Development communication aims to provide communities with information to improve their lives and make public programs meaningful and sustainable. It addresses information needs identified by communities and aims to enhance quality of life. Development communication uses various media like television, radio, newspapers, and traditional media to promote development goals through approaches like social marketing and entertainment-education. These approaches combine entertainment with educational messages to raise awareness and change behaviors related to issues like family planning, agriculture, and health. Effective development communication involves community participation and using culturally appropriate local media and languages.

1. Development communication

2. What is development communication?
• This describes an approach to
communication which provides
communities with information they
can use in bettering their lives,
which aims at making public
programmes and policies real,
meaningful and sustainable.

3. • Such information must be
applied in some way as part of
community development but it
must also address information
needs which communities
themselves identified.
• The outcome of this approach,
in short, is to make a
difference in the quality of life
of communities.

4. • Nora Quebral (1971) defines
development communication as
follows:
• Development communication is 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 fulfillment of
the human potential.

5. Comparison of diffusion and participatory
approaches
• The diffusion model assumes that a
proper combination of mass-mediated
and interpersonal communication
strategies can move individuals from
poor to not-poor via a process starting
with awareness (of a new technology
or practice) through interest,
evaluation, trial and finally to adoption
of the technology or practice that is
assumed to lead to improved
livelihoods.

6. Summary of diffusion approach (Waisbord 2000)
Diffusion model
• Definition of communication:
information transfer - vertical
• Definition of development
communication: information
dissemination via mass media
• Problem: lack of information
• Solution: information transfer:
Knowledge - Attitudes - Practice
• Goal: outcome oriented: behavior
change

7. • In the early 1970s an intellectual shift
occurred in the basic conception of
development communication when
predominately Latin American scholars
challenged the diffusion approach to
development communication.
• Critics of the diffusion model were unsettled
by its pro-innovation, pro-persuasion and top-down
nature that is, its strong emphasis on
adoption and lack of emphasis on recipient
input into the development decisions and
processes. (Colle, 1989).

8. • Therefore in the 1970s, there was a
shift to the participatory approach,
which is based on a systems
framework with an emphasis on
horizontal communication through
which the poor/disadvantaged are
directly involved in the communication
process.
• They not only adopt but are part of the
creation of the new
technology/knowledge.

9. The effectiveness of participatory development
communication: Some contextual factors
The participatory approach is made effective
by a number of factors. Among these
factors
are:
• creating a participatory communication
environment that not only gives room for
the expression of diverse ideas on societal
developmental concerns, but also
facilitates grassroots-level interaction;
• strengthening the flow of public
information and opportunities of public
dialogue on development policies and
programmes;

10. • producing and disseminating information
content that reflects as well as responds to
the local values and information needs of the
people at the grassroots level;
• using culturally appropriate communication
approaches and content;
• using community communication-access
points, especially community radio
• harnessing the strengths of traditional media
(drama, dance, songs, story-telling, etc.) and
combining them with new information and
communication technologies;

11. Summary of participatory approach (Waisbord 2000)
Participatory model
• Definition of communication: information
exchange/dialogue - horizontal
• Definition of development communication:
grassroots participation via group interaction
• Problem: structural inequalities/local
knowledge ignored
• Solution: information exchange/ participation
• Goal: process-oriented: empowerment,
equity, community

12. • Frameworks: Types of
interventions
• Social change/praxis (Freire)
Empowerment education
• Social mobilization/activism
Participatory Action Research
(PAR)
• Rapid Participatory Appraisal
(RPA)

13. Use of various media in development
communication
• The two main techniques adopted in
the use of various media in
development communication is social
marketing and its subset education
entertainment., as many development
interventions are in effect advertising
campaigns for such “products” as
contraception, the use of the latest
seeds or fertilizers, or the use of a
new technological equipment or
knowledge.

14. Social Marketing
Definition
• The use of established advertising
techniques to promote development goals
via media such as TV, radio, newspapers
and billboards etc, is termed social marketing
(Kotler and Roberto, 1989: 24).
• Social marketing has adopted not only the
forms of marketing, but also its tools:
consumer research, pretesting, and audience
segmentation (Backer, Rogers and Sopory,
1992: 32). Most media-based development
projects can be placed into the social
marketing category.

15. Education Entertainment
Definition
• A subset of social marketing is
entertainment-education, which has
been defined by leading U.S.
proponents in classic diffusion terms as
“the process of purposely designing and
implementing a media message to both
entertain and educate, in order to
increase audience knowledge about an
educational issue, create favorable
attitudes, and change overt behavior”
(Singhal and Rogers, 1999: xii).

16. • Entertainment education messages
may be carried by, for example, a
soap opera or popular song
specifically written for that purpose, or
in vignettes inserted into variety
shows. The key characteristic is that
the media fare is not presented in an
overtly didactic way; it is presented
and meant to be consumed as
entertainment.

17. • Big claims have been made about
the power of the entertainment
education strategy. For instance,
“[e]ntertainment –through
television, radio and music– is
one of the most effective
communication strategies for
reaching the public to promote
family planning and other public
health issues.”

18. • For example, an examination
of a radio soap opera in
Zambia designed to
disseminate information about
AIDS found changes over time
in some behaviors, in a family
planning campaign in Nigeria.

19. • Entertainment-education interventions
combine entertainment with education
by incorporating educational
messages into entertainment
programming on radio or television.
These messages may be carried by,
for example, a soap opera or popular
song specifically written for that
purpose, or in vignettes inserted into
variety shows.

20. • The key characteristic is that the
media fare is not presented in an
overtly educational way; it is
presented and meant to be
consumed as entertainment. It is
based on Albert Bandura’s (1977)
social learning theory that posits
that individuals imitate the
behaviour of role models.

21. • As Lettenmaier et al put it (1993:
5), enter-edu projects “can
persuade listeners to change
attitudes and practices because
people tend to adopt the
behaviour of those they admire,
whether that person is real or a
fictional character.”

22. • Entertainment-education has been
enthusiastically embraced by many
development communication
practitioners (Singhal and Rogers,
1999). Entertainment-education
television and radio programs tend to
be highly popular with audiences
because the programs are produced
in local languages, and feature local
settings and situations.

23. • Media exposure leads to
increased knowledge and attitude
change. For example, farmers
basically utilize mass media for
entertainment, relaxation, to
escape from problems and to
enliven their houses, so the use
of a new herbicide can be
promoted, for example, through
television or radio.

24. Some of the various media that can be used in social
marketing and education entertainment are:
• Electronic media
• television and radio broadcasts
• The programme may comprise of
interviews with experts, officials and
farmers, folk songs and information
about weather, market rates,
availability of improved seeds
• and implements, etc

25. Radio forums
• Live broadcasts or programming
for the developing community on
the intervention concerned. This
can take many forms, for
example, the form of a studio
panel discussing a relevant topic,
where communities can phone or
write in, where possible.

26. Casette tapes
• People can record their own experiences
and this gets fed - decision makers
indigenous forms of in-depth interviewing -
while the community member is busy with
their work or the task which is the one in
question (local unemployed youth sitting in
a tavern)

27. Print media
• newspapers/local magazines,
etc.
• Written articles for national
programming can be featured in
newspapers or local magazines
where the national broadcaster
has specific programme which
are developmental in nature.

28. Traditional media
Folk drama/Street theatre
• Telling community stories or events in this
medium is one good way of handling
sensitive things which people may not
openly talk about…after all, it is the
characters talking! This could be done
through humorous skits and plays through
which the importance of literacy, hygiene
etc. are enacted.

29. It is important, however, to understand that
development communication using various
media is possible only with the active
involvement of the following:
(i) Development agencies like departments
of agriculture.
(ii) Voluntary organizations
(iii) Concerned citizens
(iv) Non governmental organizations (NGOs)
These groups help the government in
implementing development programmes.