"Communication and its role in development and social change is still poorly understood and supported by large development players, despite decades of innovative practice and positive outcomes. Gaps between discourse and action, outdated evaluation methods, short timeframes, red tape, and power rela
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tions, combined with vertical and externally-driven communication models, and confusion between information and communication, all prevent development donors from giving support to participatory and community owned and managed communication initiatives. On the basis of decades of experience and observation, four key recommendations are made for transforming the communication profession both in higher education and in donor and development agencies." (Abstract)
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"Esta obra parte de la idea de que sin comunicación no es posible el desarrollo, pues ésta compromete de manera participativa a todos los sectores que conforman nuestras sociedades. A pesar de la existencia de innumerables medios masivos, locales y globales, y de nuevas tecnologías de la informac
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ión y comunicación, nuestras sociedades no están comunicadas entre sí y la información que se produce no circula para conducirnos hacia un mejor desarrollo. Por ello, ahora que la gobernanza democrática es el eje fundamental de las agendas de desarrollo y que se subraya la necesidad de construir una nueva democracia de ciudadanos y ciudadanas, en este libro se analiza el aporte de la Comunicación para el Desarrollo en esta tarea. La autora realiza un recorrido a través de la utilización de la comunicación en los distintos paradigmas de desarrollo y recopila los principales aportes académicos de los últimos años, especialmente en América Latina. Además, se exponen diferentes áreas para trabajar en la construcción de ciudadanía desde la comunicación y se recopilan experiencias prácticas de trabajo conjunto entre gobierno, sociedad civil y medios de comunicación que pueden inspirar la labor de organismos de cooperación, ONG, policy makers y periodistas." (Descripción de la casa editorial)
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"Our review of relevant literature identified the following eight issues related to communication for participatory development:
1. The concept of development needs to be reformulated in a manner that applies to human development in local communities, as well as the traditional focus on national dev
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elopment.
2. Participatory development requires dialogue—a symmetrical, two-way process of communication, but many prevailing approaches to development communication use an asymmetrical, one-way process of communication.
3. No model of the development process reconciles the demand for social change at the community level and the need for requisite changes at the individual level.
4. Scholars and practitioners agree that community members should determine the goals of development themselves, but the problem-specific nature of funding often means that external change agents impose development goals on communities. External change agents can play the valuable role of catalyst and facilitate the process, but motivation and leadership needs to come from within a community itself.
5. The role of confl ict in communication generally is ignored in participatory development, even though it is common feature of most communities. Therefore, a model of the process needs to recognize conflict and suggest methods to manage it.
6. Ownership, self-determination, and social change are considered necessary to build community capacity and to sustain the process of development without further outside stimuli.
7. Communities should have access to local media, such as community radio, posters/billboards, traveling theater groups, and even cell phones, to produce content for their development objectives rather than rely on content originating from external sources that primarily serve the purposes of those sources.
8. Self-assessment needs to guide the process and motivate sustained, collective action.
A model of participatory development, thus, needs to be theoretically sound and useful to communication scholars but also useful to community leaders and communication practitioners. The model of communication for participatory development that we use to organize and synthesize the literature addresses these eight key issues, and it provides a tool useful for both research and practice. Specifically, because development is assumed to be “people oriented,” communication for participatory development needs to be based on dialogue, conflict management, and mutual understanding and agreement." Pages 507-508)
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"In August 2007, the Government of Tanzania committed to doubling the number of training places for skilled midwives following a five-year campaign by the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood in Tanzania (WRATZ), which culminated in the first television screening of a participatory film, ‘Pla
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y Your Part’. With contributions from a range of health professionals, communities, a pop singer, and the Minister of Health, the message was that everyone at every level has a part to play in saving mothers’ lives. WRATZ was successful because it was able to champion its message in a way that provides a model for advocacy, combining the reactive creativity of journalism and the methodological rigour of participatory video that to bring about a tangible impact." (Abstract)
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"This book is essential reading for anybody interested in development communication. Mefalopulos, a World Bank development communication officer with wide-ranging experiences in the field, presents four modules. The first module concisely presents the concepts and applications of development communi
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cations and their relevance for development operations. The second module addresses communication officers and practitioners who want to become acquainted with the theoretical foundations. The third focuses on methodological applications of development communication, describing the typical program cycle of communication-based assessment, strategy design, implementation and evaluation. The fourth module presents practical experiences to illustrate DevComm's relevance, including e.g. the use of development communication in poverty reduction strategies or strengthening local voices through community radio. Given its modular structure, this straight-forward publication is a valuable resource on the strategic use of communication processes in development." (CAMECO Update 4-2008)
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"This report covers a research study of Dgroups which took place during September 2006-July 2007. Dgroups is a number of things at the same time: (1) it is a web-based technical platform which supports and provides for the creation and use of discrete e-mail based discussion lists and web workspaces
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that are used to support knowledge networking by people and institutions working in development; (2) it is also the plural name for these online networks, individually known as a dgroup; and (3) it is also a partnership of development organizations who share a commitment to collaboration in development and who are developing a common vision of the need for such a platform and such online groups.
The Dgroups platform currently supports 2,308 dgroups and 88,700 individual users (15 July, 2007), but there has not yet been an analysis of the development role of dgroups on a global scale. Many partners and members of the Dgroups Partnership continue to support the platform, not only because of the access to online knowledge networks with which it provides them, but also because of an intuitive understanding of the processes supported by dgroups.
The study examines whether and how dgroups: • facilitate the spread of information and knowledge among the actors (individual and institutional) working in the thematic areas of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); • facilitate learning processes (individual, social, and organizational learning) in the diverse institutions working in areas related to the MDGs; and • facilitate the bridging of the multitude of ‘knowledge divides’ in development between the North and South, and South-South; between different sorts of institutions (multilateral, bilateral, NGOs, universities, ministries) and professional groups (practitioners, researchers and policymakers); and in terms of language [...]
It has been concluded that dgroups facilitate information and knowledge sharing within the subject areas of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and that they also facilitate individual, social and organizational learning within these subject areas. Dgroups also play an important role in bridging the ‘knowledge divides’ between North and South, between different types of institutions, and between different professional groups, as well as crossing the
digital divide. An ability to bridge South-South divides and to forge links between different language groups has not been demonstrated.
In terms of development impact, Dgroups was found to represent a very cost-effective manner of hosting groups (an average of Euro 60.70 per dgroup per year) and most moderators felt that participation in dgroups was an ‘effective’ use of their time. Dgroups were also found to have had an organizational impact on the way many of the partner and member organizations work. It is argued that Dgroups provides a unique resource: there is nothing comparable within development that facilitates information and knowledge sharing on such a large scale. Finally, some recommendations are made for the future development of Dgroups." (Executive summary)
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"This paper has highlighted that the mass media can play an important, if not critical, role in both enhancing the flow of information and improving public-private dialogue in the local context. The paper therefore recommends explicitly incorporating media into the approaches of LRED. This means wor
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king to build government and private sector capacity to interact with the mass media and to build the media itself to be an effective institution that can be a catalyst to positive local economic development. Applying both media development and development communication to private sector development, and particularly LRED, is a relatively new area of endeavour. As such, those who tackle this will need to be innovative and adapt existing tools or develop new tools and approaches to working with mass media in the LRED context. The potential benefit of taking this innovative approach will be in making LRED better understood, more participative and more relevant by involving mass media that is the channel for information to and from mass audiences and a potential platform for public debate." (Summary and conclusion, page 17-18)
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"The present report has been prepared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and is being submitted to the General Assembly at the sixty-third session pursuant to Assembly resolution 50/130, as well as resolution 51/172 which, inter alia stressed the need to support
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two-way communication systems that enabled dialogue and that allowed communities to speak out, express their aspirations and concerns and participate in the decisions that related to their development. The text presents the engagement of United Nations organizations in the implementation of communication for development programmes and inter-agency collaborative mechanisms for effective and integrated follow-up of related actions." (Summary)
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"It is my hypothesis that church-based radio stations can contribute to community development. A total of 50 respondents out of 60 confirm that they listen to and understand community-development programmes through these stations. The messages are either fully understood, or partially in cases where
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the language transfer from Tok Pisin to Melpa is confusing for those who speak only Melpa. The languages used by both stations were, according to the majority of respondents, easily understood and the messages were clearly presented. There is a consensus among respondents that non-faith-based stations do not target their programmes towards community issues. Mainstream radio stations disseminate information that seeks to address national issues, paying little attention to issues being faced by small communities. Apart from promoting the Christian faith, church-based radio stations communicated information vital to grassroots lifestyles. The churches have tapped into a system within the PNG media that enables “any person” to initiate a media organisation that is aimed at information dissemination in the country (Melham and Aloi, 2003: 3). Churches such as the Catholic Church and the Baptist Church have initiated radio stations that disseminate information that comply with their respective mission statements, which promote religiously oriented aims and visions. Baibel FM and Triniti FM, as shown in the results of the survey, have the potential to disseminate community development programmes aimed at improving people’s livelihoods, sustaining development and alleviating poverty. The moralistic component of their programming is an attractive feature for listeners." (Pages 215-216)
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