Communication with communities: a South African experience

ABSTRACT

In spite of the conventional wisdom stated by various authors that ‘we are living in the information age’ – a communication era characterised by a global expansion in the reach of mass media and electronic information ‘superhighways’ that span the globe – it is clear that there is growing realisation that it is still difficult to reach and communicate with rural communities in South Africa. The main aim of this article is therefore to examine the application of development communication theories in practice when communicating with communities in the Third World. In this article I argue that the viability of and prospects for effective communication with communities depend on three interrelated aspects. Firstly, the viability and prospects depend on current theoretical trends or approaches in development communication, because at the root of development communication – regardless of how this concept is defined – lies the issues of a structured and theoretical approach to community communication which are determined by current trends. Secondly, and crucial to the viability and prospects of community communication, is the question of which development communication methods or media to apply at the various stages of communication to reach the different target audiences. Thirdly, the viability and prospects for successful community communication will be influenced by an integrated approach to the application of development communication methods and media in development communication programmes or strategies.     

Professional ethics and professional morality in the assessment of competence for execution

Four psychological perspectives need to be considered in response to the Richard Bonnie outlook on competence for execution. The first perspective is the degree to which the task itself is ambiguous and thus allows individual clinicians' values to leak through. The second perspective is that prisoners' choices to opt for execution instead of appeal are murky and often irrational. The third perspective is that even rational decisions for execution instead of appeal are often not founded on informed judgments, in part because of the situational influences of living on death row. The fourth perspective is that clinicians' judgments to participate in such legal-psychological activities are not only a matter of individual morality but also part of evolving professional ethics.     

Reviews

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Vladimir Putin and the Reaffirmation of Central State Power

Using post-Soviet Kazakhstan as a conceptual point of departure, this article considers the role that proactive framing and persuasion play in ensuring regime survival in soft authoritarian contexts. Drawing on interviews, opinion polls, news media, and the scholarly literature, the authors use three examples—Kazakhstan's OSCE bid, the global financial crisis, and "Rakhatgate"—that highlight the regime's varying proportions of persuasive and coercive efforts. The ways a soft authoritarian leader responds to potentially threatening events are examined. Non-material sources of regime durability are analyzed as essentials for understanding authoritarian regime dynamics and, by implication, for developing a full theory of regime change.     

IR Teaching Reloaded: Using Films and Simulations in the Teaching of International Relations

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An eminent British specialist on Russian politics analyzes the conflict between Boris Yel'tsin and his opponents that resulted in the bloody military showdown of October 3-4, 1993. Based upon materials gathered in Moscow during the events and on the author's personal observations and interviews, the article traces the origins and course of the wider conflict. It also interprets the implications of Yel'tsin's actions for the further development of democracy in Russia.     

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Rapidly growing interdependence of government policy decisionmaking and multiplying varieties of specialized knowledge, on the one hand, and continuing decline in democracy due to increasing distances between voter and the effective act of deciding, on the other, pressure political scientists to devise a more adequate system. Demospeciocracy proposes integration of both democratic and scientific values in a multi-leveled system. After discussing six assumed principles, the article presents nine different, but interdependent, agencies needed for the system: initiators, steerers, researchers, informers, examiners, voting supervisors, planners, judges, and administrators, and concludes with suggestions about how to introduce them.