Playing with Fire

In this the keynote address on the politics of development communication, from the Centre for Media Studies Conference, University of Hyderabad, India, Alfonso Gumucio Dagron argues that despite discourse on participation, "[v]ery little has changed in the actual system of international aid: institutional agendas, red tape and the politics of power have prevented the profound organisational changes that are desperately needed." From his experience working in development programmes with the United Nations (UN), international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), foundations, and grassroots organisations, including workers unions and rural villages, he explains that "[t]here is a big gap between those that have the means to affect development and those who are the real subjects of social change but are often considered only the object – not subjects - of development. Communication for development and social change needs to build the bridge between the two groups." He addresses diverging approaches, issues of power and culture, challenges of participatory communication, his view of the flaws of evaluation as it is applied by donors, and how the academic world can respond through training communicators.


Gumucio Dagron points to the fact that after 30 years, the diverging approaches to development communication have "not yet reached a point of balance and agreement." He suggests that what the “diffusion of innovations” paradigm of the 1970s "missed is the fact that [economic] poverty is not the result of lacking information or knowledge,... it’s an issue of lacking resources, political power, and not having access to basic rights: productive land, education, health and social justice." While development organisations, aid agencies, and governments know that participatory communication leads to sustainability, participation is not what they promote, due to power and culture issues, he argues. "The idea that by sharing power with others we lose power ourselves is deeply rooted in the institutional and organisational practices, as well as in individual attitudes.....And there is an issue of clashing cultures: Institutional culture is in conflict with indigenous culture. Communities use communication tools to strengthen their cultural identity, to share their traditional knowledge, or to make their voices heard."


Gumucio Dagron points to institutionally imposed time frames as a stumbling block to sustainability of programmes. "This is particularly relevant to communication for social change as the opposite of social marketing campaigns: The pace of development should be driven by the communities involved, not by the donor agencies or the agencies that provide technical assistance." He uses case studies of HIV/AIDS to illustrate how top-down messaging strategies in the most affected regions of the world "have not resulted in noticeable positive progress; the number of cases continues to go up." He links vertical marketing-style campaigns to the rise in HIV/AIDS from 30 million in 1997 to 45 million in 2006. He compares Brazil and South Africa because Brazil had twice as many AIDS cases as South Africa in 1990 and has been surpassed by South Africa, which has the most HIV/AIDS cases in the world. He cites two differences in approach: Brazil focused on prevention, while South Africa focused on a cure; and Brazil used thousands of small, local projects and participatory communication initiatives, while South Africa used centralised and top-down information campaigning. "People in Brazil were, above all, consulted and drawn into the collective effort. The social capital existing in the country was mobilised. Moreover, Brazil didn’t just focus on prevention and underestimate the care of people already living with HIV/AIDS. On the contrary, they designed a strong policy to provide free drugs. They declared HIV/AIDS a national emergency, which allowed them not to pay the huge royalties pharmaceutical laboratories wanted for their expensive drugs. Brazil started producing the drugs itself and offered them, along with free food, for the [economically] poorest patients."


Gumucio Dagron points to the challenges presented by the terminology involved in communication for development, including distinguishing two-way "participatory communication" - "sharing, being part of, entering into dialogue" - from "access to information" - journalistic and social marketing-style provision of information. Other linguistic distinctions are between "communicators" and "journalists", and between "communication" - the human process - and "communications" - the hardware. In critiquing issues of power, he describes a "centralist mentality" of donors and agencies as follows:" “Bottom-up behaviour seems illogical to Western minds because we have a hierarchical bias against self–organisation.”


He critiques evaluation, particularly quantitative evaluation, as, for example, missing the evaluation processes involving capacity development. "The traditional methods are not sufficient to evaluate participatory communication, social innovation and ultimately social change....The alternative to the quantitative, vertical and external evaluation that doesn’t take into account the process and the local culture, is developmental evaluation that integrates critical thinking and creativity, and is based on participatory methods....There are several important approaches to participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) and to ethnological action research (EAR). Many practitioners as well as scholars have been working in recent years in developing methodologies and systems to evaluate with the people, from the people. Online discussions such as Pelican or Outcome Mapping have brought to attention a wealth of information, reports, experiences and methodologies that point in the same direction: it is time for people to evaluate if international and external aid is really benefiting them, and how."


In conclusion, Gumucio Dagron differentiates between communication specialists and activists, both of whom work with participatory approaches, and journalists who specialise in working with messages. "There are only 20 universities in the world that have specialisations in communication for development and social change, whereas 2000 universities have established programmes that are media-oriented." He notes the absence of universities that are training communication planners and strategists as professionals with a long-term vision of communication for development and states that universities are leaving aside "their social responsibilities toward national development" in favour of providing journalists for the private sector.