Abstract

This thesis attempted to reveal a communication problem that exists when communities are not involved in the design of communication messages and methods. Using CRECCOM social mobilization activities as a case study, the research mainly explored the nature and scope of participation in communication and any relationship between the degree of that participation and impact among participant communities. In order to clearly study this relationship, I selected two CRECCOM genres; namely, Theatre for Development (TFD) and newsletters. I interrogated these genres as conceptualized and practiced by CRECCOM to clearly explore elements of community participation in their design and implementation then relate the level of participation to the impact on the ground. The thesis establishes that in development communication, there is a gap in the studies to relate participation in communication and impact. This is done in the belief that, genuine community participation demands promotion of the people’s cultural expression and goes beyond mere involvement in project goals. Besides taking a general overview of development communication and behavior change theories, I discussed the history and theories specific to Theatre for development and Print Media. This was to outline the theoretical perspective which I took in analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of both the existing theories and the CRECCOM approach. Lastly, I outlined and discussed communities’ responses as regards acceptability of the CRECCOM approaches in theatre for development and the production of newsletters. I also scrutinized working policies in the communications realm to gauge their relationship with contemporary theories of development communication and how they have been utilized by CRECCOM. The study on Theatre for Development found that there was more understanding of project objectives, impact and sustainability in the sites where CRECCOM stayed for more days than in those where it stayed for fewer days. This was because there was less participation of the communities in the latter. With that variation, it was concluded that the level of participation is directly related to impact. However, exploratively, there were also problems in the sites where CRECCOM stayed for more days. This indicated that there was great room for improvement as regards the whole conceptualization of Theatre for Development at CRECCOM e.g. the nature of the TFD plays and ‘strategies and aesthetics’ of involvement. The most important thing is to make the TFD process organic by involving the communities themselves at all levels. This can be supported by a new trend in the theory of TFD. On the other hand, CRECCOM fails to achieve effective behavior change as it emphasizes on a social change approach which mobilized people as a community as opposed to motivating and mobilizing them as individuals. The study on newsletters discovered that community responses reflected on policy and conceptual failures committed by CRECCOM. For instance, the policy advocates for a community media which the newsletter is not. This hardly achieves relevance and attraction for a defined community. Aesthetically, the communities’ responses also reflected CRECCOM’s failures to ensure accessibility, usability and applicability which all indicated that the paper had a pro-literate bias. None of the people acknowledged that the newsletter achieved impact in their community. Because what the paper lacks are elements related to community involvement, e.g. the need for community media, the study concludes that the needed impact was not realized due to poor participation of the intended communities. On participation in primary school education, I have discovered that the policy is not in line with the current thought on communication theory. This has promoted functional participation which is not sustainable. On media, CRECCOM has failed to effectively implement the proposed communication policy which calls for community participation. Having obtained the results, the picture that emerged pointed to the conclusion that when communities are not effectively involved in the formulation/designing of messages and methods of communication, there is resistance; making the communication strategies ineffective. The problem of poor participation in communication has been a result of poor theory and policies on the one hand and poor practice on the other.

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School	: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Issued Date	: 2008

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