Criticism
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It is one of the characteristics of Behavior Change Communication, or BCC that its practitioners keep coining new terms to describe their approach—recent ones include Strategic Behavioral Communication (SBC); Information, Education, Communication (IEC); and Communication for Social Change (CSC). True, some of these terms are more about behavior and change than others, but all do share the belief that through communication of some kind, individuals and communities can somehow be persuaded to behave in ways that will make their lives safer and healthier.
The shifting terminology, a characteristic of this field, is a pointer to the fact that BCC is an evolving area, rather than a coherent topic. It is neither a discipline, nor a science or an art. It encompasses conflicting approaches, too little measurement of impact, a variety of theories, and approaches that some feel are too mechanistic. Theories emerging from the West reflect change ideologies rooted in rational choice, individual transformations, and the role of reason and knowledge. BCC practices emerging in developing countries illustrate the role of the community, social acceptance, emotion, and emulation in personal change.
Villagers in a Kenyan community, for example, offered this theory of behavior when asked: the experiences a person undergoes trigger emotions, positive or negative. These shape attitudes, which lead to behavioral choices. One person's behavior becomes another person's experience, and the cycle begins again.
This simple, home-grown theory has much wisdom. It suggests that if a person's experience is the key to his or her behavior, then one way to stimulate new behavior might be to expand this pool of experience. NGOs in Kenya, such as PATH, have designed ways to bring about experience-sharing through deep dialogue in groups and theater processes. In India, participatory community-driven theater among sex workers led to passionate and heartfelt dialogue. In many cases, the critical reflection triggered by these discourses has led participants to self-driven behavior changes.
One school of thought argues that BCC that focuses on "target" audiences and fixed, externally determined behavioral outcomes can violate the very principles that underlie work in the community: dignity, participation, and choice. Focusing on community involvement can lead to deep and durable changes. If BCC practitioners can support communities in understanding their risks, and helping them design behavior change solutions that will work for them, perhaps we will begin to understand where the true transformational power of BCC lies.
Read more about this topic: Behavior Change (public Health)
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“A friend of mine spoke of books that are dedicated like this: “To my wife, by whose helpful criticism ...” and so on. He said the dedication should really read: “To my wife. If it had not been for her continual criticism and persistent nagging doubt as to my ability, this book would have appeared in Harper’s instead of The Hardware Age.””
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)
“I am opposed to writing about the private lives of living authors and psychoanalyzing them while they are alive. Criticism is getting all mixed up with a combination of the Junior F.B.I.- men, discards from Freud and Jung and a sort of Columnist peep- hole and missing laundry list school.... Every young English professor sees gold in them dirty sheets now. Imagine what they can do with the soiled sheets of four legal beds by the same writer and you can see why their tongues are slavering.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“As far as criticism is concerned, we don’t resent that unless it is absolutely biased, as it is in most cases.”
—John Vorster (1915–1983)