of the new state's legitimate and appropriate role in shaping the new social order, and to secure the overarching social authority of the state.
The capacity-building project of the RDP, which aimed to empower community's themselves by placing the state within the community (at the local level) has been rolled back by the GEAR project, giving rise to the ongoing tension between development as a political process of entrenching and legitimating a new political order, and as a participatory , people-driven' process from below. As the PIR report suggests, the realization that social assets (networks, norms, trust relationships which facilitate co-operation) are a feature of social organization which have been neglected, should contribute to the construction of programmes to build and enhance socialassets through linkages, exchanges and sharing of knowledge and information at the grassroots level itself
Perhaps itistime to step back from the theoretic ism characteristic of early DSC which was attempting to break out of the shadow of the dominant paradigm,and recognize that DSC can mean many different things. We should bethinking about some of the following issues at a minimum:
• Facilitation: as institutional frameworks for policy implementation are consolidated, so too a new institutionally driven process of facilitation is underway, albeit with a number of different approaches and models. What are these methods and models which underpin interventions?
• Information: as the importance of communication is increasingly recognized (in all its forms,but driven by the IT revolution) so there remains the problem of capacity, both in institutions and on the ground.
• Research: what are the research priorities for academics and practitioners in a context of nation building, GEAR and information technology? How do academics relate to the people who are directly involved in communicating around development issues?
A commitment to communication for development still poses more problems than it solves, and in a fast moving environment such as our own it remains an important task to develop our own responses and frameworks of analysis.
One of the most important tasks of development support communication is the design and implementation of communication campaigns. As we have touched on this in the course of thinking about social marketing, itremains necessary to provide examples that illustrate the
pitfalls, and progress,which can accrue to weak/strong DSC interventions.The following two case studies illustrate the complex array of processes which configure to provide for a communicative experience,as well as offering some evaluative comment on them.
There isnow a large literature dealing with information campaigns,much of it concerned with social and business marketing, which has as its central theme the issue of converting new information into new behaviours (see Singhal and Rogers 1999;Snyder 2002;Salmon 1989). Within the field of 'development communication' there is a fairly stark dichotomy between mass communication strategies to inform and educate (with the concomitant debate about effectiveness) and the burgeoning participatory approach concentrating on existing community-based communication mediums as sources of organisational strength.
Somewhere between general information campaigns, and 'communication for development', lies the 'development support communication' (DSC) approach. As we have seen, DSC is an orientation which recognizes the necessity and appropriateness of the interventionist (or institution-driven) communication strategy, without the hang-ups of developing a methodology which will produce certain outcomes (many of which are rather suspect anyway), and is usually committed to building capacity amongst identified groups or organisations.
The DSC approach recognizes the role and importance of communication specialists,but has its roots in a Freirean conscientisation project. One of its central tenets is the creation of a dialogue between development stakeholders/actors in the process of coming to one mind around a specific project or action,thereby ensuring that communication contributes to successful participation (Ascroft and Masilela 1998). As we have seen, there are analytic issues around this straightforward approach.
Be that as it may, the goal of participation requires careful planning, and a consideration of the ways in which various communities of interest are 'vocalised' in such dialogue.In other words, there is a structural dimension to DSC which is often missing in blanket information campaigns (notwithstanding the sophistication of market segmenting and so on).
Robert Hornik's (1988) excellent review of communication for agricultural and nutritional development in the Third World identifies theory failure as the main reason for the slow pace of development, rather than the communication strategies per se. He argues that "there was a strong argument (and some evidence) that people failed to heed advice from outside not because of personal fatalism of traditionalism but because they were structurally bound to current practice" (1988: 156). In many cases of farmers failing to take up agronomist- recommended packages,for example,they did so with good economic justification (for example,an increased cost oflabor required which could be sold elsewhere for a higher return). He suggests that characteristics not related to current resource availability can affect current practice.
Reluctant to fall back into individual blame theories,Hornik is of the view that potentially useful information doesn'tdo much flowing because conventional information distribution channels are often weak. He goes on to suggest that,
additional support for the poor flow argument comes from smaller-scale projects that do operate effectively,if only for the short term and in pilot areas These projects are not always evidence about effective ways of investing in information (their expansion to a mass audience may not be logistically feasible), but they are evidence that investments in information can effect desired outcomes. If done well,
information programs make a difference.The question is how to do them well (1988:
158).
Hornik identifies seven prescriptions for doing information for development well:
• fmancial and managerial feasibility;
• responsiveness;
• message development;
• integration with other institutions;
• support in the process of change;
• patience;
• political attractiveness.
These views are similar to the problems identified by Schoen (1996: 259) when he suggests five major difficulties in developing a communication strategy: Mistakes in choosing a target audience, mistakes in deciding on communication objectives, mistakes in message design, mistakes in choosing the means and media to get a message across to the audience, and mistakes in organizing communication effectively.
He goes on to identify nine steps by which an effective communications strategy canbe developed:
• determine priority issues
• list the actors involved
• analyse target group
• formulate clear objectives
• design appealing and understandable message elements
• selection of media
• design of communication
• pre-test the materials
• action plan for strategy implementation
These textbook defmitions of what successful information campaigns 'need' tend to obscure some of the difficulties associated with them. Both Schoen and Hornik emphasize the point about strategizing information campaigns according to audience,and how important it is to have sound knowledge about the audience itself
Notwithstanding the many models of information campaigns available (such as Hornik's and Schoen'sabove),Charles Salmon has argued that:
The search for a definitive answer to the question, 'Are campaigns effective?' is a search for a Minotaur,as the functions,durations, potentials, and levels of creativity and resources are exceptionally heterogeneous... As a result, we have but scant knowledge of the collective impact of campaigns on the nexus of social values and institutions that comprise the social context of campaigns" (1989: 40/1).
Consequently,we should be wary of using communication and information to try and resolve a very basic problem: 'development' is often about power and interests,and access to information and the means to communicate is part of the field that po~eris played out on.
With those comments in mind,we turn now to a campaign, which, on the face of it,has all the indications ofa successful one. The Extension of Security of Tenure Act
Communication campaign needs to be understood in the frame ofDSC, for a number of reasons:
• it was not designed with a view to changing specific behaviours (although behaviour
changes are implicit in the campaign) of all individuals targeted,but to create a social environment of rights and obligations;
• it was not participatory in the 'strong' sense of being bottom-up,and 'people- driven' ,but is part of a transformatory thrust of rural and peri-urban social relations, based on a legislative program designed to 'right the wrongs of the past';
• it was interactive,based on good understandings of the stakeholders,using specific communications inputs (dramatic presentations, information sharing in meetings and the use of pamphlets), and backed by organisationaland institutional support.
Viewed in this way, itispossible to evaluate the campaign on its merits rather than through the prism of effects alone (the dominant discourse of social marketing), namely, its
sensitivity to context,choice of communication inputs,organisational/institutional factors and long term spin-offs.