Introduction: Communication for Development and Social Change: Communication and Natural Resource Management: Experience/Theory

This recognition that «the local» is embedded in complex relationships with other actors and forces, has led to a related set of discussions on the role of communication in the context of globalisation and new technologies. The Rockefeller Foundation has initiated one of the more interesting of these discussions by involving people and organisations from around the world, in an exploration of how to increase the impact of communication as a tool in development processes given «globalisation» and new communication technologies. (12)

The discussion began from the premise that:

«...developments – in communications technologies, in political and media systems, and in emerging development problems – suggest a greatly enhanced, radically different role for communication in development programming.» (13)

Three broad traditional roles were identified as having formed the core elements of communication programming in development thinking and practise:

The first was to, «inform and persuade people to adopt… behaviours and practices… beneficial to them.»(14) There are many familiar examples of this in HIV/AIDS, immunisation, health and sanitation, reforestation, family planning, and soil and pest management, to name a few.

The second was to «enhance the image and profile of organisations involved in development.» (15) This has been an important aspect of generating legitimacy for – mostly northern – organisations and raising funds.

The third was to «enable community consultation over specific initiatives.» (16) This can be compared to Participatory Rural Appraisal discussed above, where the focus is more on community participation and involvement in a particular intervention, than the surrounding context of influencing issues and actors.

Each of the three traditional areas is important but not sufficient to respond to the changing technological, political and economic context in which development occurs. In order to be able to make change effectively «inside» a community, the surrounding environment must also change, or at least be recognised and influenced.

This need to understand the surrounding context applies to communication theory and method as much as it applies to the communities and people that communication initiatives seek to reach. In other words, communication thinking must also reflect on itself and the environment it works in, and change its own behaviours and practices accordingly. Within the discussion, some key contextual changes have been identified which are significant enough to require reflection on communication theory and method. These are the liberalisation and deregulation of the media, the emergence of new technologies, and a new global and political environment.

Media Liberalisation

Media liberalisation has broken the hold of many government-run and dominated information services, which have been the source of information for much of the world's population. The general trend since the end of the Cold War has been for governments to relax controls and enact freedom of speech laws.

The impetus has come from a variety of sources, both within countries and internationally, through political pressure from citizens groups and international donors, and economic pressure, as new trade regimes demand the opening up of national media to competition.

These trends present a double-edged sword. On the one hand, countries which had heavily censored and controlled media, have seen the emergence of often vibrant and populist newspaper, radio and television outlets, while old government-controlled institutions have faded due to falling audiences and funding.

On the other hand, the door has been opened to unregulated media that can further disempower the marginalised. Government self-congratulation and disinformation has often been replaced with a diet of Western pop music, and irrelevant or inaccurate news.

This trend has created a new communication environment in which single media outlets have been replaced with many, in highly-fragmented markets with multiple audiences. Getting the message out now requires paying attention to more outlets and audience segments, and the additional problem of encouraging the new media to play a role in development processes.

We can see some of this in the GreenCOM experience in El Salvador (see Experience #8), where training reporters to better understand environmental issues, was considered central to building greater awareness and commitment to environmental sustainability. It is also reflected in the Kenyan Pastoralist experience (see Experience #2), where reporters were sensitised to the culture and lives of pastoralists, and encouraged to write stories about them, to help build understanding for their issues, and reduce their marginalisation within Kenyan society.

New Technologies

The revolution in information and communication technologies is profound. The Internet, e-mail, mobile phones, satellite and wireless, have all opened up communications in ways not thought possible even a few years ago. Countries with collapsing telecommunications infrastructures can utilise cell phones, microwave and satellite technologies, to upgrade and more affordably replace old systems, and provide phone and Internet service to isolated rural areas.

These systems are helping to connect previously isolated people to information and other communities. The Kothmale project in Sri Lanka (see Experience #5), demonstrates how community radio can be linked to the Internet, to provide access to information on health and agriculture. Other initiatives in Kothmale show how connections are being made with surrounding villages and ethnic groups, creating the potential for greater understanding and dialogue between people isolated by terrain and culture.

However, as the FAO has pointed out, «a combination of inadequate national communications policies; insufficient infrastructure, connectivity access and high costs; a scarcity of skilled ICT labour; and a lack of local content creation and applications (language and software) hinder ICT appropriation by poor nations and by poor regions within nations and especially by isolated rural communities» (17).

This «digital divide» could grow and serve to further widen the gap between rich and poor, the connected and the marginalised. Furthermore, increasing access to new technologies is only part of a response to ICT marginalisation. As Alfonso Gumucio Dagron reminds us, «when we talk about technology we are only referring to instruments, not to social, economic or cultural development. A knife is just a knife; it can be used to hurt someone or to carve a beautiful wood sculpture. Content and utilisation is what makes the difference.» (18)

There is great potential in many of the new technologies, but like media deregulation, they are not in themselves good. The Internet for example, makes both amazing and terrible things possible. Its very openness means that it is used for both our brightest and darkest dreams. It can be a place for tackling discrimination and injustice head on, and it can be a place for the worst kinds of racism and exploitation. It is also an instrument that is denied to many because of income, gender, education, language and geographic barriers. Consider this set of UNDP statistics from 1999:

• The typical Internet user worldwide is male, under 35 years old, with a university education and high income, urban based and English speaking.
• A computer costs the average Bangladeshi more than eight years' income, compared with one month's wage for the average American.
• English is used in almost 80 percent of websites. Yet fewer than one in ten people worldwide speak the language.» (19)

Others feel much more positive about the impact of the Internet and information communication technologies (ICTs). For example, John Lawrence points out how:

«…in 1995, the Social Summit and the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women both engaged local communities in dialogue on crucial policy issues for the first time via Internet (See Gurstein M. Community Informatics. Idea Publishing, Hershey Pennsylvania 2000). The wealth of documentation on ICTs in the service of social development and anti-poverty strategies following the Social Summit demonstrates serious, local commitment by communities throughout the world. An important index of the empowering potential of the Internet is the degree of resistance encountered in autocratic societies. Also we should note the extraordinary contribution of the Internet to reversing the «diaspora» effect in remoter, poorer or troubled regions (e.g. the 3 Pomegranate Network in Armenia - click here for the site ).(20)

A recent study by the FAO's Communication for Development Group on local appropriation of ICT's found that:

On the one hand:

• there are a limited number of community driven ICT initiatives,
• there is scarce visibility and coverage of grassroots driven ICT projects,
• most of the documentation on community ICT projects is relatively new because the projects are new and few evaluations have been undertaken,
• the emphasis of ICT projects is more often on providing access to information than on finding innovative ways to apply ICT's to specific local needs,
• and the priorities of many ICT projects are influenced more by interests of external organisations than local community based organisations.

While on the other hand ICT's can:

• offer opportunities for two-way and horizontal communication,
• support bottom-up articulation of development needs,
• support, create and strengthen interactive and collaborative networks,
• support policy and advocacy,
• help build consensus,
• and enhance partnership with the media. (21)

Whether sceptical or optimistic about the potential of these new technologies to spark serious social change that benefits the poor and empowers the marginalised, there is recognition that they can offer cheaper and more accessible communications, and provide increased opportunities for horizontal (as opposed to hierarchical) forms of dialogue and information sharing.

It is still too early to pass judgement on the potential of these technologies, but if the central questions about «content» and «utilisation» are to be confronted, who better to do so than those concerned with communication for social change?

Politics and Economy

The final set of trends identified through the Rockefeller discussion, concern changes to the political and economic environment. One aspect of this has been the end of the Cold War, and with it the emergence of more open political systems. Even states that retain one-party systems or function as monarchies or theocracies are more open to political debate and to greater freedom of expression.

This has been reinforced by the emergence of a global economy in which, «for the first time in human history the entire planet is capitalist, since even the few remaining command economies are surviving or developing through their linkages to global, capitalist markets.» (22) This enclosure of the world within a single economic system is requiring all governments to make adjustments, and one aspect of this process is to make information more available. The global marketplace has helped create some of the impetus for government to deregulate media and relax freedom of speech laws. This has been reinforced by the Internet, which has proven very difficult for even the most authoritarian governments to regulate. (23)

However, the globalisation of the capitalist system has also led to an increasing concentration of ownership in the communication field. For example, AOL/Time Warner controls 32 percent of the US Internet service provider market (24). This concentration of ownership is compounded by the convergence of media and telecommunication industries in which a few very large multinational companies now control both transmission systems and the programmes they carry. There are clear trends towards concentration and centralisation on the one hand, and fragmentation, coupled with the potential for networked or horizontal communication on the other. While it is not clear how these seemingly contradictory tendencies will work themselves out, they require that anyone involved in communication watch them closely as they are about who controls the flow of world information.