"To reshape the field of development communication, Redeveloping Communication for Social Change proposes situating theory and practice within contexts of power, recognizing both the ability of dominant groups to control and the potential for marginal communities to resist. Contributors from communi
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cation and anthropology explore the global and institutional structures within which agencies construct social problems and interventions, the discourse guiding the normative climate for conceiving and implementing projects, and the practice of strategic interventions for social change. Examining early and emerging models of development, power dynamics, ethnographic approaches, gender issues, and information technologies, they speculate how a framework accounting for power might contribute toward new directions and applications in the field. Instead of mourning the demise of development communication, this volume should provoke critical debate that will help us change our approaches to meet new challenges." (Publisher description)
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"In the pages that follow, the two authors argue that communication for social change is a distinct way of doing communications – and one of the few approaches that can be sustained. Such sustainability is largely due to the fact that ownership of both the message and the medium – the content an
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d the process – resides with the individuals or communities affected. We believe that this approach can help make greater contributions to the pace of development. From this basic assumption we move to questioning “how” and “if” and “where” we might find interesting work and committed individuals to test the effectiveness of this approach. In order to do this work, the Rockefeller Foundation has brought together a group of social activists, academics, filmmakers and journalists, funders, electronic communications experts, service providers and professional communicators. The ideas expressed in this position paper reflect discussions held at two conferences – one at the foundation’s Bellagio Study and Conference Center on Lake Como, in Italy, and the other in the fall of 1998 in Cape Town, South Africa." (Introduction)
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"In this paper, I explore institutional discourse on the role of gender in constructions of development communication beneficiaries and on the process of social change facilitated through communication intervention. Analyses are based on description of health, nutrition, and population projects impl
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emented by several organizations since 1975. Since the Decade for Women, dvelopment communication projects have focused their attention on women and other marginal groups, whereas U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has replaced informing strategies with persuasion approaches that target women as reproducers to consume products and services available through the private sector." (Abstract)
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"This book records and interprets, in a narrative form, how groups of villagers and fisherfolk in Manila (Philippines), in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu (India) and in the states of Tlaxacala, Oaxaca and Michoacan and in a suburb of Mexico City (all in Mexico) tried to bring about social change through
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what one may call "people's communication". "People's communication" is a mode of communication which depends for its efficacy on people's energies rather than on technology." (Introduction)
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"This ambitious, broad-ranging study of one of the world's most interesting genres laudably tries to cover the telenovela industry, its creative process, the contents of novelas, and their reception by the working class. Besides having the descriptive richness one might expect of a book-length case
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study, the work has a sophisticated and relatively thorough theoretical orientation [...] Overall this book is a very good introduction to Brazilian television and the telenovela in particular. It is also of considerable value to those interested in Bourdieu's ideas, questions of social class and audience in general, or ethnographic research about audiences in the Third World." (Book review by Joseph Straubhaar, in: Journal of Communication, Spring 1990, page 162-164)
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"A compilation of the papers of Symposium VII of the 9th World Congress of Sociology whose central theme asks whether the mass media should be agents of change or agents of the status quo. Central to the articles are discussions from varying viewpoints as to the nature of news and the factors that s
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hape it. Among the contributors are Peter Golding, Gaye Tuchman, Paul Hirsch, Elihu Katz, Tamás Szecskö and Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. A list of reference follows each article." (Eleanor Blum, Frances G. Wilhoit: Mass media bibliography. 3rd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990 Nr. 227)
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"Transfer of technology it seems can also be a vehicle for the transfer of ideology. Therefore the recent interest of Australia in appropriate communication technology in order to produce adequate endogenous messages so as to redress imbalances in flow of information and cultural materials. One of t
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he most important findings of the Australian study is therefore the experience that technological progress, understood as modernization particularly in the communication field, is not per se and necessarily a beneficial process. This is also confirmed by the results of the Indonesian study which laid more emphasis on the relationship between communication, social change and development. The Indonesian study has also concentrated more on the socio-cultural impact of the domestic satellite communication project in two cities and five provinces. It was found that different economic and socio-cultural backgrounds strongly influence acceptance and use of the information provided by modern communication media. Mass media distribution and ownership is a prime factor conditioning the effectiveness of modern communication systems in traditional societies. The role of the opinion leaders is closely interrelated with the role of the mass media. Though, in general, the role of mass media as initial sources of information is seen as still relatively small, the local opinion leaders are intensively and regularly using the media. They can even be characterized by their high media exposure and they are respected and influential because of their knowledge of cultural and religious matters, and also because of their innovative and progressive attitudes and practices which seem to mainly stem from the mass media. The study also shows that there is a "two-step-flow of information". The information which is being transmitted by the mass media to the rural populations and mainly passed on and interpreted by the opinion leaders, motivates the villagers to know more, to study and adopt first technical and later cultural innovations and to participate more actively in the life of the nation." (Page ii)
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"Vol.1: Capitalism, Imperialism (1979); Vol.2: Liberation, Socialism. 'Communication and Class Struggle' is an anthology containing more than 120 articles originating in over 50 countries since the mid-nineteenth century which were selected by the editors to explain three interrelated questions abou
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t the mass communication process from the Marxist viewpoint: 1) how communication is conditioned by basic economic, social, ideological and cultural factors; 2) how capitalistic production affects communication practice and theory in bourgeois society; and 3) how the underprivileged and the working classes have reacted in certain countries by developing their own communication theory and practice. Selected bibliography." (Eleanor Blum, Frances G. Wilhoit: Mass media bibliography. 3rd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990 Nr. 273)
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"Am Beispiel der Farm-Radio-Foren in Indien, der Radio-Klubs in der Republik Niger und Landfunkforen in Ghana wird die Bedeutung von Meinungsführern und der kollektiven Rezeption gezielter Kommunikationsangebote im Modernisierungsprozeß der Armen Welt untersucht. Dabei wird deutlich, dass für ein
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en erfolgreichen Einsatz der Massenkommunikationsmittel im gesellschaftlichen Modernisierungsprozeß die folgenden drei wesentlichen Bedingungen erfüllt sein müssen: 1. entwicklungskonforme, soziale Aktivierung der Rezipienten, 2. systematische Rückkopplung zwischen Programmgestaltern und Rezipienten und 3. spezifischer Programmzuschnitt auf die vorrangingen Entwicklungsbedürfnisse der Gesellschaft." (Vorwort, Seite 7)
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"In the pages that follow are listed the 489 bibliographical items on the diffusion of innovations. Some of the major works are briefly annotated." (Page 3)