A "DDDAAAH" QUESTION
Like many practitioners I am often frustrated and bewildered by how many times we are challenged to prove that media interventions and strategies have a direct effect on the core development challenges that this world faces. Many funders, technical experts in other fields and policy makers ask "Can you prove that the media - and other forms of communication - have impact? " In my view this question qualifies for the kind of response that my 13 year old daughter gives me when I ask her what is in her opinion a very stupid question. That response goes something like this: "Dddaahhh!" The frustration and bewilderment are doubled when we see the flow of news emerging from the UN building as report after report and official statement after official statement describe a world generally heading in the wrong direction when it comes to ‘achieving’ - the MDGs by 2015. New strategies are needed. Development investments patterns need to change. THE BIG CHANGES
Let’s imagine having a chat with Martin Luther King Jr, the Civil Rights leader, in the course of which he is asked "Hey, Martin, do you think that the media has impact?" I am sure his response would NOT be "daahhh"but it would be an equivalent expression.
So, if all you get from Martin is an admittedly dreamy "daahh" equivalent, how about moving on down the road and chatting with Mahatma Gandhi. He is asked whether the media have impact? Perhaps this time there is simple silence as he considers the best way to respond given the vital role of the Indian media small and large media - public and private media - informing and mobilising media - in the Indian Independence movement. That silence would provide a more compelling answer than any "daaahhh’ from any teenager.
“Whether we like it or not - and no matter how strongly we believe that what we do works measurable impact data is required. And data that is relevant to the MDG targets is particularly needed.”
You move on to a spiritual neighbour of Martin and Mahatma: Emily Pankhurst was a leader of the Women’s Suffragette movement. Many women still cannot vote in some countries. But in the first 50 years of the 20th century a seismic shift took place. The media were centrally involved in that shift. Women did not get the vote that is rightfully theirs by holding dinner parties. They staged events that demanded media coverage. They created the space needed for public debate and private dialogue on these issues by writing columns, highlighting principles and communicating their vision and ideas almost always through a media form. I am sure that Emily would respond to our question along the lines of: "Oh my dear…let me tell you my experience" but in essence she would mean "Daahhh!" There are many others you could talk to as we travel this road: Nelson Mandela on anti-apartheid action, indigenous community leaders on land rights, tobacco company leaders on what the anti-tobacco movement has done to smoking rates in some countries, etc…
MEDIA MATTERS SECTION 2: How Media Matters: Measuring its Impact
Just about the only thing the Civil Rights movement had going for it in terms of a strategy was public and private media and communication. No vaccines to change prejudiced social norms. No food supplements to alter ethical states. No grand economic plan to change the discriminatory world. No equity dams to build or culturally relevant new technology systems to introduce. Just private and public argument: information, debate, ideas, dialogue, analysis and convictions, a substantial part of which is channeled through the media. And the civil rights movement changed this world in very significant ways.
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