Malmö University Journals
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Mediated and non-mediated communication practices of Filipino au pairs in Denmark
Get PDFMy Master’s thesis in Communication for Development, on which this article is based, focused on six young, educated Filipino migrants who decided to be au pairs Denmark. In the study, I discussed the historical practices of a Filipino migrant to illustrate the migration patterns of Filipinos, including the trend of coming to Europe to be au pairs. The theories were based on transnationalism, migration, diaspora, cultural citizenship and media. Through these theories, I explored how the participants were excluded and included in the Danish society, as well as the role of networks in their lives. A constructionist approach to the analysis and participatory method were used in the study. The narrative responses of the participants indicated that some of them came to Denmark to gain cultural knowledge and skills, while others wanted to work in a Danish household. Nevertheless, from the standpoint of communication for development, behavior change is necessary to take the next step out of their despair. The au pairs themselves must acknowledge that they have carried with them something valuable to Denmark, their education; hence many au pairs must stop thinking that they are domestic workers
Reflections on MA thesis work on Communication for Development
Get PDFThis essay is a review of experiences with coordinating the final thesis or Degree Project course (15 ECTS) that completes the MA in Communication or Development at Malmö University, as well as a look into the future. The essay contains reflections on the particularities of ComDev ‘trekking’. The program and the majority of the degree projects have a strong focus on communication interventions specifically in contexts of development/social change. This has given the new and interdisciplinary subject area a strong orientation leading to many innovative degree projects. However, some degree projects also struggle with how to handle an ambitious body of empirical field research material and reaching theoretical depth in the analysis
My ICA 2013: Navigating the London conference in a quest for Development Communication… and beyond
Get PDFThe International Communication Association (ICA) Conference 2013 took place in London from 17th st to 21June. The London Metropole Hilton hosted almost 600 sessions, for a total of approximately 2195 presentations. All of the meeting rooms of the hotel, one of the biggest in the British capital, were booked by the ICA, which saw its largest conference happening this year, with a number of participants close to 3.000. As a development communication researcher with a strong interest in this field of study, I decided to navigate my way around the hundreds of panels scheduled in the conference programme by attending those that I felt were closer to this discipline. Some overtly covered topics related to devcomm; others carried ideas that could be related to that field or simply touched upon development and/or experiences from the Global South. For those like me, fascinated by the use of media and communication in contexts of development, here is my ICA 2013 journey
The Potential of Foreign News as International Development Communication
Get PDFThis article investigates what the news says about inequity-driven civil wars and economic underdevelopment. Dewey argued that the lack of causal knowledge that distinguishes between symptoms and root causes would limit potential effective and transformative public action. Political scientists have demonstrated that increases in just the number of news stories about a foreign country in both US print and TV news in one year produced a clearly significant relationship to increases in commitments of US foreign aid the following year. This study of reporting on a 2003-2005 African crisis by ten news organizations over 26 months found few articles predominantly focused on causes against conditions on the ground or remedies. It raises questions about the conditions under which news organizations might be expected to provide causal knowledge and when such information can lead to more enlightened long term aid for national transformation
The Underside of Communication in Development
Get PDFEfforts to relate the concepts of human development and human communication are complicated by their processual nature. The fact that in most cases communication has become synonymous with media and the need to take contexts into account further complicate such efforts. How the two well-meaning concepts interact in both developing and developed countries with oftentimes unintended, or even unwanted, effects is the subject of this paper. The underside of communication in development is discussed as the failure to address those forms of poverty that threaten equality, social cohesion, and the free flow of knowledge and information
Public Sector Software, Participatory Communications and Social Change
Get PDFThis article explores the role played by public sector software (PSS) in social change in India. Viewing public sector software as a public good, it explores its potential as well as the challenges that it faces in a context in which proprietoral software is an established and dominant force. Using both theory and examples, it argues that state investment in this public good makes infinite sense in the context of e-governance and commitments to access and affordable use of information resources for all its citizens. Based on the principles of Free Open Source Software (FOSS), PSS offers not only possibilities of access but also adaptation and use by a variety of ‘recursive publics’. Using the example of PSS in the Southern Indian state of Kerala
The Limits of Communication - The Gnat on the Elephant
Get PDFWhen asked by a Mozambican firm to assist in the development of a communication strategy for the country’s Land Law, we had doubts. We had read about the issue of ‘land grabbing’ in Africa and feared we might become part of that problem. We knew that any communication strategy devoted solely to outreach and public relations would not reach the illiterate farmer. But when the client agreed that the strategy would include a component focused on communicating with and from the small rural landowner, we accepted the contract. We worked well with the local team and delivered the product on time. However, a year later we learned that the component allowing for feedback from rural farmers had been cut, and that the strategy was yet to be implemented. What went wrong? And will the communication strategy do some good, or will it contribute to people giving up land under false promises
Reality Television for Community Development - The Kwanda Initiative in South Africa
Get PDFKwanda was an innovative community development initiative of the Soul City Institute and partners. Five deprived communities were challenged to make their areas `look better, feel better and work better’ by addressing health and development issues. Responses to this challenge were documented in a 13-episode reality TV series that culminated in a viewer vote for the most successful community. The series attracted more than a million viewers on late-night television, and feedback indicated that many viewers were motivated to take action. The evaluation of the initiative led to the conclusion that Kwanda offers possibilities for using the reality TV format to foster community development and the scaling-up of development messaging. Importantly, Kwanda demonstrated that when communities organise on their own behalf, government is better able to deliver. The evaluation also raised several questions for the Kwanda partners which would need to be taken into account in future efforts
Social Entrepreneurship and Communication for Development and Social Change - Rethinking Innovation
Get PDFThis article argues that social entrepreneurship has not yet been adequately defined even though it is increasingly being used in social change/development practice. Muhammad Yunus, creator of the Grameen Bank and microlending, and Bill Drayton, founder of the global change agency Ashoka, have practiced social change through social entrepreneurship for more than 30 years. Increasingly, the development community has been adopting many of its practices. The basic process of social entrepreneurship involves: defining a social goal for the solution of a serious problem; innovation in solving the problem; ability to expand the organization to serve large numbers of people (scaling up); focusing on the social bottom line with empirical evidence (impact evaluation). Three cases are briefly reviewed to illustrate this process. Finally the article examines how these practices might help Communication for Development (C4D) to better adapt its own practices in achieving real change with people
