"This paper provides an overview of the communication practices that UN agencies working on the migration response in Italy have adopted in their work with newly arrived unaccompanied migrant children. These include IOM, UNICEF and UNHCR. The aim is to present the different objectives and methodolog
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ies of each agency s intervention under an overall framework. This is built both around the agencies respective areas of technical expertise and their commitment towards the principles expounded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which are applied here in the context of refugee and migrant foreign minors. Recommendations on how to strengthen these practices are offered." (Abstract)
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"This study develops a technosocial framework for assessing the efficacy of global aid agencies’ use of Twitter’s algorithmic affordances for participatory social change. We combine computational and interpretive methods to examine tweets posted by three global aid agencies—U.S. Agency for Int
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ernational Development, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and the International Committee of the Red Cross—as well as public tweets that mention these agencies (N = ~100,000). Results indicate that when an agency (a) replies to or retweets public tweeters, (b) includes publicly oriented hashtags and hyperlinks in its tweets, and (c) tweets about topics that the public is also interested in and tweeting about, the social network that develops around the agency is more interconnected, decentralized, and reciprocal. Our framework can help development institutions build more participatory social networks, with multiple voices helping determine collective goals and strategies of collective action for sustainable social change. We also discuss the theoretical implications and methodological significance of our approach." (Abstract)
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"Nigerian researcher Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob compares the impact on people in the Kivu provinces of eastern DR Congo of United Nations Stabilization Mission in the DR Congo (MONUSCO) communication programmes encouraging militia to return to the country and Radio Okapi’s informative debate programme 'D
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ialogue between Congolese' at a time, between 2008 and 2010, when Fondation Hirondelle was co-managing that radio station with the UN. He concluded that the UN communication programmes provoked emotional reactions that were not very favourable, while 'Dialogue between Congolese' gave its listeners a better understanding of the political situation and a sense of collective responsibility to resolve the conflict." (Sacha Meuter, Legal adviser and research coordinator at Fondation Hirondelle, in News from Fondation Hirondelle, Nr.54, Winter 2017-2018, page 2)
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"When we hear stories of distant humanitarian crises, we often feel sympathy for victims, but may stop short of taking action to help. Past research indicates that media portrayals of distant suffering can promote helping behavior by eliciting sympathy, while those that prompt a more rational respon
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se tend to decrease helping behavior by undermining sympathy. The authors used an online experiment to test whether certain media frames could promote helping behavior through a more rational, rather than emotional, pathway. The study tested whether framing distant suffering as either solvable or unsolvable might promote helping behavior if a rational evaluation of a crisis leads one to determine that help is efficacious in solving the problem. Survey respondents were randomly assigned to read one of three messages: a high solvability message, a low solvability message, or a control message. Contrary to expectations, both low solvability and high solvability conditions increased participants’ intentions to help. The results suggest that this is because framing problems as unsolvable drives up sympathy, thus promoting willingness to help, while framing problems as solvable drives up perceived efficacy, also promoting willingness to help. The authors conclude that, in contrast to earlier studies, and to the assumptions of many of those working in media, emphasizing rationality can promote helping behavior if audiences rationally interpret the problem as solvable." (Abstract)
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"FAO communication in numbers: Over 1.5 million followers on its social media networks. More than 100 000 articles published every year in the media, containing information or statements by FAO experts. Every month millions of users access fao.org to read news or find information. Every year more th
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an 500 new titles are published. At fao.org, find and download, at no cost, more than 65 000 documents and discover countless ways to consult statistical data. FAO photo archives contain nearly 75000 images that may be used at no charge." (Page 3)
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"This report reviews and highlights some key issues in the current debate on development communication. To do so it draws on experiences and inputs from members of the Informal Network of Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Development Communicators (DevCom) [...] The report starts by looking at
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one of the fundamental elements regarding development communication: the monitoring of public support [...] the report then looks at communications strategies. Whereas only a few years ago they were somewhat rare among development ministries and agencies, they are now becoming common currency. Some are on their third or fourth generation and others have developed specific strategies (e.g. for the use of new media). This professionalisation of development communication is also seen in the next section, which covers the question of the measurement of the impact of these communications strategies and activities. Evaluation in this type of area is always challenging, and often ends up being built on the measurement of activities and output (and less on impact and effect)." (Executive summary)
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"How does media contribute to peacebuilding and reconciliation in a post-conflict environment? This question will be answered in respect to the media produced by the UN and NATO mission in Kosovo (UNMIK and KFOR) from the year 1999 until 2008. The theoretical part of the text will deal with existing
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approaches to peace journalism, effective organizational communication and media effects theories. In the empirical part, the evaluation will first focus on the content of the media produced by UNMIK and KFOR in Kosovo, followed by the assessment of media production processes in both missions. Last, the dissertation will explore the impact of UNMIK's and KFOR's media within the local Kosovar population." (Back cover)
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"This article describes and analyses the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) communication policy in the current world environment where a variety of well-doers attempt to pursue attention. The analysis is reflected against the results of focus group interviews with Congolese women
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in two refugee camps in Rwanda in November 2010. Although the women are not provided with any form of mediated communication, they do not appear to have any interest in it either. Daily concerns fill their lives in the ‘non-place’ and although that strongly limits their lifestyle and living conditions, it also ensures their safety. This article discusses both the possibility of establishing ‘small media’ or community media in the camps and the possibility of changing the principles of the United Nations (UN) communication policies." (Abstract)
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"For almost twenty years, United Nations peacekeeping missions have set up local radio stations in conflict-prone countries - 14 to date, seven of which remain in operation. According to this report, some of the fourteen peacekeeping radio stations implemented by the United Nations contributed more
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to democratisation and media development in certain post-conflict countries than any other media assistance programmes. Surveys have confirmed their popularity and credibility with national audiences, and local journalists have lauded their contributions to media diversity and journalism standards. Nevertheless, Bill Orme states that the UN radios were created without long-term planning. Upon disappearance of UN peacekeeping missions the stations were simply closed, therefore losing their positive effects on democratisation and plurality. Only in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Radio Okapi) were there serious attempts to continue the stations after the exit of the UN missions. Based on detailed description and analysis of the different experiences, Orme formulates a number of policy steps that would help UN radios to become lasting contributions to press freedom and peacekeeping." (CAMECO Update 2-2010)
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"In the UN system, conflicts and contradictions seldom concern the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as such, but rather the means of achieving them. These differences of opinion about priorities, and about how much and to whom development aid or assistance should be directed, could be explained b
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y analysing the ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions underpinning the general perspectives in the communication for development (C4D) field. Theoretical changes in the perspective on development communication (modernization, dependency, multiplicity) have also reached the level of policy-makers. As a result, different methodologies and terminologies have evolved, which often make it difficult for agencies, even though they share a common commitment to the overall goals of development communication, to identify common ground, arrive at a full understanding of each other’s objectives, or to cooperate effectively in operational projects. Consequently, it is difficult for development organizations in general and UN agencies in particular to reach a common approach and strategy." (Abstract)
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"This paper looks at the structure and functioning of public information departments in peacekeeping operations, and at the relationship between the departments and the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the Department of Information (DPI) at Headquarters in New York. Wh
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ile recognizing that information strategies vary from one mission to another and are dependent on individual mission mandates, the paper addresses the organizational structures that determine mission information strategies and policies general to all missions. The paper takes as a case study the role of the public information department in the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), with a particular focus on public outreach by UNMIK’s radio and television units. Recognizing that each peace mission is different in scope and mandate, and that Kosovo is characterized by an unusual degree of UN control and authority, the paper contends that lessons may nevertheless be extrapolated from the UNMIK experience that are relevant to UN missions elsewhere in the world and to communication strategies in post-conflict environments in general." (Executive summary)
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