Un/Making CSC
Communication

Communication

Reclaiming communication as more than awareness, messages and branding – creating spaces for dialogical, participatory communication for social change.

paper with pompoms and paperclips folded as a soundwave to represent a collective voice
Our media involves working with lots of different stakeholders.
A digital photo of a drawing of a house; a metaphor that represents Malawi.
This is a house that covers the whole of Malawi.
Digital photo of pegs to represent a hammer; a metaphor to express the idea that tech is like a tool.
This is a hammer, representing the common idea that tech is like a tool.
Digital photo of a mirror collage; this represents the metaphor that community media is a like a mirror, it is a mirror that reflects what is happening in the grassroots. It is reflecting a collective experience through the media. This gets taken and given back to the community to understand, realise and to empower, and to mobilise.
Community media is a like a mirror, it is a mirror that reflects what is happening in the grassroots.
Digital photo of a beaded necklace. A metaphor representing a community media/ social media strategy. For that to bloom to emerge we constantly have to be grounded, represented by the terracotta bead. The glittery bead is the social media - things are constantly changing, hashtags, trends, viral content – we don’t always know what’s coming - but what is constant is the terracotta. We can’t just keep the glitter and forget the context. We always have to be grounded in the context of the audience we have in mind. We have to bring them along. So we use the glitter of social media grounded in the principles of social justice and equity. The terracotta will always be beneath the glitter, and the glitter doesn’t overpower that. That’s what makes it bloom.
This a community media/ social media strategy.
Digital photograph of a mirror; a material metaphor that represents the idea that the approach is like a mirror. It involves a constant cycle of doing and reflecting, doing and reflecting. Our work is a reflection of where we are as an organization at any given time. A mirror helps you to see things you wouldn’t otherwise see. It can also be about helping others to be critically reflecting through the work. The gaps between the mirror shapes could also be showing that it is always a work in progress. Social change is also like a mirroring process. With social change we’re trying to enable positive attitudes shifts, and that gets mirrored back to enrich the approach of our organisation.
Our approach is like a mirror.
Digital photograph of a drawing of a bicycle; a metaphor for development projects.
Development projects are like bicycles.
Clothes peg paperclip tree
Our organisation is like a tree.