From making us cry to making us act: five ways of communicating ‘development’ in Europe

By Maria Cascant

A few weeks ago I watched the ‘Red Nose Day‘, an annual TV show in the UK that collects funds for development projects. IDS fellow Spencer Henson wrote a blog on the apparent disconnect between the high levels of donation for such events and UK citizens’ scepticism on keeping the target of spending 0.7% of national income on aid. As for me, I got caught by the images used, namely helpless children. I went to sleep that night wondering how much development communication had really evolved in the last decades.

example of ‘shock effect’ type image

example of ‘positive image’ type

Some days ago, a colleague passed me the article ‘Post-humanitarianism: humanitarian communication beyond a politics of pity‘ (2010). I was fascinated by the read. The author, LSE fellow Lilie Chouliaraki, suggested three types of appeal used in humanitarian and development communication. Type number 1, the ‘shock effect’, may be familiar. An early example is the Red Cross/Life magazine photos on the 1951 Bihar (Indian) famine showing starving children, old women calling out ‘Sir, we are dying’ and a begging mother with a child in her arms. With increased criticism and ethical controls on these images, a more ‘positive image’ type of appeal emerged in the late 80s. These are images of children smiling or farmers with newly acquired farming tools. They can be easily found in most of current sponsorship ads.

 One would think that starving children and smiling children are pretty opposed ways of communicating. Yet Chouliaraki sustains they are not. They are in fact the two sides of the same coin. Both use photorealism in their format and are emotion-oriented (guilt or gratitude) in their content.

It is here that Chouliaraki’s article suggests the emergence of a third ‘post-emotional’ type of appeal, which breaks with previous ones in both format and content. The format defies photorealism and experiments with a range of artistic methods. The content moves from using emotions to using branding (i.e. of a renowned NGO) to attract the spectator. A paradigmatic case is Amnesty’s ad ‘Bullet. The Execution’, which won the ad production prize at Cannes Festival in 2006. The use of popular TV stars in development communication and campaigning could also be seen to follow this post-emotional trend. In short, it is the message’s format and spokesperson what validates the message itself, more than its content.

Pretty different this time from the other two, one would think. Yet Chouliaraki objects again. All three types still transmit a disgraceful context ‘there’ while the sole action expected from the European spectator ‘here’ is to feel attracted (by pity or by brand) and to donate to solve the matter. The sufferers are depicted as perpetually awaiting the spectator’s generosity, portraying development as a gift from Europe to elsewhere. None of the three types opts to explain at least one of the many reasons that create the unequal situation in the first place. None addresses, in this sense, the limitations of development interventions.

Chouliaraki’s article concludes here, with the description of these three types of appeal. With current initiatives like the Red Nose Day show or Kony 2012, one would think, yes that must be it – development communication has not really advanced much further. But perhaps you may have in your inbox, as I do, one of those emails asking to ‘sign the petition’. Most of these do not seek (only) our money, but our ‘click’ – a click to show ideological support to a cause; to lobby a decision-maker, MP, bank or firm. Other petitions even take a step further: they ask you to sign but also to change something in your lifestyle.

For instance, the Clean Clothes Campaign (2010) explains how jeans produced with the abrasive technique of sandblasting have toxic effects in the Bangladeshi female workers that make them. Besides appeals for e.g.  lobbying those firms using sandblasting and asking governments to regulate on the practice, the campaign asks us to stop buying that type of trousers. In the same line, the Bank Secrets Campaign (2009) lists those banks investing in human right abuses such as polluting powers, controversial weapons, and repressive regimes. It then asks us to move our money to ethical banks and to organise chats, stalls and video-debates besides more lobby-based appeals like ‘discuss with a banker’ and ‘send an e-card’.

Are petition appeals different from previous ones? Perhaps not on the format. Petitions can be as creative as post-emotional type appeals (i.e. caricatures) but they don’t really suggest anything aesthetically new. Yet in terms of content, they do. They are political. They engage the spectator in an intellectual exercise instead of an emotional or consumerist one. They present a cause-effect message between the ‘here’ of the spectator and the ‘there’ of the sufferer, showing that at least one of the causes of the other side’s distress originates in the spectator’s own context (i.e. a MP decision, a consumption pattern).  

Petitions have their own constraints. Lobby-type ones may become repetitive and bring a certain ‘petition fatigue’. They also miss out on self-reflection and personal change, and may even remind us of the immediacy and superficiality of post-emotional, consumerist modes (‘email this MP and done’). Conversely, lifestyle-type appeals are less efficient on tackling urgent actions than, say, crowd bombardment of a MP’s inbox. Both types seem thus complementary. For instance, one-off, massive, urgent petitions can be matched with longer-term pledges on the same cause by more committed, self-organised groups. What seems important in any case is that appeals use both consumer and citizen power to put pressure not only on those firms and banks operating unjust practices but also on states, the ultimate regulatory and decision-making bodies.

All in all, petitions are just petitions. They rely on large numbers saying ‘no’ all at once and are thus meant to be limited and timely to a particular cause. We can help save workers from sandblasting today, but forget their overall work precariousness tomorrow. Petitions may thus need other protest forms beside to help shake the more difficult political stuff. And yet, even within their limitations, petitions do have some relative power to keep firms, banks and governments thinking twice about their moves, and to keep citizens, including business, bank and government citizens, informed and active.

Promoting these more political types of appeal, rather than lingering on emotional ones or adapting to ad-like ones, would give development communication a more constructive role. Emotional types are still dominant, as seen with the popular Red Nose Day. Yet, some organisations and agencies have already made a move. They may lose in fundraising power and in popularity, but gain a lot in coherence. An opportunity cost worth considering. This would bring deeper levels of participation in development communication and campaigning, and ultimately, a paradigm of development engaged in personal and institutional change not only ‘there’ but also ‘here’.

Maria-Josep Cascant Sempere is a PhD candidate within the IDS Participation, Power and Social Change research team. She is interested in development activism with a focus on the links between popular education and economic (tax) justice campaigning in Nigeria and the UK.

Read other blogs by Maria Cascant

• ‘Global Development’: the new buzzword?

What were the PPSC blog’s Top 10 posts of 2012?

Stephen Wood

On behalf of the IDS Participation, Power and Social Change research team, I’d like to welcome back our readers to what we hope proves to be a fascinating year for our blog. Reflecting the outputs from several research projects and a number of pressing global debates and issues we are engaged in, the PPSC research team have some really interesting pieces in the pipeline in the next few months.  I hope you’ll continue to read and engage with the debates and discussion that arise from our articles.

However, in case you missed some of our blogs last year, I thought you might like to look at our Top 10 most popular pieces, as well as some of our articles that you might have missed! Please do share these with your networks, add comments if you haven’t already and as always, encourage others to subscribe to the blog!

Top 10 blog posts of 2012:

1. “Just do women’s empowerment”  by Naomi Hossain
2. “On having Voice and Being Heard: Participation in the Post-2015 Policy Process”  by Elizabeth Mills
3. “Spring uprisings calling spring academics: #bring books out to the streets” by Maria-Josep Cascant Sempere
4. “Global development: the new buzzword?” by Maria-Josep Cascant Sempere and Alex Kelbert
5. “Eleven predictions for Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood (if they continue to remain in power” by Mariz Tadros
6. “Post 2015: What do policymakers know about poverty?” by Joanna Wheeler and Danny Burns
7. “No gong for Cameron’s Hunger Summit” by Naomi Hossain
8. “Challenging attempts to silence civil society in Uganda” by Stephen Wood
9. “Are we ready for an ‘academic spring’?” by Danny Burns
10. “Digital activism in post-revolution Egypt: How relevant is online dissidence in the marathon for democracy?” by Hani Morsi

Excellent blog posts you might have missed in 2012:

• “Participatory visual processes in Nairobi’s margins” by Thea Shakrokh
• “States of Exception, A Tragedy in Unceasing Acts: Development Encounters” by Patta Scott-Villiers
• “Putting pleasure into safer sex interventions” by Stephen Wood
• “Can the North hear?” by Tessa Lewin
• “What keeps unpaid care off development agendas?” by Rosalind Eyben

Stephen Wood is a researcher on the Sexuality and Development Programme within the Participation, Power and Social Change research team at IDS and can be found on Twitter as: StephenWood_UK

Read other recent blogs by Stephen Wood:

• The stark realities lying behind the Ugandan Anti-Homsexuality Bill
• Putting pleasure into safer sex interventions
• Diversifying our strategies for sexual equality
• Challenging attempts to silence civil society in Uganda

Participatory visual processes in Nairobi’s margins

Thea Shakrokh

I recently spent a week in Nairobi with community researchers from The Seed Institute and Spatial Collective (two of the research group members within Participate [www.ids.ac.uk/Participate]) who were learning about participatory video as an action and research strategy within their participatory research initiatives. Participatory visual processes provide creative possibilities for the very real issues affecting people’s lives to be captured. Jackie Shaw from Real Time facilitated a journey through which the researchers gained hands on experience of facilitating a participatory video process, and looked at how the approach could be used to amplify the voices of the most marginalised in their communities, and generate dialogue with decision-makers.

Community researchers in Kasarani, Kenya learning about facilitating participatory video processes.

The potential of participatory video to visually communicate the context specific issues, concerns and aspirations of community members resonated strongly with the community researchers. As participatory video is a creative process there is flexibility in its use. This meant that in learning about the approach researchers were able to think about ways to connect it to their own visions for action research; it was interesting for example to hear the nuances in the way that the purpose of participatory video was interpreted:

“Participatory video is a tool for highlighting issues on the ground that do not yet have a strong presence in public debate, for example disability issues.”

“It is a group process that enables issues to come out as people have conversations through working together.”

“Participatory video will enable more people in the community to be reached and in an interactive way which will provide community ownership over the issues generated.”

“Censoring of the narrative, which traditionally happens in survey work is removed, the story coming through is true to the detail of what the community members were sharing. Also the authenticity of the voices will remain, for example the language of the youth will be what is heard.”

What came across clearly in the conversations that took place over this week, was the importance the groups placed on the empowering nature of participatory video – in particular, the way that the exploration of community stories is placed at the centre of the process as opposed to starting with the external policy context which is so often the case. By creating a space for issues to be deliberated and communicated collectively, there was a feeling of increased power behind the message articulated.

For me what is really powerful about participatory video is that it provides a space for communities and policy-makers to make connections that are grounded in the reality people’s lives, and their physical spaces. Importantly, in the context of Participate, the digital nature of video makes the perspectives and voices of people living in poverty accessible at the local, national, and international levels; from cross-community dialogues to global policy debates, with strong possibilities of dialogue between the two.

Spatial Collective community researchers sharing the participatory video process with their peers in Mathare settlement, Kenya

The next steps in Nairobi will be to take participatory video to the communities that Spatial Collective and The Seed Institute work which they hope will bring a new dynamic to their work. The Seed Institute are planning to use participatory video to provide new opportunities for children with disabilities to participate in and lead the learning and action activities that they facilitate. The Spatial Collective moved very quickly to share the method across their team of youth leaders who coordinate community-led mapping in Mathare settlement. They are planning how to make their inquiries into community issues deeper by creating spaces for wider community interactions through forums and debates around the films that are made.

Participatory visual processes can reveal and communicate powerfully about experiences from the margins by providing contextualised examples of the complex and subjective aspects and consequences of development. It will be really interesting to see how the use of video develops in both organisations and across the initiative, and also how the various actors in this post-2015 debate respond to making a very real, very human connection with people living in poverty.

Thea Shahrokh is a Research Officer in the Participation, Power and Social Change research team at IDS.

Read other recent blogs by Thea Shahrokh:

• Learning Partners: Participate and the High Level Panel
• You have 9 minutes to talk to the High Level Panel: what would you say?

Can the North hear?

Tessa Lewin

I spent last week in Durban at the IAMCR (the International Association for Media and Communication Research) Conference, where I was presenting a paper on Pathways of Women’s Empowerment ‘Real World’ documentary film scheme, together with other contributors to the forthcoming IDS Bulletin New Roles for Communication in Development (Bulletin no. 43.5 – September 2012).

Aside from the broad overview of the field offered by the conference programme, the numerous specialist bookstalls, and the people, by far the most interesting and complicating moment for me was the opening plenary. Aside from Mbembe’s talk, which had moments of brilliance, there were two things that defined my experience of this event  – William Makgoba’s address, and Raewynn Connell’s presentation. Makgoba was opening the conference in his role as Vice Chancellor of the University. Connell was speaking about the political economy of global knowledge production, with reference to her book on Southern Theory (the overarching theme for the conference was ‘South-North Conversations’).

Makgoba is a very controversial figure in South Africa. He is widely acknowledged as a brilliant scientist and, more controversially, as a leader. In 1995 he was appointed as the Vice Chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand.  While in this role, a group of fellow academics accused him of administrative incompetence, disloyalty to the university and embellishing his curriculum vitae. Makgoba launched a counterattack, accused the University of institutional racism, and resigned. The ‘Makgoba Affair’ polarized the university along racial lines, and was seen by many as an incident that defined the complexities of post-Apartheid South Africa. More recently, in his role as Vice Chancellor of the University of KwaZulu Natal, he has been accused of undermining academic freedom by autocratically censoring his critics.

After a glowing eulogy from Ruth Teer-Tomaselli (a well-known media academic and the co-chair of the local organising committee) introducing Makgoba, he spoke somewhat curiously, to the room of media practitioners and academics, about the lack of proper regulation of journalists, and suggested that like medical practitioners, journalists should be controlled by a professional regulatory body. He appeared to be echoing recent pronouncements by ANC leaders linked to the much-debated South African Protection of State Information Bill. Teer-Tomaselli later issued what appeared to be a disclaimer for Makgoba’s speech – where she reassured the conference of his intelligence, and his intent to provoke. What made Makgoba’s address particularly surreal was the seeming lack of audience reaction or engagement. It was not clear what silenced the South Africans in the audience, but I am certain that most of the non-South African delegates had no idea of the contextual significance of any of the details of the event. In this sense, it was a perfect illustration of what can be lost in translation in South-North conversations.

Connell talked about her field, sociology, and the extent to which its emergence and growth in the West was very much part of the Imperial project. She outlined how this has shaped the knowledge relationship of ‘academic dependency’ between South and North. She showed a sobering info graphic illustrating the geographical spread of sociology journals – the majority coming from the USA, followed by the UK. She argued that many indigenous knowledges and priorities were being underrepresented in global academia as a result of existing entrenched patterns. Agendas are often set by editorial priorities and experiences of ‘Northern’ academics. She pointed out that the recent growth of neo-liberal management and its insistence on a particular understanding of ‘impact’ and ‘rigour’ within Universities further entrenches these patterns.

Connell went on to argue that Spivak’s question ‘can the South speak?’ should be accompanied by the question ‘Can the North hear?’ She asserted that the driving force for structural change will be intellectual production in the global South, not reform from the North. She also gave an introduction to several ‘Southern’ theorists who have made significant contributions to theory including Bina Agarwal, Sol Plaatje, Paulin J. Hountondji, Ali Shariati. Connell called for both Northern and Southern voices to work together, as allies, to try and better balance the system.

In the context of this plenary the South-North framing of the conference felt less anachronistic than I had initially viewed it, and more a vital call to arms, to awareness, to action. I for one, came away determined to read more and ask more questions, and address the gaps in my knowledge both about the ongoing structural inequities of academia, and numerous Southern theorists.

Tessa Lewin is a researcher in the Participation, Power and Social Change research team at IDS.

Developmental hackspaces: Fostering a meta-participatory ethos for Information and Communication Technologies for Development

Hani Morsi

The program for the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Development Conference includes a paper session titled “Expanding Participation”, which invokes thinking about the clearly rising convergence of many conceptual and practical repertoires of development research, practice and emerging information and communications technologies (ICTs). The sustained interest in participation (as a large and diverse set of methodologies, practices and frameworks) and how it continues to inform the general developmental zeitgeist is paralleled by the steady evolution in technologies and technological practices that have their own embedded manifestations of the participatory ethos. Technically-focused communities such as the open source movement and technologies such as crowdsourcing, with characteristics of openness, social collaboration, and unrestricted information flows mirror the inclusiveness inherent in participatory processes in development work.

With such a similitude in the participative and increasingly democratized cultures characterizing the current evolution in development and technical communities, an important question arises: Are we, as development researchers and practitioners, adequately capitalizing on the potential opportunities created (as a result for such a convergence of shared values) for collaboration with our technical counterparts? Are we able to reimagine development within a context of the accelerating rate of change that the increasingly rapid rate of technological advancement brings about? How are we able to reconceive our ‘traditional’ ways of thinking about the global developmental priorities in a world characterized by such an accelerating rate of change?

The purpose of this blog post is not to offer any adequate answers to these questions, but to present a call to action on an issue with direct bearing on formulating these answers. How can development practitioners and technology professionals capitalize on shared values, more effectively collaborate on solving complex developmental issues and foster a reciprocal cross-pollination of ideas that is mutually valuable in finding practical and sustainable solutions in an increasingly dynamic global environment?  The collaborative spaces already exist, considering the multitude of cross-disciplinary conferences, research programs and development interventions that combine input from and invite partnership between those working in both realms of development practice and technological innovation, as well as local stakeholders and institutions. That is, the attention to inclusiveness and participation as central notions of collaborative efforts across joint undertakings between the development and technology domains is already extant and arguably on the rise. What needs more attention is factors affecting the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of collaboration between those working in development practice and their opposite numbers in the technology and innovation world, and this is what is meant by ‘meta-participatory’ in the title of this post.

Many of the attributes that both groups have in common have already been discussed. What about divergences? What stands in the way of a more vibrant alliance between development and technology? In many cases, it all about finding the right balance. Here are two key observations:

• Disparate views on the role of technology for development: this is an elementary – even obvious – observation, but remains fundamental to bridging gaps in conception of technological tools and processes for development. Without risking treading into territory mined with multifarious and often polarized debates on the subject, and for the purpose of the main thrust of this post, it would suffice to say that development practitioners need to adopt a little more techno-fetishism, while technologists would probably do well to accept an additional degree of practical conservatism. In other words, we need to balance long-term, futuristic outlooks on the possibilities of what technology can (or cannot) do for development with short-term, pragmatic focuses on specific interventions. An equilibrium of far-sighted vision and effective action cannot exist otherwise.
• Conflicting working ‘tempos’: technologists often have a ‘keyed-up’ working pace. Prototypes are built, deployed, tested and improved upon in a cycle that is analogous to but much faster than the slow-paced, deliberative, power-sensitive process that lies at the core of participatory methodologies. In collaborative projects, finding a practical balance of pace is difficult, but achievable.

The late Steve Jobs, one of the technological icons of present times, once said “…innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem”. Sudden moments of clarity and late night phone calls aside, if we are to truly co-construct knowledge about how find technologically-catalyzed solutions for global development challenges, we need to break out of our respective disciplinary silos and start reciprocally but constructively shooting holes in our preconceived notions about how to find these solutions. We need to open source development by building upon the shared values of participation and inclusiveness and promoting a joint discourse of ideas at the intersection of practical intervention, technological innovation and ethical considerations.

Hani Morsi is a PhD candidate within the Participation, Power and Social Change research team at IDS.

Digital activism in post-revolution Egypt: How relevant is online dissidence in the marathon for democracy?

Hani Morsi

The metaphorical use of the word ‘marathon’ in the title is intended to contrast the situation in Egypt during the January 25^th 2011 uprising with the present state of affairs in the country. To continue the metaphor, revolutions are akin to sprints; they utilize the powerful energy of sudden mass mobilizations to amplify popular dissidence and drive for (what can appear to be) immediate change. However, the problem with sprints is that they are not meant for running very far. The energy in popular uprisings cannot be sustained on the long haul, and social change that is both desirable and lasting is a matter of long-term endurance against intransigent and anti-democratic forces. The Egyptian revolution is far from finished, and the drive for true democracy will take a lot longer than the 18 days it took to topple Mubarak’s regime.  Considering the key role new communications technologies played in the Egyptian revolution, it is important to question how sustainable this role is in the drawn-out struggle for true democratic reform.

The Egyptian uprising did not happen in a sociopolitical vacuum where the only driving force is what could be instantly observed in a shallow analysis: the fundamental desire for revolt against oppression, which is a universal human imperative. For such a revolt to result in a sustainable drive for change, it needs to be preceded by and rooted in a rich social dialogue. It also needs to be channeled into challenging the status quo through focused activism. In a society where active political participation was stifled in the conventional spaces where power is contested and challenged (what I call here ‘real’space), a vibrant social discourse on change was transplanted in ‘virtual space’ by politically active and tech-savvy Egyptian youth (a demographic minority in Egypt). The ‘boots on the ground’ manifestation of such virtual form of activism came to being on January 25^th 2011 in Tahrir Square. Creating a false dichotomy between social interactions in virtual space and popular confrontational action in real space hinders our understanding of the dynamic between both. It could be argued that the only new thing about ‘digital social media’ is the ‘digital’ part. The means for fueling the popular drive for social justice have not changed much historically. Conversely, the forms these means take that have changed.

The comparison in the first paragraph between revolutionary and post-revolutionary contexts frames the analysis of the role of digital activism in an enduring drive for genuine democratic reform. I use the term ‘digital activism’ as opposed to ‘social media’ because the later is not necessarily descriptive of the use of digital social networks for activism. Social networks existed long before the internet. Political activism aided by digital social networks is what is we are concerned with herein. Digital social media is a term that describes a set of different yet related tools that, in the context of grassroots political activism, have disparate sub-roles in subverting political coercion. These roles alternated between helping reanimate a grassroots-level debate on change, to popular mobilization and organization for taking the fight from the networks to the streets.   During the early days of the revolution, one of the most important roles of digital social networks was acting as a distributed truth engine (an analogical term to distributed systems in computing, where multiple machines communicate with each other over a network to achieve a common goal), providing real-time information validated and confirmed by individuals at the epicenter of events, in effect providing a robust alternative to the propaganda presented by the largely state-controlled media. Once this umbilical cord of reliable news was severed (when Egypt went offline on orders from Mubarak’s government on January 27^th 2011,), the streets were flooded with even more people seeking out the truth and bolstering the revolutionaries’ stance in Tahrir Square.

Presently, all indicators evince that if any kind of change came about in the year since Mubarak was ousted, it is arguably a relapse. There is outrageous military persecution of dissent, freedom of expression and association is heavily stifled, until last week emergency laws remained in place and the use of disproportionate violence and torture against activists and protesters continue by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF). Amidst all of this, online social networks still provide the spaces where the now-sentient discourse on democracy is revitalized, and activism is channeled from the virtual to the real. This is far from claiming that this is still a medium where the regime is out of its element. The SCAF frequently arrests and intimidates activists with loud online voices. Even Mubarak’s regime Gestapo, the now defunct State Security, used European digital infiltration technology that was used against bloggers and online activists. What is important to keep in mind, however, is that such coercive countermeasures have a diminishing effect in a post-revolutionary society. The real-time and distributed characteristics of digital social network technologies make complete control of information activism impossible. Scare tactics only add fuel to the revolutionary fire as news of  the violations are transmitted through the networks with unprecedented rapidness.

It would be naive, even condescending, to reduce the Arab Spring uprisings to the face value of the technological tools that catalyzed them. By the same token, it would be equally unwise to downplay the true role of digital activism tools in all stages of the popular quest for change. It is important to think of technologically-driven political dissidence as taking place on a continuum of activism that traverses through real and virtual spaces of power contestation. The digital in ‘digital activism’ necessitates both going beyond the boundaries of conventional paradigms of conceptualizing political unruliness, and a more thorough understanding of the different forms of emerging digital communication technologies and how they influence social interactions that lead to cultivating indigenous discourses on change.

Hani Morsi is a PhD candidate within the Participation, Power and Social Change research team at IDS.