How many children do you have?

Posted on July 25, 2010 by devcompage

Focus group in Hongwei village, Haikou City, China

Before the focus group started, Hongwei Village, Haikou City

Refreshments served in Hongwei Village FGD

At the Hainan University in Haikou City, Hainan, China last week, we conducted a seminar on biodiversity and ecosystem services in rice environments. My talk was on “New approaches in communicating science for rural communities”.  In the next two days, we conducted focus group discussions with farmers in two highly diverse rice environments.

That visit to Hainan brought us closer to our research partners and in one bonding moment, I asked one entomologist, “Dr. Cai, how many children do you have?” He replied, “Dr. Moni, that question should not be asked in China because we can only have one child.” There, I was embarrassed to reveal my ignorance considering that I prided myself on having  a grandfather who came from Xiamen.  The key communication principle on knowing the audience remains as an essential guide in intercultural conversations.

David Berlo’s SMCR Model proposes that there are five elements within both the source/encoder and the receiver/decoder which will affect fidelity. For effective communication to occur, one must consider the receivers socio-cultural system as they partly determine the language one uses, the purpose of communicating and the meaning attached to the words used.

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Some communication thesis topics

Posted on July 4, 2010 by devcompage

Chicago Botanic Garden. Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/randz/

With the first semester in full swing, readers have started to ask me for my comments on their thesis topics for submission to their advisers. I came up with a list in one of my recent comments and I’m posting a partial list here to get other students started on a topic. If you’re a reader and have something to share, please post your comments.

  • Impact of ‘tabloidization of news’ in TV Patrol and 24 Oras on awareness of current social issues among the urban poor
  • Tabloidization of online news -a content analysis of news in three news websites in the Philippines – Philstar, Inquirer and Bulletin
  • Impact of media use in the recent presidential elections: the case of the vice presidential candidates
  • Influence of Juana Change videos (Baligtaran and Malaya ang Panahon) on voters’ collective views on corruption and traditional politics
  • Effects of social networking on youth mobilization  in the 2010 presidential elections: the case of “Bayan Mo, Ipatrol Mo, Ako ang Simula”
  • Impact of video games on Filipino grade school kids’ concentration skills
  • Impact of social media on purchasing behavior
  • Influence of rap music on youth aspirations
  • Youth values in Lady Gaga’s Songs: A content analysis
  • Displacement effects of online media on family communication
  • Uses, perceptions and displacement effects of online news
  • Children and Internet use: perceptions of advertising and functional displacement
  • Teenage life online: The impact of texting on interpersonal relationships
Posted in Communication research, Development communication, General | Tagged | 15 Comments

Who is Marshall McLuhan?

Posted on June 14, 2010 by devcompage

Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980)

When I was an undergrad student of mass communication, among our must-read books were those of Marshall McLuhan. The reading assignment spanned through graduate school where I had the chance to buy his books at the University of Hawaii book store.  Who is Marshall McLuhan and what is his relevance to communication students today?

Marshall McLuhan was the chief theorist of mass communications in our time. He probed and he predicted trends. The study of mass communications became a central part of contemporary culture. His ideas stimulated thousands of artists, intellectuals and journalists throughout the world and continue to do so. McLuhan’s book “Understanding Media” (1964) focuses on understanding the media effects that permeate society and culture, but his starting point is always the individual, because he defines media as technological extensions of the body.

Besides Understanding Media, which explored the way electronic media reflect and influence modern civilization, his best known works include the earlier Gutenberg Galaxy (1963, in which he introduced the phrase “global village” as a metaphor for contemporary society, The “Mechanical Bride” (1951) and “The Medium is the Massage”. Today such McLuhan terms as “sensory impact,” “the global village,” and “the medium is the message” have become part of the language.  Continue reading →

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Planning a Communication Strategy for Ecological Engineering

Posted on June 3, 2010 by moni

Flower of squash planted on rice bunds. Photo credit: Nalinee (Phitsanulok Rice Research Center)

Flowers on rice bunds - a source of nectar to insects. Photo credit: Nalinee (Phitsanulok Rice Research Center)

The ADB-IRRI Rice Planthopper Project focuses on developing sustainable ways to reduce the vulnerability of rice production to pre harvest losses due to planthopper outbreaks. Relying on resistant varieties is insufficient and many pesticides tend to favor planthoppers, which are secondary pests that develop well when ecosystem services are compromised.  The project has been promoting ecological engineering concepts and developing techniques that will restore biodiversity and ecosystem services.

How can we simplify and communicate ecological engineering to rice farmers?  At a workshop  we organized in My Tho city, Vietnam, some 35 plant protection and extension experts developed a strategy and prototype materials to communicate ecological engineering to farmers.  To develop the strategy, partners reviewed results of a baseline survey and farmer participatory research on ecological engineering. This review was needed to identify farmers knowledge and attitude gaps to be addressed by the multi-media campaign.  Continue reading →

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Does Mobile Phone Use Displace Other Media-Related Activities?

Posted on May 9, 2010 by moni

by
Anna Lourdes C. Javier
BS Development Communication 2010
Visayas State University

Anna Lourdes Javier texting on her mobile phone

To better understand displacement effects, time spent on the nine media-related (internet, watching television, sending text messages, reading newspapers, calling using the mobile phone and listening to radio) and interpersonal activities (playing sports, interacting with family members and socializing with friends face-to-face) were determined. These nine activities were chosen because they are deemed important for the cognitive, social, and physical development of students. The total time spent on the nine activities per week ranged from 18 to 396 hours (M=123, SD=77.52). The time spent on the five media activities (M=79.5, SD=52.22) comprised almost two-thirds (0.64) of total activity time. The total time spent on interpersonal activities (M=43.5, SD=40.82), made up about a third (0.35) of total activity time.

All of the respondents experienced a change (whether a decrease or increase) in their use of other media after they got a mobile phone. In this study, displacement effects is defined as the extent to which respondents report a decrease, increase and neither increase or decrease in specific media-related and interpersonal interaction activities, as a result of their mobile phone use. Of the nine activities mentioned above, only newspaper reading (60%) and landline use (76%) decreased as the respondents use their mobile phone, clearly showing displacement effects for the two activities. A very close third is television viewing (49%). On the other hand, mobile phone use did not displace the time spent on the other activities such as internet use, radio listening and sending email. Interestingly, only for one interpersonal activity, socializing with friends face to face outside of school, did respondents report an increase in time spent as a result of mobile phone use. According to respondents this is because the mobile phone lets them easily communicate with their friends so that they can arrange gatherings and outings. Table 2 below details the respondents’ reported effects of mobile phone use on time spent on the activities. Continue reading →

Posted in Communication research, New media-ICTs | Tagged | 2 Comments

How to measure rural-urban differences in risk perception on melamine milk contamination

Posted on April 25, 2010 by moni

by
Naji N. Juntilla
BSDC 2010
Visayas State University

Interviewing a woman farmer, Jinhua, China. Photo credit: Zhu Zeng Rong (ZU)

For my recent undergraduate thesis, I measured rural-urban differences in risk perception among mothers on the melamine milk contamination issue. Risk perception refers to the extent to which people believe they are vulnerable to a particular outcome (e.g., cancer), and perceived efficacy, or the extent that people believed they are able to take action to avoid the outcome. The statements used to measure severity of threat, susceptibility to threat, response efficacy and self-efficacy were adapted from the questionnaire on risk perceptions of infectious diseases (de Zwart, 2009).  This covered the following:

  1. Severity of threat – refers to an individual’s perception of the seriousness or significance of a threat (e.g. Is contracting HIV serious?). Respondents’ perceived severity was measured through a semantic differential scale.
  2. Susceptibility to threat– refers to an individual’s perception of the likelihood of contracting the diseases or being adversely affected by the occurrence of a threat (e.g. Are you at-risk for contracting HIV?).  Respondents’ susceptibility to threat was measured through a semantic differential scale.
  3. Response efficacy – refers to the perceived effectiveness of the recommended response in averting the threat or preventive behavior (e.g.  Do you think condoms prevent transmission of HIV? Response efficacy was measured using a 5-point Likert scale.
  4. Self-efficacy – refers to the individual’s perceived ability to perform the recommended response (e.g. Do you think you can use condom to prevent HIV?). Self-efficacy was measured using a 5-point Likert scale, as follows:

Strongly disagree – 1
Disagree               – 2
No opinion            -3
Agree                   – 4
Strongly agree      - 5

Here are some sections of the research instrument I adapted from de Zwart (2009) to measure risk perceptions:  Continue reading →

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From oral history to online family history – a wedding website

Posted on April 16, 2010 by moni

Bob-Mari wedding website (http://bob-mari.com/

In communication science, we often lament the loss of historical information due to the lack of systematic documentation of events and critical incidents.  In the days of old, children used to listen to their grandparents recount stories about what happened to them during the Japanese Occupation or World War II  that did not find their way in history books. That is called oral history. Details of oral histories often get levelled or sharpened over time. With the advent of ICTs, there is a way to keep and preserve a family history or stories using digital tools.

While photographs are now kept and shared using image hosts such as photobucket, Flickr, ImageShack, AllYouCanUpload, ImageVenue, TinyPic, and even Facebook, a welcome innovation is a wedding website. Such a website is an excellent documentation of the wedding which pulls together details of the nuptials, photos, video, music, motif, and messages. Such a start-up website can evolve into a family blog that will document a couple’s life history, children, travel, work, hobbies, friends, etc.

Those of us who may find a wedding website appealing but don’t know the technical details in creating a website, may contact Jojo Agot at mail@jojoagot.com.  Jojo is a versatile development communication professional who developed the Bob-Mari wedding website.

Posted in Social media | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Devcompage visitors nearly 142,000

Posted on April 12, 2010 by moni
Clustr maps view of visitor location

ClustrMaps view of Devcompage visitor locations

In a little more than two years, this niche blog, Devcompage, has reached nearly 142,000 visitors, according to WordPress.com blog stats. It is important to remember this number as the blog stats went back to zero after I have migrated Devcompage to a self-hosted blogging platform.  For the less techies among us, this means that I have finally subscribed to a webhost and I am now using WordPress.org.  The domain name, Devcompage.com, is still with Automattic, the company I bought the domain name from. I nearly transferred this domain to the Justhost registrar but I cancelled the transfer.

Why did I transfer to a self-hosted platform when WordPress.com was free?  Well, I wanted our Chinese research partners in Zhejiang University, Hainan University and other institutes to be able to visit, exchange comments, and learn from Devcompage. The blog is after all, about principles and techniques in the use of communication for behavioral and social change.

The webhost can support unlimited websites  so this will offer an opportunity to our journalism students to start an online community newspaper for one of their journalism courses, using the self-hosted blogging platform.

My next step is to buy a package of premium themes to give Devcompage and Ricehoppers a more slick, professional website look. How about that for the summer?

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