2.2.2 How can it be made more effective?

Mendelson, [1973: 50-61] the author of another oft-quoted article on “Some Reasons Why Information Campaigns Can Succeed”, points out three conditions under which communication campaigns can be made more effective. Firstly, campaigns should be based on the assumption that the receivers are not even remotely interested in the message. Secondly, the planner should combine diffusion of information with interpersonal communication. Thirdly, the planner should remember that the receivers do not constitute a monolithic mass and so should cater to their individual demographic and psychological characteristics.

Although opinions vary, implementation of any communication policy should include a combination of systematic and creative planning. Both are equally essential in dissemination of information – using innovative methods to solve communication problems are as important as using a systematic approach to ensure that the message reaches all members of the receiver group.

In fact, Windahl, Signitzer and Olson [1992: 20] have merged the two methods into ‘creative systematics’ — “finding creative ways to structure systematic work”; and ‘systematic creativity’ — “striving in a systematic way for creative solutions to problems.” Depending on the stage of communication planning, one can emphasise each approach. “Creativity usually dominates during the initiation and production phases, systematics during the implementation and evaluation phases” [Ibid: 21].

Then, a mass communicator has to focus on many qualities while sending across a message; the chief among them are the perceptive ability and information processing potential of the receiver [Severin and Tankard, 1997: 73-74]. Selective perception is the tendency of a person to be influenced by wants, needs, attitudes and other psychological factors. This plays an important role in any communication as it also comprises its main hindrance. As such, no communicator can assume that the same message will have the same intended meaning to all its receivers. What further complicates this process is that the message is not interpreted by the recipients in the same manner.

Thus, for effective communication, the communicator should emphasise on a few more qualities. These include empathy, social perspective-taking, situational knowledge comprising contexts, time, space, the cultural context and public opinion, and receiver-oriented relationship [Windahl, Signitzer and Olson, 1992: 21].

It is very important that the communicator gets into the shoes of the receiver to get a proper understanding of the latter’s situation. This awareness should be supplemented with an understanding of the options available to the recipient in the given social perspective. For example, a receiver may accept a message but may lack the resources to behave in accordance with it. The hindrance may come from religious or cultural norms.

Situational knowledge is the ability to assess correctly what is appropriate and effective in a particular situation. A communication never takes place in a vacuum, but rather in a complex social, political and economic matrix. A reference to the context always makes it more interesting to the receivers. In the same way, if the communication of a message is sensitive to the time factor, depending on whether it is time-bound or timeless, it is bound to be a success. For any interpersonal communication, the space or the venue in which it takes place has an equally important effect. For example, to convey students about the exam dates, the assembly hall is a better venue any day than the cafeteria.

More often than not, communication takes place between different cultures or even sub-cultures in the society. So, the communicator has to be careful as to how he puts across his message. For example, the culture between two generations of the same society might be different. Closely following it, the message will be received and interpreted in keeping with the public opinion of the society, or the values, beliefs and ideas of the society.

The last but not the least is the relationship between the message originator, the planner and the receiver. In some cases, we find that the planner leans more towards the originator than the receiver. Here we can say that the originator controls the process. In certain other cases, we find that the planner takes an independent stance trying to balance the requirements of both the originator and the receiver. But, an ideal situation would be one where the interests of both the originator and the planner merge, and the planner oriented towards the receiver. Only then the communication process tends to be more effective.

According to Bagsak [http://www.comminit.com/planningmodels/pmodels/planningmodels-55.html], the five key ideas that make a communication campaign effective are:
1. Focus on both individual and contextual factors that affect behavior change
2. Integrate top-down and bottom-up approaches, in order to promote participation of actors at different levels
3. Have a tool-kit approach to deal with problems, priorities, and target groups. For example, use the mass media to reach large populations; use social mobilisation to bolster participation and support outreach efforts; use media advocacy to gain support from governments and donors; use popular or folk media to generate dialogue and activate information networks.
4. Combining mass media and interpersonal communication can raise awareness and knowledge, and stimulate social networks and peer conversation.
5. Community empowerment is the key to sustain projects because mass participation is intrinsic to the success of any development communication.
Again, Rice and Atkin (1989) and Rogers and Storey (1987), [as quoted by Windahl, Signitzer and Olson, 1992: 102], have mentioned seven factors that contribute to successful campaigning. They constitute:
1. the role of the mass media in creating awareness and stimulating others to participate
2. the role of interpersonal communication is instrumental in behavioural change as also the maintenance of such change
3. credibility of the originator or sender of the message
4. evaluation of campaign objectives and messages to make sure they fit media habits, audience predispositions and availability of resources
5. campaign appeals must be specific rather than general
6. preventive behaviour is difficult to achieve because of delayed benefits, and so they must be related to immediate gains
7. finally, the messages should be in keeping with the times and be culturally acceptable as well. Besides, the channels of transmission must be available to the audience.

Along the same lines, McQuail has also introduced the concept of four filtering factors that can ensure the success of a campaign: attention, perception, group situation and motivation [Ibid: 104].

Cernea [1991: 465] brings in the concept of ‘fitting projects to people’ through a case study on three rural development projects in Mexico, Ghana and Nepal. Here he emphasizes on participation of the recipients not only in the implementation of a communication process, but also in the initial formulation of the plan. He feels that the recipients, being local residents, are better informed about their community and so can judge the practicalities of a project plan. Besides, they would be more committed towards a project with which they have been involved right from its inception than one that has been suddenly handed over to them. But it is often seen that the elite of the community wean away such participatory rights to further their own profits. This effectively cuts off the non-elites with limited resources whose participation would have actually benefited the project.

But, in fact, most communication planners feel it's because of paucity of funds that programmes are failing. Very few realize that programs fail because they are not implemented well. Awareness generation through a sound communication strategy is very important; whereas most projects get restricted due to badly made posters and pamphlets. This is because no CNA (Communication Needs Assessment) is done. What is required is to raise the awareness generation level enough so that the people concerned can generate and sustain debates on the issue at hand. The target audience needs to realize why certain practices are desirable, while others are not. Merely telling them not to practice certain things or resorting to fear psychosis (for example, the AIDS poster with the danger sign — skull and bones) will not help matters.

Thus, a detailed research on the background of the target population is very important, so as to know how to involve them best in the project. Then, the media messages should be modified to suit the purpose and fit the project. Thereafter, the influence of the communicated messages on the receiver needs to be evaluated.