Sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls is a major challenge across the world which requires engaged and sustained action to see change (Abramowitz and Moran, 2012). Communication for Development approaches are often used in GBV-prevention programmes because they provide a means of engaging people at a community-level, whether that is through one-way behaviour-change messages on mass media or through participatory community projects engaging people in dialogue. Through analysis of the Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) Project on ‘Engaging Faith-Based Organizations to Prevent Violence Against Women & Girls and Increase Survivors’ Access to Services (2015-2017)’, this degree project explores the question of whether engaging with the faith-realities of communities will increase the depth of participation amongst participants. The ERD project focusses on equipping faith leaders, both Muslim and Christian, to engage in activity which shares GBV-prevention messages with their congregations and points victims and survivors to relevant support services. From the available data, it is not possible to conclusively argue that engagement with the faith context enhanced the depth of participation. However, applying three of Freire’s concepts, namely conversion to the people, dialogue and context, I argue that the ERD project aligns with Freire’s conceptualisation of participation more closely than similar projects that are ‘faith blind’.

This research studies how participatory theatre (PT) as a communication tool can promote development and social change in the city. Using a project developed in Johannesburg (SA) that engages the city’s socio-spatial concerns through performance, the paper analyses the participatory creative process utilised and in which ways it opened a space for debate and critical thinking. The objects of the study are the medium (the theatre), the context (the urban) and the creative stakeholders (the participants) and how they influence each other when creating the fictional space of the performance.  The findings suggest that, after participating in the performance’s making process, stakeholders have enhanced their ability to connect their lived experiences with the social-spatial issues of the city and have a better knowledge of the topics covered in the play. One significant aspect of this project is that the participatory approach has given participants a unique opportunity to exchange personal views of the city and find commonalities, and theatre has provided the medium to represent, negotiate and transform their relationship with the city.

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This paper aims to discuss the video art work of Thando Mama as an example of a black South African video artist. It takes in mind the reality that video art in South Africa has high entrance barriers due to the technological knowledge resources needed to practice thus becomes an elite art. The paper also contextualises video art within its historical practice as an avant garde art as well as its social development usage. Mama's videos are a tool to communicate identity issues as represented in contemporary art with a particular focus on the South African experience.

Changing the approach to communication and engagement with the local people in Liberia during the Ebola response turned out to be a key strategy in the Red Cross’ work. The Liberian Red Cross’ communication with the crisis-affected people changed significantly during the fight against the Ebola virus, from top-down information to a more dialogical communication approach. The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has caused more than 11 000 deaths since the outbreak in March 2014. The task of defeating the virus seemed overwhelming at times, but the outbreak finally stopped and all the three worst hit countries: Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia were declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization. Communication with and participation of the people the aid organizations target have been a central issue for discussion within the international community and development agencies for a long time. During the Ebola response it was clearly stated that communicating and engaging with the people living in the affected area was a core approach during and after the response. This thesis explores how one of the responding humanitarian organizations, The Red Cross, used communication with the crisis affected people in Liberia as a tool in their response to help stop and prevent the virus from spreading. The study is done as a case study. Main components of the case, and focus for the analysis, are semi-structured interviews with staff and volunteers from the Liberian Red Cross that worked with communication and operational activities during the Ebola response. Red Cross documents from the Ebola response, policy, planning, evaluation and training-documents, are also important part of the case.

This research is aimed at discussing the impact of participatory communication on empowering, increasing agency, and mobilizing citizenship that fosters social change. I conducted my fieldwork with a group of 21 youth (seven women and 14 men), with ages ranging from 15 to 30 years, who reside in Ataúro, Timor-Leste. This group participates in a community wall-newspaper founded in 2008. The methodologies applied were participant observation and qualitative interviews. The text is divided into three chapters; the first explores the societal structure and the constructing of youth, and the process of resignification of youth roles and identities from the work of young people in the community newspaper. In the following chapter, the internal dynamic of the newspaper group is analysed through the participatory communication framework, elaborating on empowerment processes and showing how this promotes changes and continuities in traditional structures. Finally, the last chapter looks at interactions of the group with their community and the way the negotiation between new and traditional practices develops. Youth are more empowered and the changes occurring throughout the participatory process suggest that ruptures and continuities between conserving and changing traditional practices, and the perception of ‘youth’ in the community, are occurring.

In many cases, the need to survive has been the reason for many individuals to leave their country and to start anew in a foreign land. Indeed, migration has played its role as one of the solutions to struggle against poverty among many migrants. Nevertheless, migration can also be an excellent way to improve or develop one’s linguistic, professional and cultural competencies. And one way of doing this is to be part of the au pair cultural exchange program. The interest to be an au pair as well as the interest to have an au pair has been the subject of colorful debates in Denmark, and pushing politicians to make an action due to reports of abuse by many host families. Where the au pair program will end up is still a question hanging up in the air. This study is about the journey of many young and educated Filipino migrants who have decided to embark on the au pair expedition. The theme is anchored on deprofessionalization and deskilling. Transnationalism, civic culture and cultural citizenship, and media are the central theories of the study. Feedback from the participants indicates that there is a need to shift the discussion and focus. It is also important that the au pairs’ knowledge and skills are recognized. The study recommends further research on how participatory communication can be utilized or applied to engage all the stakeholders: au pairs, host family, social organizations, sending and receiving countries, and mass media, in finding long term solutions. The ‘cultural exchange or cheap labor’ argument must not be ignored; however, debates should not be limited to this alone. Most of the au pairs are educated. Recognition of such qualifications must be done to create a new arena for discussions. Oftentimes, many au pairs themselves do not see this side of their background as something valuable. From a communication for development perspective, behaviour change- the au pairs should not see themselves as domestic workers, but as educated migrants, and this must be promoted and advocated, so that au pairs and members of the host society can acknowledge this unknown aspect of these unsung migrants. They are education migrants; it is only right and logical that the au pairs are supported to enhance their qualifications. Deprofessionalization and deskilling must be avoided.

In the context of significant numbers of Muslim newcomers immigrating to Europe andperceptions of failed integration in Sweden, and in light of the urban conflict andincreasing debates about integration as a one-way or two-way street, this paper sets out a“communication for development”-informed theoretical framework that focuses on thestruggle for social cohesion and immigrant integration in Malmö, Sweden. The paperuses triangulation to view this challenging situation from various perspectives. Not onlydoes this reveal that unemployment and lack of power have taken their toll on agencyamong migrants—particularly Iraqi men—but also that the strongest stories showingimmigration as an asset—particularly Iraqi women—are not being told in the media.Through the use of empirical material from Malmö, this paper contends that participatorycommunication in Malmö is less than participatory, and that integration in Sweden, in itsexpectations, leans uncomfortably close to assimilation. The paper gives examples ofseveral development communication initiatives for integration that have had positiveresults, with strong evidence that community media, as just one example, has proveneffective at improving immigrant integration. The paper concludes that developmentcommunication initiatives show promise for improving social cohesion in Malmö, andthat these can be effective only if the choice to participate, and the choices of initiative,medium and content are made by the migrants themselves.

In the late 1800’s, Sweden was undergoing a population growth and had experienced several crop failures. With the majority of the population being farmers, the migration to North America gave Swedish emigrants an economic opportunity that wasn’t available in the homeland. This resulted in a mass exodus. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, around 1.25 million Swedes left their home country in search for a better life in the United States of America. In the year of 1890, around 478,000 Swedes had moved across the sea in search for better yields and economic prosperity.There is no exact number of how many Swedish-language newspapers that were published in North America to cater to the large number of Swedish immigrants, but an estimate says that between 600 and 1,000 Swedish language newspapers were published in the United States. The aim with this thesis is to analyze the representation of Sweden to Swedes who emigrated to look for a better life in the USA. The purpose of the study was to research how Swedish poverty was represented in the news. The research questions focus on how Sweden is represented in the Swedish American Post in 1887; how Swedish poverty is described and represented in the news and what representations of poverty can be seen in the material. The study was conducted through a qualitative text and thematic analysis of 48 newspapers from the Swedish emergency year of 1887, when the emigration hit its peak. The analysis of the data draws on theories of representation and social change, and the theoretical concepts of how the media can influence people’s lives and perceptions. The study found that the newspaper presents a somewhat simplified picture of poverty that rarely goes into underlying factors or societal structures but represents poverty mainly through personal stories of private individuals. The thesis also reveals that the image of Sweden is based on nostalgic, often fictional features of the homeland and news that often focused on accidents and deaths. This is interpreted as that the newspaper, on the one hand, gave the readers a relaxing read which spoke to their possible homesickness, and also contributed to confirm the decision to emigrate to the USA as something positive.