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This Drum Beat is one of a series of commentary and analysis pieces. Professor John Van Zyl, Managing Director of ABC Ulwazi - Radio Training & Production House in South Africa, has responded to the open invitation for anyone in The CI network to write a strategic thinking piece on issues of concern to them in development communication. He examines here what he considers to be two "dangerous quick fixes" communicators should avoid - an emphasis on either media determinacy or individual volition - because they ignore the influence of situational, community, historical, and gender contexts.

We are interested in featuring a range of critical analysis commentaries of the communication for change field. These will appear regularly on the first Monday of each month and are meant to inspire dialogue throughout the month. Though we cannot guarantee to feature your commentary, as we have a limited number of issues to be published each year, if you wish to contribute please contact Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com Many thanks!

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CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING...

Two Dangerous Quick Fixes to Avoid.

Danger 1: MEDIA DETERMINACY

"The belief that a medium, because of communicational qualities unique to that medium, will be able to change the behaviour of, or impart knowledge to, its audience, irrespective of contextual factors."

Marshall McLuhan, the Sixties media guru, has a lot to answer for through his books like "The Medium is the Massage" and "Understanding Media". He put the idea in our heads that certain media have unique characteristics that reside in the medium itself, not in the context within which the medium operates. He downplayed variables like the intention of the sender, and even the receptiveness of the receiver.

Amongst the least damaging myths was the idea that TV was a "cool medium" and radio was a "hot medium." Amongst the more damaging implications was the belief that a medium itself could change behaviour or increase knowledge. That the very fact that a message had been transformed or adapted into a medium would ensure that it would be understood and acted upon. In other words, the bigger the billboard, the more like an MTV video the TV image, and the more audible the radio soap opera, the more effective the message.

The magic symbol "ICT" is presently enjoying the semi-mystical status of being the saviour of the developing world. It's the same old story. Instead of talking "communication" or "education", the ICT buffs talk "systems." Ivory tower academics extrapolate development solutions for Africa from stultifyingly obvious research done on European and US based global websites. The advantages of connectivity are extolled.

This is in spite of the crying realities in Africa of the cost of telephony and webservers, the scarcity of telephone lines, pervasive computer illiteracy and lack of trained computer technicians. Still, the chimera of the ICT medium is being sought to the detriment of adequately situated, logically embedded and properly functioning communications systems.

Ironically, the HIV/AIDS pandemic has sent funders and planners back to simplistic media determinism projects based on the use of radio. There might be a lesson for the ICT wizards if they care to revisit the advantages and disadvantages of using the simplest of media, radio, for education and development.

I am finding that the organisation in which I work, which produces Entertainment Education radio programmes for the community radio sector, is having to examine the nature of its funded projects very carefully. We are currently being approached by funders, government departments and health organisations that believe that radio is the solution to the prevention of the spread of HIV AIDS in Africa.

Radio they say (correctly) is ubiquitous, accessible and economic. It reaches millions of listeners, transcends literacy barriers and yet is credible, because it addresses the single listener personally. If we can just get the message out there things will improve. The medium is the message. Radio works.

But, hang on, what is radio?

Is it Classic FM playing softly in the background as I write, a gentle and undemanding companion? Or is it the hip hop station at the receptionist's desk, drowning out the clatter of the traffic outside? Or the public broadcaster's talk-show on the car radio that our carpool driver hurls insults at when we drive to work? Even the steady stream of sermons, hymns and prayers from the gospel station that ambushes me downtown is radio. As are the nationwide in-house programmes at the supermarket with the latest special offers and sales news, which are rediffused by satellite.

The use made of the medium by the users changes its nature and adapts the messages that originated from a studio.

The nature of radio is also influenced by such seemingly insignificant matters as what provides it with power. Batteries are expensive in deep rural areas (where there may be no electricity) so the radio cannot be on all the time. Specialised programmes must therefore be flighted at appropriate times. (FreePlay wind-up and solar radios are still too expensive for the majority of the rural poor.) On the other hand, town electricity is available all the time, so radios play there all the time. In cars with open doors on the sidewalk, as well as in offices, workshops and homes. This allows for eavesdroppers as well as targeted audiences to catch individual items in the programme flow.

Censorship may interfere with programme flow at the reception end. Dominant members of the family determine which programmes should be listened to. So, for example, some HIV/AIDS safe sex programmes are often turned off because genitals cannot be mentioned in a family context.

From this we can see that the communicational power of radio is influenced by such diverse contextual issues as electricity, elders, intention and end-user motivation.

Producers, writers and researchers in the field of development communication must sit down with funding providers and commissioners of programmes and convince them to move away from a blind faith in a single medium, the curse of media determinacy, to consider the entire social, economic, cultural and psychological context of the use of a medium in education and development programmes.

For instance, they must understand that the actual broadcast radio programme is only the start of a complex communication process. The actual broadcast is woven into the "mesh" of communicational activities triggered by the broadcast. It presupposes the pre-training of the radio programme presenters to achieve "buy-in. It is carried forward by participatory dialogue through radio phone-ins or studio walk-ins. And it is elaborated by radio listening clubs focusing on local issues and lobbying for local airtime. Support material in the form of printed programme transcripts further reinforce the broadcasts.

The effectiveness of even as simple a medium as radio as a communicational medium does not reside in transistors, coils and antennae. It is everything contained in the "mesh."

Some suggestions:

• Let us hope that planners will start looking past a specific medium at the context in which it can operate effectively.
• Let us also hope that the ICT disciples will take a long, hard look at the "mesh" involved in their medium.
• And stop talking systems when they should be talking communication.
• And stop using inappropriate models from post industrial countries to impose on developing countries.

Danger 2: INDIVIDUAL VOLITION

"The belief that individuals have the capacity to change their own circumstances once it has been pointed out to them what is in their own best interests. In other words, that there is a clear, linear relationship between knowledge and action."

There are thousands of honorable researchers, dedicated health workers and communicators with college educations out there. Together, they are generating hundreds of thousands of entirely worthwhile, logical and sensible messages that encourage behaviour change.

Their target: an individual at risk of being infected by the HIV virus. They all believe in the myth of "individual volition."

However, consider the individual. In this case, an impoverished 12 year old rural girl, an AIDS orphan, trying to look after her two smaller siblings. The only way she can get any money to support herself and her family is by having unprotected sex with her 35 year old uncle. She is fully aware of the thousands of sensible messages about the dangers of unprotected sex (since she hears them often on community radio and has been told them personally by the nurse who visited her dying parents.)

But, she will go on having sex with her uncle. The myth has been disproved.

The essence of the problem lies in the fact that the focus is on the individual rather than the social context. This is because there are many communicators that believe firmly that individuals can exercise total control over their behaviour. A belief that is held irrespective of the sad fact that many individuals actively pursue activities that are detrimental to their welfare through fatalism, recklessness, unconscious psychological factors, social and cultural issues and just plain cussedness. Of course, this does not include those individuals who ignore worthy messages because circumstances simply do not allow it. Let's call this the "I would if I could" syndrome.

The sad fact is that education does not necessarily bring change. The logic and commonsense of AIDS advice (use a condom, keep to one partner etc) is overruled by the fact that sex involves more than one person, and that sexual activity involves the dynamics of interpersonal power.

In a society where there are inequalities in the distribution of wealth and the exercise of interpersonal power, individual choice-making is secondary to the power dimension, which includes factors like coercion, patriarchal attitudes, familial relationships, poverty, and physical needs like food, shelter and medication.

A paradigm shift is necessary - from "behavior change communication" to greater emphasis being placed on: community involvement to eradicate the abuse of power in all its forms; the creation of support systems familially and communally; the improvement of material conditions (like housing, medication and nutrition); and, those human rights that protect the weak.

A few final questions:

• While one always has to keep the individual in mind, how do you develop effective campaigns that focus on larger contexts?
• Why is "behaviour change communication" so pervasive?
• Can we move away from the "blame" theory of development?

Many thanks.

Prof John van Zyl
ABC Ulwazi
ABC Ulwazi site
john@abculwazi.org.za

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Please participate in a Pulse Poll on this same theme -

If we can just get the message out there, things will get better, regardless of context.

Do you agree or disagree?

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This issue of The Drum Beat is meant to inspire dialogue and conversation among the Drum Beat network.

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This issue of The Drum Beat is an opinion piece and has been written and signed by the individual writer. The views expressed herein are the perspective of the writer and are not necessarily reflective of the views or opinions of The Communication Initiative or any of The Communication Initiative Partners.

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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.


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