"Nora Cruz Quebral's passing on 24 October 2020 came at the heels of a mild frenzy when a Philippine senator said that the discipline attributed to her is “cute and archaic" (Nakpil, 2020 para.
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1). This prompted various higher education institutions (HEIs), particularly the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) College of Development Communication (CDC), to issue statements that it is alive, thriving, and relevant (Magsambol, 2020). The UPLB CDC statement stressed that development communication (devcom) remains important for three reasons: “First, devcom has a long and established history, which is recognized by thought leaders around the world. Second, devcom is a vibrant academic program being offered by numerous local and international academic institutions. And third, driving positive social change through communication has always been at the heart of devcom. For as long as there are social issues to be addressed, devcom will remain ever relevant" (UPLB Devcom, 2020, para. 2). Quebral, or simply NCQ to her colleagues and students, is recognized for founding the discipline of devcom. In 1971, she delivered the paper “Development Communication in the Agricultural Context" (Quebral, 2006) to honor the outgoing dean of the UPLB College of Agriculture, Dioscoro L. Umali. She coined development communication to mean “the art and science of human communication applied to the speedy transformation of a country and the mass of its people from poverty to a dynamic state of economic growth that makes possible greater social equality and the larger fulfilment of the human potential" (Quebral, 2006, page 101). At this time Quebral was chair of the UPLB Department of Agricultural Communication. In 1973, the department was renamed Department of Development Communication and the degree Bachelor of Science in Development Communication was approved to be offered."
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"This book presents conceptual and methodological issues related to the use of communication in order to facilitate participation among stakeholders in natural resource management (NRM) initiatives. It also presents a collection of chapters that focus on participatory development communication and N
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RM, particularly in Asia and Africa. There are many approaches and practices in development communication, and most of them have been implemented in the field of environment and natural resource management. But, even when considering participatory approaches in NRM, communication is often limited to information dissemination activities that mainly use printed materials, radio programmes and educational videos to send messages, explain technologies or illustrate activities. These approaches, with their strengths and weaknesses, have been well documented.
Participatory development communication takes another perspective. This form of communication facilitates participation in a development initiative identified and selected by a community, with or without the external assistance of other stakeholders. The terminology has been used in the past by a number of scholars to stress the participatory approach of communication in contrast with its more traditional diffusion approach. Others refer to similar approaches as participatory communication for development, participatory communication or communication for social change.
In this publication, participatory development communication is considered to be a planned activity that is based on participatory processes and on media and interpersonal communication. This communication facilitates dialogue among different stakeholders around a common development problem or goal. The objective is to develop and implement a set of activities that contribute to a solution to the problem or the realization of a goal, and which support and accompany this initiative. This kind of communication requires moving from a focus on information and persuasion to facilitating exchanges between different stakeholders to address a common problem, to develop a concrete initiative for experimenting with possible solutions, and to identify the partnerships, knowledge and materials needed to support these solutions." (Preface)
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"This article gives a critical review of the evolution of the concept ''development communication'' in the 1970s under the influence of professor nora quebral. As part of this retrospective, we al
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so reprint the original 1971 article ''development communication in the agricultural context'' by nora quebral, with a new foreword by her." (Editor's note)
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