Communication and Social Change: A Position Paper and Conference Report

In October of 1998, the communications department of the Rockefeller Foundation invited 40 individuals to attend the second meeting of the Communication for Social Change initiative in Cape Town, South Africa. Building upon the work established during the 1997 Bellagio conference, the Cape Town meeting shifted the dialog from the more theoretical focus of Bellagio to an applicatory one. Some of the outcomes resulting from the meeting include a concrete definition of Communication for Social Change, an outline for the skills and attributes needed to do this work, the conceptualization of how to train/educate people in this work and an agreement on evaluation measurements.

Introduction

"This paper is a status report on an evolving field known as communication for social change. The ideas expressed here are a compilation of inputs from a network of professionals across the world which the Rockefeller Foundation's department of communications has assembled to help us explore new ideas and test innovative communication concepts.

Communication for social change is part of an evolution of communications methodology that can help accelerate global development. The process began in the first quarter of the 20th century with the use of publicity tools to bring attention to social problems such as hunger and disease. It grew to a reliance on public relations as a means of identifying stakeholders and creating programs to fit the audience's interests. More recently, social marketing took center stage - where sophisticated marketing and cause related advertising tools were applied to influence individual and societal behaviors - such as convincing couples in poor nations to use contraceptives. This was followed by development communications and strategic communications, the latter which rightfully considers communication to be a process rather than as a series of products.

In the pages that follow, the two authors argue that communication for social change is a distinct way of doing communications - and one of the few approaches that can be sustained. Such sustainability is largely due to the fact that ownership of both the message and the medium - the content and the process - resides with the individuals or communities affected.

We believe that this approach can help make greater contributions to the pace of development. From this basic assumption we move to questioning "how" and "if" and "where" we might find interesting work and committed individuals to test the effectiveness of this approach.

In order to do this work, the Rockefeller Foundation has brought together a group of social activists, academics, filmmakers and journalists, funders, electronic communications experts, service providers and professional communicators. The ideas expressed in this position paper reflect discussions held at two conferences - one at the foundation's Bellagio Study and Conference Center on Lake Como, in Italy, and the other in the fall of 1998 in Cape Town, South Africa.

In Bellagio we committed to a new agenda for global communications: communication that is empowering, many-to-many (horizontal versus top-down), communication that gives voice to the previously unheard, and that has a bias toward local content and ownership. The group's action steps, agreed upon at the end of the meeting, include a commitment to convince others of the value of this approach (broadening the debate), to publicize writings about the effectiveness of this work, and to continue to study the prospects in a global setting.

During the Cape Town gathering, we continued the inquiry with an expanded group of people. There we developed a concrete and comprehensive definition of communication for social change, put together an outline for the skills and attributes needed to do this work, began work on the skills/resources training "toolbox" or "practitioner's kit" or "knowledge transfer", reached agreement on measurements, and identified organizations and people that we'd like to engage in helping us do this work and to advocate for its effectiveness.

What follows is further explanation of the value and benefits of the discipline of communication for social change."

Prepared for the Rockefeller Foundation. Available per a license agreement with the Communication for Social Change Consortium.