What's in a Name? Problematizing Communication's Shift from Development to Social Change

This article traces the history and shape of the shift from the term "development communication" to "communication for social change". The author, Karin Wilkins, notes that "The gradual shift in rhetoric is not linear, and may not represent an actual shift in practice or within the development industry led by bilateral and multilateral donors. However, it has achieved enough attention to warrant critical reflection."

Wilkins explains that "current articulations of communication for social change build from a history of approaches using strategic communication to promote a public good in the field of development." Such history implies an understanding of development communication as communication for development, in terms of building media infrastructure and/or capacity in addition to delivering strategic messages, or communication about development, with the emergence of more critical considerations of discourse and praxis (Wilkins, 2001).

Wilkins notes that studies of communication about development criticise communication for development projects "for their preoccupation with individuals as the key figure in the social change process at the expense of understanding cultural, political, and economic contexts that guide and constrain individual action (Wilkins, 2000)". According to the author, referring to Escobar (1995), such critique also serves as a guide to understand a history of concepts in the field of development communication. Modernisation approaches to development "articulate a linear model of preconceived transition from traditional to modern societies at the national level (Lerner, 1958; Schramm, 1963). Modern society is conceived as democratic and capitalist, while individuals are expected to propel this transition through their empathic projections from local to national alignments, inspired via their exposure to media". In turn, "dependency critiques of the modernization approach recognized the importance of global contexts in understanding national development, and brought political interests and economic structures into focus" (Schiller, 1991), privileging structural dimensions of development. However, according to Wilkins, critics faulted these approaches "for not allowing more agency to individual and collective actors outside of government and corporate agencies."

Wilkins observes that "Asserting the potential of communities to engage development processes of their own, participatory approaches in turn emerged as a critique to modernization, for following too much of a top-down process, and dependency, for minimizing the ability of local groups to engage in decision making". However, Wilkins argues, the meaning of the term participation, "proposed initially in response to critiques of earlier approaches as a coherent and moral model for social change", has lost its initial value, to the extent that "at present, it is not clear exactly what is meant when the word is used".

Wilkins highlights that, "while academic approaches to development communication became increasingly entangled with attempts to promote participatory models of social change despite what was happening in the practice of the development industry, scholars of social change began to incorporate political and sociological attention to the work of social movements (Downing, 2001; Huesca, 2001; Rodríguez, 2001)." In her view, "broadening the scope of the field to include social movements and community media corresponded with a gradual shift in rhetoric from 'development' to social change."

Wilkins suggests that the "shift in rhetoric may be more a part of academic and NGO communication discussion though than represent actual shift in practice or within the development industry led by bilateral and multilateral donors" and notes that the use of the term 'development' "remains prominent in development institutions, some academic educational programs (such as Malmo University's graduate degree), in fields focusing on media development and ICTs, and even within more sociologically and culturally oriented publications (Hemer & Tufte, 2005)".

In problematising "social change", Wilkins argues that "by privileging the social, other political, economic, and cultural conditions become marginalized" and insists that political dimensions are critical in the field of development, "drawing our attention to media development, governance, civic engagement, and activist movements"; that economic conditions "matter in terms of recognizing the importance of material conditions, poverty, and distributive equity" and that cultural identity also must "be incorporated into a broader framework attesting to cultural production". Referring to "change", she draws attention to its consequences, and stresses that "not all change involves conditions that benefit people. Some change can hurt, or even kill", proposing the term "benefit" as preferable in order to address more positive transitions that serve the public interest.

Given the ambiguities of the existing terms and the broadening of the conceptual approaches to the field, Wilkins suggests beginning "to assert more comprehensive frameworks for strategic intervention" that go beyond "post-development" and "re-developing". In the author's view, such frameworks would require incorporating attention to contexts: "Instead of conceiving of development within circumscribed local communities or national boundaries rooted in territories, transnational spheres within global contexts need to be articulated within a new 'geometry' of development (Shah & Wilkins, 2004)". Mapping such geometry connects those with power regardless of spatial positioning and thus "highlights access to social, human, and financial capital as more critical in terms of defining quality of life than geographical positioning in bounded territories. It is not necessarily the nation in which one resides that matters most, but rather one's access to material, political, and social resources for healthy living". Attention would also need to be given to "issues of power and control over the production of communication".

Last but not least, a critical framework would allow an understanding of "what social change approaches communicate about people and processes in order to advocate for long-term, systemic transition that is more about justice and rights than about ambivalent change". Bearing in mind that "the use of terms involves a dialogic process of negotiation, as groups with interests at times competing and other times intersecting assert their agendas through their rhetoric and practice", how to call the direction proposed by Wilkins remains an open question.