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Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change
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Jan Servaes (ed.)

Singapore: Springer (2020), 2 vols.

"The book contains 85 chapters written by persons who have been on those frontlines of communication and development [...] A variety of case studies appear in the book. For example, Kriss Barker and Fatou Jah – in a chapter titled “Entertainment-Education in Radio: Three Case Studies from Africa ... ” – explore in detail projects in Nigeria, Burundi and Burkina Faso that used a communication intervention approach advanced by the Population Media Center. Other chapters in the Handbook take the reader to Spain, Kenya, South Africa, Kazakhstan, and beyond. Song Shi examines “ICTs and Modernization in China,” revealing that assumptions and theories of the modernization paradigm have significantly influenced the policies and projects on ICT4D in contemporary China. And, Song Shi writes, discussion on the potential of other approaches in ICT4D in China has also emerged among scholars. Hina Ayaz discusses the “Multiplicity Approach in Participatory Communication” in Pakistan – wherein the country adopted the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – only to run into negative perceptions and banning of polio vaccinations. However, a shift to a more successful approach, grounded in UNICEF’s social mobilization and communityinvolvement communication strategy, brought significant success. While many of the Handbook case studies incorporate participation as a significant development factor, they also address a wide range of social and political issues including, for example, civic engagement, sexual harassment, empowerment, and community voices. In addition to an abundance of case studies from around the world, the Handbook delves into various research methods that are being used to understand and design communication for development and social change interventions [...] Handbook editor Jan Servaes' own chapter (with Rico Lie), “Key Concepts, Disciplines, and Fields in Communication for Development and Social Change ” identifies five clusters of concepts and practices that are evident in the field today and which determine the activities and approaches in communication for sustainable development and social change interventions: The clusters are (1) a normative cluster of concepts; (2) a cluster of concepts that sets an important context for communication activities for development; (3) a cluster of strategic and methodological concepts; (4) a cluster of concepts that relate to methods, techniques, and tools; and (5) a cluster of concepts that addresses the practices of advocacy, (participatory) monitoring and evaluation, and impact assessment. The authors extend their discussion into three subdivisions: (1) health communication, (2) agricultural extension and rural communication, and (3) environmental communication (including climate change communication). This leads the reader into issues related to (1) right to communicate; (2) education and learning; (3) innovation, science, and technology; (4) natural resource management; (5) food security; (6) poverty reduction; (7) peace and conflict; (8) children and youth, women, and senior citizens; and (9) tourism. Some of the forerunners of development communication have not been forgotten. In “Daniel Lerner and the Origins of Development Communication”, Hemant Shah links Lerner’s 1958 book Passing of Traditional Society to today’s modernization and faith in technology to solve social problems. Also contributing to the foundation of this field is Paulo Freire who contributed much to idea that participation should be a vital part of the development dialogue. Ana Fernández-Aballí Altamirano’s chapter on "The Importance of Paulo Freire to Communication for Development and Social Change" highlights his main work Pedagogy of the Oppressed as a "before-and-after" in the fields of education, research, and communication, initially in Latin America and later in both North and South. Particularly in the case of development communication and communication for social change, the author stresses, Freire’s work had a definitive impact ..." (Review by Royal Donald Colle, Journal of Development Communication, vol. 30 (2), page 92-94) more

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We’ve Raised Their Voice. Is Anyone Listening? Participatory Video Practitioners and Valued Citizen Voice in International Development Contexts

Tamara Plush

Doctoral Thesis University of Queensland (2016), xviii, 259 pp.

"This thesis offers a study on the nuanced understandings of and the interplay between participatory video (PV), citizen voice and international development. The study investigates contemporary PV practitioners’ conceptualisations of the phenomenon of using PV to raise citizen voice in internation ... al development contexts. The study participants were 25 global PV practitioners who had experience on more than 650 PV projects. Of those projects, approximately 250 specifically aimed to raise the voice of excluded groups in international development contexts. Through investigating the PV practitioners’ perceptions of the phenomenon, the study identified three distinct epistemologies relevant to PV practice and raising citizen voice. The study called these the amplified, engaged and equitable voice pathways. Making the three categories explicit is of critical value to the PV field. They provide a language and theoretical grounding for why certain PV approaches may be more effective than others for social and/or political change. Of the three pathways, the research ultimately deemed equitable voice as the most viable for citizen voice to be both authentically representative and respectively valued in decision-making spaces. Accordingly, the study drew from scholarship and the characteristics within the equitable voice pathway to develop a conceptual framework for raising valued citizen voice with PV. The framework offers five key principles; named as personal recognition, collective representation, social and political recognition, responsive listening and empathic relationships. While having a framework is valuable for PV practice, the study also recognised that a conceptual framework in itself is often insufficient. Its viability requires an enabling environment for meaningful application. Thus, the research also identified six institutional views of PV practice in international development contexts with potential to diminish voice. It named them as the output-focused, voice opportunity, apolitical, agenda-led, harmless and uncomplicated views. These were views the PV practitioners in the study described as constraining their ideals in practice. The views ranged from institutions prioritising PV film outputs over political dialogue to institutions setting agendas with potential to suppress authentic citizen voice. The study interrogated the identified institutional views to discover their differing possibilities for legitimising or limiting citizen voice. The thesis concludes by encouraging three areas of consideration for participatory video to enhance citizen voice in democratic decision-making processes. First, it proposes deliberate attention on strengthening voice representation and voice receptivity in PV activities to reduce social and political inequity. Second, it promotes recognition of how political and institutional environments influence PV’s ability to raise citizen voice sufficiently. Third, it suggests greater reflection on how PV practitioners’ conceptualisations of voice affect citizen voice outcomes; and how practitioners might use their own agency to ensure meaningful change. Such forethought and action expands possibilities for PV practice to support citizen voice in being heard, valued and influential." (Abstract) more

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Interrogating Practitioner Tensions for Raising Citizen Voice with Participatory Video in International Development

Tamara Plush

Nordicom Review, volume 36, issue Special Issue (2015), pp. 57-70

"Within international development, strengthening the voice of citizens living in poverty is recognised as vital to reducing inequity. In support of such endeavors, participatory video (PV) is an increasingly utilised communicative method that can stimulate community engagement and amplify the voice ... more

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Participatory Video and Citizen Voice – We’ve Raised Their Voices: Is Anyone Listening?

Tamara Plush

Glocal Times, issue 22-23 (2015), 16 pp.

"Sheathed in the glamour of filmmaking and technical innovation, participatory video (PV) is often evangelised as a communication for development methodology that intrinsically fosters transformative social and political change. Such celebratory notions, however, can obscure the complexity facing pa ... more

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Communication for Development Approaches in the Australian NGO Sector and Academia

Valentina Baú, Tait Brimacombe (comp.)

Sydney; Melbourne: School of the Arts & Media University of New South Wales; Institute for Human Security & Social Change La Trobe University (2015), 13 pp.

"In June 2015 a group of academic researchers from Australian universities and practitioners from Australian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) came together to discuss the use of communication for development (C4D) in their present and future work. The seminar was organised as a pre-conference t ... more

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Using Visual Storytelling for Women's Empowerment

Tamara Plush

Media Development, volume 60, issue 3 (2013), pp. 25-29

"Communicators who work with photography and video in the development context know the power visuals can have in bearing witness to the reality people living in poverty face. When contextualized, visuals can transcend distance and create a global dialog around topics in need of deeper understanding ... more

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Handbook of Participatory Video

Elizabeth-Jane Milne, Claudia Mitchell, Naydene De Lange (eds.)

Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield (2012), xix, 480 pp.

"Participatory video is a growing area of research and an increasingly popular tool among practitioners, researchers, and NGOs working with communities around the world. The Handbook of Participatory Video advances the field, engaging critically with it as a research methodology and method and inter ... more

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Voices of Ethnic Minority Children: Participatory Video on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change in Vietnam

Tamara Plush, Nguyen Trong Ninh

Plan International (2010), 10 pp.

"This booklet documents the participatory video methodology as an affordable and easy-to-use video tool enabling community members to record their experience and strengthen their own knowledge on disaster risks and climate change, as well as to increase their capacity to act on that knowledge and se ... more

Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change Top Insights

We’ve Raised Their Voice. Is Anyone Listening? Participatory Video Practitioners and Valued Citizen Voice in International Development Contexts

Interrogating Practitioner Tensions for Raising Citizen Voice with Participatory Video in International Development

Participatory Video and Citizen Voice – We’ve Raised Their Voices: Is Anyone Listening?

Communication for Development Approaches in the Australian NGO Sector and Academia

Using Visual Storytelling for Women's Empowerment

Handbook of Participatory Video

Voices of Ethnic Minority Children: Participatory Video on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change in Vietnam

Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change
Top Insights