William Smith, Ph.D.

presented at the IDB Forum

This presentation made the case that we now have many different models of communication for social change. It suggested that the battles between social marketing, participation, advocacy and social mobilization should give way to a more sophisticated analysis of the problem and the kind of tool - and often the combination of tools - needed to address it. Successes in oral rehydration, AIDS, family planning, seat belt use and SIDS were compared with failures such as obesity and exercise and disappointing results from two decades work on AIDS in Africa. Smith described the use of mass communication to incite conversation in communities; the use of computer models to influence policy change; as well as examples of e-government, school networking and sustaining Maya culture using the internet. Examples were tied together with brief overviews of social movement theory, risk communication and communication to support law enforcement. The basic take away message was - we need to stop pitting marketing against mobilization and participation against advocacy. It's a complicated world and we need to get smarter about all the alternatives for real social change.

Don't blame smokers...

Blame cigarette makers.

Big Success

Tobacco

Heart Disease

AIDS in the United States/Switzerland

Family Planning

Child Survival

Seat Belts

SIDS

Big Failures

AIDS in Africa

Obesity & Exercise in United States

New Starts

Civic Participation

E-Technology Networking

Building Social Capitol

Annenberg Study: In head to head spending those who spent the most got their policy passed.

The More Radio the More Treatment of Infant Diarrhea

Communication for Public Talk

Communication for Policy Change

Profiles:

Bangladesh

Ghana

Togo

Philippines

China

India

plus 16 more countries

Ecuador

Jamaica

Guatemala

Brazil

Chile

E-government

School Networking

Online Learning

Mayan Culture

NGO Sustainability

Communication to build Civil Society

Advocacy Communication

Communication for Enforcement Support

Risk Communication

Confirmation Bias:

• New data - make it fit
• Contrary data - filter out
• Ambiguous data - simplify it
• Consistent data - proof positive

NEW THEORY

Social Capital

Community Environment is a big predictor of Readiness to change

Definitions and Measures

Community Efficacy: Shared Expectation for Collective Action given a Problem.

Cohesion

Trust

Networks

Norms

Readiness Mapping

More Options - More Evidence - More Experience

Risk Communication

Advocacy Communication

Communication for Policy Change

Communication for Public Talk

Communication for Enforcement

Communication for Behavior Change

Communication to Build Civil Society



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