The Concept of Community-based/Participatory/Development Communication, a form of communication, which gives the underprivileged access not only to information but also to the use of mass communications, was coined by this author to permit an understanding of the dynamics of the communication process wthin a developing milieu. We posit that a perfect mastery of the mechanics of CBC will help communication professionals beat the awesome noise barriers created by reactionary structures whose functions would not permit communication. This paper was presented at a workshop for public relations and communications experts of some local government (council) structures in Cameroon. The seminar was facilitated by SNV (the Netherlands Development Organisation - Highlands Office) and United Media Incorporated
Picture of participants - communications and public relations staff of councils.
United Media Incorporated-Common Initiative Group©
Reg. No NW/GP/27/04/8691
(Media Consultants-Publishers-Broadcasters-Trainers)
§ P.O. Box 2154, Bamenda§
Mobile Phone : (237) 7861200
The Theory and practice of Community-based, Participatory OR Development Communication
UMI-Training Manual. Prepared for an SNV (Netherlands Development Organisation) Seminar
The Potential of Communications and Mass Communications in Community Development Role Fulfillment for Local Governments and Councils
Introduction.
A crucial observation about mass media structures in Cameroon is that development partners, local government officials (councils, NGOS, etc) and thus SNV clients have little or no access to the instrumentality of mass communications to diffuse their initiatives to their populations and thus garner support for such initiatives. Most local governments do not have access to the Canadian-government donated community radio services. At the same time the local newspapers are either no represented in most local government areas or they serve only the interest of the highest payer. Local councils may no have the resources to pay huge sums for a few sentences in the local newspapers published months after the even has occurred for a market of less than 200 readers.
Finally existing private radio stations are urban. They are based in the main towns and rarely report about the going-on in local councils. Often the council executive has to pay huge out-of-station allowances to move reporters to the council to report an event. SNV clients-councils and partners often lack basic in public relations. Taking the above hassles into consideration it becomes imperative for SNV clients to share their experiences in public relations and communications.
Objectives:
The workshop provides an opportunity for live dialogue among the public relations and communications personnel of SNV Client-councils to share experiences and learn from each other. Also to acquire basic skills and principles in communications and discuss the link between communications and participatory communications. Participants were the communications/public relations’ staff of 12 target councils and grassroots organizations.
A. Elements of the Communication Process
1. A Source
2. A process of encoding
3. A Message
4. A Channel
5. A Process of decoding
6. A Receiver
7. The Potential of feedback
8. The Chance of Noise
I. Source: Generally communications commences when the source has an idea or a thought that they wish to transmit to some other entity. Sources might be single individuals or groups.
II. Encoding: Refers to the ideas that a source goes through to transform thoughts and ideas into form that may be perceived by senses. When you have something to say, your tongue cooperates with your brain; the pen cooperates with your brain and fingers, the telephone cooperates with your tongue and your brain; the camera cooperates with the cameraman and the script written by the producer. Encoding is mainly Infrastructural. Name encoding sources around you. How do you bypass noises during the Encoding Process?
III. Noise Interference: are all factors that prevent a source from encoding his message. Name them in this context.
IV. Message: The message is the actual physical product that the source encodes. When we talk, our speech is the message; when we write a letter the message is put on paper; the radio programme, the TV drama, the film is the message. Messages can be specific and directed to one individual or to millions. Some messages are cheap to produce (speech) or difficult (a book). Some messages are more under the control of the receiver than the sender.
V. Channels: This refers to the way in which the message travels to the receiver. Sound waves carry spoken words; light waves carry sound, air currents carry messages to our noses. Chanel 5, of garlic, of Achu soup, touch. Some messages need more than one channel. Radio is first electromagnetic until transformed by receiving sets.Natural facilitators of Communications or channels include: Air, waves, light waves, air Currents, electromagnetic fields, Sound waves.
Receiving the Message
I. Decoding: The Decoding Process is opposite of the encoding process. It consists of activities that translate or interpret physical messages into a form that has eventual meaning to the receiver. As you read these lines, you are decoding an encoded message. If you are listening to radio while decoding you are decoding two messages simultaneously – one aural one visual. Man is programmed to decode at least three messages simultaneously. A reporter sitting at a Council meeting decodes the Mayor’s message into his notebook; she further decodes the massage into a phone for his City desk. The editor again decodes the message. Eventually it is printed and decoded by the readers. The radio is a decoder, so too is your mobile phone.
II. The Receiver: The receiver is the target of the message-the ultimate goal. The receiver can be a single person, a group, an institution, or even a large anonymous collection of people. In today’s environment there are more people receiving messages than sources sending them out. For example, one Councillor puts out a billboard and 200.000 people “receive” them.
The receiver can be determined by the source or the receivers can self-select themselves to receive the message. The source and the receiver can be in each other’s presence or they can be disparate.
From Goals in Life to Goats and Knives SNV tested the communication skills of its guests by passing around the following two sentences down both sides the personal Communication line for onward transmission to the next guest in the next seat. 1. Goals in life seem difficult to achieve because we do not make proper use of our abilities 2. The walls we build around us to keep out the sorrow also keep out the joy. The guests ‘failed’ the Intelligent test and woefully. The seasoned Communicators somehow managed to send back the following far-out whoppers. 1. Goats and knives have other things in common!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2. The walls we build can keep us outside. Now how’s that from communicators?
III. Feedback: Feedback is often more a potential than likelihood. The radio hack who sits behind a microphone and sends out a message hopes that there is somebody listening. Feedback represents a reversal in the flow of information. The original source becomes the receiver and the receiver now becomes the source. Feedback is vital because it guarantees the communication rather than the information process. Communication scholars have identified two types of feedback: Negative and Positive Feedback. Positive feedback encourages the communication process whereas negative feedback halts the process.
Noises or Interference: Anything that perturbs the communication process is called noise. A little noise might pass unnoticed but too much noise makes communication impossible. There are various types of noises.
I. Semantic Noises. Semantic noise occurs when people have different meanings for different words and sentences. For example. Have some bread. This bread can be the outcome of wheat flour that has gone through the baking process. Or bread can be money.
II. Mechanical Noise. This occurs when there is a problem with the machine being used to encode or decode the communication message. A TV set with a broken focus knob and a radio set with static sends out the wrong messages.
III. Environmental Noise. Atmospheric conditions, deliberate noise perturbs the communication process.
IV. Socio-legal-administrative Noise. Events and outcomes invented by the authorities to perturb and shield the audience from completing the communication process.
The difference Between Information and Communication
Difference in Communication types and setting
|
Inter-personal |
Machine-assisted Inter-personal |
Mass
|
Source |
Single person who knows receiver |
Single person or group; deal with great deal of knowledge or no knowledge of receiver |
Organization with little knowledge of receiver |
Encoding |
Single stage |
Single or multiple stages |
Multiple stages |
Message |
Private or public; cheap. Hard to terminate; altered to fit receivers |
Private or public, low to moderate expense, relatively easy to terminate, can be altered to fit receivers |
Public; expensive, easily terminated, same message to everybody |
Channel |
Potential for many channels, no machine used |
Restricted to one or two, at least one machine used |
Restricted to one or two, usually more than one machine used |
Decoding |
Single stage |
Single or multiple stages |
Multiple stages |
Receiver |
One or a relatively small number; in physical presence of source; selected by source |
One person or a small or large group; within or outside of physical presence of source; selected by source or self defined |
Large numbers; out of physical presence of source; self-selected |
Feedback |
Plentiful and immediate |
Somewhat limited, immediate or delayed |
Highly limited; usually delayed |
Noise |
Semantic and environmental |
Semantic, environmental, mechanical |
Semantic, environmental, mechanical |
B: The Difference between Communication and Community-based /Participatory/Development Communications (CBC)
Three-quarters of the world's population, especially the poor (4 billion people) live in rural areas. In order to be truly of service to the underprivileged and rural poor, mass communications must therefore create conditions and mechanisms that can provide people with genuine access to mass communications. Such mechanisms will offer ways in which people can express their sentiments, opinions, views, dreams and aspirations, their fears and insecurities, their strengths and capabilities, as well as their potential for development.
Among development specialists, extension workers, and community leaders, it has been argued for some time that local, rural and definitely poor communities have to be themselves involved in conscious action to tackle the problems of underdevelopment. In this way, the very process of development becomes an enabling and empowering one. This concept has led to evolution of Community-based/Participatory/Development Communication, a form of communication, which gives the underprivileged access not only to information but also to the use of mass communications.
The people would therefore circumscribe the neologism development journalism and/or communication as using mass communications tools in the production of mass communications goods for the people and talking about the people and of/with the people.
Community-based Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications is a process of empowering people by ‘giving back’ their respect and dignity. In a sense, it is ‘giving back’ their humanity.
The community-based communicator adopts a human systems approach. Coming out of a people-centred, as opposed to programme-centred paradigm, the whole system should be seen as an integrated whole to propel itself in attaining its purpose. People are both the subject and object of a community-based Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications (CBC). The people and works run the system for the people. The system, therefore, is inherently human and not merely mechanical or technical. It deals with people and ideas, with life. It is a system that is alive, developing and constantly changing.
Seen in this light, development Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications becomes communications par excellence because the people in local communities are at the start and the finish of the process.
I. Communication creates Community
A community can be defined as a group of humanoids/people living within a congruent territorial/geographic confine and haring a common history/past, culture and mores but with a strong desire to share a common future or live with each other. It can be argued strongly that communications, be it even by the visual display of signs (semiology) and oral tradition creates, builds and sustains a community.
But a community must not be seen as the local community alone. A community of peoples and nations, as well as a community of different voices singing in unism has to emerge if humankind is to survive.
Many people today fear or deplore the loss of community and community spirit. Rather than bringing people together, the mass media/communication often isolate or divide them by focusing on the often non-essential elements that divide society/community.
Yet communication, including the use of alternative media, can revitalize communities and rekindle community spirit, because the model for genuine communication, like that for communities of all kinds, is open and inclusive, rather than unidirectional and exclusive.
The development communicator tries to break down all kinds of barriers which prevent the development of communities with rights and justice for all - particularly such barriers as tribe, gender, class, village, town, power and wealth.
Genuine communication cannot take place in a climate of division, alienation, isolation, and barriers that disturb, prevent, or distort social interaction. True communication is facilitated when people join together regardless of tribe, gender, class, village, town, power, wealth race, colour or religious conviction, and where there is acceptance of and commitment to one another.
Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications for Rural Development
Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications represents an immense power with enormous potential reach. Opening up opportunities for the intended beneficiaries of development to participate in the utilization of this powerful tool will enable them to participate in evolving a development agenda, which can appropriately and adequately respond to their needs and aspirations. Access to mass communications is access only to information. But access to the power of Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications is access to life.
Box 1: Strengths of Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications |
Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications provides the needed reach, frequency, and access to rural and remote areas, making it a promising, appropriate and powerful tool for education. In addition, ownership and patronage among poor households are relatively high compared to other mass communications forms, particularly in rural settings. |
A Dominant Process: Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications reaches even far-flung and isolated areas. |
An Effective Process: Communications is a high frequency vehicle, which caters to both literate and illiterate populations. The impact of its auditory properties on the senses helps to dramatize messages. Communications is flexible in shifting from one message/content to another. Both production and material costs are low. It can serve as a two-way form of communication in remote areas and provides a potential vehicle for grassroots action and mass education |
A Cost-efficient Process: Communications is cost-efficient.
|
Among the 4 billion poor people in the world, 70 percent are woman (ibid.). Hence, a communication process that recognizes this audience solves one half of its problem.
II. Communication is Participatory
Communication is, by definition, participatory. It is a two-way process. It is interactive because it shares meaning and establishes and maintains social relationships. The more widespread and powerful the media become, the greater the need for people to engage in their own local or inter-group communication activities. In this way, they will also rediscover and develop traditional forms of communication.
Only if people become subjects rather than objects of communication can they develop their full potential as individuals and groups. Communication is now considered an individual and social necessity of such fundamental importance that it is seen as a universal human right. Communication as a human right encompasses the traditional freedoms: of expression, of the right to seek, receive and impart information. But it adds to these freedoms, both for individuals and society, a new concept, namely that of access, participation and two-way flow.
Participatory communication may challenge the authoritarian structures in society, in the churches and in the media, while democratizing new areas of life. It may also challenge some of the 'professional rules' of the media, whereby the powerful, rich and glamorous occupy centre stage to the exclusion of ordinary men, women and children. Participatory communication, finally, can give people a new sense of human dignity, a new experience of community, and the enjoyment of a fuller life.
The mass media have been organised along one-way lines: they flow from top to bottom, from the centre to the periphery, from the few to the many, from the 'information rich' to the 'information poor'. This has conditioned the minds of many people - not only in terms of the media's content but also by creating a 'mass media mentality'.
Many think that this is the way the media have to work. Even those who advocate horizontal flow are often only concerned with an increase in the number of channels, the diversification of content and localization of media. They still adhere to the basic top-down principle.
On the other hand, there is now a growing awareness that there are information and communication needs, felt by individuals and groups, which the mass media cannot meet. Modern communication technologies could allow a much higher degree of participation than those who control the media systems are willing to grant or to develop.
III. Communication Liberates
The mass media are a form of power and often part of a system of power. They are usually structured in such a way as to reinforce the status quo in favour of the economically and politically powerful. Mass media power thus has a dominating effect that is contrary to genuine communication.
We cannot communicate with people whom we regard as 'inferior', whose basic worth as humans we do not respect. We can simply impart information to them or sell 'media products' to them. Genuine communication presupposes the recognition that all human beings are of equal worth. The more explicit equality becomes in human interaction, the more easily communication occurs.
There are crude and subtle ways of silencing people. The dictates of modern nationalism and the demands of ruling ideologies are examples of how freedom has been curtailed and contrary views suppressed. When media boast of or clamour for freedom of the press or of broadcasting, they should be asked: Whose freedom and whose liberty? Freedom of communication is bound up with the quest for community and the fulfillment of the individual and social needs of all, rather than of just a few.
Communication, which liberates, enables people to articulate their own needs and helps them to act together to meet those needs. It enhances their sense of dignity and underlines their right to full participation in the life of society. It aims to bring about structures in society, which are more just, more egalitarian and more conducive to the fulfillment of human rights.
IV. Communication supports and develops cultures
A people's basic culture and need for cultural identity are part of the dignity of the human person. Many countries and peoples are now rediscovering and redefining their basic cultural identities. This is particularly urgent where culture, language, religion, gender, age, ethnicity, or race have been attacked or treated with contempt by members of other cultural groups.
Global communication structures are now being set up in such a way as to threaten the cultures and priorities of many nations. More seriously, the entertainment industries, particularly television and home video programmes, are creating a media environment, which is alien and alienating. The Western criteria of the mass media have already been adopted by the national elites in countries of the South. They set the 'standards' of what can rate as 'professional' in media productions, often preventing the emergence of alternative forms of communication.
Communicators now have an awesome responsibility to use and develop indigenous forms of communication. They have to cultivate a symbolic environment of mutually shared images and meanings, which respect human dignity and the religious and cultural values which are at the heart of Third World cultures. One of the greatest assets of today's world is its many different cultures, revealing the richness of God's image in all its diversity.
V. Communication is Prophetic
Prophetic communication expresses itself in words and deeds. Such prophetic action must be willing to challenge the principalities and powers, that be and may carry a high price. Prophetic communication serves truth and challenges falsehood. Lies and half-truths are a great threat to communication.
Prophetic communication stimulates critical awareness of the reality constructed by the media and helps people to distinguish truth from falsehood, to discern the subjectivity of the journalist and to disassociate that which is ephemeral and trivial from that which is lasting and valuable. Often it is necessary to develop alternative communication so that prophetic words and deeds can be realized.
The Community-Based Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications Credo
By the people, of the people, for people and with the people
By, of, for and with the people is the credo of present-day development communication or, as it is currently called, community-based communication. In this context, community communication represents the development of two-way communication within a mass process as a means to achieve change and holistic human development.
The community-based Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications (CBC) approach, rather than isolating its audience, seeks to build relationships between the broadcaster and the people listening on the other side. The concept of community communication thus embraces a mission, an orientation, a commitment, and a stand for the people with development needs.
Experts in community broadcasting are merely facilitators of learning. Their role is to evoke and provoke the expression of what others know. Only towards the end of programmes do facilitators summarize, add, or modify the expression of the learners' experience. This way of looking at expertise can also be extended to include other development professionals: government extension workers; NGO animators; and those who work together with communities to improve the people's living conditions and uplift their status in society.
Within the framework of Community Development, two of the most important elements of the community-based approach to Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications include:
· for the people
· of the people
· by the people
· with the people
For the people
It is essential that the audience of community-based Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications (CBC) feel that:
· the process is being used for their welfare;
· they are not mere receivers of information;
· the process is within their reach and at their disposal; and
· there is support beyond the loud sound.
When people are able to express themselves through Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications and when their concerns are heard, considered, and acted upon, their dignity and self-confidence increases. When this occurs, people develop an appreciation of the process as an important resource for their own development. This realization, in itself, involves an essential change towards development.
Of the People
This concept establishes that the clientele, through the process of participatory individual and mass communications, has identified itself with both the programme and the process. Once this occurs, the process has been demassified and demystified. People will have experienced that they are part and parcel of the process. They will have gained ownership of it through identification.
Community-based Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications is achieved once a community identifies itself with a Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications station and its programming. At first, it is generally very difficult for people in a community to identify themselves with a Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications station given their lack of ownership of the process. However, when people's needs are adequately addressed, they usually seek to get involved and being to take part in programmes. When people see that a Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications programme is meant for them and speaks about them, they come to identify themselves with the Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications station. In this context, the Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications has become community-based, although not necessarily community-owned.
In community-based Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications, actors begin to identify with the process or the source. In one sense, the Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications programme can no longer be referred to as the source given that the people are actually both the resource and the receiver. This type of relationship between the audience and the process goes beyond that of a two-way communication model. It is the start of a budding sense of community.
Generally the entire Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications problematic and its absence thereof is contained in the fine details of every component of the Communications Loop
A closer study of the Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications process makes the point.
Key Items of the Community-based Communication Process.
i. Content: Content refers to the subject matter, and other relevant materials that are translated into the central message. Content refers to the substance of what is communicated. These are the ideas, concepts, and values that trigger the communications process. The formulation and conceptualization of the content is highly dependent on the needs and aspirations of the people in the community. The volume of the content also dependent on the needs and goals of the target clientele.
ii. Context: Context refers to the analysis of the situation or the environment where the communications takes place. The context presupposes environmental scanning that is inclusive of the people's situation, educational background, and capabilities, current problems, issues of interest, aspirations, and dreams. Also of relevance is the existence of popular figures and natural leaders in the community, as well as the people's values and beliefs. Basically, the context offers a ‘situationer’ where the needs of the people are first determined and an understanding of the language and culture in the community is molded. The context is in harmony with the tenet ‘start where the people are’. Chronologically, the context should be studied first, before the formulation or design of any communications. (the content).
iii. Format: Format primarily refers to packaging or how the communicator packages the content of the message. Format deals with how to transform a dry material into something popular, acceptable and interesting. How to convert a dull subject into something enticing. Different forms or formats can be used in communications to enable different topics to come out in a certain context. Format also refers to how the communicator puts into a ‘format’ the thinking and feeling of its audience.
Two types of formatting are generally used:
· Concept formats are the result of how communication techniques change perceptions through a play of images. When perception is formatted or changed to fit a particular mould, changes or effects in cognition and emotion follow. Action is not then far off.
· Tool formats relate to the packaging of messages as translated into images. Tool formats create images in the mind and heart. Some examples of tool formats include drama, documentary, public forum, straight news, straight talk, spots, or a combination of these. A community development communicator should use a mixed format that evokes interest from the audience.
iv. Process: Process figuratively refers to the cement that will ensure the success of the communication process. Communications becomes an empowering process when people are able to analyze the data given to them and when they have the ability to formulate decisions following proper analysis. It is when people are able to discover what they know and what they have learned through systematization of learning that communications proves successful.
Let us repeat this: Community-based Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications is a process of empowering people by ‘giving back’ their respect and dignity. In a sense, it is ‘giving back’ their humanity.
The community-based communicator adopts a human systems approach. Coming out of a people-centred, as opposed to programme-centred paradigm, the whole system should be seen as an integrated whole to propel itself in attaining its purpose. People are both the subject and object of a community-based Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications (CBC). The people and works run the system for the people. The system, therefore, is inherently human and not merely mechanical or technical. It deals with people and ideas, with life. It is a system that is alive, developing and constantly changing.
In this context, the producer/source and planners not only deal with the packaged technical messages, but also with the physical and social environment and how these are interrelated. The degree of the system's success is very much dependent on the integration of functions of each element or component. All four elements (content, context, process and format) are interrelated and overlap in the development-Community-based Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications production process in more ways than one. Content and process are the more important elements among the four. The content strengthens the process and the process builds up on the content. The format refers to tools, while the context heightens the meaning of the content. The content and the process are two ‘end-products’ that the learner can use in her/his daily life.
Content and process are the two most important elements in the framework. In reality, however, content belongs to the inner core of the framework and is dependent on the context as seen in Figure 3. The process provides the cementing factor between content and context, and the format. The format is what immediately gets in contact with our senses. The format is, therefore, only important as a package to attract attention and create interest so that an image may be formed. What is more important than format is the process that will be created by the communications activity and the content. The context attests to the usefulness, the efficiency and effectiveness of the content as transferred to the learner
Terms of Reference of The community-based /Participatory/Development Communications process
i. Need-based. The process should respond to the audience’s perceived and actual needs and aspirations. The subject matter is best transmitted if the facilitators possess thorough knowledge and understanding about the people being served, their situation, their culture, and their perceptions. The process should also be locally specific.
ii. Practical behavioural objectives (social mobilization). The community-based /Participatory/Development Communications process should seek to achieve behavioral changes and not merely cognitive gains. It is recommended that behavioral objectives flow toward organizational or social mobilization to promote community building and nation building.
iii. Economic or utilitarian significance. In order for the audience to appreciate the process, it must respond to an immediate economic or utilitarian need. The people need to realize that the Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications subject matter responds to their basic interests.
iv. Resource Availability. A link exists on the ground between the CBC implementation scheme and the audience’s resource availability in the area, primarily at the household level. The applicability of the subject matter to the actual situation of households is dependent on the availability of supporting resources, whether material, technical, or human.
v. Research and Experience-Based. The Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications subject matter should be well researched. Sufficient experience-based information and application should be available to sustain the process. Similarly, the subject matter must be technically feasible and possible for application by the target audience.
vi. Holistic Integration of Audience. Different topics in the programme should be integrated into a life cycle or life situation. Since Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications deals directly with how life is lived, the process should be holistic in its treatment of the different components of the audience.
Clear Messages, Concrete Examples. The message codification should be concrete and within the scope of the audience's experience. Alienating abstractions, paradigms and concepts must be avoided
Action Program.
How to Effect Effective Development Communication in any Community
POTENCY OF Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications
I. IDEOLOGY Mastery. Know the facts, the Message, and the Messenger.
II. VALUES FORMATION. Know the reason behind the Message
III. POPULARIZATION. Know the audience.
IV. CLOUT. Know the tools of Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications and Persuasive Communication.
Principles of Community-Based Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications
The Gospel of Participatory Communication for PR/Com Officials 1. Be Issue-based 2. Be Catalytic, Evocative almost provocative 3. Be proactive or understand and use your Context/content 4. Be Interactive 5. Be Creative* (see creativity power factors) 6. Be facilitative 7. Be humble servants of the people 8. Network horizontally and vertically 9. Monitor and evaluate daily, weekly, monthly
· Your creative skill is a divine/spiritual matter. You were created by God to create. The Com/PR officer is a creative person linked to spiritual creative powers. Use the 07 power factors and meditate a lot. The power factors are. Intellectual, Finance, Media, Moral, Physical, Intuition/divine insight all linked by the Spirit of God. Link to the Spirit of God to show you all things and How TO: Contact UMI for greater insights.
Experience has shown that five basic principles should be at the core of any effort to promote Community-Based Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications. In particular, it is essential to:
2. Start by knowing yourself and the Message. Study to get yourself approved by the audience. Know yourself, your talents, and your message. Know the reason behind the message/Rhema behind the word. Know the effects you intend to create.
3. Start where the people are. Know your audience. Research is usually necessary to gain knowledge about the target audience and the surrounding environment. However, there is no substitute for the knowledge acquired through a communicator’s visibility and sensitivity developed through extensive exposure to the community itself. Be part of the community. This implies the absence of presumptive and fixed programme ideas about development as one enters a community through the mass communications. Development should consider the people's consciousness and context. It is thus important for the communicator to be immersed with the community itself. It is necessary to start with people's needs, desires, aspirations, and dreams, whether expressed or unexpressed, conscious or thematic. It is necessary to begin from the client's knowledge base. Communication should spring from the specific contextual situation in which people are located.
4. Ensure maximum participation of the people being served. To maintain the participatory process of development and development communication, it is vital for the source to always ensure the existence of two-way communication. The communicator and audience must always be in a level of continuous interaction.
5. Be sensitive. Strict attention to the needs and culture of the target audience should be uppermost in the source's mind. The needs and aspirations of the community should take primacy, not the goals of the producer/source/communicator. Alienating the community and manipulating their culture are two of the greatest dangers in Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications for development.
6. Encourage creativity among participants. Creativity can be encouraged through the use of multimedia techniques such as recorded group discussions, public hearings and debates. Group processes can evoke and provoke participation and involvement that leads to concrete action. The use of area folk mass communications can also make the process more interesting and locally specific. The creativity of participants further encourages sources to be more creative in responding and attuning themselves to people's needs.
7. Base programmes on issues. Issue-based programming is of greatest interest to target audiences. When the issues covered represent people's own concerns, the process can trigger collective action for change. People become conscious of the need for action. Provocative and evocative questions about issues of interest become very effective Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications techniques for participants. People sense the relevance of what they are “hearing” when they see how the issues touch them in their immediate lives.
8. Know the tools of development Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications. Know which tool is effective for which circumstance and why.
9. Be Imaginative and Creative. Imagination and creativity also play a vital role. For instance, listeners' clubs, community clubs, discussion groups, public hearings can be organized in villages, towns, and provinces. Sponsoring contests can be used as a means to entice people to listen to the communicator. Village correspondents can be identified and organized to gather relevant local news/needs. Key people from the grassroots can be identified. Community celebrations such as parties, fiestas, and festivities also provide opportunities to gather news and ideas, and gain insights regarding the concerns and feelings of local people. Imaginative ways to actively involve the whole community should continually be sought. Sources should be able to respond to listeners concerns through the Community-based/Participatory/Development Communications. Programmes should seek to effectively adapt to the changes in people's perceptions and needs. If ways to give the people being served a voice can be found, then it must be done. After all, this is the essence of empowerment.
Comments