Communication for Development

Communication for development and social change (CDSC) is my niche. It's the whole reason why research and journal articles and term papers are exciting to me now. As I said in my very first post, this blog is geared towards advancing my thoughts and ideas about CDSC and my job as a doctoral student and as a future CDSC practitioner. So I figured...I better explain what CDSC is, what its platform/foundation is, and why it's so important.

I first heard of CDSC about 6 months ago. I was registering for public relations classes for Spring semester and this CDSC class was the ONLY one that fit my schedule. I initially wrote it off as a class that would not fit my specialization, but it would give me 3 more hours. At any rate, this class took me by surprise with its relevance to my interests in communication and rhetoric and my coming to an understanding of where I need to set my focus for my dissertation and all the research papers and projects that come before that.

CDSC is most aptly defined as the practice that uses communication processes to help people and people groups recognize and understand their situations--those situations that slow down economic, educational, health-related progress. These are situations or plights that people and people groups get stuck in and cannot or will not find their ways out. CDSC strives to build better nations and better countries by working with individuals, work that will radiate out to the whole group and bring about change in mindsets, attitudes, and eventually behaviors.

CDSC is concerned with several factors that have the ability to debilitate or rehabilitate people groups. These include:
- power/empowerment: what kinds of power do people of developing nations/communities have? DO they have power? Do they feel EMpowered to change their situation? How can communication processes restore this power? This concept also deals with balance of power.
- interpersonal communication: there are two theoretical approaches to CDSC; one deals with one way communication (a developed nation comes into a developing nation and tries to exact change without communicating with the people of interest). The other deals with two way communication (a developed nation comes in and fosters open communication with the people)
- participation: along the lines of mutual, two way communication is this idea of letting those you are trying to help progress work WITH you in your efforts. This encompasses respect for cultural considerations, respect for their feelings of empowerment. CDSC development can have much better effects with much more longevity, if the people being helped are actively working towards their development

So that was a long drawn out explanation of mainly the postmodern perspectives of CDSC (I'll discuss the modernity era of CDSC in another post). So with that said...here's an example:

The American inner city is a quickly disintegrating portion of most American cities. Older residents are in homes where after 30 or 40 years, they are STILL paying rent to a landlord, rather than proudly owning the home they've raised children and grandchildren in. (How is that even possible?) Younger residents find themeselves in a vicious cycle of violence, teen pregnancies, dropping out of high school, and depending on grandparents who should be enjoying their grandchildren, NOT raising their grandchildren. Suffice it to say, communication about priorities, power, and the ability to rise above stereotypes got lost somewhere in the mix.

This is where CDSC comes in:
- restoring communication with and within the community.
- demonstrating that the residents of the inner city CAN participate in the renewal of their communities
- showing them that there can be a balance of power when it comes to their relationships with landlords, city officials, each other

So that's my CDSC definition, description, and application. I'm working on establishing a CDSC research plan for American inner cities, because the welfare state is so counterproductive to development and social change AND it's time to look in different areas for help and progression.