Summary
This blog post provides background on the Communication for Social Change Hub, and how the author got started in the field.
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Communication for Social Change Hub (the CSC Hub). I’m really delighted that you’ve chosen to spend a few minutes with me as I share with you some of the history of the field of Communication for Social Change, as well as my own history in the field. If you are interested in becoming a professional in the field, these blog posts will provide you with some background on what it takes to achieve your goals, and how you might pursue a career in CSC. I’ll try to put in some details about my own experiences that might help you with your own journey.
Communication for Social Change and the CSC Hub
By way of introduction, I’m Andrew Carlson. I’m a Professor of Professional Communication at Metro State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I hold a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from Ohio University, as well as a Master’s in International Development Studies. My undergraduate degree in in Electrical Engineering, and it’s not particularly related to what I do in CSC. Together with Dr. Ailesha Ringer, I started the CSC Hub in 2019 to provide resources to four groups of users – first, faculty members at Metro State, who may be teaching about CSC or CSC related topics or who want to work with a group of students to publish content on a well-developed platform. The second group are students, who would like to get involved with CSC in some way, or who would like to write blog posts or contribute social content to the site. The third group of users are CSC practitioners (or up and coming practitioners) who want to learn more about CSC and how it is done in the field. Finally, the fourth group are community members, which means people who are participating in CSC projects, or who want to get more involved in things like advocacy in their communities. The CSC Hub will provide resources for all these groups.
Most importantly, the CSC Hub has been designed from the beginning to be accessible to people with disabilities. While in the United States (where I am from) it is the law that all websites meet accessibility standards, sadly, this is not the case for many sites. We made a decision at the ideation stage of the Hub that everything we created would meet accessibility standards, so that people with low/no vision, deaf/hard of hearing, and with various neurotypologies would find the Hub a useful resource. By coming here and interacting with the site, you are supporting that mission, so thank you!
My Journey Into CSC
Over the next four weeks, I’m going to share with you some of the specifics of how I found myself in a position to start the CSC Hub, and how I have been supporting organizations such as UNICEF in their work on Communication for Social Change projects. I’ll share with you some of the key terms in the field as well as how CSC has become a critical component of the work of many international organizations. Occasionally I might throw in a link to a reading, but I’ll mainly write from my own perspective and share my stories. You’re welcome to comment as you like, ask questions, or reach out for more information.
I’ll begin with my first experience working for an international organization that did communication for social change. Although I have experience in international contexts that predate this, it’s probably the first time I was in a position to learn about the ways in which communication could contribute to positive social change. I met Julie Frederikse from Vuleka Productions in Durban, South Africa, at Ohio University when she came to present some of Vuleka’s work on HIV/AIDS and children. Vuleka’s work was primarily aimed at addressing children’s issues in South Africa, and I travelled to Durban to assist the production team with some of their work. In fact – and this is usually how things go – I learned much more from the team about life in South Africa, media production, and how communication for social change functions than I contributed. This is one of the truisms of international work, and just travel, in my opinion. I always learn more from participants in workshops, events, and projects than I teach. In fact, this aligns closely with what Paolo Freire described in his philosophy of teaching: teachers learn from students as much as, if not more than, the students learn from the teachers. If you consider this, it makes sense, because no matter how educated you are, if you are teaching to a room of learners (participants, really) your single mind can never match the collective intelligence of the group. Oh sure, I imagine in something like theoretical physics where the knowledge is very specialized that this might not be the case, but in communication for social change, where everything we do relies on understanding culture, social interactions, traditions, and people’s experiences with their environments, it’s not even close.
I’m not going to go into detail about the journey to SA, beyond telling you it involved a long time on planes, a long time on a bus, and upon arrival in Durban, stepping into a manual transmission car with the steering wheel on the opposite side of what I grew up driving. I was in my early 30s at this point in my life and had a lot of practical experience in small business (more on that later) and not a lot of experience in CSC.
What You Can Do
As I said earlier, one of the purposes of this series of blog posts is to introduce you to the field, share with you some practical ideas on how you can get involved in CSC, and how you might want to plan for a career in the field, if you are so inclined.
The first idea I have for you is to get involved with an organization doing communication for social change work. The time I spent with Vuleka was unpaid – I paid for my own travel, too – and although that kind of thing is not sustainable long term, it can be very helpful in building your understanding of the field and making connections. I also understand that not everyone has the resources to do this, and as an alternative, I’d suggest that you make these connections virtually. The world, and most organizations in it, have fully adopted Zoom culture and you may find that you can make connections with CSC projects virtually. Search the web for organizations doing communication for social change, social and behaviour change (SBC), or social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) and see what you find. Feel free to attend webinars on topics of interest (or slightly of interest) to you to see if there is any resonance with your interests and what organizations in the field are doing.
The second idea I have for you is to make a plan for where you’d like to be in the field after a few years of work. Would you like to work for a nonprofit in your community? For a large international organization like UNICEF or USAID? Or something in between? There are many organizations doing this type of work, and you should explore what type of projects they do and how you might become qualified to contribute to the work. It may be the case that you need to seek additional formal education; however, this is not always the case. You could decide to start your own strategic communication organization in your country or location, and if you succeed, you could support communication for social change work with more traditional PR or media relations jobs. Make a five-year plan and see where it takes you. You will need to adjust along the way, for sure, and that’s OK.
The third idea I’ll share is to subscribe to resources related to the field. For example, I subscribe to Behavioral Scientist, and it arrives every couple of weeks in my email. I don’t always read it, but if I have time, I can search for information about topics of interest or visit the website to see how the latest in the field is playing out. There are other newsletters and websites in our field that may also be of interest to you, such as Better Evaluation and the C4D Network. Find a resource that seems interesting and subscribe or view the content regularly.
Thanks for reading through this rather long post! I hope it’s been helpful, and feel free to comment with your thoughts.
Until next time – Andrew
