Learn how to address the main challenges of communication in humanitarian settings and how to implement a communication plan in the midst of humanitarian action.
Communication concept definitions
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Do curso por University of Geneva
Humanitarian communication : Addressing key challenges
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Week 1
Dear students, Welcome to this course on communication in humanitarian settings. During this week, we will cover the main concepts and definitions essential to understand the specific framework of communication in humanitarian settings.
Conheça os instrutores
Prof. Doris SchopperDirector of CERAH, joint Centre of the University of Geneva and the Graduate Institute of Geneva
Faculty of Medicine
Dr. Valérie GorinCERAH lecturer
Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action
Jean-Marc BiquetCourse coordinator and lecturer at CERAH
Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action
Claire BarthélémyCourse coordinator and lecturer at CERAH
Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action
Claire DooleInvited lecturer
Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action
Claire BellmannProfessional Trainer, Coach and Facilitator
Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action
[MUSIC]
Welcome to this session.
Together we will see the communication concept definition.
During that session,
we will expose the main concepts that are commonly used in and for communication.
So we will see the scale of communication, whether it is global or local.
We will see the differences between the channels and the messages.
We will also see the differences between information and communication.
We will think about how we represent the world when we communicate, and
finally, we will see some ethical reflections linked to communication.
At the end of this session, you will be able to list
the key components of communication, to understand what is communication,
as a process, and to list the key challenges of communication, overall.
Remember, when you communicate, you are the sender of a message, therefore,
before you even think about the channel you will use, you have to identify
the target of your message and this target will be the receiver.
How you determine this target will influence the scale of your communication.
Do you communicate to one person, to a community, to a region, to the world?
For example, during the Ebola outbreak,
humanitarian workers had different targets and communicated at value skills.
They communicated for the communities affected by the disease,
to the sanitary workers, the medical authorities in the country,
the the journalist, and even the rest of the world.
So therefore, the skill of your communication can be very local or
very global, and it determines completely the way you create the message.
We all know that we do not communicate the same way to our family,
to our friends, to the members of our community, or to complete strangers.
So to make sure your message has the maximum impact,
you have to understand how your target, the receiver, communicates and
uses the media, so you can choose the best adapted channel.
If it is your friends or community, you can use face to face conversation, but
if it's the world, you need to rely on mass media.
You have to keep two questions in mind when you think
of the way you will communicate.
The first is, is the target close or distant to me?
Am I sure the target will understand the words, the images or
the symbol that I choose to use?
That it will decode the same way I encode.
If the receiver is distant, I have to make sure that she or he feels concerned, and
to do so I have to make sure that I use the best adapted message
related to the context and situation where the receiver lives.
The second question is, how do you represent yourself and
how do you represent the receivers?
Are you or them victims, beneficiaries, passive or active people?
Do you think of yourself as a hero or a savior?
Be careful, because it is very easy to use stereotypes and cliché that can harm.
So try to use positive words and images.
So, once you have identified the target and the scale of your communication,
you will need to create a message and pass it to your receiver through a channel.
Let's talk first about the channel.
It is always related to your receiver.
If you know your receiver communicates, what he or she prefers in order to get
informed, then you are sure that your communication will reach its targets.
We usually think of the channel as the media in general, but
communication channels are not only the mass media.
Remember, a channel can be any mean to deliver a message from a point
A to a point B.
So, a channel can also be an oral conversation, or a group discussion, but
also the body attitude, like a wink, a gesture.
You can also use the other.
For example, to promote preventive messages against sexual violence in
affected communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
the ICOC has encouraged women to express themself through the other place and
educate the rest of the community.
So when you choose the channel you also have to make sure
that it is accessible and manageable.
For example, you can't produce a TV show like this, you need to be sure about whom
to contact at the TV, which journalist you are going to collaborate with, etcetera.
So sometimes you will have to master the technology yourself.
That's why you should never choose a channel that you can not manage.
The second step after identifying the channel is the creation of your message.
Remember that any message can be from the three categories.
It can be oral, like conversation or through records, radio show, etcetera.
It can be written, any text, slogan, article, newspaper, journals.
And it can be visual, like images, videos, slideshow, television, logos, etcetera.
But keep in mind that you have to be careful about the meanings
of your message.
Sometimes, word or even images can reinforce negative feelings, and will
serve propaganda purpose, or hate messages instead of promoting your real message.
When you have identified your channel and
how you are going to create your message, you will think a lot about the content.
You will probably use many representations in your message
to represent a situation you are communicating about.
For example, two other groups of people we also use lots of common social
representations of the world, like the poor and the rich, the north and
south, the white and the black people, and what we associate with these categories.
These representations can be written or visual.
Now these representations can be very useful as they are widely shared
amongst the people of our community and sometimes around the world, but
they are based on a few characteristics.
First they help us to categorize the world and the people.
Second they rely a lot on symbolism, for
example the United Nations missions are regularly associated with
the symbolic representation of white SUVs with black UN initials because
it's often the only thing people see when they intervene in the field.
This has created criticism against them as they seem very different from and
very far away from the reality, hidden somehow in their SUVs.
Three, all representations are based on our culture.
For example, in many cultures the symbol of peace is based on the visual
representation of a dove, but it might not be the same in another culture.
Four, as you see, a lot of these representations are based on our
imaginary, and they use a lot of imagery.
And five, we can give a synonym to the representations as the pictures we have in
our head.
But sometimes these representations will very quickly become stereotypes
which can be defined as negative and harming prejudices about some people or
some situation.
For example, one of the most common harming stereotype we have about famine
is the picture of a starving child, but it explains nothing about the causes and
the famine, and the potential solutions to help.
This is why you have to be careful about the representations you use and
try to see if there are any other way to represent the people or
the situation in a more dignified way.
When we communicate, we're usually given information, but
not all of this information will necessarily make the news.
There is therefore a difference between information and news values.
This is very relevant if you plan to communicate with journalists
and the media.
Let's first explore what these two notions have in common.
News and information are both related to the meaning you give to events.
You will inform people about something that happened because you estimate that
this event Is important enough.
It is the same for
the journalist who decide that this event is important enough to make the news.
Therefore, it means that you will select events that are meaningful to talk about
and inform people about them.
The journalist works the same way to make news.
Let's now see what they don't have in common.
First, information generally means any kind of message to provide some knowledge.
You know something and you want other people to know it.
For example, as a doctor or humanitarian worker, you know that the Ebola
virus is so contagious that no one should touch an infected body.
You have to inform the communities about this knowledge, and this information is
based on your own interpretation and analysis of the situation.
Second, news on the contrary, is a professional word for journalists.
Which means that they select some events, but
not all of them because they think they are relevant for their audiences.
They select these events on the basis of several professional criteria.
Is the event important?
Is it close to the audiences, and is it original?
That's why sometimes you might have an information you want to pass to the media,
but the journalist might think it's not important or original enough, so
they won't use it in the news.
Whether you simply inform or you want to make news, remember that information gen,
in general, is very different from other types of communication.
It is not rhetorical because it's not a philosophical debate.
It is not merely argumentative because it is not a political debate.
And it's not persuasive because it's not publicity or propaganda.
Finally, the last step of communicating your message is really
to the moral responsibility you have.
When you communicate, especially in times of emergencies,
you cannot say whatever you want,
as you also have responsibilities towards the affected communities.
It means that you also have duties in the way you communicate, and
these duties are based on ethical and deontological principles.
These denotions have many similarities.
The two words come from philosophical backgrounds, and suggest that we should
make moral choices, and both words express values and principles guiding us.
For example, many humanitarian organization have strong ethical charts
that push them to communicate in a way that is neutral and
respectful of the people they help, without showing undignified pictures.
But these two words are also a bit different.
Ethics on the one side is a more general word meaning the balance we make between
good and bad aspect of a situation at an individual or institutional level.
It is the ethical choices you make when you decide to use or
not to use a picture or, or a sentence.
Deontology on the other side is a professional word meaning the duties and
the rights within the profession, like journalists or medical doctors.
In the end, whether you have simple ethical principles guiding you, or
a strong deontological chart,
both concepts are moral principles that have no legal impact.
So you can not condemn someone for a lack of ethics, but
you can morally judge him or her.
In this session, we learned that the key components of communications
are the scale, global versus local, the channels and the message,
the link between information and news, the content of information, representations
versus stereotypes, the moral principles, ethics versus deontology.
The communication process implies a sender, a message, a channel,
a receiver, and codes.
Each of these components of the process plays a role, the who, the why,
the what, the where, the how, and to whom.
We are now at the end of this session, I hoped you enjoyed this course.
Thank you.
[MUSIC]
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