Beyond the Impasse: Exploring new thinking in communication for social change

This issue of the Nordicom Review, edited by Pradip Ninan Thomas, is a result of the boutique conference ‘Beyond the Impasse’ which was organized by the Centre for Communication and Social Change, University of Queensland in January 2013. The aim was to bring together academics who were involved in pushing the boundaries as it were of communication for social change in terms of theory and methods as they applied to practice.

The complexity of development and social change and growing tensions between dominant
results-based and emerging learning and improvement-based approaches to evaluating development interventions have created major challenges for the evaluation of communication for development (C4D). Drawing on our recent research, we identify significant tensions, challenges and issues in evaluating C4D. They include contextual and institutional challenges, problems with attribution and unrealistic timeframes, a lack of capacities in both evaluation and C4D, and a lack of appreciation, funding and support for approaches that are more appropriate for the evaluation of C4D.

ISBN: 978-91-86523-94-7
Publisher: Nordicom
Edition: Volume 36 Special issue
Year of Publication: April 2015