The Drum Beat 706 - Communication and Change News and Issues

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Issue #

706

Communication and Change News and Issues - The Drum Beat 706
February 24 2016

From The Communication Initiative Network - where communication and media are central to social and economic development.

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EVALUATIONS

1. After the Arab Uprisings - The Prospects for a Media that Serves the Public
by Alexandra Buccianti and Sarah el-RichaniIn a context described as containing increasingly polarised political discourse, this BBC Media Action policy briefing "argues that national broadcasters have the potential to help to bridge some of these social divides if these institutions can be reformed to serve public, rather than state, interests. To make this case, the briefing looks at four countries undergoing political change - Libya, Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia - to examine the potential for national broadcasters to play a role that is more explicitly geared towards social cohesion." One finding: "To maximise inclusiveness and representation, formats need to go beyond news....[O]ther formats - including debate and talk shows, as well as drama - may be better suited to tackling the objectives of universality and diversity. Drama and comedy have both been extremely popular formats in the region, and evidence from Egypt suggests that viewers are inspired by characters that they can relate to in social dramas." [Sep 2015]
2. Hear Our Voices - Technical Report
by Jennifer Schulte, Sarah Hendriks, Alana Livesey, Alex Jacobs, and Jacqueline GallinettiThis technical report contains findings from the research done with the Plan International toolkit in their 11-country survey of adolescents aged 12-16 years. Part of the "Because I am a Girl" project and supporting Plan's child-centred community development (CCCD) agenda, "Hear our Voices" comprises study results presented as a video, a technical report, a summary report, and a toolkit intended to provide "consistent, disturbing illustrations of the most pressing concerns for adolescent girls, giving powerful insights into the issues facing them, in their own words." The research process aimed to create safe environments in which girls and boys could share candid views in their daily spoken language. Because "[i]nequitable social norms influence girls' perceptions of their own capacities as much as others' social expectations for their behaviour,...Plan's Because I am a Girl campaign will continue working towards change at three levels for adolescent girls' rights..." [Sep 2014]
3. Effectiveness of Mass Media Interventions for HIV Prevention, 1986-2013: A Meta-analysis
by Jessica LaCroix, Leslie B. Snyder, Tania B. Huedo-Medina, and Blair T. Johnson"This meta-analysis was conducted to synthesize evaluations of mass media-delivered HIV prevention interventions, assess the effectiveness of interventions in improving condom use and HIV-related knowledge, and identify moderators of effectiveness." The discussion section compares results of meta-analyses of studies that use strategies including interpersonal interaction and finds: "Despite the differences in channels between the current and previous meta-analyses, the effects on behavior change are similar in magnitude - small to medium, depending on moderating factors. Despite their modest size in absolute terms, for statewide or national media interventions the scope of their impact is quite large in absolute terms. Media campaigns are a means of 'going to scale' - taking an intervention to large numbers of people." [Aug 2014]
4. Lessons Learned: Social Media Monitoring during Humanitarian Crises
In support of the Nepal Earthquake Assessment Unit, this research is intended to add knowledge to the "Communication with Communities" (CwC) project by assessing the monitoring of social media following the April 25 2015 earthquake in Nepal. The document gives a list of specific lessons learned on setting up and running the monitoring of social media conversations to help: improve situational awareness; identify needs, as well as opinions and attitudes; and assist with resource allocation, among other responses. It gives examples of the uses of monitoring, such as finding out about the reactions of people to news on hearing about the international and local response, such as a spike in interest on food-related issues. Monitoring can show interest shifts as time passes, such as the number of posts on destroyed homes, the posts on tents, and, over time, the shift to posts on new houses and rebuilding houses. [Sep 2015]
5. Video for Change Impact Evaluation Scoping Study: A Summary of Key Research Findings
by Tanya NotleyDuring the first half of 2013, the video4change Network worked with a small team of researchers to investigate and identify the opportunities, needs, challenges, and barriers for measuring the impact of video for change initiatives. This process involved two core research activities: a preliminary literature review and a series of interviews with video for change practitioners, organisations, and project funders. "[W]e found that there were no comprehensive books, videos, reports or compendiums that detailed the historical development of video use for social change and nor did we locate an agreed, commonly used definition of what Video for Change is or means." [Jan 2014]

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STRATEGIC THINKING

6. Bridging the Gap between Communication Research and Practice: How We See Our Role
by Renata Schiavo"How can academia become more engaged with practice and community settings? How can practice and communities, the ultimate beneficiaries of health communication interventions, become more engaged with research and academic settings?" In exploring these questions, Schiavo says that "the ability to influence health policy is strictly related to how well we can support our arguments with research findings and data that are expressed in plain language." She suggests that some of these linkages could be strengthened by building capacity and offering professional training in research or programme design, implementation, and evaluation within complementary professional sectors. [Mar 2014]
7. Global Citizenship Education: Preparing Learners for the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century
edited by Justine SassFor the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), "global citizenship education (GCE) develops the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes learners need to build a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable world." GCE can be part of existing subjects (civic or citizenship education, social studies, environmental studies, geography, or culture) in formal school settings or can be its own curricular subject area. Less formal approaches can include: the use of information and communication technology (ICT) and social media, sport competitions, and the use of art and music, as well as "youth-led initiatives employing a wide variety of approaches." [Jan 2014]
8. The Role of Community Conversations in Facilitating Local HIV Competence: Case Study from Rural Zimbabwe
by Catherine Campbell, Mercy Nhamo, Kerry Scott, Claudius Madanhire, Constance Nyamukapa, Morten Skovdal, and Simon GregsonThis article examines the potential of using community conversations to strengthen positive responses to HIV in resource-poor environments. Guided by a facilitator, community members collectively identify local strengths and challenges and brainstorm potential strategies for solving local problems. Researchers conducted a series of such community conversations in Zimbabwe, finding that this strategy holds great potential to help communities recognise their potential strengths and capacities for responding more effectively to HIV. However, contextual factors, such as availability of treatment, poverty, poor harvests, and political instability, can help or hinder communities' response plans. [Apr 2013]
9. Communicating Disparity: How Social Design can create Public Engagement with Issues of Inequality
by Colin KennedyHighlighting different techniques, mediums, and participants, this article presents examples of bringing inequality to the forefront of the public through dialogue and storytelling. The author proposes a social design approach to stimulate people to "seek new ways to compel change in their own contexts." Through disrupting "normalised" behavioural patterns, social design can facilitate development of communicative tools and create spaces to "de-mystify and 'de-naturalise' social inequality" and "new spaces for dialogue and communication through creative thinking." [Jan-June 2014]
10. Channelling Net Use Promotion through Children as Malaria Ambassadors: The PataPata Children's Radio Show
This case study shares information about the PataPata children's radio programme in Tanzania, exploring how the engagement of children was a key part of the strategy to increase net use in their communities. Launched by Communication and Malaria Initiative in Tanzania (COMMIT), the show "not only educated children about malaria and its prevention; it also facilitated a community outreach component headed by community change agents (CCAs). These CCAs mobilized children to serve as educators and advocates for malaria prevention and net use and to lead by example in their homes and communities." [2013]

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Webinar: "Storytelling, Participatory Media, and International Public Health and Human Rights"

Please join StoryCenter for a free one-hour webinar, "Storytelling, Participatory Media, and International Public Health and Human Rights". For the past 10 years, Silence Speaks has been exploring how StoryCenter's methods can be adapted to support international public health and human rights promotion. The webinar includes an overview of the theory behind this work, a glimpse of current projects focused on sexual and reproductive health and women's rights, and an introduction to the ethical considerations practitioners and advocates must address in designing impactful storytelling and participatory media efforts. It will take place on Wednesday March 9, 2016 at 10 a.m. Pacific / 1 p.m. Eastern time. Click here to register.

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MATERIALS

11. How to Do Audience Segmentation
This Health Communication Capacity Collaborative (HC3) guide supports focusing messages for social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) on those who are most critical in adoption of changes in behaviour. "Tailoring an SBCC strategy to the characteristics, needs and values of important audience segments improves the chances for desired behavior change." [Apr 2015]
12. Digital Media Project for Children
This blog-style website brings together research, observation, and commentary from the Digital Media Partnership (DMP) that focuses on early learning and digital media, especially e-books.
13. GeoChat
"GeoChat is a[n]...open source group communications technology that lets team members interact to maintain shared geospatial awareness of who is doing what where - over any device, on any platform, over any network."
14. The Beijing Platform for Action Turns 20: Ending Violence against Women
This web page from UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, provides information, including multi-media offerings, around the efforts being undertaken around the world since the 189 UN Member States adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in September 1995.
15. Comunicación para el Desarrollo: Una Guía Práctica
by Thomas Jenatsch and Richard BauerThis manual, produced in Spanish, reaffirms the importance of communication to support development processes and social change in Latin America. (Red de Comunicadores en Latinoamérica de la Cooperación Suiza, Jul 2014)

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Participate in an Online Questionnaire on the Global Action Plan (GAP) for Influenza Vaccines

Launched in 2006 as a 10-year initiative, GAP aims to reduce the global shortage of influenza vaccines for seasonal epidemics and pandemics through: (i) increase in the evidence-based use of vaccines to protect against seasonal influenza; (ii) increase in vaccine production and regulatory capacity; and (iii) research and development in influenza vaccines. The World Health Organization (WHO) is issuing a questionnaire to solicit feedback on the progress made to date and remaining gaps, which will feed into the development of the agenda for the final GAP consultation in November 2016. The questionnaire should take approximately 20 minutes to complete. The majority of the questions included in the survey are general influenza-related questions and can be answered even if you are not familiar with GAP. All responses will be treated in confidence and aggregated in anonymised formats.

The survey will close on February 29 2016. For questions, contact Erin Sparrow [email protected]

This issue of The Drum Beat was written by Kier Olsen DeVries.

The Drum Beat is the email and web network of The Communication Initiative Partnership.

Full list of the CI Partners:
ANDI, BBC Media Action, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Breakthrough, Citurna TV, Fundación Imaginario,Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano (FNPI), Heartlines, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP), MISA, Open Society Foundations, Oxfam Novib, PAHO,The Panos Institute, Puntos de Encuentro, SAfAIDS, Sesame Workshop, Soul City, STEPS International, UNAIDS, UNICEF,Universidad de los Andes, USAID, World Health Organization (WHO), W.K. Kellogg Foundation

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.

Chair of the Partners Group: Garth Japhet, Founder, Soul City [email protected]

Executive Director: Warren Feek [email protected]

The Editor of The Drum Beat is Kier Olsen DeVries.

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