Community media for social and behaviour change: Using the power of participatory storytelling to improve nutrition
This review (PDF) by SPRING presents in-depth case examples of storytelling through various community media platforms in multiple contexts to change nutrition-related behaviors and social norm. Storytelling through community media information leverages and maintains the integrity of local experiences and narratives, while using innovative dissemination channels to reach large numbers of individuals to excite, motivate, and empower communities to move toward improved nutrition and health. In the design of effective community media programs, four principles should be considered: community engagement, contextualization, capacity building and sustainability. The report describes different case examples of community media for social and behaviour change, thereby highlighting and describing how particular principles were applied and considered. A number of lessons can be learned from these cases. Community participation and context-specific content are cornerstones of community media. Community media makes shared information more accessible to wider audiences and strikes a balance between contextualization and scale, ensuring that audiences identify and connect with the stories and messages that can go beyond one single person’s reach. The authors identified an implementation checklist for community media that includes best practices and considerations for a community media intervention. Conclusion is that community media is an exciting, feasible and effective social behaviour change approach for nutrition programs.
A video that gives a summary of this review can be found here.