Un nombre d’auteurs appellent à reconsidérer la communication pour le développement et le changement social comme une question de techniques et société. Les modèles de l’intégration sociale des innovations en SIC sont donc utilisés ici pour étudier comment de nouveaux dispositifs d’appui sont acceptés et appropriés par leurs usagers dans les pays en développement, et notamment en Asie centrale (Turkménistan). Le fait que la réception et l’appropriation des dispositifs par leurs usagers est primordiale pour l’efficacité des programmes d’appui n’est plus à prouver. Nous synthétisons les modèles des écoles anglo-saxonnes et francophones et dégageons les axes communs, déterminants pour l’intégration sociale : en amont de l’usage (les modèles de l’acceptation) et en aval (les modèles de l’appropriation). C’est la construction du sens d’usage, où l’usager mobilise les représentations « déjà-là » et l’imaginaire, pour évaluer les avantages et les pertes liés à l’usage du dispositif, l’expérience anticipée ou perçue de l’usage situé. Cette construction mentale s’apparente dans la littérature à la formation de la valeur perçue d’usage (Jouet ; Mallein, Toussaint et coll. ; Boenisch ; Assude et al. ; Nelson ; Kim et al.) ; néanmoins, il serait nécessaire de mieux comprendre ce processus. Nous explorons ce concept en détail dans notre étude qualitative de cas multi-sites réalisée dans le contexte d’un des dispositifs d’appui à la PME au Turkménistan. Nous modélisons le rôle de la valeur perçue d’usage dans l’intégration de nouveaux dispositifs d’utilité sociétale et le mécanisme de sa formation mentale chez les usagers organisationnels. / Number of researchers call to reconsider communication for development and social change, as a problem of techniques and society. Thus, the models of social integration of innovations are used here to study how the new development support components are accepted and appropriated by their users in developing countries, notably in Central Asia (Turkmenistan). There is no need to prove anymore that users’ reception and appropriation is critical to the development programs effectiveness. Hence, we synthesize the Anglo-Saxon and French models and distinguish the common determinant axes for the innovation reception: before its actual use (acceptance models) and after it (cognitive appropriation models). It appears to be the mental construction of the meaning of use: the user mobilizes his representations « already there » and his imaginary to assess the associated functional and symbolic benefits-costs, the anticipated and perceived use experience. In the literature, this mental construction process appears as the formation of the Perceived Value of Use (Jouet; Mallein, Toussaint and coll.; Boenisch; Assude et al.; Nelson; Kim et al.). However, it would be necessary to further investigate this process. We explore this concept in detail in our qualitative multi-site case study, conducted within one of the SME support components in Turkmenistan. As result, we model the role of the Perceived Value of Use for the acceptance and the appropriation of the new services of social utility, as well as its mental formation on the organisational users’ side.

In recent years, old-hand development scholars, in the category of Dan Brockington, have expressed their concern over academia’s neglect of the significance of celebrities in the field. As has been the case of an outturn hereof, namely beauty pageants. In the last six decades, Venezuela has positioned itself not only as one of the world's largest exporters of oil but also as one of the leading engenderers of titleholders in international pageantry. The latter, which has resulted in Venezuelans regarding the pageant as a fundamental cultural undercurrent in their collective identity, seems to be a ceaseless manifestation in spite of the country’s worrisome current socio-economic status. Rather than adopting a condescending paradigm towards the Miss Venezuela pageant, it is precisely this vertex of ambiguity that opens the avenue for an interesting development question. After all, if celebrity beauty queens from Venezuela are deemed as part of the nation’s identity, could the pageant, in the same breath, be deemed as a contributor to communication for development? While espousing historical context as an analysing method and in pursuit of David Hulme’s Celebrity-Development nexus and Elizabeth McCall’s four strands of communication for development, this paper presents a qualitative study in which hands-on experts are given a platform. The findings show the evolution of a beauty pageant from a, nearly, nationalist device into a system that is grounded in the Millennium Development Goals and that aims to forge socially responsible beauty representatives that are competent enough to herald purposeful messages.

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Gideon Mendel’s ongoing photographic work documenting HIV/ AIDS, first started in 1993, has seen shifts not only in production but also in the author’s representation of his subjects. This paper looks at three texts of Mendel’s work, taken from three different stages of Mendel’s career and reads the shifting paradigm taking Mendel from photojournalist to activist armed with documentary photography as a tool of social change. This thesis explores how different positionings as an author and different representations of the subjects, living and dying, with HIV/AIDS influences meaning-making, and what that means for documentary photography as a tool of social change.

Cities are growing at unprecedented speed, with all the challenges this global trend poses, from macro environmental and social level to individual level. Today the vast majority of women worldwide living in urban areas do not have the same access as men to public spaces and to services that the urban area offers. Furthermore, women often feel more unsafe in public spaces than men, and gendered violence and harassment in public spaces is a problem that is pervasive and widespread globally.  Women have historically been omitted in the urban planning process, with the consequence that cities do not respond to their needs, lives, activities, experiences, and in the worst cases discriminate and segregate them. Consequently, the access to cities’ public services is limited for women and young girls, and so are also their economic and political powers- an important democratic issue. My research explores how systematically including the gender mainstreaming perspective at an early stage in urban planning and adopting participatory bottom-up communication processes that give voice and empowerment to the marginalized, could be a decisive factor in developing inclusive and accessible cities for all, against discrimination and segregation.  Putting the gender equality perspective at the centre of the communication of designing/redesigning/transforming urban areas is therefore strategic to the implementation and success of an inclusive social development for all, both in the Global South and in the Global North.   Keywords: urban planning, public spaces, gender, gender mainstreaming, gender equality, inclusivity, accessibility, social equity, urban justice, participation, democracy.