Media, Communication, Technology and Progressive Social Change: Exploring an Innovative Cross-disciplinary Understanding of Participatory Communication Using Complexity Theory

Abstract

The use of the term 'development' presupposes higher and lower states. Based on the definition, different metrics are used to measure this change and assess the level of development. As words give meaning to this term, it is important to delineate it before we explore it further. Historically, communication for social change scholarship has been pegged within frameworks of predictable social behaviour, while broad scholarly solutions were proposed through theoretical paradigms and mechanistic models for development. Pedagogically, such approaches lend themselves well to understanding the scholarly trends in the field. However, the modernization, dependency, participatory and a number of alternative paradigms, among other approaches, have mostly evolved on a linear, chronological timeline with a tendency to generalize across multiple societies/cultures/nation states. However, such approaches end up not addressing the particular complexities of individual actors in particular societies. In addition, after the end of the Cold War, the shift in this field has been primarily to a North-South debate played out through multilateral agencies on a donor-recipient binary, with people's organizations taking on a more active role in line with the concepts of participatory communication and stakeholder involvement. The pendulum has shifted considerably from the initial focus on economic development to the present broad-based fight for the rights and freedoms of the marginalized with a cultural focus on nurturing egalitarian societies.