A key feature of recent agricultural extension programs has been the focus on increased participation for local, rural communities in the overall decision-making process. This move towards increasing community participation has raised expectations in terms of communication: communication between central research facilities and rural communities, between rural communities and central research facilities, and amongst the rural communities themselves. In order to provide effective communication along each of these channels, attention is turning to the extension trainers deployed in the field. For extension trainers this emerging communication role is distinct from, and supplementary to, the conventional technical training function. The thesis highlights the lack of effective training in communication skills in existing extension training programs. It identifies the flip chart as the most widely used visual aid for farmer training, and the overhead projector as the most widely used visual aid for in-service training. The thesis develops a comprehensive set of training competencies and content for teaching those two technologies, derived from individual task analyses and an extensive literature review. A range of strategic alternatives for the delivery of those competencies in a developing country are then formulated and examined. Central to the different strategies considered is the use of interactive multimedia as a key delivery technology. Two proprietary CDROMs have been designed and produced specifically to the support training in the design and production skills for overhead projector and flip chart technologies. The design, content and production of the CDROMs is described, and both technical and user evaluations are presented. The two CDROMs have been field-tested in Sri Lanka, across a broad range of strategic alternatives. The outcome is a set of guidelines and specific structures for training programs in overhead projector and flip chart technologies. The guidelines are generic and broadly applicable. The case studies also indicate a particular subset of preferred strategies for the future deployment of interactive multimedia-based training in developing countries. Most specifically, the thesis indicates a balance between and the need for mix of interactive multimedia modules along with face-to-face training support / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This dissertation investigates the intersection between music, gender, religion, and state agencies in the war against HIV /AIDS in Tanzania. The dissertation explores how music, gender and sexuality, religion, and state agencies impact one another in the creative process of musical and dramatic performances that address the education and prevention of HIV/AIDS. The ethnographic data, which focuses on musical and dramatic performance groups in Bukoba Urban and Rural Districts in Kagera Region, and Dar es Salaam Region, was collected from September 2008–May 2009. The dissertation views performance from multiple perspectives: as an avenue for the production of diverse types of knowledge such as musical, biomedical, religious, and localized or indigenous knowledge about healing in the context of HIV/AIDS; as a space in which gender and religious ideologies and identities are displayed and contested; and finally, as the space in which the manifestations of negotiations of power relations take place. The dissertation shows that health is at the center of music and dramatic performances as they are concerned with the maintenance of individual and community health. By doing so, performances serve as the hub of the social agency in preventing ill health and in restoring the well-being of the individual and communities at large. With regard to music, gender, and sexuality, the dissertation demonstrates that music performance is not only considered an avenue that provides one of the best contexts for observing and understanding the gender structure of any society. Performance is also a space for public discourse on sexuality in the context of HIV/AIDS. The state and religious ideology affect the creative process by either attempting to control meanings or by preventing certain performance. However, such attempts are not always successful. Finally, the dissertation demonstrates that performance is more than space for message-oriented or crowd-attracting activity but serves as a site upon which readings of the social transformation of gender roles through performance can take place. / text