Making Waves: Stories of Participatory Communication for Social Change - Introduction - What is the Question?/ Profile of Participatory Communication

WHAT IS THE QUESTION?

"If community media is the answer, what is the question?"[7] The question sends us back to our initial observations on development and participation. The answer is part of the dialogue that has to be established among stakeholders in a developmental process that aims for social change. The sole lack of dialogue already justifies the vision of community media where people will have the means to express what they think about their problems, their present and their future.

The history of international cooperation for development is plagued with embarrassing anecdotes that show the extremes reached because of lack of communication: development agents incapable of expressing their technical views and supposed beneficiaries unable to communicate their own perspective. One single example seems to capture the essence of this huge misunderstanding. Very often in health campaigns that aim to minimise water-borne diseases, women are advised to boil the water before drinking it. This advice, which may seem straight-forward, simple to understand, and logical from any point of view, actually symbolises the lack of sensitivity that often characterises development projects.

Radio and television spots with the message "boil the water" continue to be produced and aired in many developing countries regardless of its impact. A female radio producer in Mexico puts itthis way: "I tell the ladies over the microphone to boil the water, but I know they're not going to do it, because they have no fuel, they have no wood."[8] Regardless of the distressing effects of unsafe water, when 8 percent of the rural women in the world depend on wood for cooking and often walk five or more kilometres every day to fetch dry sticks, boiling the water is certainly not a priority for them.

"If community media is the answer, what is the question?" The response may be: "the answer is the question." If the questions were more often discussed with the communities, if a permanent and nonexclusive dialogue was established among all stakeholders on local development issues, the question may not have even been formulated.

The questions and the answers on the communication initiatives have to be worked out with the community. What kind of communication does the community need, if any? Which is the communication system traditionally used in the community? What kind of communication tools can the community afford, not only in terms of funding but also in terms of skills and social appropriation of the new media? Participatory research would help to develop these questions and help the community to find the answers.



The dialogic process may also help to demystify the perception of the community as a homogenous human universe. The idealised vision of a community entirely united by its fate or history or culture is one of the first masking myths to go. Every society or community has social strata and divergent interests. Though to different degrees, every community urban or rural has the rich and the poor; the politician and the artist; the religious leader and the fool of the town. The cultural universe is complex and evolving permanently. Ready made recipes don't work, and technical assistance is only valid through permanent dialogue and communication. Experts in development come and go, and the ideal 'expert', "has to go through these stages: indispensable, necessary, useful and once the initial goals are achieved superfluous", according to Manuel Calvelo. [9]

THE PROFILE OF PARTICIPATORY COMMUNICATION

There is no ideal established model for participatory communication, and each of the case stories reviewed in this report confirms the uniqueness of every experience, both with its positive and negative aspects. All had to overcome obstacles, and some couldn't reach the point where external inputs were no longer necessary. We are learning from the virtues and mistakes of these experiences by placing them side-by-side like the pieces of a puzzle, not because at the end of this process there is the complete model for all circumstances, but because from the multiple experiences we may draw some pieces for a new puzzle.

If no ideal model is possible, or necessary, still there are some common characteristics of participatory communication that we would like to see more often in those projects and initiatives that claim they have participatory components.

Communication and participation are actually two words sharing the same concept. Etymologically the Latin communio relates to participation and sharing. Modern languages have given different meanings to the word communication it is very often considered synonymous with the word information. There is confusion, mostly by English speakers, between communication the act or process of communicating, and communications with an 's' the means of sending messages, orders, etc.

When trying to design the profile of participatory communication,it is important to be conscious about the political implications of participation in development, and moreover of participatory communication:

• An issue of power. The democratisation of communication cuts through the issue of power. Participatory approaches contribute to put decision-making in the hands of the people. It also consolidates the capability of communities to confront their own ideas about development with development planners and technical staff.Within the community itself, it favours the strengthening of an internal democratic process.
• An issue of identity. Especially in communities that have been marginalised, repressed or simply neglected during decades, participatory communication contributes to install cultural pride and self-esteem. It reinforces the social tissue through the strengthening of local and indigenous forms of organisation. It protects tradition and cultural values, while facilitating the integration of new elements.

The main elements that characterise participatory communication are related to its capacity to involve the human subjects of social change in the process of communicating. The theoretical framework for participatory communication owes much to Paulo Freire. His books [10] have not only revolutionised the world of education, but also communication for social change.



Other models of communication for development, that have been implemented particularly around health issues, often fail to organise their strategy and their values from the perspective of the communities that are the end beneficiaries.

These are some of the issues that distinguish participatory communication from other development communication strategies in search of social changes:

• Horizontal vs. Vertical People as dynamic actors, actively participating in the process of social change and in control of the communication tools and contents; rather than people perceived as passive receivers of information and behavioural instructions, while others make decisions on their lives.
• Process vs. Campaign. People taking in hand their own future through a process of dialogue and democratic participation in planning communication activities; rather than expensive unsustainable top-down campaigns that help to mobilise but not to build a capacity to respond from the community level to the needs of change.
• Long-term vs. Short-term. Communication and development in general is conceived as a long-term process which needs time to be appropriated by the people; rather than short-term planning, which is seldom sensitive to the cultural environment and mostly concerned with showing results for evaluations external to the community.
• Collective vs. Individual. Urban or rural communities acting collectively in the interest of the majority, preventing the risk of losing power to a few; rather than people targeted individually, detached from their community and from the communal forms of decision-making.
• With vs. For. Researching,designing and disseminating messages with participation; rather than designing, pre-testing, launching and evaluating messages that were conceived for the community, and remain external to it.
• Specific vs. Massive. The communication process adapted to each community or social group in terms of content, language, culture and media; rather than the tendency to use the same techniques, the same media and the same messages in diverse cultural settings and for different social sectors of society.
• People's needs vs. Donors' musts. Community-based dialogue and communication tools to help identify, define and discriminate between the felt needs and the real needs; rather than donor-driven communication initiatives based on donor needs (family planning,for example).
• Ownership vs. Access. A communication process that is owned by the people to provide equal opportunities to the community; rather than access that is conditioned by social, political or religious factors.
• Consciousness vs. Persuasion. A process of raising consciousness and deep understanding about social reality, problems and solutions; rather than persuasion for short-term behavioural changes that are only sustainable with continuous campaigns.

None of the experiences selected for this report can claim to have a profile that comprehends all the above strengths of participatory communication, but they all contribute to some degree to shape a collective profile, which gives much hope for the future of communication, participation and social change.

Footnotes

[1] Shirley A.White: The concept of participation:transforming rhetoric to reality,in Participatory Communication: working for change and development SAGE Publications, 1994.

[2] Translated from: La Formación de los Comunicadores para el Desarrollo by Manuel Calvelo.

[3] Unfortunately in recent years new radio stations operated by obscure religious denominations, mostly evangelic, have contributed to the exact opposite, dividing communities, thus affecting their social and cultural tissue.[4] Johan Deflander from PANOS Mali, atclick here.

[5] According to Ethnologue (February 1999): 885 million speakers of Mandarin, followed by 332 Spanish, 322 English, 189 Bengali, 182 Hindi, 170 Portuguese, 170 Russian, 125 Japanese, 98 German and 77 million of Wu.

[6] Communication Approaches to Participation and Development: Challenging the Assumptions and Perspectives by Keval J. Kumar, in Participatory Communication: working for change and development SAGE Publications, 1994.

[7] Alfred E. Opubor of New Africa International Network (Zimbabwe), at a UNESCO seminar on Promoting Community Media in Africa, Kampala, June 1999.

[8] Lucila Vargas,Social Uses and Radio Practices: the use of participatory radio by ethnic minorities in Mexico Westview Press, 1995, Boulder, Colorado (USA).

[9] Manuel Calvelo has been one of the most creative communicators in Latin America, his philosophy about participatory communication is behind important experiences such as CESPAC (Peru) and PRODERITH (Mexico).

[10] From Education: The Practice of Freedom (1967)and Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) to Education for Critical Consciousness (1973).

Continued...click here to return to the Table of Contents.