Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Behavior Change Communication (BCC)


Behavior change communication is a process of development communication to change positive behaviors which are suitable to the target audience. On the other hand BCC refers to provide supportive environment to enable people to commence and sustain the behavior.Two types of behavioral theories are important for BCC program, theories of behavioral prediction and theories of behavior change. Predictive theories address why people change behavior. They identify what prompts people to perform (or not perform) a health-related behavior. In contrast, behavior change theories explain how people change behavior. They describe the “stages” that individuals may go through as they change their behavior.

The common roles of BCC:
• Increase knowledge level
• Encourage Community Dialogue
• Reduce discrimination
• Create demand for information and services
• Promote services for prevention, care and support
• Improve skills and sense of self-efficiency
Actually the behavior change communication is an development communication approach pity much similar to Media Advocacy or Social marketing but the variation is in this process is about the main objective here is to bring individual level change in thought process. This individual level change which will effect largely on the mass if behavior change communication gets successful in action.

Monday, July 20, 2009

:: MEDIA ADVOCACY and it's ELEMENTS ::


Media Advocacy
Media advocacy refers to the strategic use of mass media along with direct participation of the members of civil society and opinion leaders, with the vision to bring any significant positive change in mass lifestyle or policy level. Actually media advocacy means, the use of media as a powerful tool in development communication’s process.

Elements of Media Advocacy
To make a media advocacy process to be fruitful in its working process, the strategy planner has to be aware about Media Advocacy’s element, which means some key-factors to keep in mind when someone is dealing with Media Advocacy.

Communication Goal
Define clearly the goal. That means what is our objective by applying the media advocacy in the specific area.
Target Audience
Finding out the key-audience is the second most important duty. Target mass might be of a huge number but there might be a limited number of people who can perform better in message conveying process to achieve our goal.
The Message
Clearly define the message what I want to convey to the target audience. The message will consist of the information which will focus on our goal.
Key Stakeholders
Determine the most effective communication stakeholders through whom message could be conveyed to the target audience most effectively.
Targeting the Media
To identify which part of mass media will perform more effectively on the target people and use that particular media in the media advocacy is a vital element. Because wrong choice of it might turn the advocacy planning worthless.

A Media Advocacy Guideline ::: Hand Wash Program


Identifying the Issue The rural people and urban under-privileged class people of our country are seriously facing health threat from water contaminated diseases and infections like diarrhea, dysentery, cholera, skin irruption, and hook worm. Though they drink safe drinking water, but they are not safe from the disease threat. Identifying the Policy Solution The mass I have said about in the previous section have common phenomena, they are not aware about washing their hands before taking meals or after using the toilet, which results this sort of infection or infective diseases through the germs contained dirty hands. Identifying the Primary Audience In our case the first level audience will be the local government authority and local health department officials who can play a vital role to inform and educate the targeted mass if motivated properly. Here we have chosen them as they have directly involvement regarding the topic we have planned about. Identifying the Secondary Intended Audience The political leaders, Religious and intellectual opinion leaders whose word have a big influence on the target community can play a important role as the secondary intended audience in our case. Research about the Policy to be adopted or not A prior research about the issue has to be done before whether it will work on our focused issue or not. Is more or less like designing a prototype before the commercial production of any new innovation. Research the audience is notified about the issue or not It is very important to know about whether the targeted audience is prior-informed about the issue or not. If yes, then why they are not aware about it. To get the information its necessary to conduct a survey to gather the information from them. Review Data to show the targeted mass To make the people aware about hand-wash program it’s highly recommended to show some real life examples in front of them about its impact on daily life health. And for that reason it’s also necessary to go through a study that if the proposed example is viable for the audience or not. Which Media to choose In this case we have to understand that in which media the targeted audience has the access most. For example in case of our targeted audience Newspaper Editorials, Satellite TV Bulletins or Awareness E-Mails will not work out when radio announcement or BTV Public Service Announcement might work more effectively. Choose the best way to deal with Media Getting rich knowledge of communication skills to make the media work more powerfully to work for achieving our goal. This process also defines how effectively I can deal with the media to make my issue more attracted to the audience as well as the media representatives.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

REPORT ON “BATIGHAR”


As a part of the course Development Communication and Media Advocacy (MSJ-205) of MSJ Department of University of Liberal arts, the students of the course has visited a development project `Batigher’, is a project of Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID) in Singair, Manikganj.

As I said `Batigher’ is a development project of Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID), cooperation with GrameenPhone to serve the village people with Information and communication technology for their benefit.

Helping in agriculture: they have a lot of program which actually very helpful for root level farmers. As they said they provide information’s about proper time of irrigation, using method of fertilizer and pesticide without any service charge.

Training programs: the `Batighar’ is giving training about how to operate computer including Basic Office Management Course, and Basic Graphics Course. They have an excellent and easy English learning program with ‘English Learning Games’ for school going children.

Other services: `Batigher’ also providing some informative services like Visa information, passport information, driving license information, Internet browsing, Email Service. In this case they charged a little cost.

It can be said from my own observation or point of view that the ‘Bathigher’ is a business place for the unemployed people and an information center for the village. But they are not very familiar with their all facilities or service. They are founded `batigher’ about 4-5 month before, but their performance is quite good.

People are not very concern about the name `batigher’ infect, but the people are very familiar with the service. If they want to be a sustainable project they have to more careful about their service and the participation of local people.