Getting the Balance right: mixing Media and Development

Introduction
This paper will argue that the potential social impact of radio in the developing world could be far greater than is currently the case, and that this is the time for a radical rethink about radio's role in relation to development assistance and humanitarian aid. It will call for greater action to adapt traditional broadcast skills to meet the challenges of combating war, disease and natural disaster, and in promoting civil society.

We will identify important trends over the past few years in programming, funding and evaluation, and we will suggest that radio broadcasting for development should become as mainstream an activity as broadcasting news. But - as with journalism - this is a specialism which requires research and training. We will put forward some ideas of how good practice in this field can be expanded, institutionalised and developed as the basis for a training course.

The current situation
It is appropriate that this paper should be delivered in South Africa, which has provided some of the most innovative radio programming in response to social needs. Radio Zibonele was probably the first radio station in a container (now they are being manufactured in South Africa for export throughout the continent!). Zibonele was set up next to a health centre in Khayalitsha, near Cape Town. It began broadcasting illegally in 1993 for two hours a week. Programming ranged from health to the environment to a whole range of community and social issues. Taxi wars were settled on air, school strikes were resolved. It is now a fully-fledged community radio station (Making Waves pp199-204).

Another South African invention is Soul City - promoting health education through a mix of radio and TV drama, and print. It is phenomenally popular - more than two thirds of South African young people aged between 16 and 24 have listened to the radio programmes - and seen by many as a bench-mark for how the mass media can be most effectively used to support primary health care. To give a couple of examples, after Soul City 4 was broadcast, only 6% of those who had missed out the programmes always used condoms, whereas amongst regular listeners, 31% said they always used condoms. Similarly asked if they had spoken about HIV/AIDS to friends or family, 59% of those who had not heard the programmes said they never discussed the subject whereas only 28% of regular listeners never discussed HIV/AIDS. This last statistic is an indication that radio is helping to change the social norms on HIV, helping to break down the fear and prejudice which is having a devastating effect on efforts both to prevent the spread of the disease, and to care effectively for people living with AIDS. (Soul City website www.soulcity.org.za)

Both Radio Zibonele and Soul City embraced some core principles of effective communication - know what kind of programmes your audience wants, address their problems, reflect their views and encourage feedback, and use entertainment. Yet, interestingly, both were the brainchildren of doctors, not broadcasters, Gabriel Urgoiti and Garth Japhet. It took outsiders to see the potential for the mass media and to create models which have since been very influential.

But radio has been used in many areas beyond health to help tackle some of the most pressing global issues confronting us: disease, education, emergency response broadcasting, and support for the civil society.

There are again some excellent examples here in South Africa - one is the Ulwezi project which we have heard from at this conference, and Vuleka radio here in Durban, whose imaginative broadcasts have included a Sesame Street inspired radio educational programme for children. In addition radio has been used in the aftermath of natural disasters - one example is Mozambique's floods where Nicola and I were involved in supporting the broadcasts of Radio Mozambique's Shangana language service to the afflicted areas; radio's role in conflict and post conflict has ranged from information broadcasts in the Balkans (Media Action International) to a long running soap opera in Afghanistan (BBC World Service) to peacebuilding programming in a number of African countries including Burundi, Sierra Leone, Angola and - soon - the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In the DRC, the British government has made information provision a priority for its support for demobilisation, disarmament and rehabilitation, and that's where I am heading on Tuesday. Support for civil society is another key role for radio, which has played a notable role in elections from Cambodia (Radio UNTAC) to Liberia (Star Radio, Hirondelle Foundation). And it has much potential in the whole area of raising awareness of civil rights and entitlements from service providers. That has been the objective of recent work in Pakistan for instance, where the media could provide key support for the fledgling reform of local government. The potential for increased use of radio in all these fields is immense.

Recent context: how has this been translated into concerted policy and action?
There has been a growing realisation from the big donors that the mass media has been under-used in development, and it is now increasingly seen as a support for the delivery of projects of many different kinds. The key realisation has been that the mass media - and particularly radio - can be deployed in the global fight against poverty. Many international aid programmes, including the British, are 'poverty focused'. There is also increased emphasis by aid organisations on good governance and strengthening democracy. The mass media are widely seen as playing a key part in supporting people's rights under law, and in holding politicians and officials to account - for instance in the provision of education or health services. A lone voice may not cut much ice, but local concerns reflected day after day on local or national radio will do so. The relationship between a free press and lack of famine is now well established. The link between deregulated media and good health and a decent education has yet to be proven, but it could be in the future.

There have been a number of international initiatives in the past couple of years, for example:

• The Global Knowledge Partnership - This emerged from the GK2 conference in Malaysia in March 2000 attended by 1200 organisations worldwide, and is a recognition of the importance of knowledge in development. What was striking was the significance accorded to radio in promoting learning in the world. Both the British Government's Department for International Development (DFID) and the Panos Institute emphasised this in their submissions to the conference, and Panos also made a point of stressing the importance of quality radio programming. There is a new recognition that the Internet can not achieve communications and education miracles in isolation. There are difficulties in communicating regularly with sparsely populated parts of Europe, for instance Greece, let alone developing countries

This has led to:

• Bridging the Digital Divide - a DFID led consortium one of whose objectives is: "information inclusion for the poor through linking information and communications technologies with traditional media, eg radio". DFID is working with a number of partners on this including AMARC. DFID is also partnering the Commonwealth of Learning to set up 250 community radios in sub-Saharan Africa. These are significant indications of the new importance being accorded radio as a key tool in the fight against poverty.
• The British Government's Exchange and the Rockefeller Foundation led Communications Initiative which are involved in ground-breaking work on defining good practice in development communications and coming up with practical means of how to measure the impact of radio and other communications programmes. See www.comminit.com.
• Recent studies sponsored by the Norwegian, Canadian and British governments have examined how mass media can be used positively in conflict situations and in response to humanitarian emergencies : Operational Framework on Media and Peacebuilding (www.impacs.org), Local Media Support (http://www.fafo.no/english/index.htm), Working with the media in Conflicts and other Emergencies (www.dfid.gov.uk). In all these publications, the role of radio is seen as key.
• DFID, the European Union and UNAIDS have funded two handbooks specifically on radio: Health on Air (available from Teaching Aids at Low Cost, TALC), and Radio and HIV/AIDS: Making a Difference available from UNAIDS (craika@unaids.org) both by Gordon Adam and Nicola Harford.

Significantly, international broadcasters have been reaching out for a new role following the end of the cold war, and finding it in the field of development and humanitarian aid. Partnerships are being formed, with major funders such as USAID and the World Bank, to NGOs such as Heath Unlimited in the UK which is producing the Rwanda soap opera Urunama on location for broadcast by the BBC. This would have been unthinkable five years ago. The BBC World Service Trust has been overhauled and is increasingly active. Amongst recent projects are:

• A $4 million effort to raise awareness of leprosy in five Indian states, which attracted a total audience of 275 million people and substantially influenced attitudes towards the disease.
• Radio soap operas in Russia, Afghanistan, Rwanda and Albania incorporating themes as diverse as primary heath care, peace-building and managing small enterprises.
• REACH - Radio education for Afghan children - which uses lively radio programming to reach a whole generation of Afghan children who have no access to school.
• The Great Lakes lifeline radio service - daily news and humanitarian programming for Rwanda and Burundi, paid for - uniquely for BBC news programming - not by government grant-in-aid, but through a separate additional budget from DFID. It is also involved in partnerships .

The Voice of America has also expanded its programming to respond to contemporary public health and civil society issues

• HIV/AIDS programmes in all its 53 languages of broadcast. So far, VOA has held AIDS awareness concerts in Beira, Mozambique, and Cape Town, South Africa. Funds are planned for radio dramas, talk shows and investigative reporting
  Funds raised to date: $500k, $3 million more needed.
• Supporting the global effort to eradicate polio and on allied health issues. Over 3000 stories have been produced in 21 languages aimed at getting children immunized.
  USAID funds $450k per year.
• Reconciliation and accurate news reporting involving some 25 Angolan journalists. Now in its fifth year. USAID is main supporter.
  Cost: $600k a year.
• Supporting Nigeria's difficult transition from military to civilian rule through programming in Hausa and English. Funder: USAID.
  Cost: $300k per year.

What is remarkable is how all this new thinking is being applied to a very traditional medium - radio - in order to test its effectiveness in a whole range of fields - development, humanitarian emergencies, conflicts, good governance and human rights. There are a number of reasons for this:

• Donors increasingly realise it is good value for money
• It has the reach - there are still about ten times as many radios as TVs in the world so it reaches the the poor who are a development priority for funders
• Its impact has been reinforced by new technologies: Freeplay radios which don't need batteries, and there is great potential for a global partnership between the Internet and community radio to empower the information poor

All this has to be seen in the context of total annual global spending on aid which is about $50 billion. Even if one per cent of that were to be spent on the mass media, that would amount to $500 million dollars a year.

Future challenges

To fine-tune media interventions so that we have a much better idea of what works best in different situations - for instance, in post-conflict, in the aftermath of natural disasters, in tackling HIV/AIDS, in strengthening civil society.

Make the case for radio to the funding agencies - those who control the $50 billion spent on development assistance and humanitarian aid each year, so that a communications component is an option that has to be considered for every project. This has already happened in the case of DFID natural resources research programmes which now have to have an explicit communication strategy that outlines how the research findings will be communicated to the intended audience.

Provide the means to train more specialists in using radio in development communications. There are not nearly enough trained development communications specialists to fill the potential needs which we have outlined.

Other constraints
However, there are a number of other difficulties involved in expanding the use of mass media and in particular mainstream radio, in development beyond the prescriptive, one off campaigns whose effectiveness is increasingly been questioned.

The biggest constraint is - does it work? How well does it work? How can we prove it works? How is it possible to measure a communications intervention? How do we define what we should be measuring? Many donors have yet to be convinced. More independent validation is required.

Even once aid donors are convinced by the value of media interventions, it is usually still far too difficult for the mass media to access money. Communications often does not have a budget line. And an unfortunate consequence of 'transparency' has been an increase in the paperwork involved in agreeing and handling project funding. For broadcasters, who are used to acting quickly, the delays are particularly difficult to come to terms with. Most radio stations do not have the staffing to oversee the bureaucratic demands of many donors. This is a substantial disincentive to taking advantage of available donor funding.

Donors generally think in short term cycles. They expect results from communications initiatives within the project timeframe which can be one year or less. Donors need to be made more aware that measurable behaviour and social change takes time, often five to ten years or more. ·

Many within aid organisations see communications as a specialised area which they contract out to private production companies and consultancies who are more concerned with the product than the process (raising the capacity of local broadcasters, for instance) or the impact.

Aid organisations are also suspicious of the mainstream mass media - they don't trust journalists - seen as sensation seekers, unconcerned about the painstaking long-term work of the development or health worker. And if they do give journalists access it is usually with the aim of raising the profile of the particular agency with a view to raising more funds from supporters in the Northern countries (Tim Weaver quote in Is Anyone Listening (NGLS, 1995, Anne Winter). 'The aid agency should be concerned with delivering aid and the news agency should be reporting on what is happening. Yet nowadays the two tend to be blurred. The aid agencies are the news and the news becomes a charity appeal.

This tends to reinforce the negative aspects of emergency and development work, with a reductionist focus on images of dependency which the fundraisers within agencies exploit : a small emergency relief agency which grew rapidly during the Bosnian crisis was a prime exponent of this heartstring pulling approach). Distortions creep in when aid agencies pay journalists to report on a workshop or other activity to raise their profile; or when impoverished stringers or developing country journalists rely on government and non-government agencies for transport and even communications facilities in order to gather information and file.

The low quality of broadcast output in many developing countries means that audiences either switch off or do not switch on in the first place. Recent field work I have conducted inBangladesh and Zimbabwe suggests that many farmers do not listen to farming programmes despite the fact that a substantial proportion have access to radios and think such programmes are useful - but useful doesn't necessarily mean interesting. Too often educational programmes do not engage the listener because they lack relevance and/or lively presentation

Varying degrees of (self) censorship means that 'sensitive' issues such as HIV/AIDS and land reform cannot be tackled in an open and even-handed way. For example, the late Vice-president Joshua Nkomo publicly stated that his son died of AIDS some years ago: when he died in 1998 two respected presenters on national radio took the opportunity during handover to talk about their abiding memories of the great man. They agreed that they would always remember him for his courage in disclosing the terrible thing that had happened to his son - five minutes of discussion in euphemisms and these presenters never mentioned the words AIDS.

Lack of media deregulation: the monopolistic and propagandist nature of a significant number of state broadcasters which inhibits innovation and creativity and in the absence of competition, and provides no imperative for audience research of any kind. This inhibits individual initiative amongst broadcasters - as do low salaries, low skills and a lack of understanding of the broadcasters' role in development.

Lack of training opportunities in development communications: most media courses are geared towards mainstream journalism and the public relations industry. It is remarkable in the UK that media studies now ranks as one of the five most popular undergraduate courses, but there is not a single development communications centred course on offer. There are maybe three development communications courses in Africa (Lusaka, Rwanda, South Africa), about the same in Europe and North America and rather more in Latin America where there has been a tradition of social communications. That is not many when you think about the importance of mass communications in today's world and the digital revolution.

Historical context
This state of affairs can be partly explained by looking at the ways in which the perceived role of communications and the mass media has evolved over the past 40-50 years. Trends in communication theory and practice reflect the larger paradigm shifts that have taken place in development theory and practice (Srinivas Melkote, 1991; Dagron, 2001). To put it simply: the early post-world war II days saw the emergence of official development assistance and by the 60s what is now known as the dominant development paradigm or modernisation theory had taken hold. This revolved around capital infusion and diffusion of innovations from the West to drive an industrialisation programme. Individual attitudes and behaviour were viewed as obstacles to this process which would necessarily involve subsuming traditional agrarian societies in the process of achieving economic growth, the benefits of which would trickle-down to everyone. The role of the mass media was thought to be potentially very powerful, direct and effective in multiplying the benefits of development and in disseminating new ideas. Newly independent countries in Africa and Asia established state broadcasting machinery or took over that started by the colonising power.

The main weaknesses with this approach were soon pointed out: it failed to take account of political and social barriers to change and placed too much emphasis on the individual as locus of change and locus of blame. The critique of the dominant paradigm suggested that the underdevelopment of the developing or Third World was a direct consequence of the development of the industrialised or First World. The mass media was not an independent or neutral force: broadly speaking it was harnessed to further political aims, often under the guise of promoting education and development. The biases inherent in the diffusion of innovations theory was thought to partly explain the failure of communications to facilitate the development assistance to reach the poor (Roling, 1976).

Alternative models emerged throughout the 70s and 80s, variously emphasising the need for equitable distribution of benefits, the basic needs approach, self-reliance, and the need for development assistance to be tailored to specific circumstances and societies, leading to the notion of participatory development where this would be achieved through the direct involvement of peoples in their own development. Various levels of participation were identified, and many projects and programmes stayed stuck at the lowest - the contribution of free labour for construction efforts. Communications were radicalised with the reclamation of folk media and traditional communication processes for development, as well as increased emphasis on dialogue between senders and receivers - even an equality between them. (Education for Critical Consciousness, Freire, 1971).

The 90s saw ever greater emphasis on participation of beneficiaries and other stakeholders at all stages of development processes - decision-making, planning, implementation and monitoring and evaluation. Sociological and anthropological research demonstrating the heterogeneity of communities had already resulted in different approaches to involving women more fully in the development process. Other vulnerable and marginalised groups were acknowledged as having a right to their own voice and to determine their own development. Participatory communication processes, the origins of which can be seen in Latin America - for example community radio in Bolivia and Peru, were a means of giving voice to marglinalised communities and groups within them (Making Waves: Alfonso Dagron Rockefeller, 2001). And as already noted the emergence of ICTs has changed the media landscape permanently, although they are yet to be fully harnessed for development.

The consequence for the radio broadcaster of this move towards greater participation has been a rethink about programming. The top-down approach to broadcasting has been replaced by a much more consultative process in which the audience closely involved. And the social marketing approach in communications whereby a product - perhaps a health message such as 'get your child immunised' - is pushed at listeners time and again like an ad, is being replaced by a much more subtle approach in which listeners are encouraged to think about and discuss issues which are of concern to them. This is an approach which many mainstream broadcasters can feel comfortable with.

Recommendations for building Development Communications Capacity
We have identified a number of key areas which are common to the more successful mass media interventions in development and emergency response. They include:

Adapting work practices

• Need to know the subject matter very well - for instance HIV/AIDS
• Need to identify the target audiences
• Need to understand audience's perception towards the subject matter through needs assessments
• Need to monitor audience's response to the programmes and revise accordingly
• Need to evaluate impact and understand if the objectives of the programme have been achieved
• Need for work with other disciplines - researchers, specialist aid organisations etc
• Need to examine and address own biases and prejudices
• Need to understand that impact is about more than ratings
• Raising status of non-news broadcasting
• Involving the audience

A model which has taken some of these ideas forward is the DFID natural resources research programme where as a condition of funding projects will have to incorporate a communication strategy from conception. This means that audience will have to be involved in the research and communications processes, their needs and media preferences analysed and the findings transformed into appropriate media delivered through appropriate channels, ideally creating demand for the product.

Making the best use of trends in audience research and evaluation
One of the key issues in evaluation is how to square the funders' needs for immediate impact with the reality that it is likely to take years for listeners to take ownership of ideas stimulated by radio and change their lifestyles accordingly. It is evident that conventional audience research methods such as measuring programme ratings cannot capture the complexities of behaviour and social change. Quantitative surveys can be expensive and require specialised skills not available to programme-makers. Market research and IEC (information, education and communications) methods are often highly extractive and do not involve the audience. Media analysis techniques such as content and semiotic analysis have limited use in a development context.

Needs assessment, monitoring and evaluation methods are becoming increasingly eclectic as they draw from a variety of disciplines and professions. In particular the adaptation of participatory methods which originated in development practice and research have shown great potential for linking the audience and the programme-makers in a process which is audience-centred and relevant to local needs and contexts. These can be allied with social marketing research methods, and the judicious use of ethnographic and quantitative approaches.

Project reports, academic papers and conferences which point to impact of media-based interventions (e.g. Twende na Wakati, Tanzania; Urunana, Rwanda) more or less methodologically rigorously, but these lessons do not always reach media practitioners. Even when they do the emphasis tends to be on the relationship between programme content and reported or verifiable change (in knowledge, attitude, practice, uptake of services etc.) among listeners.

However there are signs that this focus on individual behaviour change, and on the outcome, is being addressed. For example, the most recent evaluation commissioned by Soul City used a variety of methods and looked at increased dialogue and communication between individuals, the accuracy and quantity of public debate, involvement of people directly affected by the issues e.g. PLWA as indicators of impact ((Soul City website www.soulcity.org.za). Mary Myers is conducting a study sponsored by the US Centers for Disease Control, as part of their behaviour change communications strategy to combat HIV and AIDS. She will be analysing radio entertainment-education projects to find out what combinations of organisational features and underlying communications/ behaviour change theories or paradigms contribute to successful outcomes.

Further deregulation and liberalisation of the media
Donors with a commitment to supporting good governance and democratisation need to decide whether an independent and reliable media operating freely and responsibly is also a priority of their assistance. A flourishing, pluralistic media is generally considered to be an important pillar of a democratic and just society, providing an essential part of the system of checks and balances that needs to be cultivated within and outside the governance process. On the one hand to be insisting on greater openness and decentralisation and democracy and on the other to turn a blind eye to the fact that self-censorship and more direct control of the media exists in many aid recipient countries would appear to be a contradiction. The time may have come to engage more strategically not only with the government but with all players (current and future) in the media sector. However this is easier said than done: technical assistance projects supplying equipment and training often have little or no effect on institutions (Harford, 2001, Reports to DFID).

Donor governments and aid organisations need to intensify the dialogue with states who continue to control the media over the importance of deregulation as a tool for good governance alongside freedom of information. This can be achieved either through government to government contacts or indirectly through supporting the civil society organisations in the countries themselves to put pressure on their governments.

Knowledge transfer to media practitioners
There are comparatively few people who are trained in the diverse disciplines of radio production, evaluation methodologies and development. Certainly many more will be needed soon if the full potential for development communications is to be realised. Journalism is by itself a very useful basis for working in this field, but it is not sufficient by itself. What is needed are more courses in development communications which can pull together the excellent work which is being done in many corners of the world by dedicated professionals, but which is not being entered into any institutional memory apart from the project archives of sundry donor agencies. Exchange and The Communications Initiative have taken the lead in trying to remedy this, along with the Global Knowledge debate. But much more needs to be done, and with the near global access of all to e-mail, the opportunity surely exists now to access these hitherto hidden examples of programming and collaboration between communicators and aid workers.

One early activity should be the funding of a research fellow who would be responsible for collating and distilling experiences of good practice on the ground, and making it easily accessible to radio practitioners through the web. There is also the need for systematic and independent evaluations of the most promising case studies to be carried out in order to try and determine what works best in different circumstances.

As we have mentioned, there are few universities which offer training in development communications. One way forward would be to set up a twinning arrangement between communications departments of a University in the North and one in the South - so that a strong synergy can develop between practical and theoretical experience.

The objective would be to develop: first, a post-graduate module which could be incorporated in journalism and development courses. Second, develop a post graduate masters in development communications masters degree in mass media for development. People trained at these levels should be seen not only as development communicators themselves, but as resource people who can work with groups engaged with radio and media production at grass roots level.

The learning strands themselves could be outlined as follows:

Theoretical Framework

• Overview of development paradigms and relationship to communication/ mass media theory and practice ·
• Demystifying communication/behaviour change theories to make them useable bases for developing communication strategies
• Pedagogical theory of adult learning approaches
• Process/internal evaluation of media organisations
• Analysing specific applications of the mass media: health education, environmental awareness, building the civil society, peace-building
• Historical context: practice of development - strategies and management of projects, programmes, service delivery; development communications; technological advances

Applied and Practical

• Campaign planning and strategizing: challenges facing development communicators: institutional, political, financial, cultural etc.
• Negotiation and stakeholder analysis: role of government and non-government, other media, listeners/ participants and goods and service providers as well as technical specialists (for instance in HIV/AIDS)
• Creating links with community based and interpersonal reinforcement activities (the United States Centres for Disease Control is developing these activities in its HIV/AIDS programming in Southern Africa)
• Production skills and their adaptation to different scenarios, for instance health education, environmental awareness, civil society, peace-building
• Research and evaluation techniques: designing, commissioning, implementing and analysing audience surveys
• Management skills: accessing and managing funds, project proposal and report writing
• Training skills: course design, participatory teaching methods, capacity building in resource-poor circumstances

The theme of this conference has been convergence: we have heard many fascinating accounts of endeavour around the world, but many of these achievements are not being replicated. The process of learning is underway and the next stage is to pull together the strengths of mass media and development practice for the benefit of development communicators and the communities they serve.