Engendering Growth Through
Creative
Strategies for Rural Communications
The
need to understand the challenges that rural communities face regarding
lack of information and livelihood concerns is imperative for
communication service providers. Communication providers can play an
important role by driving a hyper-local strategy without simply
repeating what has worked in urban settings.
In India, the mainstream media is unable to cater to the true
information needs of the rural community, as it is primarily market
driven and operates with profit-maximising motives. About 75% of the
Indian population is not able to access the mass media due to illiteracy
and more than 90% of entertainment is through the electronic medium.
Hence, large chunks of population, especially in rural India, remain
un-served and ignorant of the choices that can change their life.
Further, mass media campaigns would not work in these settings and
innovative thinking is required to overcome the lack of access to
technology like TV, isolated rural settings, cultural differences and to
cater to local dialects. Growth goals cannot be reached without
disseminating information to the larger group, for whom the development
schemes are created and enabling them to access their entitlements and
claim their rights.
Strategies that include communication for rural development as a
significant aspect of rural development are essential. Communication for
growth is a critical driver for securing the necessary participation,
ownership and accountability for achieving development goals. Dialogue
is at the heart of such a communication strategy. Development is thus
engineered to be bottom up by engaging the community, both with the
identification of their challenges and the solutions. The aim of the
strategy of rural communication for growth is to ensure that the media
has the capacity and capability to provide channels for dialogue to
generate information that rural communities want and need. Dialogue
platforms for vulnerable and marginalised groups to discuss and voice
their perspectives on the issues that most concern them can play a
crucial role in engendering growth in rural areas.
The platforms need to be created in such a way that information should
reach the marginalised sections of society and they are able to engage
in dialogue with each other and experts, going beyond a traditional
chaupal. The participatory communication medium is one such way where
marginalised people can participate at every step. Initiatives like
community radio, satellite communication of Indian Space Research
Organisation’s Village Resource Centre and other village resource
centres managed by franchisees to encourage decentralisation and to
reach remote areas are helping rural people to raise their voice and
participate in discussions on matters affecting the community. Other
innovative programmes such as Lifeline projects using mobile phones for
providing information in the field, local village gatherings where
entertainment, theatre forms, focus group discussion and participatory
rural appraisal with experts are conducted on specific themes such as
adaptation and climate change or eco habitat have been working
successfully.
These methods are allowing rural communities to develop their
communication skills in the language and idiom they choose and
understand. These methods facilitate rural community involvement at all
levels of decision-making and programming, ensuring that their voices
and concerns are part of the agenda. Additionally, they become part of
the solution, allowing it to be applied more effectively as they had a
choice in its creation.
There is an urgent need to encourage and support initiatives that help
the poor and non-literate meet their communication needs, both through
the development of technology for use by the non-literate and through
cheaper technology. Media support and media capacity development of
rural communicators should enable them to better respond to and reflect
the information and communication needs of these groups.
At this stage, there is no perfect participatory model but with the
development of the capacities of rural communicators who understand the
needs and the ways of engaging with their own communities and continual
co-experimentation with new rural media models will no doubt result in
greater community participation for their own empowerment and growth.
q
Indira
Mansingh
imansingh@devalt.org
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