Glocal Times: The Communication for Development Journal No. 17/18 2012

"Adding to the development of an international community of academics and practitioners, Glocal Times aims at becoming a...digital reference and a...forum for the discussion and dissemination of issues concerning communication for development and social change."

This special issue of the Glocal Times was co-published by Malmö University's Master Programme in Communication for Development and the academic journal Nordicom Review, based at Gothenburg University (both in Sweden). The publication's theme is “Mobilizing Communication Globally: For What and for Whom?”.

The contents include:

• Means of Communication - Transnational Struggles and Scarce Resources - "[S]ocial anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen argues that a democratisation of the means of communication may be a key to a more equitable and thus less volatile world, and an important dimension of a world society."
• Mobilizing for Global AIDS Treatment - Clicking Compassion and Shopping Salvation - Lisa Ann Richey "calls for a global approach to communication about HIV/AIDS that can overcome distinctions of nationality, language, class, race and gendered-identities and thus the stereotype of the ‘suffering stranger’. Richey argues that representations of AIDS are critical to shaping the possibilities for understanding, tackling and living with the disease, and analyzes the market logic behind two communication campaigns driven by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and Product RED, respectively, showing their connections to the pharmaceutical industry."
• The Potential of Foreign News as International Development Communication - Bella Mody's "article draws attention to the continued relevance of communication about development in terms of its potential to inform audiences of the root causes of underdevelopment, thus shaping the nature of foreign aid."
• The Underside of Communication in Development - Nora C. Quebral "reflects on the “underside” of communication in development, drawing on a careful reading of several stories covered by the Filipino news media to point at problematic aspects of the relationship between communication and development in developing countries. She focuses particularly on women’s unequal possibilities to make a living, to live freely and to communicate - particularly those opting for migration as an alternative to poverty."
• Rebranding Development Communications in Emergent India - "Paula Chakravartty examines the role of the information technology industry in promoting a specific development agenda in the case of India. Chakravartty argues that the Indian case reflects neoliberal shifts in governance, with national states mimicking transnational corporations, and both transnational and national corporations investing significant sums on public relations efforts to show that they are good citizens despite their responsibility for spectacular economic disparities."
• Public Sector Software, Participatory Communications and Social Change - Pradip Ninan Thomas "looks into the ambivalent role played by the state in development, with an eye to identifying instances of governmental investment in public sector software that have led to practical benefits in the common good. Thomas calls attention to the risk of informational dependency and argues that public sector software mitigates the risks associated with private sector access to public data sets."
• Is it Possible to Generate Development Starting from Communication? - Rosa María Alfaro Moreno of Peru "discusses the possibility of generating equitable national development through communication initiatives. Alfaro argues for the importance of promoting dialogue between ordinary citizens, the state, media enterprises and the business sector, and raises critical questions about the role of organized civil society in that process."
• Communication for Development in Good and Difficult Times - The  FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] Experience - Silvia Balit "revisits the FAO experience to draw lessons from the recent past and identify challenges for the future. Balit calls attention to the risk of reinventing the wheel, addresses the obstacles posed by organizational structures, and highlights the need for qualified training at both institutional and national level."
• The Limits of Communication - The Gnat on the Elephant - Wendy Quarry and Ricardo Ramírez "draw on a recent professional experience in Mozambique to situate a communication initiative in the broader context of a development intervention where land ownership was at stake."
• The Growing Pains of Community Radio in Africa - Emerging Lessons Towards Sustainability - Peter da Costa "analyses the mixed record of donor-driven community radio projects in the [Africa], particularly in terms of social, institutional and financial sustainability beyond donor funding."
• Reality Television for Community Development - The Kwanda Initiative in South Africa - Lebo Ramafoko, Gavin Andersson, and Renay Weiner "discuss the potential of the commercial reality television format to promote community development and organization. Their account of the potential for media visibility to push governments to better fulfill their responsibilities resonates with Alfaro’s account of the Peruvian experience of media observatories...[I]t also raises questions regarding the material limitations faced by civil society organizations when their communication interventions raise the bar of citizen’s claims."
• The Globalization of the Pavement - A Tanzanian Case Study - Ylva Ekström, Anders Høg Hansen, and Hugo Boothby "document the uses of broadcast and so-called new media to bridge geographical distances between Tanzania and its diasporas. Their contribution pays insightful attention to how traditional forms of oral communication are adapting towards the digital, and documents how citizens are filling information voids in an informal economy of news and stories in which everyday media practices are stimulated by concrete needs."
• Teaching and Learning Communication Process as Community-based Transdisciplinary Inquiry - Helen Hambly Odame and Natalie Oram. "From the perspective of the Canadian experience, which is importantly grounded in early uses of media technology as a tool in participatory community development (see e.g. Quarry 1994), Helen Hambly Odame and Natalie Oram discuss an experience in teaching and learning communication processes oriented towards social change and development through ‘community service learning’."
• The Civil Society Organization Media Manager as Critical Communicator - Peter Lemish and Kelly Caringer. "Concerned instead with the market-driven approach that seems to drive the recruitment of media managers for civil society organizations (CSOs) in the US [United States], Peter Lemish and Kelly Caringer argue for a conceptualization and professional training of CSO media managers as critical communicators."
• Social Entrepreneurship and Communication for Development and Social Change - Rethinking Innovation - Emile McAnany "explores the potential of the theory and practice of social entrepreneurship to inform a future paradigm shift in communication for development and social change, focusing on a series of best practices in social entrepreneurship innovation in the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs)."
• Global Survival - Towards a Communication of Hope? - Cees Hamelink "argues for mobilizing forms of communication within cities that can counteract perceptions of risk and insecurity as well as experiences of humiliation. In his view, communicated cities could act as nodes of fairer global networks, provided that the Internet can be preserved as a free and open medium for social deliberation."
• ComDev in the Mediatized World - Oscar Hemer and Thomas Tufte argue that "a shift from globalization to mediatisation in ongoing theoretical debates poses specific challenges for communication for development studies, and discuss emerging agendas for the field. These considerations are informed by their long-standing collaboration across the Öresund bridge, connecting Malmö University in Sweden and Roskilde University in Denmark via the Ørecomm Research Group."
• Is the Development Industry Taking Care of Business? - Why We Need Accountability in Communication for Social Justice - Karin Gwinn Wilkins "makes a case for accountability as a prerequisite for the promotion of social justice through communication for development initiatives."

Click here for open access as made available by Nordicom Review, select Nordicom Review from the left hand navigation bar, then choose issue 33 (2012).