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Media and the Empowerment of Communities for Social Change - Ch. 4 - part 2June 2002 SummaryFor the full text of this thesis, please contact Chido Ef Matewa - Mewxicem@fs1.ed.man.ac.uk (from 4.12 - 4.18) 4.12 Disseminating educational and developmental information This section focuses on different channels from which respondents received information on general educational issues and on development. Word of mouth emerged as the primary source of information on health related issues, political issues, agricultural information and on social issues. In terms of mediated messages, radio was the main source of information. The role extension services play in disseminating information showed that their services were reaching a considerable number of respondents and was greatly valued by the majority of the female heads of households interviewed. 4.12.1 Health Education Word of mouth emerged as the primary source of information on health related issues as shown below. Over 90% of the respondents said that they receive information on the listed health related issues through word of mouth followed by radio and newspapers. Television and magazines were the least utilised sources of information on health related issues.
When I visit the clinic, the nurses tell us more about the different diseases and what we must do to prevent ourselves and families from being victims. For example, this year we had a lot of rainfall. They tell us that there is an outbreak of malaria. They tell us the symptoms and what we can do to prevent mosquitoes breeding around our homes (personal communication, 2001). During the administration of the questionnaire rural nurses were cited as the primary sources of health information by the 136 female heads of households, as well as on birth control. In terms of traditional medicine, elders were cited as the primary sources of information. 4.12.2 Politics and Governance During the time of field research, media and politics in Zimbabwe was a very sensitive area. It was therefore not surprising that respondents generally gave very short hesitant answers to questions with a political connotation. It emerged from the quantitative analysis that most of the information they received on political issues and governance was through word of mouth as shown below.
In literature review, Chapter 2, the use of electronic and print media to disseminate development information meant to increase agricultural productivity in developing countries was highlighted. However, among the 136 female heads of households, word of mouth was their main source of information as show on the table below.
4.12.3 Social Issues Word of mouth emerged during the quantitative data analysis as the dominant method information is disseminated or received by female heads of households interviewed on general social issues. Among the traditional means of Mass Media, radio was the most dominant source of information as shown on the table below.
4.13 Places they get most information by word of mouth Respondents were asked to cite up to three venues where they get information by word of mouth. However, some of the respondents cited less than three venues. As shown on the table below, the Church emerged as the venue they get most of their information. The Church was cited 94 times (69.1% of the respondents). On further inquiry, I learnt that the information received by word of mouth from the church was in most cases announcements of events taking place in the locality and personal communications among the audiences before and after church service. Meetings were in second position, being cited 89 times (65.4% of the respondents). The type of meetings attended by these respondents varied from meetings conducted by health extension officers, agricultural extension officers, general developmental meetings and women's clubs meetings. It seemed that most of the respondents belonged to one or more different types of womens clubs. Some of these met regularly on a weekly basis while others met once a month. Home was cited 76 times (55.9% of the respondents) and at funerals was cited 52 times (38.2% of the respondents). It became evident that funerals were a common event in this community and hence an occasion people met and passed on information by word of mouth. During the period of data collection, there were three funerals in the area the quantitative data was collected. This was mainly through announcements during the funeral and personal communications among the people attending the funeral. The people attending the funerals would come from different parts of the country and urban centres. Andersson (2002) remarked, In February, Chinyudze is suddenly a busy place again. The few buses from Harare that stop at Chinyudze, again bring urban migrants from Harare. Although they probably did not plan a home visit so soon after the Christmas holidays, these migrant workers have come to attend the funeral of a young schoolteacher. (...) The mourners sit up with the deceased's family for days, leaving only occasionally for a bath at home or a drink at the bottle store (Andersson, 2002:46) So, funerals provide an opportunity of people to meet and information is passed on.
4.14 Extension Services Ministry of Health, Agriculture, Youth, Gender and Employment Creation have extension staff in rural areas. The role of these extension staff is to disseminate information and to monitor to what extent communities are adopting the new innovations and to stimulate development in specific areas. They use mainly word of mouth during house visits or meetings to disseminate information. Sometimes, they also use the print media particularly pamphlets or leaflets on specific issues. The table below shows that over 70% of the female heads of households interviewed had been in contact with extension services.
As shown on the table above, of the 136 respondents, 80.9% had contact with health extension services, 73.5% with agricultural extension services, and 72.8% with village community workers. Among those who had not had contact with extension services, the majority could have been members of the apostolic faith. Health extension services staff seemed to be having more contact with these respondents than agricultural extension staff and village community workers as shown on the table below.
The table below confirms that not only are extension services having contact with the respondents but that overall, their services are greatly valued.
4.15 Mobile video screenings and development Mobile film screenings were introduced in Zimbabwe then known as Southern Rhodesia during the 1940's by the Central African Film Unit. Rhodesia was then a member of the Federation[3] with Nyasaland now known as Malawi. After the disintegration of the Federation, Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) established Production Services whose task was the production of films. The Rural Information Services was also established. Its role was to screen educational and developmental films in the rural areas using generator powered film projectors (Hungwe, 1990). Most of the programmes produced during this period were used for propaganda. At independence, government adopted Production Services and the Rural Information Services also known as the Mobile Cinema Unit (Carter, 1999). The concept of the service is excellent: to provide rural audiences throughout the country, many whom have little access to any type of information, with development information, education, communication and entertainment through films. The MCU staff in turn report back to the government about agricultural, education and health issues facing the communities they visit. The mobile cinema programme is undoubtedly one of the most extensive communication activities carried out by the government (Carter, 1999:1) However, by the late 1990's, the Mobile Cinema Unit was grounded as most of the vehicles and generators had broken down and there seemed to be no funds to repair or replace them. The vehicles were equipped with 16mm film projectors, hence continued to show outdated films since the cost of producing 16mm films had become prohibitive. During the past decade, some non-governmental institutions and organisations as I show later set up projects to improve access to video films among the rural communities. It was evident in the survey that Mobile films or videos are some of the sources of information among some of the female heads of households apart from radio, television, magazines and newspapers. 29.4% of the respondents classified under not applicable on the table below had not watched a mobile video or film in their lives. Those who were classified under 'yes', had attended one or some of the screenings and learnt something. Those who were classified under 'no', had attended one or more mobile screenings but had not learnt anything. The other group, 'can't remember,' had attended one or more of the mobile film or video screenings but could not remember whether they had learnt anything or not. The table below shows the percentages of the female heads of households who had learnt something during the mobile film and video screenings.
What is not established in this study is the frequency of exposure to mobile video and film. However, during the administration of the questionnaire, some of the respondents remarked that they had last watched a mobile film or video over twenty-five years ago. This does not necessarily mean that it was the last time a mobile film show had been conducted in this community. 4.16 Convenient time for the respondents to watch mobile videos Respondents had to name two different times of the day they considered appropriate to watch mobile films or videos. From the results below, it was evident that the female heads of households prefer watching mobile films or videos during the afternoon. The majority of the female heads of households, 95 of them, representing 69.9% of the respondents said afternoons were the ideal time while 53 persons representing 39% of the respondents preferred watching mobile video or films at sunset. However, early morning and mid-morning were stated as times least convenient for mobile screenings.
4.17 How female heads of households utilise their free time. It is my observation that 'Free time', was defined differently by respondents, hence the different activities they said they undertook during this time. The 60 respondents, comprising 44.1% of the total respondents and classified on the table below in the category 'others' engaged in activities like cleaning the house, washing dishes, washing clothes, ironing and cooking among others. These women on further questioning expressed the opinion that they did not consider such activities as work, and therefore cited them as activities of their spare time.
4.18 Conclusion It emerged during the case study that word of mouth remains the dominant method by which information on health-related issues, agriculture and on social issues are disseminated and received in this community by the female heads of households interviewed. There was limited or no direct access to most of the Information Communication Technology particularly the Internet and e-mail. The traditional Mass Communication tools that is radio, newspapers and television remain inaccessible to the majority of the households. Among those with radio sets, radio is not accessible at least on a regular basis due to the high cost of batteries and lack of electricity as a result some of the respondents resort to listening to their favourite programmes when they have the means to power them. In this research, I did not assess how much of the information eventually disseminated largely through word of mouth had originated from the radio, television or newspapers. It is however my assumption that some of the information received by word of mouth could have originated from radio, television or the print media. There is need for research to find out how much of the information, which is disseminated by word of mouth, originates from the radio, television or the print media. It also emerged in this study that a considerable number of the respondents had attended one or more mobile video screenings. However, through further inquiry, it became evident that these were not a regular event in the community. Some of the respondents remarked during the quantitative interviews that they had last watched mobile films more than twenty years ago and others said while they were in primary and secondary school. The study confirmed that access to Information Communication Technology is still not readily accessible to most of the households and female heads of households interviewed hence the need for intervention. Results of this study showed that extension services is still being widely used in this community and was generally valued by these respondents. There is need for further research to find out to what extent the work of extension services is complemented or can be complimented by other communication development strategies, for example traditional media and Information Communication Technologies. Their seemed to be no or very limited use of traditional media in disseminating developmental and educational information. Lack or limited access to mass media or mediated messages on developmental information by these rural female heads of households who participated in the survey could be the scenario in most of the rural communities in Zimbabwe. The main aim of conducting this case study was to find out the level of access to media by rural households and in particular access to information by female heads of households. The study revealed that there is limited access to both print and electronic media among the households, which participated in this study. Ownership of a radio did not mean that the household had access to information from radio because the cost of batteries and lack of alternative cheap source of power resulted in selectivity listening when power was available. Due to the cost of postage and Post Offices being far away and a very limited number of telephones, this community had therefore very limited human and material resources for feedback. 3 The Federation was composed of Southern Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe, Northern Rhodesia, now known as Zambia and Nyasaland, now known as Malawi. Placed on the Communication Initiative site July 22 2003 Last Updated July 09 2003 |
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