Participatory Communication - Essay Example

Participatory Communication

Theory and practice of participatory communication has been widely adopted by various organizations in the world. Through this approach, communities have been included in decision making and implementation of various development programs. For quite a long time many organizations have regarded participatory communication as the most amicable approach for social change and global development. However, participatory communication has several hidden drawbacks that supersede its benefits. By reviewing key elements of participatory communication within a larger context of globalization and social change, this paper shall bring out some of the drawbacks that refrains it from becoming the dominant paradigm.

The practice of participatory communication has greatly challenged the notion that communities should remain passive beneficiaries of projects. However, the various innovations in the academic have not been adequate enough to change views and practices about participatory communication in most aid organizations (Morris, 2000). In these organizations, the selection of communication approach is not based on normative and analytical values. Instead, the selection is usually based on the institutional expectations. The institutional imperatives have always discouraged the practice of communication beyond informational approaches. As such, the institutional expectations have limited full adoption participatory communication in various programs. This limitation usually occurs in three major ways. These include bureaucratic requirements, the weak nature of communication and the predominance of a technical mindset as a subject of study (Mayonzo, 2006).

Bureaucratic requirements have been seen to encourage the use of informational models. As such, the informational models are always favored at the expense of participatory models as approach of communication. The standard institutional processes within government, development agencies and international donors seem to bring about uses and understandings of communication as a set of some technical skill to distribute information.

The weak nature of communication as a separate field of study and practice in various development agencies usually undermines the prospects for intensifying the understanding of communication. The technical experts in various fields have always perceived communication as just the art of messaging and nothing else. This fact has denied the communication experts the autonomy to incorporate participatory approaches and make critical decisions.

The predominance of a technical mindset in various organizations has limited the use of participatory communication. Organizations have always preferred technical approaches to participatory thinking. This prioritization of technical approaches has always dissociated many programs from the local processes of participatory communication.

According to Bassette (2004), another challenge faced by the practice of participatory communication in research is the unacceptability of the outside specialists. Participatory communication for development is usually committed to work for grassroots groups, social classes and communities. These include the poor, socially and economically exploited groups. However, persons coming well-educated class usually lead this practice. A researcher, for instance, will serve as a specialist that comes from outside the community. This distinction in identity sometimes acts as an obstructive factor for participatory study and development. The natives of a given area may disregard the change agent based on educational background and social class differences. According to Huizer (1984), participatory communication for development should always be led by researchers that come from the very areas where there are political or socio-economic issues to be studied.

Different educational backgrounds usually have different external manifestation on community’s language and other manners. Therefore, it is usually very difficult for a specialist to get well involved in the development programs of a given community, especially if the specialist is coming from a different location with different social class. In some cases, the specialist may not be accepted by the community on the basis of perceived differences. The best example that can illustrate this fact is the happening in Henan province China (Mayonzo, 2006: 24). Here, a researcher had been brought from Belgium to do an intensive participatory survey on prevalence of AIDS in Henan ‘AIDS Village’. This area has a high rate of HIV infection. The researcher had excellent knowledge and skills about this issue. He was brought to help the community reduce the rate of infection. However, the unexpected happened. Members of this community refused to take part in the research and even became very hostile towards the stranger. Because of this hostility, the participatory research did not take place eventually (Bassette, 2004). This example clearly shows that participatory communication still has a long way to go. Many challenges as the unacceptability of outside specialists have to be dealt with before participatory communication is termed as a dominant paradigm.

The solution to the setback above also poses another major challenge to the practice of participatory communication. Most scholars argue that the ideal solution to deal with the problem of unacceptability is to use a specialist from within the community. However, finding perfect change agents within the communities under study is usually very hard. As stated earlier, participatory research often involves poor, socially, and economically exploited groups. In most of such communities, very few are learned enough to take up the positions of change agents. It may force government and donor organizations to use persons with sub-standard qualifications in implementing participatory development activities. Consequently, the desired outcomes of a given project may not be achieved (Mayonzo, 2006).

Participatory communication as an approach for research has always exhibited an absolute lack of academic standardization (Mayonzo, 2006). Participatory communication comes third after qualitative and quantitative methods of carrying out research. It is very different from the conventionally accepted approaches and philosophies of carrying out research. Even though many scholars tried hard to standardize participatory communication as an approach of research, this method has remained very disjointed. Participatory communication displays lack of technical validity and methodological rigor. Technical validity and methodological rigor are usually considered as the strongest pillars of any academic research. Therefore, lack of these two aspects may only render a research invalid. Participatory communication as an approach for research still uses obsolete techniques such as unstructured interviewing and participant observation. As such, the evaluation of participatory communication research has never been an easy work.

Another setback of participatory communication is that it has overdependence on the change agent or a researcher. Since participatory communication is mostly used for grassroots groups of people, the participants usually tend to rely on the wisdom of the change agent. According to Kasongo (1998), these people perceive the agent as of superior knowledge that can never be challenged. This dependence on the thoughts of the change agent on the phenomenon of the study may lead to subjective conclusions. The change agent or the research can always make his own subjective remarks. The participants under the leader may not be critical enough to oppose or question such remarks. The actions and influences of the unquestionable organization may lead to over intervention to the community thus bringing negative effects such as damage of social order and culture (Wilkins, 2002).

According to Wilkins (2002), Damage to social order and culture may also happen because the change agents that come from outside the community are usually not culturally competent with regard to the communities they work in. They do not take time to obtain essential cultural information about a certain community, and then apply the very knowledge when handling projects. As such they do not always understand the views of the participants and compare them with their theoretical views. For that matter, the agents of change have not been able to avoid stereotyping participants and misusing the scientific concepts on various phenomenon under study. This is because the change agents do not have a broader view of the community to help improve the quality services offered to them.

Although participation is a distinctive and a necessary part of participatory communication practice, the level and method of participation is always very hard to measure and evaluate. A researcher or change agent cannot achieve the targets of a project on his own; he must device an effective teamwork with community members. The participants must work hand in hand in the sequential achievement of the set targets. Each participant must work towards the common goals of the project. The activities of the participants must always be evaluated through a quantifiable metric. Participatory communication does not employ the use of evaluation tools such as key performance indicator (KPI) on the participants (Wilkins, 2002). The KPI monitors and evaluates the actions of all participants in a given study. In a participatory research, always the participants build the foundation of the outcome. They practically work towards the set objectives; the change organization only evaluates. It is, therefore, necessary that the KPI be placed at the bottom of the pyramid to check the actions of the participants who are answerable to the researcher above them. KPIs are actually a way of making critical success factors measurable. However, this is not the case in participatory communication. This only means that the change agent in the field has a free hand to determine the level of participation and evaluate the activities of participants according to his own perception and judgment. This portrays the very weakness of participatory communication practice that it tends to reflect the personal views of the change agent. This makes this approach of research quite unreliable (Wilkins, 2002).

Participatory communication gives the people freedom to take part in major decision making processes. It, thus, enhances democracy and public participation. When there is too much democracy, the citizens certainly feel like they are in control of the government. This is where problem starts. When everyone wants to be involved in decision-making, development program takes quite a long time to be implemented. People come up with conflicting suggestions that put project managers in confusion. In the end, a community may remain in its poor state. This situation shows how participatory communication may be detrimental to the people.

Even though participatory communication may to be effective in small communities, it does not work at global level. Nations have not fully embraced the ideas of each other. Participatory communication cannot work in situations where there is no trust among partners as witnessed in many global situations (Sagan, 2004). In communities where there are consistent tribal wars, it is always very hard to bring the people together and work as a team. As can be seen, there never be involvement of the people in a research here. Therefore, participatory communication has failed on such situations.

Kasongo (1998) says that participatory communication may not work in areas where there are ethnic and religious conflicts among citizens. Ethnicity and religion have recently been a very common issue in the multi-ethnic nations of the world. The influence of ethnicity, in particular, has been felt in the political and economical realms of a nation. The frameworks upon which the political powers and economical changes are established have been designed following the criteria of ethnic majority, in disguise of the so-called democracy. The majority ethnic groups have always carried the day and the minority left as subjects of strict loyalty.

Participatory communication also utilizes self-assessment among community members. This method of assessment is never effective (Morris, 2000). Self-assessment may not always work for all organization and therefore, may not be an ideal form of assessment. The self-assessment has a number of limitations. First, during self-assessment, individuals tend to rate themselves higher than they would do to others. Participants will always think they are better than they were yesterday. The same perception will apply assess itself. Secondly, participants will tend to set high level of identification with their teams, during and after a particular task. The high level of identification binds the participants psychologically to their teams. The closer they are to their team psychologically, the lesser they will see their weakness. However, if there is a greater psychological distance between the participants and the change agents, they will be able to see the agents from the perspective of an out-group individual. To solve this issue, organizations should set oversight personnel to assess various participants in a research (Hogler & Nicola, 2012).

Participatory communication practice does not outline how it motivates all the stakeholders. What the stakeholders may hold as a motivation is the better future to come. However, researches have established that extrinsic motivation is usually very effective for the adult stakeholders (Mathew & Eric, 2012).

In conclusion, while the theory and practice of participatory communication is quite beneficial at some aspects, it has exhibited a number of setbacks that may hinder management and development. The discussion above has revealed a number of these weaknesses. This paper has discussed how some organizational practices have always undermined the adoption and practice of communication past informational approaches. The expectations of many organizations usually go against the practice of participatory communication during the undertaking of various programs within communities. Such conflicting expectations only banks weakness on participatory communication. Another weakness of participatory communication discussed here is that most community members are still hostile to the outside specialists. This fact makes it hard to find participants, thus, a failure of Participatory communication. As an approach for research, participatory communication has shown lack of academic standardization. It uses outdated methods that render it academically invalid. Overdependence on the change agent in participatory communication may lead to subjective conclusions as well as damage of social order and culture of a community. It has also been revealed that the level and method of participation in participatory communication is almost impossible to measure and evaluate. Without proper evaluation, a project may not meet the set targets. Besides, participatory communication employs self-assessment approach on participants yet this approach is very ineffective as discussed herein. Projects may not be successful with these setbacks of participatory communication in place. Therefore, participatory communication is not the dominant paradigm as is supposed.