks of negative personal and professional consequences for the practitioner. She uses their voices-and her own-to illustrate some of the ways that these people have learned to safely and effectively use the transformative potential of storytelling as significant social action." (Publisher description)
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"The main structure of the document consists of four parts. The first provides the reader with the 'big picture' of ICTs and climate change, based on a review of existing literature and identification of the main phases that have characterized the debate to date (Figure 1). Based on the above, the a
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nalysis will suggest some of the key gaps and issues that need to be considered as research on ICTs, climate change and development continues to evolve. The second section deepens the analysis by identifying the key components of the debate, namely the role of ICTs in mitigation, monitoring, adaptation and strategies, while building up the basis of a conceptual model on ICTs, Climate Change and Development (Figure 2). This model will provide the reader with an overview of the main issues and trends that lie at the intersection of these three fields, mapping the links between its main components and serving as a tool to identify challenges and research gaps that need to be further explored. Having identified the main issues on ICTs and climate change from a global perspective, the third part of the document will present some of the emerging examples of ICT use in climate change mitigation, monitoring, adaptation and strategies in Africa, Asia and Latin America. This section will allow the reader to contextualize the debate from a developing country perspective, while relating the ideas reflected in the ICTs, Climate Change and Development model to concrete actions in the field. The study concludes by presenting key issues for future research, based on the gaps and developing country priorities identified throughout the analysis. It has three Annexes: one providing a timeline of key literature resources; one offering an extended bibliography of that literature; and a glossary of key terms." (Page 4)
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"En esta presentación trataremos de: (a) hacer una síntesis del pasado de la Comunicación para el Desarrollo y el Cambio Social; (b) identificar el mapa vial del futuro de la Comunicación para el Desarrollo y el Cambio Social; y (c) entender las implicaciones de estos cambios teóricos sobre la
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elaboración de políticas desde los diferentes enfoques de Comunicación para el Desarrollo y el Cambio Social disponibles en la práctica, los Objetivos del Milenio, y la relación entre las Tecnologías de Comunicación y la Cultura." (Resumen ejecutivo)
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