Social Norms
Social norms action with informed and engaged societies
Social Norms
After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future.
 
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
 
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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Prison Media

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Prison Media is a prison-based project run by Media for Development (MFD), a not-for-profit organisation that works to empower isolated communities through media. This project aims to reduce re-offending by improving participants' self-confidence, sense of self-worth, and ability to communicate through media-based training and employment. It was launched in 2004 in the United Kingdom (UK)'s largest prison, and was replicated and expanded at a women's prison south of London in 2006. The primary project beneficiaries are the prisoners who participate in the courses and who then gain work experience by producing programming/publishing output. The secondary project beneficiaries are other prisoners, whom MFD believes will benefit from the produced media and information. The third beneficiaries are the prison officers, in that MFD aims to foster improved communications and better relationships between officers and prisoners.
Communication Strategies
Prison Media includes three strands of work, described below in more detail: 1) in-work education; 2) internal prison broadcasts; and 3) routes into employment on release. It centres around a broadcasting unit set up within the prison walls. This unit functions as an internal prison radio or television (TV) station, where Prison Media participants produce shows for broadcast within the prison. The unit provides a 'real work' environment where participants can access on-the-job training and work that is designed to be creative, challenging, responsible, and rewarding. The project also seeks to provide routes into employment or further education on release, and to this end provides work placements to graduates of the courses at Inside Job Productions, a sister social enterprise production company established by MFD.

Specifically, the Prison Media programme includes the following activities:
  1. In-work training and education - Central to Prison Media is the idea that participants' self-confidence and self-esteem remains low if they have low expectations of themselves. Therefore, unlike many prison-based education courses, Prison Media is purposefully designed to be challenging, in order to provide an avenue for participants to recognise their own abilities. The course covers a wide range of skills, including interviewing and presentational techniques, news and current affairs broadcasting, radio/TV drama, and radio/TV production. The course gives learners a qualification which organisers describe as "transferable and meaningful, and for many the most advanced qualification they will have gained in their lives so far."
  2. Internal prison broadcasts - Students and Prison Media graduates produce regular broadcasts for the prison. The studio mirrors a real working environment as closely as possible, and participants are expected to take responsibility for the content and delivery of programmes, tailoring them to the needs of their audience and the prison management. The project's emphasis is on "bottom-up" programme development, building on MFD's roots in international development and community radio. MFD explains that producing material for an audience focuses participants’ attention on keeping standards high. In addition to accessing what MFD characterises as a much-needed creative outlet, participants find out how well they are able to work under pressure, learn how to work in teams, and develop strategies for solving problems quickly and effectively. According to MFD, research has also indicated that improved internal communications within the prison community, which the internal broadcasts are meant to foster, can lead to a cultural change whereby better informed prisoners are more settled and responsive to the prison regime.
  3. Routes into education and employment beyond prison - Although some participants have continued their education through media-based degree courses into media-based degree courses on release, MFD explains that, for many, the project is more about finding out who they really are and what they are capable of. MFD indicates that much of this personal progress can be lost when an individual is released, however, and so the project seeks ways to smooth the transition for participants, focusing on finding routes to education and employment. MFD's social enterprise, Inside Job Productions (referenced above), provides work placements in the MFD office in London for graduates of the programme. MFD explains that Prison Media is still in the process of expansion, so these work placements tend to provide only very limited employment opportunities, but organisers are continuing to seek out ways to expand the work placements available outside prison for graduates of the programme, either directly through MFD projects or through partnership.
Development Issues

Economic Development.

Key Points
MFD (formerly called Radio for Development, or RFD) has based this programme on the belief that many people in the prison population have lost confidence in mainstream education provision. MFD has found that that radio and other media are effective tools for reaching out to, and engaging with, the prison population.

The project has been evaluated by the Hallam Centre for Community Justice, a department of Sheffield Hallam University. Copies of this document are available from MFD (please see contact details, below).

As of August 2007, organisers say that, over the next 3 years they aim to replicate the project in up to 10 more sites within the UK. They are also exploring how the project may be relevant in other countries, with a particular focus on East and Southern Africa, where MFD has already undertaken partnership work with local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and broadcasters.