The Drum Beat 200 - Voices on Communication and Change

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Welcome to our 200th issue of The Drum Beat!

As the theme for our bicentennial issue, we are focussing on YOUR perspectives on communication and change - as contributed through Discussion Forums, Pulse Polls, Interviews, Page Reviews, and other interactive CI processes.

What follows are some of the voices of your peers and colleagues on what best drives a substantive and sustainable change process from the perspective and experience of communicators. Organised by The CI framework - Global Forces, Local Choices, Critical Voices, Telling Stories - these are extracts from more detailed ideas and thoughts. Please also access the URLs for the full contributions.

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GLOBAL FORCES

1. "The idea of change in the academic world, of the leftist academics, was always linked to the idea of political action. But today, it is...much more linked to culture, to cultural transformations, on how to get IN there." Jesus Martin-Barbero, Ph.D., Colombia Click here to read more...

2. "Traditional forms of communication may simply reflect existing hierarchies and inequalities; new methods (not necessarily ICTs but new to a given community) may be capable of breaking down barriers, opening space for unheard voices and enabling structural change." Poll Participant, Zimbabwe

3. "I'm very convinced now that to get to the individual behaviour change we want, we need to do community empowerment... We think that we know how to change the behaviour of individuals but it is the community that has to change." UNFPA Team, various regions Click here to read more...

4. "Some people believe that one channel of intervention, like interpersonal communication or a single behavior change theory, may constitute a 'silver bullet' that triggers behavior change. We do not believe that. We think that following a process of creating motivation, ability and opportunity for populations to change their behavior, using multiple channels (very much including interpersonal communication) and being agile enough to employ different theories depending on the health problem and population is more likely to be effective." David J. Olson, Population Services International, Washington, DC, USA

5. "Why is it that marketing for commercial purposes can be so hugely effective in such a short period of time (Britney Spears/ Pokemon etc) and yet, communication for social change - including techniques of social marketing - usually requires many years of consistent and multi-media/multi-level input to achieve any kind of impact at all?" Charlie Donea Weinberg, Puntos de Encuentro, Nicaragua

6. "I think you have to decide what it is YOU are trying to accomplish, but what ever it is, you have to INCITE it or get out of the way and let others incite it... Do you believe that change is needed in the world? If so, get on with it." Wm. Smith, Academy for Educational Development, Washington, DC, USA

LOCAL CHOICES

7. "...you can facilitate the process by which [people] find solutions but you can not find those solutions for them. If you help facilitate and promote debate then you help people to access information and make their own decisions." Aida Opoku-Mensah, then at PANOS Southern Africa, now at ICT for Development Team at the UN Economic Commission for Africa Click here to read more...

8. "People cannot be forced to change norms and consequent behaviours without a choice in the matter....The reality is that a social communication process is one of carefully crafted perceptual messaging, both formal and informal, at both emotive and logical levels... Emotion is the engine that drives the vehicle. Logic and reason merely provide the direction in which the vehicle should move." Janet Rae Mondlane, National AIDS Council, Mozambique

9. "Theatre is never going to lower the infant mortality rate. Theatre will not save (nor even ease the pain of) a child dying of malnutrition. Theatre is never going to change the world. But a child's laugh reminds us that theatre can fulfill another need perhaps as desperate: theatre can make a child laugh. Perhaps it can even give a child a spark of hope." Jack Warner S.J., Teatro La Fragua, Honduras Click here to read more...

10. "One should never waste their time asking an audience how they could solve their own problem. Not only are they unlikely to know, they are likely to tell you just what they believe you want to hear." Submission to The CI's Page Review Process

11. "There was a seminar...and the organisers said one of their frustrations was that people just did not participate. And then one of their facilitators went to a meeting of women...and asked them if they would like to participate... And the women said, 'Of course we would like to participate!' And he said, 'Well, how? How would you like to do this?' 'We would like to participate by dancing and singing.' ...And so the next day, they came back already with songs and...those songs had all the lessons, all the ideas of what they thought people needed to know, in their own language... They wanted to sing their participation. They wanted to dance their participation. This is not 'traditional' for them. This is just the way they communicate." Bunmi Makinwa, UNAIDS, East & Southern Africa Click here to read more...

12. "From individual behavior change to change in social norms: Community-based programs will increasingly use social networks to influence community and social norms. Every village has strengths because of existing social networks." Jose G. Rimon, II, JHU Center for Communication Programs - Baltimore, MD, USA

13. "...we realised that doing a TV show was like making a huge gourmet meal and your guests eat it in 15 minutes and it's all over and you've spent so much time and energy to make it and bam it's done. We thought that would be a shame and that you can't really expect social change to come about in a half-hour a week and if you miss it, too bad..." Amy Bank, Puntos de Encuentro, Nicaragua Click here to read more...

14. "...what other tool of communication could be so empowering to the majority of the people in developing countries? For them to sit down as a community and decide 'no - this is not it, this is not what we want,' and then agreeing on what they want to do." Jennifer Sibanda, Federation of African Media Women, Zimbabwe Click here to read more...

15. "Action always has to be local. To be effective one must understand the local needs, issues, problems and aspirations and make communication participatory..." Pulse Poll Participant, India

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...taking the PULSE of the social and economic international development community on major development issues...

Decisions on who will lead major international development agencies should include an election process involving the people most affected by the issues that agency is seeking to address - eg: children 10 to 18 should vote for the next UNICEF Executive Director and people living on less than USD 2 per day should vote for the next World Bank President.

See Drum Beat 199 for context.

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CRITICAL VOICES

16. "...the 'process' of people feeling they are being consulted, asked to take part in a debate, that their opinions count will lead to a change that is longer lasting because people genuinely are convinced and believe in it." Peter Walker, Wan SmolBag Theatre, Vanuatu

17. "Good communication is like a good conversation - it is respectful, mutually beneficial, gives both parties a chance to negotiate and clarify points and leaves people feeling as though the conversation was worthwhile. Sending and receiving is not an appropriate metaphor for communication - communication is not a linear process... There is also a tendency to make the assumption that people's attitudes will influence their behaviour... True Change is not brought about by changing people's attitudes but showing them how to experience things in different ways than they are used to." Submission to The CI's Page Review Process

18. "As communicators we have a responsibility to continually re-examine our past efforts in a critical light, remain creative in our approach, and most importantly remain flexible to the direct feedback of those we are trying to reach." Hilary Hall, Toronto, Canada

19. "The number one thing that has been learned from a communication stand-point...is that we tend to underestimate the cultural influences, the importance of reaching people in ways that they are prepared to receive the information." Denise Gray-Felder, The Rockefeller Foundation, USA Click here to read more...

20. "If you do not like it - if you have good language, if you have a good voice, if you are a good writer, and you don't feel the satisfaction of seeing people improve their lives, then you do not belong in the communication business." Louie Tabing, Tambuli Foundation, Philippines Click here to read more...

TELLING STORIES

21. "Communication means sharing, it even comes from the Latin "comunio" which means communion. The participation goes in both directions, not just in one direction, as in the case of information."
Alfonso Gumucio Dagron, Guatemala (translated) Click here to read more...

22. "Openness is the starting point from which communities can move towards solutions. True change can only spring from truth and acceptance. With silence there is always something to hide. Unless one breaks the silence, all other measures can only be palliatives or firefighting." Pulse Poll Participant, India

23. "How can an education process ever be efficient, in human and financial terms, where the teacher is only sending one-way unintelligible messages to a passive receiver, and where the whole process of learning is ignored?" Manuel Calvelo, CESPAC, Peru Click here to read more...

24. "Our children and grandchildren will be able to look at these [video] images. Even the white people will watch the images of our culture, and that is how we will remain Kayapo." Megaron, Líder Metuktire-Kayapo, Brazil Click here to read more...

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