Volume 36 (2015): Issue s1 (May 2015)

In the development communication equation, whether more theoretical, empirical and analytical attention is given to ‘development’ or to ‘communication’ makes a difference: where the emphasis is on development, it is at the expense of communication. Since communication and media arguably play an increasingly pervasive role in the everyday life of citizens and in the politics, economies and governance of most societies, the characteristics and role of specific forms of applied communication strategies in the context of the neoliberal project merit critical scrutiny. Given a complex global scenario, what can a political economy approach bring into an agenda for the future of development communication as a field of study, a practice and an institutional project? This article outlines ways in which a focus on political economy dimensions may contribute to understanding the obstacles and limits to a transformative practice of international development communication.

The complexity of development and social change and growing tensions between dominant results-based and emerging learning and improvement-based approaches to evaluating development interventions have created major challenges for the evaluation of communication for development (C4D). Drawing on our recent research, we identify significant tensions, challenges and issues in evaluating C4D. They include contextual and institutional challenges, problems with attribution and unrealistic timeframes, a lack of capacities in both evaluation and C4D, and a lack of appreciation, funding and support for approaches that are more appropriate for the evaluation of C4D.

We propose various strategies that can help to address these challenges and issues, including using a rigorous mixed methods approach, and implementing long-term, holistic evaluation capacity development at all levels and our new framework for evaluating C4D. These and other strategies can help to create a supportive environment in which new ideas and approaches can flourish, more sustainable outcomes of C4D can be achieved, and C4D organisations can become more sustainable and effective. The implications for C4D policy are considered.

Evaluating the impact of media assistance is challenging for several reasons. Primary among them is that these kinds of initiatives operate in a complex political, social, and cultural environment. Although there has been increased attention to evaluation of media assistance, with a series of international conferences, funded research projects, and publications addressing this topic, it remains a problematic area of practice. This paper provides a survey of recent media assistance evaluation practices through an analysis of 47 evaluation documents of programs and projects from 2002–2012, identifying trends in methodology choices, and critiquing the quality of the evidence enabled through different evaluation approaches. It finds clear patterns in how, when and by whom evaluations are undertaken, but finds that these practices rarely generate useful, insightful evaluations.

Within international development, strengthening the voice of citizens living in poverty is recognised as vital to reducing inequity. In support of such endeavors, participatory video (PV) is an increasingly utilised communicative method that can stimulate community engagement and amplify the voice of groups often excluded from decision-making spaces. However, implementing PV processes specifically within an international development context is an immensely complex proposal. Practitioners must take into consideration the different ways institutions may understand the use of participatory video for raising citizen voice; and how therefore the practice may be influenced, co-opted or even devalued by these institutional assumptions. To this end, this article interrogates how global PV practitioners express tension in their work. Analysis of their descriptions suggests six influential views on PV practice with the potential to diminish the value of voice from the margins.

This article argues for communication for social change theory to be based on a theory of knowledge, a specific understanding of process that feeds into practice, a knowledge of structures, a specific understanding of context and flows of power. It highlights the example of the Right to Information Movement in India as an embodiment of meaningful practice that was in itself a response to the felt needs of people. It argues that the RTI movement provided opportunities to understand Voice as a practice and value through indigenous means, specifically through the mechanism of the Jan Sunwai (Public Hearings). It argues that when local people are involved in articulating ‘needs’, there will be scope for the sustainability of the practice of communication and social change and opportunities to theorise from such practice.

As Documentary Photographers increasingly introduce the collaborative and participatory methodologies common to socially engaged art practices into their projects (particularly those that are activist in nature, seeking to catalyse social change agendas and policies through image making and sharing), there is an increased tension between the process of production and the photographic representation that is created. Over the course of the last five years I have utilised these methodologies of co-authorship. This article contextualizes this kind of transdisciplinary work, and examines the ways in which the integration of collaborative strategies and co-authored practice in projects that are explicitly designed to be of benefit to a primary audience (the participants, collaborators and producers) might be usefully disseminated to a secondary audience (the general public, the ‘art world’, critics etc.) through analysis of my projects Red Light Dark Room; Sex, lives and stereotypes made in Melbourne, Australia, and The King School Portrait Project made in Portland, Oregon, America.