<p>ABSTRACT</p><p>The principal objective of this inductive study is to map the communication methods that are being used in the organization Sister Namibia. I intend to find communication mechanisms that together can constitute a communication framework. The main questions at issue are; How is the organization working from a communication perspective? What methods and channels are central for their external communication work? What messages are they trying to convey to the target group? The questions will generate in analyses and deeper understandings of communication processes in a NGO.</p><p>The conceptual approach for the study is Development Communication, which can be seen as the integration of strategic communication in development projects. Communication for Social Change is an approach of development communication, where focus lays on an elaborated social change agenda rather than the agenda of strategic communication. The study has a qualitative approach and it is built up as an inductive case study with the NGO Sister Namibia in focus.</p><p>Sister Namibia is a non governmental women organization that fights for women’s rights in the Namibian society. I have found several factors in their communication work that together can create a communication framework. Dialogue is vital in their communication work and it can be seen as a prerequisite for social change. Another central aspect of their communication framework is networking. Sister Namibia can be seen as a piece of puzzle in a bigger network that allows the organization to reach a wider audience and it is a strategy for how they can gain power, grow and establish deeper in the society. The diversity among women makes it necessary with a communication framework that provides flexibility, which includes different communication methods and channels depending on the target group. A holistic approach in the communication framework is important; the communication have to be focused on change at individual, societal and governmental levels. Furthermore, I have observed that to be able to understand processes of communication it is vital to look at the whole social context. In this social context knowledge, power, and material & social needs have been found as central aspects. They are needs and factors that are gained and created by individuals and groups in societies, and can be seen as prerequisites for social change to appear. Finally, this study shows the importance of looking at communication not just as a tool for spreading information, but also as the goal of development. Through communication it is possible to create a social environment where private and public dialogue can take place.</p><p>Keywords: Development communication, Communication for Social Change, NGO, Dialogue, Networking, Flexibility, Holistic approach.</p>

ABSTRACT The principal objective of this inductive study is to map the communication methods that are being used in the organization Sister Namibia. I intend to find communication mechanisms that together can constitute a communication framework. The main questions at issue are; How is the organization working from a communication perspective? What methods and channels are central for their external communication work? What messages are they trying to convey to the target group? The questions will generate in analyses and deeper understandings of communication processes in a NGO. The conceptual approach for the study is Development Communication, which can be seen as the integration of strategic communication in development projects. Communication for Social Change is an approach of development communication, where focus lays on an elaborated social change agenda rather than the agenda of strategic communication. The study has a qualitative approach and it is built up as an inductive case study with the NGO Sister Namibia in focus. Sister Namibia is a non governmental women organization that fights for women’s rights in the Namibian society. I have found several factors in their communication work that together can create a communication framework. Dialogue is vital in their communication work and it can be seen as a prerequisite for social change. Another central aspect of their communication framework is networking. Sister Namibia can be seen as a piece of puzzle in a bigger network that allows the organization to reach a wider audience and it is a strategy for how they can gain power, grow and establish deeper in the society. The diversity among women makes it necessary with a communication framework that provides flexibility, which includes different communication methods and channels depending on the target group. A holistic approach in the communication framework is important; the communication have to be focused on change at individual, societal and governmental levels. Furthermore, I have observed that to be able to understand processes of communication it is vital to look at the whole social context. In this social context knowledge, power, and material &amp; social needs have been found as central aspects. They are needs and factors that are gained and created by individuals and groups in societies, and can be seen as prerequisites for social change to appear. Finally, this study shows the importance of looking at communication not just as a tool for spreading information, but also as the goal of development. Through communication it is possible to create a social environment where private and public dialogue can take place. Keywords: Development communication, Communication for Social Change, NGO, Dialogue, Networking, Flexibility, Holistic approach.

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Rabies is a global epidemic that affects the developing world disproportionally. This deadly disease is largely transmitted to humans via dog bites and is caused and perpetuated by human behaviors, including people not sterilizing and vaccinating dogs. Through the lens of participatory communication and culture theories, this thesis explores the extent to which communication tactics of a dog population and rabies control program in Bangkok, Thailand are participatory and whether this influences community efforts to vaccinate and sterilize free-roaming dogs in the city’s Bang Bon district. At a high level this study examines how empowering people at all levels of society in the planning and implementation of solutions to development challenges affords more sustainable outcomes. In doing so, it attends to issues of communication purpose, access, dialogue, culture, voice, feedback, cultural reflexivity, agency, participation and ownership. This study is an inductive qualitative inquiry that employs case study and interview research methods—specifically semi-structured, in-depth interviews with key informants and a small-scale survey. It uses the comparative analysis approach alongside its theoretical framework to draw conclusions from the research.

In today’s Development environment, characterised by a scarcity of resources for projects and interventions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) must fiercely compete for funds. This has led NGOs to adhere to the donor’s narrative, language and Neoliberal values – with storytelling assuming a prominent position – potentially creating stereotyping issues in their communication outputs – while also facing the contrasting forces of market, state and communities. This thesis focuses on the case-study of the Bijli project, an energy access initiative for rural villages in India, created by The Climate Group – an important actor in the field and the charity where the author of this thesis still works. After a quick analysis of how the energy issue has shaped development in India, this work uses the academic tools of Discourse Analysis and Representation to examine the issues of stereotypes and marginalisation in the video produced by The Climate Group at the end of the Bijli program. Then, the ‘lessons learned’ have been applied to the video script for a new, potential video for a similar project that The Climate Group is now developing. Finally, such empirical application has shown how the issues arisen in the analysis relate to the modern debate in the Communication for Development field and how these new partnerships both challenge and reinforce the existing power relationships in the current Neoliberal climate. A more participatory, inclusive model could help the Global North audience better understand the reality in which it wants to intervene, but at the same time state and market are two powerful, useful actors to bring a more equitable development.

PurposeThis research takes Nigeria and the healthcare prevention sector as a case study to describe the manner in which the non-profit sector is presently dealing with the challenge of communicating in a multilingual/multicultural environment. The intention is to identify the linguistic factors that affect the design of healthcare prevention interventions, indicate language strategies that are being used and potentially single out opportunities for improvement.Design/Methodology/ApproachTwo data sets were employed: the main one representing phone interviews with Communication for Development practitioners in the healthcare domain in Nigeria and a secondary one including online testimonials from the Here I Am campaign conducted by the Global Fund. The data collected was analysed following the Critical Discourse Analysis three-level framework. In addition to this, the micro level stage incorporated Grounded Theory Method to elicit thematic relations, and Semiotic Analysis and Discursive Analysis to determine the stance of the speakers.FindingsParticipants to this research perceived language and culture as two entwined concepts. Communication in the community’s local language was said to enhance message acceptance. The thematic analysis revealed that the strategy to be used, mainly translation or a combination of community interpreting and cultural mediation, depends largely on the level of literacy of the community. Of the proposed language strategies, training of bilingual individuals and a combination of community interpreting and cultural mediation appeared to be the two pivotal modes of interlingual message transposition. Pictorials are used in extreme situations.Despite the dissimilarity of the two data sets used in this research, the discursive analysis suggested the existence of an aid beneficiaries/non-profit staff binary. The way of expression of aid beneficiaries and individuals working at grassroots level exhibited traits of dependency on other players (in this case donors and non-profit staff). Similarly, the discursive analysis of the interviews put forward that the non-profit staff interviewed tended to distinguish between themselves and Others (in this case, the aid beneficiaries).This research found furthermore that translation and interpreting activities within the non-profit sphere are not always undertaken according to strict professional ethics and praxis.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / South Africa is committed to accelerating the roll-out of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support development at all levels. E-inclusion intermediaries (e-IIs) are used in the country to bridge the digital divide and to create equal opportunities for citizens to benefit from using ICTs. E-IIs are established mainly in under-resourced communities by private, public and third-sector organisations to provide physical access to ICT services for free or at a very low cost. The aim of e-IIs is to make ICT services affordable for and accessible to marginalised and poor community members, who can use the ICT to support community development. The debate is ongoing regarding the contribution of e-IIs towards community development due to, in part, the lack of quantifiable evidence to support the impact that the e-IIs have on development in the communities. Furthermore, despite the existence of e-IIs in communities, there still are community members who do not use the e-IIs. This has been attributed to the lack of awareness of the e-IIs and the services they provide. This lack of awareness is often blamed on the ineffective communication strategies of e-IIs. E-IIs are accused of relying heavily on traditional communication channels and conventional mass media, which do not share information and create awareness effectively in the communities. The increased uptake of modern technologies, such as the Internet and mobile devices, in South Africa has created new opportunities to communicate with community members to share information and create awareness. Social media, for instance, which are mostly accessed through mobile devices, have made communication more accessible and inexpensive for community members with limited skills and resources. Social media have also become popular among development actors in their attempt to direct policy, create awareness and garner community members’ support for development interventions. Arguably, e-IIs could also benefit from using social media, which have become popular in some communities, to communicate with community members in order to create awareness of the e-IIs, the services they provide and the benefits of using ICTs to support community development. The investigation undertaken in this study was twofold. Firstly, the quick-scan analysis method was used to analyse fifty e-IIs. Using this method it was possible to explore the services that are provided by e-IIs as well as how e-IIs communicate with community members and other development actors. Secondly, using six in-depth case studies this study further investigated how e-IIs’ services support community development and how the e-IIs communicate for development, paying special attention to their use of social media.

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.

This Degree Project (DP) deals with the discourses about collective memory in Chile 45 years after a coup d’état that gave way to a dictatorship that lasted for 17 years, during which serious human rights violations were committed. How different actors relate to this traumatic period shows how this is a field of struggle in contemporary Chile.Collective memory has become a key theoretical concept for describing how social groups make sense of their common past. It is deeply entrenched with notions of identity, agency and change. Whereas collective memory is an abstract notion, it has to be somehow concretized in order to allow individuals to activate their own memories, opinions and reactions. Thus, media play a fundamental role in the construction of collective memory. Drawing on a constructivist approach, media are not fixed containers of memories but they actually work on how people perceive their past in relation to the present and the future. This (DP) focuses on the following questions: How do media contribute to the construction of the collective memory around the coup d’état and the military dictatorship in Chile? What are the discourses they diffuse and to what end? Which are the other counter-hegemonic discourses available in the Chilean society?In order to answer these questions, this DP uses a Critical Discourse Analysis of of the two main Chilean newspapers (La Tercera and El Mercurio) complemented with interviews to memory agents. The conclusions point out that these newspapers have a role in diffusing as well as constructing hegemonic discourses around this period of the Chilean history. They do so, mainly by silencing the voices of the civil society making their goals of social change difficult to achieve.

Development communication campaigns are often carried out to look good and remain ascribed to what has been referred by some authors as communication about development, where communication actions tend to remain a one-way process to legitimize donors’ accountability and promote visible deliverables.  Communication for development (C4D) is understood as a powerful tool that will give voice to the marginalised, opening up for a much wider participation of people to decision making processes and choices that could affect their lives, directly promoting good governance.  This degree project looks at how C4D has been utilised by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in its development interventions and in one communication campaign, in order to answer the main research question of the project: to what extent C4D can lead to a more inclusive development communication? In particular, this project will look more closely at a case study, a recent communication campaign jointly developed by the African Union, the European Union and UNICEF called #YourVoiceYourFuture. Through qualitative interviews with UNICEF staff working on communication and C4D and the analysis of the case study #YourVoiceYourFuture campaign, this degree project tries to investigate how UNICEF has continued including C4D principles in its interventions. Moreover, through the case study analysis, this degree project will look at how C4D principles can be embedded in development communication actions in order to create more inclusive campaigns, with a wider impact and a higher chance to promote social change.    The case study will also show that in order to increase the reach of the campaign, UNICEF’s use of U-Report was instrumental to create an ‘invited space’. Thanks to U-Report, a two-way engagement with the audience was established, sharing young people’s opinions in Africa and Europe and giving them a voice and allowing them to influence political outcomes at the AU-EU Summit in February 2022. The degree project will conclude by recommending that future communication campaigns should consider including C4D principles in their making, in order engage better with audiences and lead to more inclusive results.