This dissertation explores Liberian market women's food distribution activities and specifically focuses on their organizations and practices in postconflict times. During the last few years, Liberian market women have received considerable national and international attention. They have been hailed as heroines because of the significance they played in supplying food to Liberians during the civil war. However, little is known of their micro-world. This paradox constitutes the starting point of my dissertation, which explored market women's micro-level understandings and practices as related to peacebuilding. I used African feminist ethnography as a theoretical and methodological lens to investigate market women's organizations and practices surrounding food distribution in the capital city of Monrovia. African feminist ethnography incorporates insights from African feminist theory and feminist ethnography. It gives attention to issues of importance in West Africa like food and violent conflict. It also rejects the framing of African women as victims of war and recognizes their full agency. I conducted 40 in-depth semi-structured interviews with market women as well as observations in Fiamah, a daily food market located in central Monrovia. I examined market women's grassroots organizations called susu groups. Susu groups are informal credit unions that provide money to market women, necessary to purchase food items and maintain the market business. Findings illuminated the significance of wartime memories on postconflict susu group organizing practices. In this sense, memories of disruption and distrust engendered susu groups that were different from their prewar counterparts. Results also pointed at the invisible nature of susu groups, which had to balance their tendency towards secrecy with the pressure to become visible in a postconflict context where questions of organizational transparency dominated. I also investigated how market women made sense of their food distribution position in the peacebuilding era. Findings revealed that the women framed their role as one of community keeping. They emphasized the physical nature of food distribution which also necessitated maneuvering. Ultimately, food distribution gave them a sense of empowerment in postconflict times. These understandings reified class distinctions between market women and Liberian elites.

Much is written on the importance of participatory communication and its role in uplifting indigent communities. As the closest government sphere to communities, local government is charged with directly improving the lives of the poor and is required by legislation to conduct Integrated Development Planning (IDP). This requires that a municipal authority utilise participatory communication aspects such as dialogue, empowerment, and planning. These are most important pillars of community development. However, many studies have warned that elements such as modernisation, dependency and bureaucracy need to be re-assed and observed with caution since they have the potential to impede and limit the extent of participatory communication in community development. These concepts serve as the basic points of departure and theoretical background underpinning this study, which is tasked with exploring the extent of participatory communication in the IDP context of Jouberton Township in the Matlosana LocalMunicipality. In her public address on challenges facing North West Local municipalities (Including Matlosana Municipality) in January 2014, former premier, Thandi Modise, emphasised the need for municipalities to ensure that communities attend IDP meetings, approve earmarked IDP projects and be aware of how a municipality spends its budget earmarked for specific development projects. It is evident from theory and higher echelon of government that participatory communication is seen as the most important pillar and the basis for the existence of a municipal government. It is against this background, that this study was carried out under the assumption that the practice of participatory communication in contemporary local government only exists on paper; while in reality the public does not enjoy active participation in municipal IDP consultative frameworks. This is despite much discourse being available in government and in academia around the importance and role of participatory communication in community development. The study espoused a qualitative research approach to gather data and purposive sampling was used to select respondents linked to two IDP projects in Jouberton Township from the 2012/13 financial year. Its purpose was to explore perceptions among Matlosana municipal representatives and community members in Jouberton Township on the extent of participatory communication in the IDP context. The empirical part of the study comprised of focus group and unstructured interviews, as well as participant observation. By using a typology of participation by Anyaegbunam et al (2004), the study revealed that Jouberton communities are passive participators in municipal IDP consultative frameworks where they participate by just being informed about what is going to happen or has already happened and feedback is minimal. This is opposed to a desired form of empowered participation which is highly recommended by scholars in development communication where stakeholders should be able to and are willing to participate in joint analysis, which leads to joint decision making about what should be achieved and how. It has been discovered that there is a lack of active participation in community development in the IDP context of Matlosana Municipality and the study makes recommendations on how transformative elements of participation can be applied to improve current norms and standards in participatory communication. / MA (Communication Studies), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Much is written on the importance of participatory communication and its role in uplifting indigent communities. As the closest government sphere to communities, local government is charged with directly improving the lives of the poor and is required by legislation to conduct Integrated Development Planning (IDP). This requires that a municipal authority utilise participatory communication aspects such as dialogue, empowerment, and planning. These are most important pillars of community development. However, many studies have warned that elements such as modernisation, dependency and bureaucracy need to be re-assed and observed with caution since they have the potential to impede and limit the extent of participatory communication in community development. These concepts serve as the basic points of departure and theoretical background underpinning this study, which is tasked with exploring the extent of participatory communication in the IDP context of Jouberton Township in the Matlosana LocalMunicipality. In her public address on challenges facing North West Local municipalities (Including Matlosana Municipality) in January 2014, former premier, Thandi Modise, emphasised the need for municipalities to ensure that communities attend IDP meetings, approve earmarked IDP projects and be aware of how a municipality spends its budget earmarked for specific development projects. It is evident from theory and higher echelon of government that participatory communication is seen as the most important pillar and the basis for the existence of a municipal government. It is against this background, that this study was carried out under the assumption that the practice of participatory communication in contemporary local government only exists on paper; while in reality the public does not enjoy active participation in municipal IDP consultative frameworks. This is despite much discourse being available in government and in academia around the importance and role of participatory communication in community development. The study espoused a qualitative research approach to gather data and purposive sampling was used to select respondents linked to two IDP projects in Jouberton Township from the 2012/13 financial year. Its purpose was to explore perceptions among Matlosana municipal representatives and community members in Jouberton Township on the extent of participatory communication in the IDP context. The empirical part of the study comprised of focus group and unstructured interviews, as well as participant observation. By using a typology of participation by Anyaegbunam et al (2004), the study revealed that Jouberton communities are passive participators in municipal IDP consultative frameworks where they participate by just being informed about what is going to happen or has already happened and feedback is minimal. This is opposed to a desired form of empowered participation which is highly recommended by scholars in development communication where stakeholders should be able to and are willing to participate in joint analysis, which leads to joint decision making about what should be achieved and how. It has been discovered that there is a lack of active participation in community development in the IDP context of Matlosana Municipality and the study makes recommendations on how transformative elements of participation can be applied to improve current norms and standards in participatory communication. / MA (Communication Studies), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The Myanmar Peace Support Initiative (MPSI) was a program launched in March 2012, following a request from the government of Myanmar to the government of Norway to lead international support to the Myanmar peace process. The initiative was implemented over a period of three years bringing together and facilitating collaboration amongst various stakeholders in the peace process. The focus of this research was a case study that analyzed to what extent the MPSI, and more specifically the community consultation mechanism of MPSI, was able to successfully incorporate the key aspects of communication for development. The method or approach used consisted of conducting a thorough document analysis, in depth focus interviews, and some limited observations. The study concluded that some limited elements of behavior change communication were incorporated into the MPSI but this was done more by the different partner organizations than by the MPSI mechanism itself. Communication for social change and communication for advocacy were central components of the MPSI initiative, including cross cutting issues. Factors to strengthen and enable communication however were conspicuously lacking which hindered the further expansion and success of the project. This research has assessed the impact / effectiveness of the community consultations implemented by the Myanmar Peace Support Initiative (MPSI) was proportional to the extent that the initiative was able to incorporate the specific communications for development elements as defined by the UN and used as a standard measurement tool to define the elements from a unified developmental perspective. These findings could also potentially be generalized in order to improve the implementation of similar projects in other future peace support contexts that involve international governmental and organizational support.

Voices of women affected by trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation (THBSE) are often marginalized and they are not usually included in the design and implementation of anti-trafficking campaigns. Although these campaigns present themselves as Communication for Social Change, the final result often betrays the principles of this form of communication. This thesis aims to tackle that gap, in partnership with the Serbian NGO Atina and their Youth Advocacy Group. The objective is to understand what is the perspective of women affected by THBSE in regards to institutional imagery of anti-trafficking campaigns and its persuasive potential for social change. The methodology was informed by a feminist participatory approach which included a) a focus group where participants were shown examples of anti-trafficking imagery, b) a workshop where participants designed their own campaign, and c) two expert interviews. After analyzing a sample of 21 images of anti-trafficking campaigns from 12 countries (Serbia, USA, Canada, France, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Brazil, Luxembourg, Colombia, Ukraine and Israel), this thesis finds that anti-trafficking campaigns tend to fail at their potential for social change. This is due to misrepresentations that ignore the complexity of THBSE as a system of exploitation and by perpetuating harmful stereotypes about what a victim should or should not look like, thereby contributing to the silencing and marginalization of victims. Anti-trafficking campaigns also tend to rely on awareness-raising rather than promoting social change. This thesis also presents what a campaign designed by women affected by sexual exploitation would look like, which focused on systemic change rather than individualized narratives. Based on the research, it was also possible to propose guidelines for participatory approaches to communication against THBSE.

No description available.

Within the field of development, participation has become the normative approach in the past two decades. For development projects to be sustainable, the communication must be participatory in nature. For development projects to be sustainable and to actually contribute to the development of communities, communication has to be based on the participatory approach of development communication. Dialogue, empowerment that leads to independence and cultural identity are some of the most important principles of the participatory approach. The importance of communication aimed at development first became apparent during the modernisation paradigm. Modernisation is considered an evolutionary shift from a traditional view to a modern society. Development is seen as synonymous with westernization, industrialization and economic growth. Universities are under pressure from both the government and the industry to help with economic development and deliver graduates that can make a positive difference in their field of expertise (Grimaldi & Grandi, 2005). A university business incubator (UBI) is a business incubator located within a university. University business incubators facilitate and develop conditions and support systems that ensure young entrepreneurs with new ventures will function successfully. Business incubators support these entrepreneurs by giving them access to affordable facilities and resources such as secretarial support and office furniture. The focus is on providing entrepreneurs with specialised support, training and assistance, including research and development, risk capital and networking opportunities (Lalkaka, 1990:25). A UBI uses the university‟s resources, personnel‟s time and knowledge toward economic development efforts, reaping the benefits from the commercialisation of the university‟s own research (Grimaldi & Grandi, 2005; Mian, 1997). The Netherlands Initiative for Capacity development in Higher Education (NICHE) launched a programme in South Africa in February 2009. BEEHIVE (Bridging Business and Education by Establishing a Hub of Innovative Ventures and Expertise) is the university incubator of the North-West University‟s (NWU) Vaal Triangle Campus, which started with the operational phase of the programme in May 2012. The name was changed in 2011 to Bhive for marketing purposes. Against this background, the following research question was investigated: to what extent is the communication between stakeholders of the Bhive UI participatory? The researcher used a qualitative research method in order to collect the data. A literature study was conducted to explore the premises of the nature of the participatory approach in development communication for social change. Interviews with different stakeholders were conducted to determine their perceptions regarding the Bhive UI. Lastly, the researcher observed the Bhive UI over a period of two years. The research findings reveal that within the larger paradigm of heteroglossia there is room for improvement. This study pointed out the various areas for improvement and offered theoretically grounded recommendations. / MA (Communication Studies), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Within the field of development, participation has become the normative approach in the past two decades. For development projects to be sustainable, the communication must be participatory in nature. For development projects to be sustainable and to actually contribute to the development of communities, communication has to be based on the participatory approach of development communication. Dialogue, empowerment that leads to independence and cultural identity are some of the most important principles of the participatory approach. The importance of communication aimed at development first became apparent during the modernisation paradigm. Modernisation is considered an evolutionary shift from a traditional view to a modern society. Development is seen as synonymous with westernization, industrialization and economic growth. Universities are under pressure from both the government and the industry to help with economic development and deliver graduates that can make a positive difference in their field of expertise (Grimaldi & Grandi, 2005). A university business incubator (UBI) is a business incubator located within a university. University business incubators facilitate and develop conditions and support systems that ensure young entrepreneurs with new ventures will function successfully. Business incubators support these entrepreneurs by giving them access to affordable facilities and resources such as secretarial support and office furniture. The focus is on providing entrepreneurs with specialised support, training and assistance, including research and development, risk capital and networking opportunities (Lalkaka, 1990:25). A UBI uses the university‟s resources, personnel‟s time and knowledge toward economic development efforts, reaping the benefits from the commercialisation of the university‟s own research (Grimaldi & Grandi, 2005; Mian, 1997). The Netherlands Initiative for Capacity development in Higher Education (NICHE) launched a programme in South Africa in February 2009. BEEHIVE (Bridging Business and Education by Establishing a Hub of Innovative Ventures and Expertise) is the university incubator of the North-West University‟s (NWU) Vaal Triangle Campus, which started with the operational phase of the programme in May 2012. The name was changed in 2011 to Bhive for marketing purposes. Against this background, the following research question was investigated: to what extent is the communication between stakeholders of the Bhive UI participatory? The researcher used a qualitative research method in order to collect the data. A literature study was conducted to explore the premises of the nature of the participatory approach in development communication for social change. Interviews with different stakeholders were conducted to determine their perceptions regarding the Bhive UI. Lastly, the researcher observed the Bhive UI over a period of two years. The research findings reveal that within the larger paradigm of heteroglossia there is room for improvement. This study pointed out the various areas for improvement and offered theoretically grounded recommendations. / MA (Communication Studies), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Inspired by recent work on value-based messaging in migration-relatedcampaigning to elicit sympathy, this project explores theoretical rationale foremploying values in the field of communication for social change (C4SC),understood in its broad sense as aspiring to engender prosocial behaviour. The project is framed by the main question of how values, emotions and(prosocial) action relate to one another. Historic and more recent sociologytheories related to values, emotions and action such as the Jamesian Theory of Action, Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, Schwartz’s Refined Theory ofValues, Caprara et al’s Prosociality, inform my theoretical hypothesis that for anindividual responding to a stimulus values are relatively stable frames whichguide goal setting, whilst emotions perform a cognitive function of evaluation,combined they create the impetus for (prosocial) action, though do notguarantee the impetus will be acted upon. Whether evidence that this hypothesis is enacted by traditional C4SC actors is the second endeavour of this project, for which a 42-text comparative analysisis performed to observe whether and how calls to action (CTA), values and emotions are present in existing prosocial campaigning. The texts are sourced from Instagram, the growing visual-first social media platform that offerscomparable units and serves as symbolic representation of the actors’communication. The main finding of this analysis is that values and emotions are present acrossthe range of themes and content producers. Whilst values associated withprosocial behaviour feature strongly across the board, values are present in a multitude of ways, sometimes in provocative or counter-intuitive ways within anindividual text. This diversity is positive for the potential of individual texts to engage a wider audience by reflecting the complexity of each person’s ownvalue profile. Being more subjective, the types of emotions elicited is less clear than valuesspoken to/challenged. Nonetheless the ways emotions are employed provideample food for thought for researchers and practitioners, and there is credible proof that each text will evoke some form of emotional engagement, whichanswers to the criteria in the hypothesis for emotion-facilitated evaluation. The findings on CTAs are informative, particularly when compared between thedifferent C4SC actors studied; there is a tendency for global level campaigningto be more general and national and local level more specific, whilst governmental level demonstrates limited CTAs for social change, focusing oncelebration of progress instead. The findings on the three units of interest in this project demonstrate fertileground for further research into the interplay between values, emotions andaction, as well as demonstrating to practitioners that understanding the value profile of target audiences is a worthwhile step in campaign design, and toconsider how a campaign might provoke certain emotional responses leadingeither to heightened engagement or risking emotional dissonance.  The project contributes to C4SC by testing a methodology for decoding CTAs,values and emotions, providing a baseline on how these units are used incurrent campaigning, and proposing various avenues of follow-up research,including connecting this work to intent and impact i.e. the extent to which thecampaigns motivated prosocial action. It builds on the work that inspired me bydefining why an emotional response is useful in prosocial campaigning and howthis relates to values and action.

This thesis explores how the documentary film The Apology (as a medium) and its filmmaker (as a carrier group) functions as connection points between cultural trauma and transitional justice reparations driving social change. Earlier approaches to bringing justice to comfort women have been based on legal frameworks which this thesis considers restrictive and instead examines justice and reparations from a victim-centred perspective. To dig for details about how the protagonists' and the filmmaker understand justice, this thesis conducted a narrative analysis of the documentary film The Apology and an interview with the film director. Connecting theories from cultural trauma and transitional justice, the findings show a lack of higher levels of participation of the comfort women in designing and implementing justice and reparation programmes. The documentary produced new master narratives that facilitated the comfort women’s identity shift from passive receivers to active seekers of justice and reparations. This thesis concludes that carrier groups are humane agents with the ability to create powerful influencing narratives to support collective identity shaping, awareness raising, and push for social change and government actions. Finally, an effective public apology must be victim-centred and truthful. Otherwise, it risks remaining as a nice-looking political gesture to deceive the public.