This thesis is a critical comparative study of the ways in which music is being used as an educational tool for HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, India, China, the U.S., and Canada. Music for education is an aspect of a number of academic disciplines. I introduce the principles of Entertainment-Education and Participatory Communication, which are two methods of conveying education through entertainment. Music cognition, music philosophy, ethnomusicology, sociomusicology, and communication theory offer perspectives on why music is persuasive, emotive, and mnemonic. I present analyses of music HIV/AIDS education efforts from many different regions that employ different methods of music transmission and different musical genres. Some are grassroots interventions, whereas others are large-scale, mass media efforts. I identify a number of high-level themes that emerge from the case studies: music involves the audience, music engages the emotions, music is culturally relevant, music is therapeutic and empowering, and music enhances memory. The case studies highlight a number of specific elements that significantly enhance HIV/AIDS education efforts, elements that should be applied to Canadian efforts. The initiatives that are currently taking place are remarkable, but more efforts are needed to effectively combat the AIDS pandemic. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Graduate

Although different studies have been conducted on various aspects of the National Solidarity Program (NSP) in Afghanistan, research on strengthening solidarity and social cohesion through its participatory approach has received little attention. This research used development communication as a theoretical framework to understand the role of participatory communication in strengthening solidarity and social cohesion in Afghanistan. The study employed a qualitative case study. To this end, the study used semi-structured interviews via email and telephone with 10 participants. Thematic analysis was used to code and categorize the data. The study findings show that the NSP appears to promote participation and increase collectiveness among the Afghan people, which, in turn, seem to strengthen solidarity and social cohesion. Finally, future research areas are discussed in the light of these findings.

The study investigated the communication practices of the Kodumela Peanut-butter development project (KPDP). The project was initiated and established by unemployed women of Puleng village. The research made use of unstructured interviews, participant observation and unobtrusive measures to gather information about the communication practices at the KPDP. It has been noted that the education level of most of these women is low, and they cannot understand, read and write English. The language of communication is Pedi. This language is used during meetings and during informal discussions within the project. The investigation has shown that oral communication dominates other in this project. The KPDP members prefer using participatory communication, as it allows all members to actively participate by means of asking and responding to questions raised. The project makes minimum use of other means of communication such as written communication because most members are illiterate. The financial donors who have assisted the KPDP to become what it is today monitor the day to day running of the project. The women who started the project together with the donors have a smooth running communication system in place for communicating with their donors. The communication system is based on mutual trust and respect for both parties. The donors respect the beneficiaries’ needs, and assist them according to their needs. The bottom-up communication flow has kept the project going. The research report recommends that the women in the project who are responsible for running the day-to-day business of the project attend a literacy program, which will assist them in running the project more efficiently and effectively if they want to compete on the national and international market. The project is doing extremely well at community level but its members want the project to grow bigger not just at community level but at national level as well. Their illiteracy has become a barrier in communicating with people outside the project who are interested in their project. / Dissertation (MA (Development Communication))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Information Science / unrestricted

This dissertation uses a case study approach assess the postcrisis communication between the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Roane County community following the 2008 coal ash spill. More specifically, the researcher explores the relationship between organizational renewal and community involvement by means of an in-depth case study analysis. The dataset includes transcripts from interviews with Tennessee Valley Authority leaders, as well as neighboring community members, all of whom were involved in the postcrisis recovery. Supporting data was collected from archival records made available to the public online and dedicated specifically to the Roane County project. The results, implications for practitioners, and future research are discussed. The major findings of this case study offer insight into the ways in which the discourse of renewal can be expanded to incorporate elements of community involvement, thus working toward a collaborative approach to the renewal framework.

The City of Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city, has high ambitions when it comes to inclusion and participation from local businesses and universities, NGOs and citizens. The decision to democratize management and to change the city’s processes towards working on (more) equal terms with relevant actors, was made by the City Council in 2014 as a step towards a socially sustainable development. The City Planning Office of Malmö has the main responsibility for city developing projects. One of the city’s current developing projects is called Amiralsstaden, defined as a geographical area and a development process. The ambition of the project is to “through broad participation and co-creation, improve the city- and living environment and investigate how new housing and new businesses can be established” (malmo.se 2018: a) The project focuses on creating new ways of working with physical planning and to create new models for participation (Reflecting Paper 2018). Since 2017, Amiralsstaden has facilitated two different participatory communication processes for development. Communication for Development scholar, Linje Manyozo (2012:222), argues that development communication no longer is a question of relevant technology or local contexts, nor a question of top-down or bottom-up approaches. Instead, he says, it is a question of how power figures in the political economy of both development and communication. A key indicator of whether media and communication for development interventions have played a critical role in society should therefore revolve around an understanding of how power has been negotiated and contested in favour of people. With Amiralsstaden as case study, this thesis sets out to explore how the ambitions of participation on policy level translate into ‘real world’ city planning and what impact it has on development. More specifically, I want to know how citizen participation in communication processes for development is practiced, experienced and what these processes lead to in terms of results and outcome for the city and for the participants. The study is based on qualitative research methodologies, mainly in-depth interviews and observations. Concepts related to participation, such as power, voice, and representation, are in focus to analyse and understand participatory processes and how they contribute to city development.

This research proposes to investigate the contribution that innovative development projects involving digital games can make to the field of entertainment-education (EE), which has been considered as a communication strategy falling under the media for development approach in the broader field of communication for development (Manyozo, 2012). Studies have shown that EE scholarship and practice is largely rooted in theories of individual behaviour change, but also that new theoretical perspectives deriving from participatory and empowering, as well as cultural approaches to communication are emerging in the field. The prevalence of innovation and of the application of EE principles to new mediums like digital games has also been brought to light (Obregon & Tufte, 2014). Digital games as a vehicle for EE have been analysed through the concept of serious games, or games with a utilitarian purpose, and from a behaviour change perspective (Wang & Singhal, 2009). The present research project aimed at reflecting on serious games and EE from a new perspective through the notion of innovation, and was conducted by means of exploratory and comparative qualitative case study. Findings show that innovation is closely associated with the notions of co-creation and participation. By focusing on a participatory approach to game design, innovative development projects involving digital games fit predominantly in emergent theories in EE, and combine elements of multiple approaches to communication for development, not principally the media for development approach.

In the 2019 National Survey for Wales, 81% of respondents stated that they felt they couldnot influence decisions in their local area and only 14% said they were consulted about howpublic funds were spent (National Survey, 2019). Participatory budgeting (PB) offers atangible way to improve these figures, providing transparency about public spending andgiving power to local people to influence decisions. It also has the potential to encouragemore cohesive communities to develop, which in light of the UK’s recent departure from theEU could become increasingly important going forwards.Public discussion about the possibility of introducing PB in Wales has been taking place forover a decade, but the initiative is yet to be widely adopted. In order for PB to reach itspotential as a mechanism for social change, it is vital that the community are activelyinvolved in the process. To explore this idea, the focus of the research will be on therelationship between policymakers, civil society and citizens in Wales, and how aparticipatory approach could be used to improve communication amongst these actors andstrengthen relationships. This is a qualitative study that draws from various theories ofparticipation and relies on data from in-depth interviews with professionals and practitionersinvolved in PB in Wales.

With the widening socio-economic gap and growing social exclusion in the global north as a backdrop, this study seeks to address the topic of citizen participation in the context of socio-economic inequality by contributing to a deeper understanding of the relatively unexplored perspective of the civil servant organizing and facilitating citizen dialogues. The aim of the study is to describe the lived experiences of civil servant citizen dialogue facilitators/organizers in three Swedish municipalities regarding the implementation of “citizen dialogue on complex issues” in socio-economic vulnerable neighborhoods. Through semi-structured interviews, a focus group discussion and a supplementing document analysis, their perceptions of aim and outcomes, their own position/role, and the type of communication taking place between dialogue participants are explored and analyzed using Bickford’s “political listening”, Freire’s “theory of dialogical action” and Quarry and Ramírez’s “champions in context”. In this way, the study aims to contribute new empirical data to the field of citizen participation in socio-economic vulnerable neighborhoods in Sweden.The results demonstrate how the civil servants challenged the municipality to try a more participatory dialogue form by avoiding “banking” style communication, enabling “reflection” and explicitly considering how to “power equalize”. However, focus on the form and on non-polemic joint problem solving overshadowed their reflections on the aim and placed any conflict line outside the dialogue, not fully addressing inherent struggles arising from socio-economic inequality. Furthermore, the study suggests a re-think of the “neutral” facilitator concept since it might obscure power relations, as well as highlights the risk of leaving deeper social justice issues unaddressed as frustrations manifested in the dialogue are affected by structures beyond the local municipality and don’t always lead to “action”.

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The teen pregnancy rate in the United States has been rapidly and steadily declining across all ethnic groups and races over the past two decades and is now at an all-time low. Most academic studies attribute this decline to increased and consistent use of contraception. Despite this good news, instead of or in addition to focusing on evidence-based advocacy in their prevention efforts, many social institutions, including public health entities and private sector organizations, continue to use representations of teen pregnancy and motherhood that stigmatize young mothers – or construct narratives of failure – as part of their communication interventions. The advent of social media, however, has given young mothers the means to challenge these mainstream representations and create positive social identities – or construct narratives of success. My research focuses on how images used in prevention campaigns construct or resist representations of teen pregnancy. My methodological framework consists of a combination of textual analysis and qualitative interviews with the image-producers. Theories related to language as an important tool for constructing and resisting representations, communication for social change as a rights-based framework and social media as a site to build identity and interject voice in public discourse are also explored and should be of interest to communication for development practitioners.