Communicating for Development

Arguing that widespread changes in human attitudes and behaviour are vital to ensure a secure sustainable future, this book focuses on the use of communication processes for facilitating those changes. Through accounts and analysis of specific projects across four continents, the authors set out to show how communication has been used to mobilize societies, to facilitate democratic participation, and to help people to acquire new knowledge and skills. Among the activities described and explored are the successful worldwide mobilization of all levels of society for child immunization, the role of communication in facilitating recent, rapid advances in family planning in many countries, education through entertainment, and the use of radio and video to enable peasant farmers to be protagonists in their own development. The authors make proposals for how, in this widely neglected area, communication strategies, techniques and media resources might be systematically harnessed to help societies to adapt and develop in the 21st century.