The methodologies informing development interfaces in general have begun to be debated in South Africa; as part of attempts to assemble theoretical tools with which to understand how to change extension methods;inform curriculum development at universities; enable NGOs to codify their practices as part of the management revolution required by reduced funding;
enable public service providers (e.g. library services) to 'meet people'sneeds';devise
appropriate adult basic literacy programmes and so on. This interface has of course been widely debated in the field of development studies and development policy analysis, raising important questions about the meaning of'intervention' and the bridging oftheory and practise (Long 1992;Burkey 1993; Schuurman 1993;Crush 1995; Escobar 1997).
Generally speaking, there is a commitment to participatory methods, and to participatory research as the most appropriate way of establishing what action is necessary (Coetzee and Graaf 1996). However, when one seeks details of how these interventions should occur, there is not much to go on. More often than not,the real world practices are hidden beneath a rhetorical commitment. One of these intervention strategies,participatory rural appraisal (PRA),is becoming increasingly popular, and yet Jonathan Stadler'scritique does not reference a single locally published article on its use (Stadler 1995).
We therefore fmd ourselves in South Africa at a moment where a constructive debate about intervention methodologies could (and should) contribute to theorising the relationship between media/communication and development. However,there has been little theorising, and only a handful of published works which attempt to deal with interface aspects of media/communication and development,rather than the totalised 'social development' role of a public broadcaster, which, as indicated above, has been done through the IBA.
Eric Louw's piece (1995) is the clearest statement so far of the role communication can play in development interfaces. He begins by looking at two projects; the first being an
evaluation of the communications strategies delivered by communication consultants (the
Human Science Research Council) around a large scale water/irrigation project, and the second is an evaluation of the 'grassroots' media projects in the Cape, emphasising their role in 'developing a community' and 'capacity building'. On the basis of these evaluations, he goes on to develop a framework for the use of communications in development.
Louw argues that the first project was characterised by an 'information approach' (1995:
60), which is means-ends, project specific,top-down and public relations oriented.Itrests on the foundations of control by outsiders and fails to engage with existing communication channels, and "often produces'bad' communication and communication that is 'alienating' for the communities affected by such projects" (1995: 62). In the example cited by Louw, the communication 'structure' included the establishment ofInformation Centres when it became apparent that the local Project Committees ''were not facilitating a flow of information to the affected communities" (1995: 57).
Louw contrasts this 'information approach' (essentially the mode of operation of state agencies under Apartheid) with a 'dialogical approach' which requires "media
infrastructures which facilitate multidirectional and pluralistic communication (in which all stake holders talk to each other)" (1995: 60). This constitutes a model in which "all
participants share their experiences, ideas and wishes in order to come to joint decisions about development" (1995: 60). A similar approach has been developed by Norma Rornm, but in the context of 'action research', where a
dialogical intervention [aims] to shift power relations in society by de-authorising the viewpoints of those who hold official positions or traditional sources of power, so that alternative voices can be heard (1996: 161).
What appears initially as a rather naive view of the power relationships between 'developer' and 'developed', is tempered by Louw'srecognition that different discourses are at work in an interventionist situation. This 'disjuncture' can be overcome by the establishment of a
dialogical,jointlyoperated,multi-vocal,multidirectional, media system [which]
would effectively facilitate a mutual learning process in which all the
stakeholder/participants to this communication experience would come to develop a shared discourse (1995: 63).
In this formulation discourse(s) are constructed without any apparent relation to forms of existence. In contrast to this view,Norman Long has suggested that,
Knowledge processes are embedded in social processes that imply aspects of power, authority and legitimation;and they are just as likely to reflect and contribute to conflict between social groups as they are to lead to the establishment of common perceptions and interest (1992: 27).
Part of the problem Louw is confronted with is the difficulty of distinguishing between information and knowledge:he seems to be interpreting discourse as knowledge, information that has been assimilated into a culture (or habitus),when he identifies the competing discourses as "modem and premodern" (1995: 63).Knowledge in this sense is embedded in social practices,which themselves are interlaced with forms of social
organisation, available resources, worldviews and so on. To speak then of a dialogical communication model,which, to all intents and purposes, brackets the accretions of social existence,and which 'harmonises' world views, is to ignore the embeddedness of knowledge in a way of life. A similar difficulty inhabits Romm' s work: she suggests that the outsider (in this case the sociologist), can access the various sets of meaning patterns by categorising them as"more or less ideological or utopian" (1996: 176).
A further difficulty with Louws' view is that there appear to be only two discourses: that of the external agency and the 'community' . This formulation runs counter to our most basic conception of the construction of social identity: indeed it harks back to the interpretation of culture as an integrating mechanism of the social system rather than as an accomplishment of actors. This view is at odds with an agency perspective,where cultural resources (symbols and practices) are the field in which we construct and reconstruct our identity.
Furthermore,the articulation of collective identities,a public voice if you like,is subject to its own internal interfacing, which may result in'dramaturge', Robert White'sbest-case scenario when
the discourses of each group develop a language which simultaneously defends the internal solidarity of the group and fmds some common defmition of mutual rights, responsibilities and obligations (1994: 112).
In reality, it is clear that the central cleavages of class,gender, status and age provide a locus of struggles in which there is never resolution or finality.This is not to suggest that all is conflict,but all is certainly negotiation. Where the popular expressions of some set of identities and practices have been moulded into a public voice, for purposes of resisting an outside threat for example,or in contexts where authority demands it,there may a kind of order or stability. However,one of Stadler's most telling criticisms of participatorymethods is the emphasis they place on public consensus, because,
the focus on the public as opposed to the private domain also means that the
dynamics which are played out in the domestic domain remain hidden" (1995: 811).
We can assume that what is meant by the achievement of'community' in Louw's argument is the public consensus that emerges, but the extent to which this reflects 'dramaturge' is not clear from the public consensus itself.
In a less specific approach, Fourie (1994) attempts to move from a national perspective on media and development (the well-trodden path of a critique of monopolies, media access, media freedom and so on),to the level of media/communication which is linked to development projects, and he also invokes the 'community' , suggesting that community radio stations, newsletters and resource centres are indispensable for increasing "the most basic level of communication, that which take place in a community" (1994: 49).
This notion of community implies a profound participation in the deliberations and outcomes associated with development. Itis not inconceivable that the interfaces within a locale (in Giddens' sense, of an interactive space) may privilege some discourses rather than others.
The line of argument developed by Long and Villarreal:
that knowledge is essentially a social construction that results from, and is constantly reshaped by,the encounters and discontinuities that emerge at the point of
intersection between actors' life-worlds (1993:160),
recognizes that the epistemic communities, which emerge, are not based simply on the actor, but on an actor's ability to enrol others in his or her 'project' or world-view. 'Community' (in the sense of a network of actors partially enrolled in some or other project) is a highly fluid notion and has within it the requisite need of an organising capacity. The 'fixing ' of
enrolment into organisation may bring with it individuals or groups who became
gatekeepers or brokers, facilitating and/or blocking knowledge encounters or providing links to more distant networks. Jackson (1997) has made much the same point in the context of her research on field-worker agency:
Project enrolment involved a number of different kinds of participant relations.
There were the relations with ordinary project participants,and those with people who became brokers and facilitators (1997: 61).
Louw'sargument concludes by suggesting that a specifically communicative intervention is required in order to establish dialogical communication, with experts conducting
communication needs analysis
so that media considerations [can] be worked into the very conceptualisation and design of any development project from the very outset (1995: 64).
This communicative intervention, as Louw sees it,amounts to a participatory strategy involving different parties, with communication more smoothly integrated into the interface, facilitating a dialogue. This view is essentially a streamlining of what is clearly a
transmission approach to communication, one that fails to engage with the agency of actors.
This approach, sometimes called a Communication for Social Change model (Figueroa et aI.,2002: iii),describes,in very optimistic terms,
a dynamic, iterative process that starts with a 'catalyst/stimulus' that can be external or internal to the community. This catalyst leads to dialogue within the community that when effective, leads to collective action and the resolution of a common problem.
This is but one ofa number oftechnologies or models that have been developed to operationalise 'communication for development' ,Shirley White's(1994) transactional approach being the best known. The question that remains however iswhether or not any
model, notwithstanding its flexibility,can provide a template for the successful mobilisation of communication which guarantees a specified outcome. Norman Long's perspective, focussing as it does on the interfaces associated with development, suggests that it is
important to focus upon the intervention practices as shaped by the interactions among the various participants,rather than simply on intervention models,by which is meant the ideal-typical constructions that planners, implementers or their clients have about the process (2001 :72).