Communication for social change - background by Rob Vincent

This article develops a contribution by Rob Vincent to a Communication Initiative discussion. The discussion archive is at http://www.comminit.com/majordomo/cfscindicators/threads.html

The communication for social change integrated model is welcome for its attempt to look beyond the abstract and isolated individual to processes of social change. However there are problems with the way the framework looks at community, power, and the processes of social change.

Overall I feel the framework raises a number of vital and ‘thorny’ issues, only to sidestep them by drawing on theoretical approaches that may not be able to adequately address the nature of the problem. I outline below some of these problems, and some possible fruitful alternative lines of enquiry. I don't intend to be overly critical, but there is a range of work that we could usefully engage with.

Community This is an enormous issue that I don’t want to bog people down with, but the different kinds of ‘community’ identified in the framework, from the geographically located to the identity-based or virtual, have profoundly different characteristics (in terms of what constitutes and drives them - processes of change). The framework hints at this and then appears to treat local communities as bounded and relatively sealed from the outside (with the occasional intrusion of ‘change agents’).

A range of sociological and anthropological work on understanding the links between the global and local (or particular place, since everywhere is somebody’s local) questions the validity of treating ‘communities’ and individuals within them as bounded in this way. Similarly ethnographic work has shown how boundaries, even for geographically isolated localities, are relational and dynamic. It would not be possible to resolve or measure this boundary issue for ‘communities’ once and for all - since what counts as community in any particular instance depends on what it stands in relation to. Ultimately this is a question of meaning, not just of physical boundaries

Community as consensus The framework acknowledges diversity and power within communities, only to spirit it away with an emphasis on building consensus. Interdisciplinary work on subjectivity and power that brings pscyhological, anthropological and sociological analyses together (Frosh et al 2002, Hollway 1985, Henriques et al 1984) have shown that in any social setting power is involved in the construction of particular kinds of human subjects, institutions, and symbols that have a contested and dynamic history.

As such, consensus is something to be explained, and is not necessarily good for everyone. Recent work drawing on the Foucualdian idea of ‘governmentality’ (Foucualt 1991, Rose 1999), highlights the double edged sword of participation by local communities in a variety of policy (Shore and Wright 1997) and development areas (Cooke and Kothari 2001). This work argues that so-called empowerment can also be co-option to the agendas of the powerful. Suffice to say that the issue of power is complex, and a focus on consensus does not seem enough here.

Abstract model of social life Perhaps the most problematic aspect of the framework is that it assumes social life and ‘communities’ operate as a kind of logical planning process in microcosm. The process outlined - of building consensus through dialogue, towards collectively agreed goals, by benign leaders - may be a laudable aim, but it is in danger of substituting an ideal model for reality. Real life ‘communities’ rarely operate this way.

Understanding social change The framework acknowledges that there are many kinds of social change, then focuses on one kind of change - ‘community dialogue… that leads to collective action’. This kind of change is a very small part of the picture of social practice.
Recent attempts to marry anthropological insights with systems theory, to understand social systems as complex, negotiated and emergent (Appadurai 1996, Capra 1997) provide some fruitful avenues of understanding. This work suggests that social change may follow the patterns described in recent chaos and complexity theories, such that local and global events produce emergent and unpredictable outcomes through cascades of feedback loops.

Studies of ethnic conflicts (Tambiah 1997), the influence of policy (Shore and Wright 1997) and the media (Hall et al 1978, Castells, 2001) also show that certain mobilising metaphors, or symbols, may galvanise people in ways that are far from democratic or transparent (consider too the role of the radio in the Rwandan genocide).
A number of contributors to the discussion have noted that culture is inadequately addressed in the model. The understandings of ‘practice’ developed by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1977, Moore 1994) are yet another important area of work here, highlighting the role of emotions, ‘embodied dispositions’ and ‘practical consciousness’, so that ‘communication’ is much more than the abstract and rigorous logic of analysis and planning.

The social is more than an aggregate of individuals The authors of the framework share the concern of the authors of the UNAIDS new communication framework on HIV/AIDS to move beyond the ‘methodological individualism’ of the psychological models underpinning much communication theory (Airhihenbuwa 2000). However the framework appears to get to the social level of analysis merely by aggregating individual motivations and beliefs, as if the social and cultural level of analysis had no specific dynamic or ‘logic’ of it’s own.

The emphasis on exchange of ‘information’, through what is assumed to be rational and transparent dialogue, is overly rational, and voluntaristic. Where the framework looks to network analysis and the exchange of information, again the model is abstract: real life does not involve ‘equals’ in a transparent network exchanging disembodied nuggets of information, but socially embedded individuals, whose lives, bodies and practices are all structured by power relations (from the global and ‘structural’ to the interpersonal). A related problem is the notion of ‘collective action’ employed in the framework, since changes at a social level – of institutions, dominant symbols or understandings – need not be collective (which implies something mutually agreed), but may be related to and ‘lived’ very differently by different people.

References
Airhihenbuwa, C O and Obregon, R (2000) 'A Critical Assessment of Theories/Models Used in Health Communication for HIV/AIDS in Journal of Health Communication, Vol 5 Supplement: 5-15.

Appadurai, A (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural dimensions of Globalisation, University of Minnesota press.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1997) Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: University Press.

Capra, Fritjov (1997) The Web of life.

Castells, Manuel (2000) The Rise of the Network Society.

Castells, Manuel (2001) The Power of Identity.

Cokke, B and Kothari (2001) Participation: the new tyranny? London: Zed Books.

Foucault, Michel (1991) 'Governmentality', in Burchell, G., Gordon, C. and Miller, P. eds. The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. Chicago Press.

Frosh, S. et al (2001) Young Masculinities: understanding boys in contemporary society, Pluto press.

Hall, Stuart et al (1978) Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order. London: Macmillan.

Henriques, J. et al (1984) Changing the Subject: psychology, social regulation and subjectivity. London: Methuen.

Hollway, Wendy (1985) Subjectivity and Method in Pscyhology: Gender, Meaning and Science. London: Sage.

Hollway, Wendy and Jefferson, Tony (1997) 'The risk society in an age of anxiety: situating fear of crime', British Journal of Sociology 48 (2): 255-266.

Moore, Henrietta (1994) A passion for difference. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Rose, Nikolas (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Shore, C and Wright, S (1997) The Anthropology of Policy: perspectives on governance and power, Routledge: London.

Tambiah, Stanley (1997) Levelling Crowds: ethnonationalist conflicts and collective violence in South Asia. New Delhi: Vistaar Publications.

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