This document discusses evaluation research approaches for assessing communication strategies that aim to promote advocacy and social change. It outlines different types of evaluation research, including needs assessment, process evaluation, and outcome evaluation. It emphasizes the importance of evaluation research that goes beyond assessing individual projects, to provide critical analysis of contexts, power structures, and long-term social impacts. Evaluation research should seek to understand how projects construct participants and problems, and evaluate success based on objectives defined through dialogue with stakeholders.

1. Questioning Communication Strategies for Advocacy through Evaluation Research International School on Digital Transformation July 2010 Karin Gwinn Wilkins University of Texas, Austin

2. Subtitles: How does digital transformation resonate with development communication and social change? How does evaluation research contribute to the process of advocacy?

3. Mapping the Field of Development Communication & Social Change

4. Development Communication What does this mean? Communications? Fix or be on tv? Development? Individual? Children? GNP? Combining terms Development of Communication in Cowbirds?

5. Communication For Development Strategic intervention About Development Critical Analysis

6. Communicating FOR Development How can media influence individuals and groups in gaining knowledge? Skills? Changing attitudes? Behaviors? Radio Tv Film DIGITAL MEDIA

7. Strategic Intervention Social Marketing How can media change individual behavior? Entertainment Education How can popular culture change attitudes and actions? Media Advocacy How can collective acts attract sympathetic news attention, which will mobilize participants and lead to policy change? MA thesis: how social context contributes to health behavior

8. Communication ABOUT Development Critical approach to discourse And how do these interpretations vary with structural conditions of the development agency? PhD dissertation: how do development communication projects in women’s health communicate assumptions about the project beneficiary? The social change process?

9. Illustration of Gender Visibilities in Development

10. The Value of Women What are women good for? Development Discourse Focus Breed & Feed Buy & Cry Neglect Create Console Connect

11. Breed & Feed Focus on population,nutrition, children’s health Roles articulated through women’s bodies Nurture family, nation

12. Buy Commodification of women Women as targets of social marketing Individual consumption as preferred strategy for social change

13. Cry Mediated images of women as victims Women as justification for military intervention Connection of development construction with military destruction

14. Critique to Action Avoiding development and transformation altogether is not the answer Use critique to make constructive suggestions The issue here is that HOW we address these problems matters Need to consider reformulating our “geometry” of development

15. Geometry of Development Dominant approach Nation-states First, second, third worlds Emerging approach Transnational concerns and organizations Social, financial… capital Access to resources matters Not just where you are

16. Palestinian Census Enumeration as Communication Serves instrumental development function Asserts national identity Similarity to Development Mapping Projects Numbers as Political Constructions Control resource allocation Recognize and resist marginalization

17. Significance of Shift From Development to Social Change PREVIOUS FOCUS Development Industry Top Down Media Effects Communication FOR development NOW INCLUDES Social Movements Participatory, Activist Texts, Structure of Production; Power Communication ABOUT development

18. Cooptation as a part of Change (the cynical perspective)

19. Cooptation Sustainable Development Change long-term not short-term goals trans-national contexts Cooptation work with corporations as partners

20. Cooptation Participation Change local initiatives horizontal power structure Cooptation Power structures still present within communities across donors/ recipients Outcomes/ effectiveness vs. process/ ethics

21. Cooptation Digital Media Change Potential for more decentralized patterns of communication Potential for more producers of knowledge and content Cooptation in Mainstream Development Practice (not community networks and centers) In practice, most projects about using ICTs in development to view existing content rather than create content If about producing content, more likely to be about “participation” in a global marketplace

22. Social Change Change Strategic intervention Social Benefit public good Within human collective

23. Limitations of Social Change Model Political Media Development Governance, freedom of speech Economic Inequity, poverty Material conditions Cultural Cultural production Identity

24. Non-human communication/ Communication with non-humans Artificial intelligence Contexts (Geometries of Development)

25. Reframe Social Change as Social Justice Not all change is good Communication not as linear but as a context and as a process access to resources control over production of communication about self and society

26. Advocacy Communication Proposed Direction

27. Advocacy Communication FOR Social Justice Seek long-term change at social and structural levels Target normative and policy change Consider structure of production Funding composition Control over content creation over distribution

28. Advocacy Communication Approach media industry as integrated News and popular not separate but part of comprehensive strategy Digital Media Could be used in social marketing or entertainment-education But prefer community model FOR…. Mobilization Control of content and distribution Normative and policy change

29. Advocacy Communication ABOUT Social Justice Self-reflexive Understand nature of rhetoric in relation to dominant discourse Learn through critical research and adapt Awareness of political-economic context Dialogic Engage in research with multiple actors including community Based in structural independence

30. Critical Research Scope of Focus PROBLEM not project Not just one project but sets of interventions Duration of Time Not just immediate effects but long-term trends Comprehension of Context Cultural, political, economic contexts Historical conditions

31. Evaluation Research Social Intervention action taken within a social context to produce an intended result Evaluation Research to evaluate a specific program or intervention

32. Types of Evaluation Research Needs Assessment and Planning Process Evaluation Outcome Evaluation Planned at the beginning of the project in the proposal stage

33. Assessment and Planning Participatory Action Research Learn about issue, community resources and dynamics Use existing research to learn about problem and community aggregated statistics that show the social condition of community Examples Crime rates Mortality rates Literacy rates Voter participation

34. Process Evaluation Monitor implementation of project Document what is happening Document how things are working Dialogue with stakeholders at regular intervals

35. Outcome Evaluation Determine objects through dialogue Decide on how to define success Gather information to determine difference Change over time Change across groups

36. Critical Evaluation Constraints: Need to demonstrate success Economic Political Potential: Structural Independence of Researchers Research Universities and Centers Funding of staff? Researchers Investment in projects? In theories? Methodological approaches?

37. Evaluating transformative processes Developing Advocacy Communication: How could digital communication be used to address these social problems? What are the objectives? How could we know if we reached those objectives?

38. The Communication Initiative http://www. comminit .com/en/section2/36/36%2C61 Describe potential objectives of this website How would you know if these were met?

39. Voice of America CD-Rom http://www.m-mc.org/mmc_search.php?sp=&ref_ crmb=&ref_id=&step=results&view=detail&detail_id= CD_USA_108&adv=mat Describe potential objectives of this website How would you know if these were met?

40. Reflexive Research Communicating Advocacy Communication How do these projects construct participants? The problem? The solution?

41. Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs HEART Campaign Zambia, Youth, AIDS http://db.jhuccp.org/mmc/media/VT%20ZAM%2039%20Maximum.mov http://db.jhuccp.org/mmc/media/VT%20ZAM%2039%20Virgin%20Power%20-%20purple.mov

42. Group Discussion Evaluating Project Objectives What are the objectives? How could success be defined? Is this research feasible? Evaluating Project Discourse What does the project say about the participants, problem, & solution? Are there other ways to address the problem? Strategies that attempt to change knowledge, skills, behavior, norms, mobilization for action, media responses, policies

43. Group Discussion What are the objectives of the projects we have heard about this week? What would we consider to be “success”? How would we know?

44. Why do evaluation? ACCOUNTABILITY: not just about documentation for donors, but more importantly learning for SOCIAL JUSTICE We care about the problem and the community SUSTAINABILITY facilitated by institutional memory REPLICATION requires sharing of information EVALUATION MATTERS!