The Drum Beat 468 - Representation: Framing for Social Change
This issue of the Drum Beat examines the power of strategic framing, with a focus on how representation can enhance - or hamper - efforts to address a variety of development challenges. The below examples are intended to highlight thinking and action that has drawn on the recognition that the way that an issue or a community is conveyed - e.g., through images, messengers, and metaphors - can indeed shape its power to effect change.
- A focus on ACTIVE LENSES that surprise, challenge, or resist.
- A POLL on the impact of an Obama USA Presidency for international development.
- A focus on TELLING STORIES as tools for healing.
- A feature on new Development Policy BLOGS.
- A focus on FRAMING TO SHAPE BEHAVIOUR.
- A focus on RESEARCH LENSES.
LENSES THAT SURPRISE, CHALLENGE, OR RESIST
1. OURMedia/NUESTROSMedios - Global
Created in 2000, OURMedia/NUESTROSMedios is a global network of researchers, activists, scholars, artists, policy experts, and media practitioners engaged in a long-term dialogue around alternative, radical, community, and citizens' media. Each year, OURMedia holds an international conference; the most recent one was held in August 2008: "From the moment OURMedia 7 began and especially its opening invocation - a profound mix of poetry, oratory, song, drum and poignant bamboo flute (the atenteben) - we came to better understand and appreciate a world view overlooked or deliberately cast aside in a globalized world....We discussed vivid accounts of solid academic research, conscientious practice, or both, on alternative communication initiatives....They covered a tremendous diversity, ranging from traditional media to new information and communication technologies: for example, indigenous symbols, street art, community theatre, community radio, film, and current new online media such as YouTube....In every case, more powerful were the stories of how alternative communication, by enabling people to take control of the primary act of communication, defy even seemingly insurmountable obstacles to preserve and enrich what matters most to them as communities."
Contact: Clemencia Rodriguez clemencia@ou.edu
2. I Wish to Say - United States
This project uses art as a form of communication that may be able reach some people not typically engaged in politics. In "I Wish to Say", Sheryl Oring (a former newspaper reporter and editor) takes on the role of an old-fashioned secretary - complete with manual typewriter - and posts herself in conspicuous public areas like downtown shopping districts or city parks, where she invites passersby to dictate notes to the president. Elaborating on the strategy, Oring explains that "[t]he outfit and manual typewriter work together to create a scene that is out of the ordinary. This in turn piques people's curiosity. Passersby typically come over to me and ask what I'm doing - and this starts the conversation in a very different way than if I were approaching people first. In all, the setup serves to break down barriers and to invite people in to a special place where they will be heard and where their thoughts will be recorded verbatim."
Contact: Sheryl Oring oring@iwishtosay.org
Adriana Bertini, an artist living in São Paulo, Brazil, transforms expired or defective condoms into raw material to be used to make pieces of art. These frames, sculptures, and brightly coloured women's dresses are intended to raise awareness and inspire reflection about condom use. On another level, Bertini hopes that, by using the very material at the centre of effort to prevent HIV/AIDS - condoms - to create something new, she can inspire reflection, foster discussion, and challenge taboos.
Contact: Adriana Bertini condomart@gmail.com OR info@adrianabertini.com.br
4. Drawing Democracy Worldwide
From the International Museum of Women website, this article explores the Global Democracy Day Initiative youth drawing competition. One of the winning illustrations shows people holding a city above their heads; a jury member writes, "It tells us that people are the pillars - the authorization to govern comes from the people." Another depicts a woman holding a sign that reads, "We Rule, Please!" The sign in front of the building says, "Welcome to PLGY 1," which indicates the State House in Zambia. A juror states, "The illustration presents a cunning but important message about the core of democracy: 'State House is the peoples' house'. House can be seen as the house the president actually lives in or as the 'house' where the democracy operates - in both cases it is a relevant and interesting message."
5. Evaluating the truth ® Brand
by W. Douglas Evans, Simani Price, and Steven Blahut
The authors explore the strategy of branding, noting that the relationship between a brand and a consumer can be powerful - e.g., brands can serve as symbolic devices that allow customers to project their self-image, leading them in turn to communicate to others and themselves about the type of person they are or aspire to be. In the case of truth ®, a social marketing brand, organisers opted not to deliver traditional health messages about the risks of smoking but, instead, to use "challenging, thought-provoking ad contexts and images" to engage youth in aspiring to be "truth ® teens" who are cool, edgy, and popular risk takers, dreamers, and rebels (the very images projected by tobacco industry marketing). In the truth ® campaign, social images reflect those open to experimenting with tobacco, but opting not to engage in it. The authors add that "the use of truth ® as the brand name is in itself an effective strategy to distinguish the campaign from the deceptive marketing practices of the tobacco industry."
6. Knowing For Sure Without Knowing For Certain: How I Make Films
by Paromita Vohra
In this presentation, Paromita Vohra discusses how she makes films, noting that a large part of her goal is "to make people think about filmmaking as a language and to talk about it." Her position evolved from the questions, "Do we make films that faithfully illustrate our political position on a particular matter? Or do we use our political position to arrive at an understanding of the subject and try somehow to bridge the gap between what we see when we look at something thanks to our political perspective?" The filmmaker chose a style of conversation in an effort to create a "multiple window", a space without certitude that allows people to "make more informed, more democratic decisions." In order to do this, Vohra includes ideas of which she is critical by using fictional ideas - for example, a fake article written in the style of pulp fiction as a commentary (the film was about the language of tabloid news). She creates films in which "some things are not quite said" so that the audience "will get it in their heads and will need to talk about it as a way of expressing what they've sensed"; in doing so, "the world can slowly embrace change."
7. AIDS in Two Cities - Canada, Haiti
Launched on the eve of World AIDS Day (December 1) 2006, this photography-based advocacy initiative is designed to communicate the humanity that people in the so-called "North" and "South" share when it comes to experiences such as living with HIV/AIDS. Working in collaboration with Panos Caribbean and AIDS Vancouver, Panos Canada commissioned a series of photos in 2 cities - Port au Prince, Haiti and Vancouver, Canada - as part of this effort to challenge the "North-South" paradigm for viewing development, and to sketch, instead, a "commonalities" lens that illustrates the shared human impacts of, and community responses to, HIV/AIDS in seemingly antithetical environments.
Contact: Jon Tinker jtinker@panoscanada.org OR info@panoscanada.org
8. Political Art in the Female Form
by Anahi DeCanio
In this piece, the author addresses political questions through her art installations of sculpture and assembled collage, including such elements as a mannequin, jewelry, paper doves, tags, bullets, and found objects. DeCanio examines inequalities of women, and, in particular, women of colour. She intends to make people think, make them talk, make them feel, and move them to action. For example, she uses the symbol of a black dove to raise the question of the symbolism of colour (Do a black dove and a white dove both symbolise peace and understanding?)
What will the impact of an Obama United States Presidency be on positive action for poverty and other international development priorities? [Please explain your reasons in the comments field.]
Impact:
- Very Positive
- Positive
- Neutral
- Negative
- Very Negative
VOTE and COMMENT click here
TELLING STORIES: HEALING NARRATIVES
9. Celebrating the Uncelebrated
by Siobhan Warrington
In her article on the International Day for Sharing Life Stories (May 16 2008), Siobhan Warrington describes the value of communities testifying to the conditions of their own lives - that is, representing their experiences as they see them. Accessing the stories of the economically poor and marginalised, described here as the "real experts in development", is intended to support the Panos London goal of addressing lack of voice as one of the central aspects of poverty. The strategy of this participatory research involves training interviewers from local cultures to collect stories in local dialects, and in ways that value and acknowledge the wisdom and experience of the narrator. Warrington explains that, by being open-ended, oral testimonies offer the opportunity to capture a broader local landscape and refocus development goals, as well as enriching the experience of the interviewers, narrators, and audience.
10. A Quest for Hope - Community Capacity Enhancement Programme (CCEP) -Community Conversation
This document opens with the following quotation: "AIDS is not a disease, it is a symptom of the way we relate to one another in the global village. It represents injustice, inequality and marginalization." The paper proceeds to characterise the AIDS epidemic using the following terms: sex, shame, death, fear, stigma, discrimination, silence, and denial - as contrasted with hope, understanding, and action. Proposed here is a community-based, dialogic, participatory approach of co-learning about HIV/AIDS among facilitators, individuals, and communities. This approach incorporates tradition using symbols, motifs, and cultural icons as semiotic intervention tools, and incorporates the rights-based responsibilities of communication in the areas of gender, disabilities, ethnicity, and class.
This initiative revolves around an iconic superhero comic book written and illustrated by a young First Nations comic book artist. "Darkness Calls" follows the story of Kyle, who loses hope and expresses a desire to kill himself. With the help of an Elder who is related to Kyle, he combats the evil urges threatening to destroy him by engaging in a symbolic battle for his soul between the shapeshifting "trickster" warrior hero Wesakechak and another reimagined character of Cree mythology: the evil, cannibal spirit Weetigo. (What the artist intends to be strong images and stark, yet powerful, drawings are used to convey the intense nature of this struggle). By travelling through this story, Kyle realises that he has the strength and will to live. Kyle learns that he can share this healing spirit with other youth by using his creative means of communication and connection: his ability to draw. The artist explains, "I tell a story. And that's quite traditional. First Nations people don't have a written language....I'm a writer, but I am a visual writer." According to one Cree heritage website, storytelling is used in this culture to entertain listeners of all ages, to instruct the young, and to preserve the history, rituals, and beliefs of their Nation.
Contact: Sean Muir sean@thehealthyaboriginal.net
12. Kente Approach to Community Radio Training
by Wilna Quarmyn
This paper sketches the broad outlines of a training approach originally developed in 1997 for and at Radio Ada, the first full-fledged community radio station in Ghana. The name given to the training approach alludes to the "Kente", the traditional hand-woven cloth of the Ashanti people that has become symbolic of all of Ghana. At the first level, the use of the term "Kente" recalls that the training approach is derived mainly from the Ghanaian experience. At another, it indicates the centrality of culture in the philosophy and operations of Radio Ada and, increasingly, of community radio as a whole in Ghana. At yet another level, the term illustrates the methodology of the approach, which interweaves training with philosophy and operations. The "Kente" approach flows from a participatory development philosophy in which empowerment is taken as the goal, the content, and the methodology of training, as well as the ongoing measure of success.
13. Patient Partnership Program - United States
At Dartmouth Medical School in the United States, medical students may participate in an educational programme in which they partner with patients living with long-term illnesses. Organisers were motivated by the fact that American medical education typically enables students to interact with patients in only an episodic fashion. Furthermore, a narrow, scientific view of the human body and person frequently shapes this educational system. Participating students visit patients in their homes once each month throughout a one-year period in an effort to get to know them to a degree that would rarely be possible during visits to a hospital or medical clinic. These personal encounters are a strategy for re-making the typical dynamic of the medical encounter - so that the patient in a way becomes the educator, the one with deeper (experiential or lived) knowledge. Students listen to their patient partners discussing what it is like to live with illnesses or conditions such as diabetes, cancer, disabilities, or high-risk pregnancy. Communication is used as a tool in the effort to make medical education more meaningful and complete.
Contact: Peter Bartline Peter.Bartline@Dartmouth.edu
by Imogen Wall
In the days after Cyclone Nargis in Burma, survivor Kyaw Kyaw was desperate. His house had survived the cyclone – just. But what if more was coming? Kyaw needed to know. Desperately poor though he was, he and two other families scraped together US$5 – enough to purchase something they saw as vital after the disaster: a small transistor radio. "We don't spend a single day without listening to the weather report", he says...
by Warren Feek
President-elect Obama and his team have demonstrated an extraordinary ability to foment and support change. Much of that change relates to the practice of democracy and governance which is also such an important global development priority. Of course the major change challenges of a global economic melt-down, climate change, poverty, global security, relations between peoples of different faiths, and other vital issues now await an Obama Administration. But we should all reflect on what we...
* OBAMA, DEVELOPMENT, AID, and GRANDMOTHERS!
by Warren Feek
I am not an American and, to use that awful phrase, did not a have a horse in this US Presidential race. However, now that Barack Obama is elected, don't we all need to consider the possible impact of his Presidency on how aid and development policy are...
Read and comment on them! click here.
14. Snake Condom Social Marketing Campaign - Australia
Launched by Marie Stopes International Australia (MSIA), this condom social marketing campaign promotes subsidised condoms through marketing approaches designed to educate, change attitudes, and positively affect social behaviour in terms of safer sex practices. As suggested by a number of young Indigenous people, the new condom was named SNAKE, which is symbolic of Indigenous culture, and which "lends itself to some fun and cheeky innuendo to which teenagers can relate." The SNAKE Condoms logo also integrated preferences cited by the Mildura community, including a blend of traditional and modern Indigenous art. To increase appeal, the condoms are flavoured and come in the colours of the Aboriginal flag – red for strawberry, yellow for vanilla, and black for chocolate.
Contact: Paul Mbenna paulmbenna@mariestopes.org.au OR info@mariestopes.org.au
In an effort to stress that gender is not just a women's issue, the posters that are at the centre of this campaign portray well-known men staring directly into the camera with their arms crossed in a determined stance; the goal is to promote the role of men in advocating for eliminating violence against women (EVAW) and supporting women's rights. The use of a black and white format for these posters is a strategy for garnering attention, as this aesthetic is distinctive on the social and media landscape in Timor-Leste. In addition, radio and TV public service announcements (PSAs) feature the drumming sounds of the babadok (a traditional ceremonial drum played by women in Timor-Leste), which is designed to highlight its symbolism as an instrument for the mobilisation of a unified women's empowerment and action. These PSAs also feature the "clinking" of the bikan kanuru (plate and spoon), an already established sociological aural and visual representation of domestic violence.
Contact: Vicenta Maria-Correia Vicenta.maria-correia@unifem.org
by Marian Farrior
This document explains the consensus that emerged from a meeting of international biodiversity specialists on ways that biodiversity can be communicated in the media and to the public. The discussion centred around not only framing biodiversity as a species loss issue, but also placing biodiversity in a broader sustainability context, which includes lifestyle and over-consumption issues. For instance, strategic framing, a way to define an issue as a public problem or to get people to rethink a problem from a different perspective, includes using metaphors to move forward public perception. Examples are: shifting from conflict to consensus and the polarity between the environmental and economic considerations by calculating the benefits of biodiversity as "ecosystem services" and "green medicine". A second example might use the metaphor of biodiversity as our "common heritage" to encourage stewardship for future generations.
17. Water and Sanitation "Live" Web Portal - Global
On the occasion of the International Year of Sanitation (2008) and World Water Week, Akvo - the open-source, micro-finance solution and knowledge-exchange platform - communicated the nature of its online collaborative community through an in-person exhibition for the water and sanitation community. The room was set up with the vision that the visitors would enter the Akvo water and sanitation "live" web portal and from there follow the "links" to different projects in the real world. The area was built up with several stations/stands/sites where demonstrators presented the real sanitation-related devices and projects that one might have viewed on the Akvo website. Akvo also showcased several of the new posters as part of the set it commissioned. This poster campaign is part of Akvo's effort to "brand" itself with "dazzling movie-themed posters" including Bollywood imagery and eye-catching slogans such as "The Woman Who Built Herself a Toilet". Rather than the "impersonal images of people in plight...pictures of poor people looking down a hole", this aspirational art is designed to engage global audiences - beyond members of the development community - in water and sanitation issues. (The posters also adorned the conference centre toilets). One Akvo official explains that the posters' "imagery has been strong, but there has been a light play on male / female role models...It's an approach that has worked."
Contact: Anna Norén anna@akvo.org OR Peter van der Linde peter@akvo.org OR Thomas Bjelkeman-Pettersson thomas@akvo.org / thomas@bjelkeman.com
REPRESENTATION AS RESEARCH LENS
18. Bridging Disciplines: The Natural Resource Management Kaleidoscope for Understanding ICTs
by Ricardo Ramírez
The author draws on experiences and perspectives from natural resource management (NRM) to guide our understanding of ICTs for community development. He observes that both of these fields are characterised by: multiple dimensions, disciplines, and stakeholders; a seemingly endless number of variables and indicators needing attention; and increasing unpredictability and complexity. The paper proposes 4 pillars to shape the building of a "new epistemology": acknowledging diversity in paradigms; embracing pluralism; embracing a systems approach; and emphasising learning and participation. For example, systems theory has been used in NRM in recognition of the fact that ecosystems are complex and largely unpredictable, with multiple layers and intrinsic feedback and communication features. The soft systems methodology (SSM) approach involves engaging principal stakeholders of a system and placing their voices and perspectives at the centre. In practical terms this means engaging people in the producing of diagrams known as "rich pictures" to illustrate the complexity of connections between and among stakeholders. The paper describes ongoing action research with attention to stakeholder engagement in planning, evaluation, and capacity development.
19. When It Comes to Social Change, The Machine Metaphor Has Limits
by Virginia Lacayo
This paper critiques one way of understanding the communication for social change (CFSC) process. According to the author, social change is a nonlinear, long-term, and often unpredictable process that requires efforts at multiple levels. Rather than framing approaches in measurable, cause-effect terms (as if programmes can be evaluated in isolation from other efforts and can demonstrate short-term effectiveness), practitioners should envision social change as a complex adaptive system (CAS), in the author's estimation. When planning and/or evaluating initiatives from this perspective, the whole is understood as a product of its parts plus the dynamic relationship between those parts. For instance, an evaluator must look at the entire range of effects triggered by the programme, whether or not they are in line with original intentions. A systems inquiry also pays close attention to value (rather than detail), which can be gleaned only be ensuring that the inquiry is relevant to those affected by it. Thus, participation of all possible stakeholders is essential, in the author's eyes. Also needed are approaches that deliberately expose evaluators' and stakeholders' assumptions about what is valid knowledge and that embrace multiple perspectives.
This issue was written by Kier Olsen DeVries.
The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.
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