Media Action Insight Blog Feed

Understanding young people’s civic engagement in Cambodia

2022-09-21T10:07:49+00:00

For more than a decade, ��̳ Media Action has worked to support young people in Cambodia – on issues including sexual and reproductive health, and job-hunting skills in a difficult labour market. We’ve done this through our brands Loy9, Love9 and more recently Klahan9 (Brave 9) – engaging young people where they are, through reality TV, social media and in road shows.

In 2020 we wanted to focus on how to engage more young people in civic life. We knew that people were hesitant to participate in public life, didn’t discuss politics and civic issues with others, and were fearful of doing so. When we had conducted research on this topic before, people were very reluctant to talk to our researchers, too.

We wanted to develop a deeper understanding of different groups of young people, exploring what they know about how they can participate, whether they discuss civic issues, what attitudes and norms affect their participation, and who influences their actions. We also wanted to understand the online behaviour of young people, as social media is an important platform for our project.

We realised we had much to learn! We used this opportunity to try out some new research methods alongside more traditional methodologies that could help us develop insights on these issues, to understand how to support 15-30-year-old Cambodians to engage in civic life, all through media and our programming.

How we responded to our research challenge

We conducted a face-to-face, nationally representative survey, to understand the youth media information ecosystem and civic engagement and to generate a national picture of the issues.

We followed up the survey with some qualitative work, conducted face to face and online. For this study we talked to young people and other stakeholders – including parents and community gatekeepers - to contextualise and validate the quantitative data.

Our research tools were carefully attuned to the context and sensitivities about discussing these issues. We moved any questions that might be sensitive to the back of the survey, and we used role-storming and projective techniques in the focus group discussions to encourage people to speak up.

We commissioned a study to help us understand young people’s digital information ecosystems, using an artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning semiotics study (the Discover AI platform and Accelerate Drivers model) with more than 100 online sources to identify different youth archetypes. There were two dominant groups that emerged – ‘transparency seekers’ and ‘political micro-activists'. We felt that these groups were more likely to talk and discuss these sensitive issues, so we conducted more qualitative research with these groups to understand what they care about, and how they engage and behave with information online.

We also wanted to understand marginalised people, including those identifying as LGBTQI+, young people with disabilities, and people with limited access to the internet such as indigenous groups. To reach these people during COVID-19, when face-to-face research was difficult, we set up a number of online community discussion groups through Facebook chat, and telephone interviews and remote focus group discussions using Zoom - meeting people virtually in the way that they felt most comfortable.

How did we analyse and share the data?

We used data immersion and analysis workshops to reflect, analyse, triangulate and validate the data, before developing our reporting on emerging insights and trends.

Our research showed that young Cambodians have significant differences in their interests, capacity, and attitudes to civic engagement, and face different barriers. For this reason, a segmentation analysis – a process of dividing people into groups based on their similarities – was used to identify different groups of young Cambodians, based on their attitudes, actions, and discussion linked to civic participation and engagement. We used the survey data to split people into five segments with distinct media and communication needs, ranging from those who are disengaged and do not feel it is their place to be involved, to those who are actively participating in civic life.

Understanding the demographic composition of each segment – gender, sexual orientation, disability, location and so on – helped us to define each group’s communication needs, and so to support civic engagement.

How have the research insights been used?

The research insights contributed significantly to the framing and development of a project proposal for work on youth civic engagement, supported the development of the project Theory of Change, and are now being used by ��̳ Media Action’s project and production teams to support the design of media and communication outputs which are tailored to different target audiences.

For example, our new TV drama series “Sok San Family” has been designed to reach and engage young people from the ‘disadvantaged’, ‘unbothered’ and ‘motivated’ groups identified by the segmentation analysis. Our qualitative research has helped to provide rich detail on the lives and experiences of young people in Cambodia, so that storylines and characters in the drama reflect the reality of young people’s lives and frame content on civic engagement in a sensitive but engaging way.

We organized two virtual dissemination workshops to share and discuss the key research findings, and shared short summaries of key insights and data presented in infographics – useful to others in the sector, including NGOs and media partners, particularly during COVID-19 lockdowns.

What have we learned and what next?

As a researcher, it has been good to see how instrumental the research has been in informing the project approach, and how insights from the research have been used by the project and production teams. We have learned from trying new methods, and have been able to share this learning with other research teams in ��̳ Media Action.

Now our focus is turning to the evaluation of the project. Again, we are looking at what new and innovative approaches we can try, such as a/b testing of our digital media content to understand what works best in engaging youth audiences on social media, and online experimental research to test the impact of our digital content. We don’t want to stand still!

I’m also very proud that our efforts have been recognised by the ESOMAR Foundation. It is encouraging to see our work recognised internationally.

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��̳ Media Action's work in Cambodia has been awarded a Making A Difference Award by the ESOMAR Foundation, presented during the ESOMAR Congress in Toronto, 18-21 September 2022.

Learn more about our work in Cambodia - Sok San Family and Klahan9

Read the research summaries:

- Understanding how young Cambodians (15-30 year olds) use media and information

- What is life like for young Cambodians (15-30 year olds) and how are they participating in civic life?

For more information, please contact Sao Vichheka, Research Manager, ��̳ Media Action Cambodia on sao.vichheka@kh.bbcmediaaction.org

Understanding media audiences in Georgia

2022-01-25T14:38:27+00:00

Thirty years after declaring independence from the Soviet Union, Georgia is becoming increasingly cosmopolitan, with a highly connected young population and a robust media scene. But where do Georgia’s people turn to find reliable information – and how can truly independent media find financial support to continue? Our researchers set out to learn how.

In a media market where so many outlets have biases to match their financial backers, where do you go to find trusted information?

After 30 years of independence, Georgia has a relatively free media scene – scoring 60 out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index in 2021, ahead of Poland and Japan. It enshrines freedom of speech in its constitution and has a large number of media outlets serving a population of four million people, held in part to account by a Broadcasters’ Code of Conduct.

But misinformation and political influence over media content abounds, and it’s hard for audiences to know what to trust. As part of our Eastern Partnership project to support independent media and improve editorial standards, we set out to learn how the Georgian people consume media, and how they feel about what they can access. In turn, our research would help inform the strategy and media programmes of our partners - Studio Monitori, Mtis Ambebi, Netgazeti and Batumlebi.

We took a wide measure, with representatives from five regions of the country, through 30 online focus group sessions and 48 in-depth interviews. Our respondents were equally divided between men and women, ranged in age from 18 to over 55, and included people with disability, people identifying as LGBTQI, and ethnic minorities – including Armenian, Azeri and Russian language speakers.

People at a newspaper stand in Tbilisi, Georgia. Credit: Getty images

What did we learn?

Our researchers found that overall, television and online sources of news are popular, with a perception of high levels of freedom of expression, but also with an understanding that they need to look at multiple sources of information to get beyond bias.

“It is positive that media is free but it is negative that they often spread fake news for the sake of having more followers,” said a 46-year-old woman in rural Adjara, in southern Georgia on the Black Sea cost.

“Probably, we can say that there is a variety of media, and if you do not like the information received on one channel, you can get information from other channels. In other words, I think this diversity is positive, you can choose which one to watch,” said a 20-year-old female student, also in rural Adjara.

Older people still follow familiar patterns of starting and ending their day with television, their primary source of media and information, while younger people follow online sources on smartphones. Younger people, in particular, are more likely to explore a diverse number of sources, including Georgian sites such as Interpress News, On.ge, Publika, Radio Liberty and Netgazeti, and international sources including ��̳ and CNN.

The role of language

For minority groups, their choice of media was primarily defined by the language offering; they felt their interests were not often represented in national media, and that society is not receiving enough information about their traditions and cultures.

“Journalists do not come to Svaneti, and do not broadcast anything about us, either good or bad. We have severe winters here, often no electricity, the roads are blocked, and we want this to be shown to others too,” said a 50-year old woman in Svaneti, a landlocked province in Georgia’s northwest which is home to the Svans ethnic group.

Our researchers also discovered a paradox in social media use: a majority of respondents reported going online daily, and their most common online source of information is Facebook, followed by YouTube. Yet Facebook was also identified as one of the least-trusted sources of information.

The future of independent media in Georgia

In researching how respondents felt about the Georgian media landscape, we found that audiences highly value neutrality and professionalism when choosing news, and they believe that independent media should be free from political party or government influence in editorial policy.

We also probed to find which media outlets and brands our respondents would support, in a hypothetical scenario in which they had 100 Georgian lari (about £24) to spend on media of their choice, to help it to continue to publish.

Overall, participants said they would financially support media they trust, including online sources, and recognised that regional and smaller media outlets would need more support than national outlets.

Younger audiences were more likely to say that they would support non-commercial online sources of media, including those that rely on donors such as Netgazeti and Radio Liberty. And a range of participants – while unhappy with its current performance – said they would help to fund the Georgian Public Broadcaster, if it were neutral and able to reflect society’s diverse needs.

Yet, while respondents say that, in theory, they are willing to pay for media, most do not – and there are few opportunities to do so. Most respondents didn’t subscribe to news or to any other services, like those focused on shopping or fitness, though some did acknowledge subscriptions to on-demand services like Netflix or Spotify.

More impartial and trusted content

Our work in Georgia focuses on developing editorial skills and media independence, working to the editorial standards of the ��̳ to build journalism and content that is more impartial and more trusted.

Our partners - Studio Monitori, Mtis Ambebi, Netgazeti and Batumlebi - have covered a wide variety of issues – including the opposition boycott of a Georgian parliamentary election, the latest developments in the global pandemic, investigations into illegal construction and analysis on the impact on Georgia of Russian agreements with neighbouring countries Azerbaijan and Armenia.

We’re also working to help independent media find ways of becoming more financially sustainable, in a market where advertising revenue is rarely enough to pay the bills. Our research helps our partners understand market conditions, what content resonates most with audiences to keep them engaged, and how to attract new audiences, to help them increase advertising revenue and prepare for an uncertain future.

Supporting communities affected by crisis: what we have learned

2021-12-08T14:27:18+00:00

Communication is a critical part of humanitarian response. People need access to relevant, reliable information, so they can make informed decisions about how to keep their families safe. When communities are affected by crisis, we work with local media, government and humanitarian agencies to make sure the voices of communities are heard, and they have access to the information they need.

��̳ Media Action has a long history of training media and humanitarian practitioners on the importance of working together to communicate effectively with communities affected by crisis. We have always conducted audience research to inform our media programming. More recently, we have started actively sharing our research to help the humanitarian sector understand and respond to the people they are assisting.. Through our ongoing response to the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh, we now have evidence of how our work can impact how humanitarians communicate with communities in a response.

Supporting media, NGO practitioners and others to communicate effectively

Across countries, we work with local media to make practical and relevant content and provide platforms for discussion. For example, our Ogaal (Be Informed) radio programme helped support communities affected by drought in Somalia; Milijuli Nepali (Together Nepal) radio programme provided practical information to people affected by the 2015 earthquake, and more recently information around COVID-19.

We often train humanitarian workers and local media in ‘Lifeline’ programming, sharing our approach on how and what to communicate to communities in crisis, and building relationships so they are ready to respond together when needed. For example, a recent partnership with International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) included training national staff and NGO workers alongside local media in eight countries.

Providing audience insight to humanitarian sector to improve response

Our knowledge about how to communicate and make engaging content is based on a strong understanding of our audiences. Effective communication cannot happen without listening to the needs and priorities of our audiences, and knowing how best to engage them. Over time we have realised that data about the audience needs, values and attitudes is not just valuable for us and our media partners, but for our humanitarian colleagues too.

The most recent example of this work is in the Rohingya refugee response in Bangladesh. Since the beginning of the crisis in 2017, we have been collating community feedback from humanitarian partners and carrying out regular research in the camps to understand people’s needs and priorities. We’ve been sharing our insights with humanitarian partners through the regular What Matters? bulletin, and other short research reports, to ensure communities’ perspectives are being heard.

Getty images for ��̳ Media Action only

Since the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19 has been a frequent focus of the bulletins, reflecting community concerns: the most recent issue includes community questions and concerns about vaccines, and community perspectives on how they can get in touch to raise concerns with humanitarian agencies.

Beyond the Rohingya camps, our research teams have played a role in helping humanitarian partners understand community perceptions and rumours around coronavirus, and how best to pitch their communication. From April 2020, our research team in Bangladesh published Corona Kotha (Corona Talk), which brought insights from hard-to-reach communities across the country to humanitarian workers.

We are taking a similar approach in Afghanistan. Between September 2020 and February 2021, our researchers talked to people in six provinces every month to understand the impact the pandemic was having, and shared their insights through the Covid and Community Voice (CCV) publication. Local journalists said the newsletters were useful sources of information on what prevention measures community members were taking, attitudes and rumours around COVID-19 vaccines, and people’s concerns about a second wave of COVID-19. Humanitarian workers described the bulletin as the “eyes and ears of the risk communication group”, and appreciated that it was based on work by local researchers, so they could be sure there were no language or cultural barriers in the interpretation of data.

This work has continued more recently, funded by World Health Organization (WHO). In September, shortly after the Taliban came into power, the team managed to interview 287 people across 10 provinces of Afghanistan by telephone. This survey asked about COVID-19 as well as people’s priority concerns, health issues arising in their communities, and their sources of information, as health and other services were disrupted.

Insights are being used to inform a weekly health radio magazine programme supporting people across Afghanistan, which is being aired on the World Service and local partner radio stations. Insights are also being shared with humanitarian partners at relevant meetings and through the Community Voice bulletin, who value these audience insights where access is currently very difficult.

So what impact does this work have?

In our January 2021 evaluation of the Rohingya response work, we found humanitarian workers value how What Matters? helps agencies understand communities’ perceptions, preferences, priorities and what rumours were spreading as the pandemic evolved. The publication is seen as trusted and reliable, and is appreciated for providing “an objective view, rooted in what the community was saying”. Practitioners gave examples of how the insights helped them plan effective communication strategies, and even advocate for change in their programmes:

“We know from recent What Matters? that communities are open to vaccination but still have concerns about the vaccination being unsafe. It’s important knowledge…we don’t have to start at the beginning to convince people that the vaccine is a good thing, because we know they are already open to it. But we do need to answer their questions about safety.” - Management level practitioner

“Feedback coming through What Matters? was that there was a lot of fear and suspicion linked to the mandatory nature of the quarantine. That information really helped us advocate with the government to change the policy, so people could await their test results at home rather than in an isolation centre.” - Management level practitioner

Previous project evaluations have consistently found that research insights helped practitioners better understand the Rohingya community, and provided evidence of community priorities and concerns, which enabled practitioners to take action themselves – or advocate for others to do so.

What else have we learned?

Across all these initiatives, our researchers and project staff have drawn out a number of key learnings in how to share our research insights with humanitarian partners:

Be transparent about where your data is coming from: Transparency around research methods, number and location of participant matters to humanitarian partners. They often use our bulletins alongside other sources of information to influence decisions or advocate for changes in programmes or provisions. They need accurate information about where data is coming from, as communities in different locations may face different issues.
Put yourself in a humanitarian’s shoes: Through attending humanitarian cluster meetings, researchers have learned what information can be useful to help humanitarian partners better serve the communities they are trying to support.
Don’t rely on email to get your insights out there: Busy humanitarians don’t have time to read all their emails, so presenting relevant community needs and perspectives at cluster meetings is crucial to reach more practitioners who can act on those insights.
Make sure vulnerable groups are represented: Ensure marginalised and vulnerable audiences are included in research to ensure their needs and perspectives are highlighted.

��̳ Media Action continues to publish insights on priority needs and concerns of audiences across Afghanistan and in Cox’s Bazar on a regular basis, for use by humanitarian and media practitioners in their programming.

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Nicola Bailey is research manager for South Asia at ��̳ Media Action, based in London. Read more about our humanitarian response on our website.

Examining awareness of disability in Nigeria

2021-11-29T16:27:30+00:00

Seeing, the saying goes, is believing. But how true does this hold when it comes to disabilities that are not immediately apparent?

As humans, those of us who can see make sense of the world around us with our eyes – leading to, perhaps, an unthinking look of disapproval for a person without a visible disability who uses the disabled parking bay, or an individual who walks into the airport requesting wheelchair assistance. But it’s important to remember that when it comes to disability, there is often more than meets the eye.

Disability has been recognised as a public health issue by the World Health Organization, and over one billion people, or 15% of the global population, are estimated to be living with some form of disability, including invisible impairments such as anxiety, depression, chronic illnesses, and vision and hearing impairments.

However, there is a lack of data around the number of persons with these invisible disabilities, and how they are recognised and perceived in the societies in which they live. Without this data, we cannot fully understand the challenges and stigma they face, making it even harder to foster understanding and begin to overcome the barriers they face to employment, education and inclusion in society.

Researching disability in Nigeria

��̳ Media Action recently had an opportunity to conduct research around disability in Nigeria. We implemented an 18-month project to tackle stigma and discrimination around all kinds of disability – both visible and invisible - in Nigeria, under the Inclusive Futures programme funded by the UK Government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office. Our radio drama, Story Story, used a fully inclusive team of Nigerian writers and actors to bring these issues to life and challenge prejudice and stigma – but to do so effectively, we needed to fully understand the local context.

The cast of Story Story record an episode in Abuja, Nigeria.

According to the 2018 National Demographic and Health Survey, seven percent of Nigerians have some form of disability - but we wanted to delve further. In July 2021, we surveyed over 5,000 Nigerians in five states, Enugu, Kaduna, Kano, Kogi and Lagos, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to find out how people understand disability, and their perceptions of someone with a disability.

Awareness of invisible disabilities is lower than for visible disabilities

We asked people whether they were aware of different disabilities, and found that a lower percentage of Nigerians mentioned less visible impairments, such as autism (10%), than they did more visible impairments, such as physical disability (60%) or blindness (75%).

Only around two in 10 people surveyed were aware of psychosocial disabilities, such as depression or anxiety. And albinism was mentioned by just one in 10 as an example of disability, although Nigeria’s prevalence rate of albinism is among the highest in the world, with over two million persons with albinism living in the country.

Although people with albinism are often visibly identifiable – and indeed often subject to discrimination and even ostracisation from society in Nigeria – our data suggested there is low awareness of albinism as a form of disability.

Under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, people with albinism are considered people with disabilities due to their often severe vision impairment; they are also vulnerable to skin cancer.

But participants (mainly those without disabilities) in focus groups explained that they do not believe anyone with albinism is a person with disability, because they do not believe them to be impaired in their senses or body parts.

Similar to our study findings, a 2018 SCOPE report notes that when asked about disability many people may think of ‘visible’ impairments, such as using a wheelchair, rather than ‘invisible’ impairments, like mental health problems or hearing impairments.

Overall, our research found not only are Nigerians surveyed less aware of invisible impairments, they are also less comfortable around people with such impairments. Our study found that out of four different visible and invisible impairments, those surveyed were least comfortable around someone with a psychosocial disability such as schizophrenia. It was beyond the scope of our research to explore why, but it is likely that low awareness and understanding of invisible disabilities is a contributory factor.

What next after these findings?

What do these findings mean for people with invisible disabilities in Nigeria? Our findings raise a few critical questions – is enough being done to raise awareness on less visible impairments, like psychosocial disability, and to provide education on how to interact with people with disabilities and include them equally in Nigerian society?

Our radio drama series, Story Story, has had an impact on listeners’ perceptions of people with disability. An evaluation showed that, after controlling for a range of factors such as education, age and gender, regular listeners and those engaged with the drama held more positive attitudes than non-listeners.

However, there is still work to be done. Our evaluation did not demonstrate a significant association on increased awareness of different types of disability, showing that there is more work needed in this area – particularly around disabilities that are less visible.

Our findings are a reminder that we should never make assumptions about disability, as it can be hidden. Better data allows us to understand the needs of, and challenges faced by, people with invisible disabilities. And understanding is the first step toward changing perceptions and addressing societal stigma and barriers.

Akunna Penny is ��̳ Media Action's Nigeria research manager, based in London, and Manju Gautam is research officer based in Kathmandu.

To learn more about the insights uncovered from this research please see the full briefing: Using radio drama to tackle disability discrimination in Nigeria.

The power of research: our work with WHO during the pandemic in Africa

2021-10-20T07:12:46+00:00

Audiences are at the heart of all of our work - and reaching them effectively and at scale has never been as critical as during the global pandemic.

To design any project or programme we need to understand where people are starting from: what do they know? What difficulties are they facing? What information is missing? Who do they trust? What attitudes do they hold?

A crisis makes this information all the more important - and in the case of the pandemic, even more difficult to gather. Our work in humanitarian situations helps other aid agencies strengthen their understanding of audiences to support their own humanitarian response, as we have been doing in Cox’s Bazar and Afghanistan.

Last year, at the height of the pandemic, we were commissioned by World Health Organization to develop a data collection tool, enabling them to collect timely insights into people’s changing needs, to help ensure that WHO country offices’ COVID-19 response and service delivery is reflecting these.

We designed a methodology and research tool to collect quantitative and qualitative data, and piloted it in Nigeria and Zambia to ensure that it was suitable to embed data in the overall COVID-19 response.

Design amid challenges

We designed the tool to ensure that there was flexibility in the research method, given changing restrictions related to the pandemic. We created a quantitative survey questionnaire that could be conducted remotely by mobile phone or face-to-face, to understand social and behaviour change around COVID-19, as well as a method to conduct further exploratory qualitative research to understand issues that came up in the quantitative survey more fully.

It wasn’t easy to conduct research remotely. In Nigeria, for instance, enumerators encountered challenges including poor phone connectivity, and hesitancy, unwillingness and mistrust from participants. In some cases, enumerators were accused of being scammers, given the prevalence of scam calls in the country; some respondents simply hung up. Some interviews also had to be conducted very late at night to accommodate respondents’ availability. And in Zambia, load-shedding led to power cuts, requiring us to make appointments in advance to ensure the respondents’ phones could be charged in preparation.

In both countries, face-to-face interviews were also conducted to ensure that we collected data from the most vulnerable people, who were less comfortable being interviewed by mobile phone.

A woman is interviewed for qualitative research in Nigeria. Credit: ��̳ Media Action Nigeria

Collaboration for impact

We worked closely with WHO teams to define the scope and objectives of the project. Insights from the WHO response teams and researchers in our own offices in Nigeria and Zambia fed into the design and helped ensure that the right data was collected. Public opinion changes constantly, so this enabled the study to remain relevant even as the external context changed; for instance, we added new questions to ask about new COVID-19 variants and views on vaccinations, and ensuring separate sections of the questionnaire informed specific pillars of the ongoing COVID-19 response. In both countries, our qualitative work focused on public misconceptions around COVID-19 and vaccine hesitancy, as both were dominant and needed greater understanding.

What we learned

Though our pilot, we learned that:

People are scared, and are taking action. Even COVID-sceptics and vaccine hesitant responders are worried about COVID-19. Trust in information sources is variable, and suspicion is high, and yet uptake of preventative behaviour - such as wearing masks and handwashing - is also high. Even those who say they are not sure COVID-19 is real report doing things to keep themselves safe from contracting the virus. People said they are ‘hedging their bets’, rationalising that ‘it can’t hurt to take precautions’ even if they don’t fully believe in COVID-19.

People are feeling the economic impacts of COVID-19, and actions that cost the least are most likely to be taken up. Information about how to take the simplest actions, such as when and how to wash hands, may be most effective at helping to prevent the virus.

Anti-vaccination sentiment is related to a lack of information. However, conspiracy theories are also widespread and more are popping up every day. Countering these requires more than an ‘information’ campaign. For some, providing clear information and explaining that side effects of vaccines are rare, mild and/or short-lived might be more effective, especially for those who are less firmly opposed. This will be less effective for people who are firmly opposed; they may need to see people in positions of influence or authority taking and endorsing the vaccine. Some may change their opinions over time as they see safe and effective campaigns from other countries.

Mass media have a major role to play - and need to communicate facts clearly, along with doctors and health practitioners who are the most trusted sources. This is true even among vaccine-hesitant respondents, and those who believe in myths and misconceptions about COVID-19. Respondents also felt that politicians should not be the bearers of information on COVID-19 unless they are also seen to be practicing what they ask others to do.

“I would want the information to portray to me both about the positives and negatives effects of the Covid-19 vaccine but if it just comes in positively, then I will be hesitant. A leader must lead by example, if leaders get the Covid-19 vaccine and five years go down the line and the effects are minimal and all is well, then I can also be influenced and make a permanent decision where I may also take the Covid-19 vaccine.” - Male participant, Lusaka, Zambia

“Communicating in very simple terms, communicating the truth because once you tell a lie, you are not going to be trusted ever again so saying the truth at all times during communication is one key and use of radio, TV, Newspapers”. “I would say radio, people listen to talk shows on radio a lot." - Health care worker, Abuja, Nigeria.

Putting the findings to work

The data produced in the two pilot countries has been used to help the response teams tailor and target their activities.

For example, in Zambia, the findings from our studies were used by a number of organisations, to inform their interventions and to develop understandable and effective communication. At the WHO , findings are currently being applied to support communication around COVID-19 misinformation; at the national Ministry of Health, findings have helped shape communication in clinics, on the radio, TV, social media and print materials; and on ��̳ Media Action partner radio stations, the findings have been used to help dispel myths through the use of public service announcements. It has also been adapted to collect data on health behaviours beyond COVID-19.

��̳ Media Action teams in London and across the global organisation have worked with the WHO to turn the Social Behavioural Insights tool into an online training with their training design team. The tool and training in how to use it is now available on the open access WHO website. This tool is intended to be used by WHO offices, government departments, research firms, academics and other NGOs across Africa.

As the pandemic continues, and health needs change, we are proud to have created a research tool to help ensure health communication is able to meet the fast-changing needs of people, wherever they are in the world.

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Our global research team reflect on the process and the insights that helped inform the COVID-19 response and service delivery in the Africa Region. Read more about our response to COVID-19 on our website.

The case for communication: COVID-19 in Cox’s Bazar

2021-06-17T08:11:21+00:00

Back in March 2020, everyone was worried about what would happen when the COVID-19 pandemic reached the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. It is one of the most densely populated parts of the world, with challenging sanitation and limited health care resources; over 800,000 people live in tarpaulin shelters on unstable slopes and up to 12 inhabitants share each shelter.

Experts warned that up to 98% of the population would be infected during the first year and, without effective intervention, the hospital’s 340 beds would be full to bursting within 2-5 months.

By late March, Bangladesh authorities had restricted movement in and out of the camps, and on 8 April the Bangladesh government imposed a lockdown banning all travel into and out of the district. But in May, COVID-19 was confirmed in two Rohingya refugees and 10 Bangladeshis living nearby.

Looking back, we now know the situation was not as catastrophic as anticipated; cases in the camps remained lower than initially predicted, even as they rose across the country.

Research demonstrates some success

Why this happened is difficult to explain. But our research has demonstrated one success: the level of awareness among the Rohingya population about COVID-19, driven by sustained work by several agencies including the Common Service for Community Engagement and Accountability, led by ��̳ Media Action, which has been supporting Rohingya people and host communities to cope with COVID-19.

We carried out a face-to-face survey in January 2021, among nearly 2,700 Rohingya refugees and more than 1,000 people in adjacent host communities, to provide robust data on access to information and accountability in the camps. We measured the reach of our Common Service communication materials in these communities, and explored the association between exposure to this content and specific outcomes.

We found that almost two-thirds of the Rohingya population felt quite well-informed or well-informed about COVID-19, and Rohingya women felt more informed than men - 65% compared to 55%. More than 70% of Rohingya people could accurately identify COVID-19 symptoms, and said they felt well- informed about how to protect themselves. And a majority of people surveyed knew how to keep themselves safe: washing their hands with soap, which they said they didn’t do before but had been doing since the pandemic; wearing masks in public; keeping distance from people and avoiding crowds.

A vital role in informing about COVID-19

Our communication initiatives played a vital role in informing people about COVID-19, particularly for women who, because of traditional community values, are often secluded from public life with limited access to media. We found that 40% of Rohingya people had high levels of knowledge about COVID-19 – 47% among women, and 33% among men. This may be because trusted NGO staff and volunteers had been particularly effective at reaching Rohingya women through listening groups, door-to-door visits and women-friendly spaces, many of them using communication tools and techniques we have provided.

This is particularly important because we found that, unlike their host communities, the Rohingya people in the camps have limited access to mass media, and receive most of their information through these face-to-face communications interventions: meetings with NGO staff and volunteers, loud-speaker announcements, and communication materials made available at listening groups, food distribution points, health facilities and information hubs. We found that people who attend these places, and are exposed to this content, have greater knowledge about COVID-19.

This is a testament to all agencies who have been working tirelessly to communicate with the community throughout the pandemic. The Common Service project played a vital role in creating and sharing communication materials, now available on our Shongjog website for anyone to use.

At the onset of the pandemic, we produced more than 60 communication tools (Shongjog | Resources) designed to improve communication, awareness and knowledge of COVID-19 for the Rohingya and host communities, and for health workers themselves.

Following requests from the World Health Organization and other health-focused agencies, we produced videos to train frontline health workers on infection prevention and control. Several agencies also used our audio recordings for community health volunteers. Later in 2020, we produced dozens more tools in response to agency and sector requests: community-facing materials on COVID-19 awareness, prevention, and mitigation, and tip sheets for new protocols for food distribution, the re-opening of registration, the principles of case management, child protection and immunisation.

Our survey data found that 75% of the Rohingya community said they had seen or heard at least five pieces of Common Service content. And, vitally, those who had accessed our content were 1.6 times as likely to have greater knowledge about COVID-19 than those who hadn’t.

"People did not want to believe Covid is a real thing, so they [Common Service] made some videos. Imams were shown using masks in the video and it used habits and quotations from the Quran – this makes people take it seriously. This worked well. That really resonated with the community,” said a field-level practitioner in the Rohingya response.

Our researchers found community members liked the content because it was made for them, in their language; it was easy to understand; they could relate to the characters and the camp setting; and it was in line with their values.

The next deadly wave

In Cox’s Bazar, the pandemic is far from over. Since April this year, Bangladesh has again been under tough COVID-19 restrictions, following another wave of infections and the spread of the ‘Delta’ variant in neighbouring countries. Cases are also rising in the camps at a higher rate than before.

Once again, we know we need to redouble our efforts to communicate with this isolated community, living in a confined space and left out of the information shared by mass media in the region. If our research has shown us one thing, it is that with a targeted communication strategy, trustworthy, relevant, and engaging content can help save lives - even from a deadly virus.

Arif Al Mamun is ��̳ Media Action's Head of Research in Bangladesh. Read more insights and impact from our Common Service project on our website.

How we attracted women to our shows

2017-11-22T16:26:26+00:00

As a child and throughout my teenage years in northern Nigeria, I saw men in our neighbourhood shopping for the food needed by the family. To my young mind, this was fascinating, and I thought “how helpful and thoughtful of them”.

It was only later I came to understand that, for cultural reasons, women were not expected to be seen in public. But deep down, I still couldn’t understand it.

As an adult I have dealt with stereotypical expectations around women in politics. I’ve heard statements such as women are not “naturally” oriented towards governance or politics, or that “politics is a man’s thing”. Our system in Nigeria seems to give this credence by not making adequate efforts to encourage women to be active in politics.

I remember when Sarah Jibril, the first female presidential candidate, failed to make it past the party primaries in 2011 and got only one vote. I asked myself then, half seriously - is there something about the woman that makes her unsuited to such key a role in society?

Fast forward to the present: I understand that the behaviour of the men and women I saw while growing up helped to perpetuate ideas about the way men and women “should” behave. I also know the media plays a part in this by reinforcing these ideas. Worldwide, women are still the focus of only 10% of news stories and comprise just 20% of experts or spokespeople interviewed.

As a social researcher I have designed and implemented studies to understand what audiences in Nigeria want from shows like the drama Story Story and the radio discussion show Talk Your Own, and I evaluated their impact. We saw a pattern in our findings. Fewer women than men tended to listen to our programmes and were engaging less frequently in politics than men. To understand this better, we designed a study to speak to young girls and women across five states in five geo-political zones of Nigeria.

Involve your target audience

We used a market research technique called co-creation, whereby customers or product end-users (in our case, potential audience members) are involved actively in inventing the product.

Working in groups, we encouraged unguided discussions and used practical exercises such as community mapping and problem tree analysis to explore issues of concern, perceptions of governance and ideas about what a governance-focused programme should include. Something I particularly enjoyed was the collaboration between the women themselves, researchers, programme producers and project managers. It resulted in valuable feedback to help us improve our programmes and give women and girls a chance to have their voices heard.

We found that women aged over 36 in particular, think that few women get involved in decision- making, and feel they do not have a voice. “They look down at us people and they don’t involve people that they think are illiterate,” said one participant.

Younger women claimed to feel disconnected from politics as they have no opportunity to meet with the leaders (traditional and elected) and felt decision makers did not seek their opinions. Across the board, women lacked faith in the political system – citing poor leadership and a failure to fulfil promises made by politicians during election campaigns. They saw evidence of poor governance all around them – including a lack of basic amenities in their communities. A few participants mentioned that state-owned media tended to portray even an ill-functioning government in a positive light.

The co-creation research was part of a conscious effort to attract more female audience members, which included revising the content of our programmes to appeal to women and younger people. Talk Your Own, for example, launched a new youth segment – My Life, My Story – featuring teenage girls sharing their life experiences. At the end of the project, our research showed that the programmes steadily attracted a higher proportion of female and rural listeners: by 2016 women accounted for 43% of the audience compared with 35% in 2013.

I want my daughter(s) and girls all over to have a voice – and not just a voice, but a voice that counts in the governance and decision-making processes that affect their lives. Therefore, understanding and helping women (in any small way) to find a voice is not just another deliverable in my line of work, it is something that matters a lot more to me!

What the development sector can learn from audience segmentation

2017-09-27T10:18:49+00:00

In the not-for-profit sector we’ve already learned a lot from marketing techniques developed in the commercial world.

The best known example is probably the use of social marketing to encourage people to use condoms in response to the HIV epidemic. Another technique, audience segmentation (the process of dividing people into groups based on their similarities – or their differences), can help us target the groups we seek to support. Just like a savvy business-person seeking to maximise their return on investment by targeting the specific preferences of consumers; development organisations can tailor their projects to achieve the greatest positive impact.

��̳ Media Action is not in the business of making money. But we are most certainly in the business of reaching people with content that both benefits and resonates with them.

This relies on a keen understanding of our target audience – what interests them; who do they trust; what are their priorities in life; what are their preferred means of communication? It goes beyond simple demographics (like age, gender, and income), which, while useful, are really only the beginning of understanding people and what might interest them.

Avoid "buying blind"

Imagine you were tasked with buying a birthday present for someone’s mother and all you know is that she’s a 64 year old woman. What would you buy her, and how likely is it that it will really hit the mark?

Similarly, what if you were designing a project to engage people more in governance? Everyone’s experience of politics, and perception of how they should influence the way their community or country is governed, is different. While this may relate to a person’s age, where they live, or their socio-economic status, these demographic factors do not give us the depth of understanding we need.

We need to understand their perceptions: how much they feel they know about politics and current affairs and how confident they are to engage in politics, as well as whether they are politically active, are part of politically motivated groups, or if they even discuss politics with others. We segmented our audience to do just this.

What our segments tell us

We used data from seven nationally representative surveys across Asia and Africa to identify homogenous sub-groups (in other words, groups of people who share similar characteristics and behaviours), based on their engagement in politics. We then explored correlations between the resulting clusters and various socio-demographic and media consumption characteristics, and triangulated this with qualitative data, to deepen our understanding of each group and develop more ‘tangible’ profiles (or descriptions).

So what did this process reveal about political engagement in the seven countries we explored, and how will we use it?

We identified and developed five discrete segments across a spectrum of political engagement which ranged from people who are completely ‘detached’ from politics, right through to those who are avidly and actively engaged in political life.

A snapshot of how we segmented our audience

Given how different each segment is in its understanding of, interest and engagement in politics, the intervention likely to reach and resonate with them would also need to be different. Take, for example, the detached segment.

What defines them? They don’t participate in politics, don’t discuss it and feel that they don’t know about it. Yet they express high levels of trust in political institutions, and confidence in their ability to influence politics (efficacy).

Who are they? They are among the most marginalised people in society – the poorest, least educated, and most isolated (by virtue of their geographic location and their lack of access to media). They are most likely to be older females, predominantly living in rural areas. They feel disconnected from the political process in their country. Their detachment is in part due to their physical isolation, which puts ‘distance’ between their daily lives and decisions made in parliament. Because of the day-to-day struggle they face just to get by, their main priorities are making ends meet to support their family. They say they don’t really understand ‘politics’ and ‘government’ and feel that it’s not their concern. As such, they trust that the people making the decisions in government are educated, qualified people – not people like them (or like anyone they know). They don’t follow parliamentary decisions or feel that they understand key national governance issues – effectively, this all happens in an entirely different sphere (or world) from the one they live in.

What do they watch? This group has the lowest level of media access, is the most likely to be completely “media dark” (have no access to any media platform, including a mobile phone) and least likely to have watched or listened to ��̳ Media Action governance programmes on radio, TV or online. They find programmes about ‘politics’ don’t offer them anything to make their life or their family's life better.

So how would we, as audience researchers, suggest our programme-makers target members of this group? It’s likely to be with content that grounds politics in their everyday lives, focusing on local services and health, education, and employment; and helping them to understand their rights associated with those things. We would recommend the programming features people like them telling stories of engaging in governance activities, and how it helped them.

Know your market

And, it’s all very well producing the right programming, but we are unlikely to reach this group through national media. We would seek local media partners to broadcast our programmes, and build a strong outreach component into the project to take programming to the most isolated community members through facilitated listening groups, road shows and street theatre.

The argument is nothing new: to achieve impact (or in the business world, make money), you not only have to get your product or programme to the right people, you also have to make sure it is meaningful and useful to them. It really is worth putting time, effort and resources into understanding the people you aim to support, and to do this before you start designing your activities. A development intervention, just like any product on the market, should fulfil a relevant need or desire. Otherwise, no matter how well intentioned it is, or how good it looks, it will miss the mark.

Sophie Baskett is senior research manager at ��̳ Media Action.

Find out more about our audience segmentation on our data portal.

Look beyond numbers: we need to know why change happens

2017-09-13T15:28:59+00:00

Working in the development sector I am aware that, particularly over the last few years, donors and others expect project results to be quantifiable. Numbers talk.

This was apparent at the UN World Data Forum in Cape Town in January when we looked at how the SDGs will be measured, and it was discussed again at the Esomar World Research Congress in Amsterdam this week. Donors want statistics to demonstrate impact and show a project is value for money, but aren’t as confident using insights from qualitative research.

In my team we crunch a lot of numbers. In 2016, for example, we surveyed more than 20,000 people, which yielded strong results. For example, a statistical analysis of governance data across seven countries (which controlled for confounders such as people’s age, education levels and existing interests) shows that people who listened to or watched our programmes know more about politics and get more involved in civic life. In our health work, we used quantitative data to understand how change happens.

But we have increasingly come to appreciate the need for qualitative research to contextualise our data and explain why we are having an impact. We’re not alone.

At the Esomar conference I took part in a panel with colleagues from My Choices Foundation, StreetInvest, and Save the Children to showcase how qualitative research can provide greater value to the development sector. I summarised what we had learned from our recent projects.

Story behind the numbers

Qualitative research helps us to explain the story behind quantitative data.

Our radio health shows in Ethiopia, Jember (Maternal Light) and Biiftuu Jireenya (Dawn of Life) aim to help women have safer pregnancies and deliveries, and improve the health of newborn babies. Our surveys showed they were reaching a huge audience – around 21 million people across three states - more than a third of the adult population.

However, analysis of our data showed it was difficult to isolate the impact of our programmes. The health sector in Ethiopia was changing fast the government and donor investment leading to local health workers being trained across the country. This investment was reaping benefits; data from the Demographic and Health Survey showed the percentage of women going for antenatal care had jumped from 27 % to 62 % between 2011 and 2016. But what impact were we having?

To understand, we designed qualitative research, whereby we spoke to women and those they felt influenced their decisions (such as their local health extension worker, their husbands and close family members).

Women told us how health services and social norms had changed since they had given birth to their older children. Things that had been unthinkable, such as giving birth at a health facility, were now possible. They were also able to identify storylines and items in the shows that made them think differently about what was “normal” during pregnancy and birth. The shows were reinforcing the advice that health workers were giving – and health workers also felt women trusted them more because they were saying the same information that they had heard on the radio.

Reaching vulnerable people

A limitation of quantitative research is that it’s hard to reach vulnerable groups such as refugees or survivors of gender-based violence. They are less likely to agree to a face-to-face survey or might not have a fixed address. In this situation, it helps to use qualitative research techniques that put respondents at ease.

Last year, we spoke to Syrian refugees travelling from Greece to Germany to understand how humanitarian agencies could best communicate with them. We employed Arabic-speaking researchers and trained them to use a narrative approach, where they sat with a refugee for at least an hour, hearing about their journey and the part communication had played in it. Being listened to, rather than asked a series of fixed questions, helped the respondents feel comfortable and more likely to share information.

Qualitative research can also help us understand sensitive issues. In Syria, we assessed our radio drama Hay el Matar. To understand issues around the conflict we asked a trusted, local NGO to use projective techniques. This involved asking respondents to discuss the feelings of others – either people in their community or an “extremist” character in the drama. People felt more comfortable talking about how others view violence, or explaining the motives of a fictional character, than talking about themselves.

We discovered that Syrians interpreted people’s accents as a strong signal for which side of the conflict they were on. We relayed this to our radio producers who took greater care with the accents of the actors. We could not have grasped these nuances with quantitative data alone.

Insights on a budget

There’s another cold, hard fact to take into account. Conducting quantitative research, on the scale needed to measure media interventions, is expensive. Project budgets often don’t stretch to this so we need to gain qualitative insights in the absence of large-scale, representative surveys.

At the end of the panel discussion in Amsterdam this week, the Esomar Foundation’s Phyllis MacFarlane asked a crucial question: “What does the development sector need to do for qualitative research to be taken more seriously? Steve Kretschmer from Surgo Foundation summed it up nicely.Quantitative data needs to be used to explain the “what” he said, but when it comes to the “why”, well-designed qualitative research is invaluable. He added that the development sector could work with the commercial sector to adopt practices such as using video to capture emotions (rather than relying on what people say) to make the most of audience insight and – most importantly – to make a difference.

Let’s talk about sex: using radio to educate teenagers in Bangladesh

2017-06-30T10:00:00+00:00

Our world is home to 1.8 billion young people. The majority of these 10 to 24-year-olds live in Asia, with 48 million alone growing up in Bangladesh.

And many of these young people are having sex. Bangladesh has one of the highest adolescent fertility rates in all of South Asia, coming in at 83 births per 1000 women aged 15 to 19. This is compared to a figure of 71 for Afghanistan and Nepal, which share the next highest adolescent birth rate in the region. In the US, this number stands at 21, in the UK, 14.

In Bangladesh, this high birth rate is driven by girls getting married before they’ve left adolescence. Nearly three quarters of married Bangladeshi women become wives before turning 18 – compared to fewer than 3% of men. Media Action carried out research with adolescents, parents and teachers to better understand why.

Outside of everyone’s comfort zone

We found that children and adults alike struggle to talk about sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in Bangladesh, as is the case in many conservative countries.

Teenagers are embarrassed to seek out advice from their elders, due to social stigma and shyness. We also learned that parents don’t start these conversations either – aside from the heart-to-hearts mothers have with their daughters about periods.

SRH is a taboo topic, which parents feel is inappropriate to bring up with adolescents before they get married. Our research revealed that adults believe that telling teenagers about contraceptives promotes promiscuity.

As for teachers, they are often evasive and are known to sometimes skip the chapters on sexual and reproductive health in textbooks. Those we interviewed said they faced social barriers in discussing sex with students of the opposite gender to themselves. They also didn’t feel properly supported by their colleagues and management to have these kinds of conversations.

Educators are also discouraged by students’ reluctance to discuss sex with them in the classroom. Some NGOs run SRH programmes in schools but teenagers we spoke with said that these paint an incomplete picture of what they need to know.

Recognising these issues, the government of Bangladesh has begun to step up its efforts to improve knowledge of SRH for all young Bangladeshis by providing universal access to information and services. Girls are being taught how to make choices about marriage, sex and childbirth. But this isn’t enough.

Getting the lowdown

Adolescents are unsurprisingly hungry to know more about the experiences they all have, but which are never spoken about.

This is where the radio show Dosh Unisher Mor (Crossroads at 10 to 19) comes in. Combining drama, songs and interviews with both experts and ordinary teenagers, Dosh Unisher Mor aimed to give young people the comprehensive lowdown on SRH they crave.

The show helped teenagers come to terms with the physical and psychological changes that go with puberty, by presenting these as natural and nothing to be ashamed of. Adolescent listeners said they learned new things from the show, particularly about the physical changes they were experiencing. For example, the programme corrected the mistaken belief, held by many of the boys we spoke to, that wet dreams are a disease.

The show also helps adolescents realise just how traumatic early marriage can be for girls. Listeners came to understand that getting pregnant at a young age puts mothers – and their babies – at risk of health complications and even death.

Some explicitly said that Dosh Unisher Mor led them to see early marriage as a damaging social convention they had the responsibility to protest against. One girl was even driven to stop a child marriage from happening – telling her parents about it, who in turn informed the police.

Filling the information gap through entertainment

Teenagers appreciated that Dosh Unisher Mor was not only educational, but also entertaining. They saw it as a show with the power to change attitudes and influence people by facilitating open and natural discussions, informed by detailed and comprehensive explanations.

As for parents, many said the show encouraged them and their children to speak more openly about these issues. Though we did interview some who explicitly said they were happier for their children to listen to Dosh Unisher Mor than have to have an embarrassing conversation!

Clearly there’s still a real information deficit to fill around SRH and early marriage in Bangladesh. Yet our adolescent listeners told us that Dosh Unisher Mor was the only radio show out there exclusively focused on SRH. This shouldn’t be the case. Shows like Dosh Unisher Mor have so much to offer young people and there should be more programmes out there like it.

Gourob Kundu is a development professional with a background in qualitative research, specifically in the areas of public health and communication.

Blog: How can communication help stop teenagers dying?

Blog: Health communication changes lives by reaching millions

The rise of edutainment: taking stock of the evidence

2017-06-21T17:25:42+00:00

Around the world, growing numbers of people have more and more access to endless distractions. Global smartphone ownership is on the rise. Between 2014 and 2015 alone, the number of Nigerians going online multiple times a day increased by 20%. Entertainment companies are increasingly global in their ambitions; take Netflix for example, which hopes to emulate the success of its Brazilian operation – estimated to have attracted 4 to 5 million subscribers – in a host of other countries.

In this age of media overload, you can’t simply present people with unadorned facts when trying to convince them to make healthier choices or get involved in politics. They’ll simply switch off and find something more interesting to read, watch or listen to.

Enter ‘edutainment’, the buzzword for carefully designing media both to entertain and educate, which is the bread and butter of what Media Action does.

What does the cutting edge of edutainment look like?

We pioneered edutainment for HIV prevention over a decade ago with Story Story, a radio drama about a fictional Nigerian market that’s still on air today.

From the ‘Afghan Archers’ to our Syrian soap opera, we use drama to encourage people to hold their leaders to account, question why women face restrictions, and foster a sense of shared identity – among much else. We’ve consistently found that good scripts are key to keeping audiences tuning in, as well as delivering a message without preaching.

Of course, we’re not the only ones in this space. Commissioned for eight series, Love Patrol was the first TV series ever produced in Vanuatu. It tackled a range of issues from unemployment to government corruption to HIV/AIDS.

MTV has brought its brand to Shuga, a series that aims to improve the sexual and reproductive health of young people. The success of MTV Shuga shows that public health messaging and popularity aren't mutually exclusive.

And Shuga certainly seem to be doing something right. Forty-two African countries have signed up to broadcast the latest season and it’s been the number one drama on South Africa’s biggest TV channel, SABC1, proving it can compete with commercial big-hitters.

What have evaluations proven about the value of drama?

But well-produced and fact-driven stories aside, what do edutainment programmes actually deliver in terms of measureable outcomes?

Our first-ever randomised control trial (RCT) can offer some answers. The trial was conducted in Bangladesh and assessed whether watching our health drama and companion discussion show influenced people. We found that women who watched the drama knew more about antenatal and early newborn care. They also were more likely to believe they could make healthier choices.

Victor Orozco, a World Bank economist deeply involved with a multi-partner evaluation of MTV Shuga, has come to praise edutainment as one of the most cost-effective ways of getting people to do things differently. Conducted in Nigeria with 5,000 young people, the evaluation found that those who had watched the show in community screenings were twice as likely to go for an HIV test half a year later. Viewers were 35% less likely to think that HIV is a punishment for having multiple partners. Among women, chlamydia infections dropped by 58%.

However, the study also highlighted that viewers felt sympathy for a character who committed domestic violence. This finding demonstrates the importance of media development organisations systematically checking audience responses to their programmes.

What’s the wider significance of these results?

Rigorous evaluation is key to building the evidence base around the role of drama in development and deciding what to scale up.

I recently attended a workshop in Lagos organised by the World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation unit (DIME), which brought together government officials, academics, NGOs and the media to plan RCTs to test the effectiveness of health initiatives. Two of the five concept notes included a media component, showing growing recognition that the effectiveness of communication should be assessed.

Demonstrating the kind of impact media can have, actors from our Story Story show played out a scene about buying condoms from a local store. Hilarity ensued as the characters struggled to say the word ‘condom’ and resorted to using a range of pseudonyms instead, which the shop owner didn’t understand.

This scene sparked a lively debate. Although the people attending the conference were from different backgrounds, nearly everyone could relate what they’d seen to their own personal experiences of nervously buying condoms in public. It’s a case in point about how stories can spark meaningful discussion of real-life issues, which might otherwise be difficult to bring up in conversation.

A lot is still unknown about the exact role of edutainment in development. How effective are public service announcements at engaging people versus street theatre? What’s the most potent combination of media interventions to improve health or boost people’s engagement with politics? The jury is still out on these questions but one thing is for sure, the big hitters of the development world are increasingly committed to finding out the answers.

Sonia Whitehead is ��̳ Media Action's Head of Research Programmes, overseeing research across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Correction 27 July 2017: This blog originally noted that MTV Shuga viewers were 43% more likely to think that HIV is a punishment for having multiple partners. This has been corrected to say that they are 35% less likely.

Blog: A dramatic end to violence against women?

Blog: Human stories inspire positive change

The art of designing surveys about social norms: insights from Ethiopia

2017-05-17T14:16:48+00:00

How we view our role and relationships within our communities shapes how we behave – with important consequences for development. When widespread, these views constitute ‘social norms’, which people tend to follow because they believe that others do and because they think it’s expected of them. Media Action’s programmes aim to challenge social norms that can lead to people risking their health and reinforce those that support people to make healthier choices.

Donors increasingly want proof that we’re changing norms at scale. But it’s not easy either to define social norms or to identify exactly how media influences desired outcomes, such as children getting vaccinated or mothers going to antenatal check-ups.

These are some of the challenges we face as Media Action’s research team. How do we design research to measure social norms and track whether they’re changing? We came up against this question when evaluating whether our maternal health radio shows had changed social norms in Ethiopia.

We set out to understand whether our programmes had convinced families to prepare for a birth by, for example, saving money and planning how to travel to the hospital. In Ethiopia, preparing for a baby’s arrival typically means planning the important post-birth thanksgiving ceremonies. Women are judged negatively if they don’t put on a good spread but the costs of hosting this celebration mean that there’s less money to get a woman to a facility when the time comes.

We primarily used qualitative methods to understand social norms but we also undertook large-scale surveys to understand how we were shaping social norms at a population level.

To highlight challenges around researching social norms with surveys – and how they might be overcome – here are five common responses heard in the field in Ethiopia:

1. ‘How would I know what other people think?’

Though intuitive in English, it’s not always obvious in other languages that asking someone ‘what would your neighbour think?’ really means ‘what do you think your neighbour would think?’. Respondents sometimes take the question very literally and reply that they ‘didn’t know the minds of other people’.

Cognitive interviewing, where interviewees reflect on what they understand by a question, and careful piloting of questions can reveal when something isn’t interpreted as intended. To get the wording of a question right, it’s essential to take the time to test and refine translations into local languages and carefully train field interviewers.

2. ‘Which people?’

When asked about ‘other people in the community’, interviewees often weren’t sure who they were meant to be thinking about. We consequently explained what we meant to respondents, to help them move from an amorphous sense of ‘other people’ to something more meaningful. For example: ‘If you think of five women you know, how many of them would start going for check-ups in the first three months of pregnancy?’

3. ‘It’s none of my business!’

Our team found people in Amhara (a region in northern Ethiopia where the research took place) to be quite reserved. It’s an area where it seemed to be impolite to speculate on the lives of others, not least to an outsider with a clipboard.

Surveying was as much an art as a science, with interviewer rapport proving to be as important as good survey design.

When it comes to rapport the ordering of questions is important. First of all, you can turn people off a survey by leading with potentially sensitive questions. How willing would you be to tell someone what you earn or weigh when you just met them?

Second, it’s easier to get good answers to tricky questions (like those around social norms) if they’re asked some way into the survey after rapport has been built. But these questions can’t be left too late. People often find talking about things like community dynamics tiring, so you have to broach these topics while people still have enough energy to discuss them.

Finally, it’s important to brief interviewers well so they’re confident of the research aims. They’ll also be better at reassuring participants they’re not trying to probe into their private lives, but rather uncover the practices and perceptions of their community as a whole.

4. ’I don’t know’

Respondents are often stumped by questions – particularly by those that ask to what extent they agree with a given statement. However, presenting them with a range of simple and concrete options can help elicit answers.

For example, to determine whether respondents believe their community sees something as appropriate or expected, we presented them with options such as: ‘they would think it’s OK’, ‘they would think it’s not OK’ and ‘they wouldn’t care’.

To determine what respondents think people in the community are actually doing, we presented them with choices like ‘none or a few do it’ and ‘almost all do it’.

We found that listing these options helped increase understanding and made the surveys less demanding of participants, resulting in fewer ‘don’t knows’.

5. ‘Let me tell you what happened to me during my last pregnancy…’

When a respondent has to choose from a limited number of options, there’s no way of recording the rich detail someone might provide through sharing their experiences in a more narrative form. Within the context of a survey, personal stories become conundrums (how do I classify this?) rather than goldmines of information. This tension demonstrates why qualitative research remains invaluable.

Illustrating this, we recently used a personal narrative approach to allow mothers to tell us the journey of their pregnancy. Asking questions like ‘Would you say that your story of pregnancy is the same as most of the mothers in your community?’ helped us understand whether or not interviewees were conforming to norms.

We’re continually exploring ways to improve our surveys to pinpoint what social norms are and how they’re changing, always with the aim of truly reflecting people’s perceptions and helping them improve their health.

Hilina Assefa is a Senior Research Officer with ��̳ Media Action’s Ethiopia team; Lois Aspinall is a Research Manager with the UK office.

Blog: Design thinking and health communication: learning from failure

Blog: Health communication changes lives by reaching millions

Five questions our data portal can help answer

2017-04-04T06:00:00+00:00

There's a lack of data on what ordinary people think, feel and want in developing countries. Our new Data Portal aims to help fix that. Sonia Whitehead runs through five questions the portal can help answer on governance, media and resilience.

The development world is all aflutter about data. There’s much talk of a data revolution, the sector’s hiring data scientists and the World Bank just launched a new podcast to ‘data crunch the world’.

Not to dampen all this excitement but we need a lot more data about people in the Global South before it can become a transformative force there. Addressing this lack of data will speed up progress on everything from gender to alleviating poverty.

Enter our new Data Portal (view on desktop), which brings together data, reports and visualisations from surveys conducted in 13 developing countries that there aren't a lot of statistics about. Over five years, we asked more than 75,000 (rarely polled) people about what they think, feel and want. The portal covers a range of issues from what they’re most worried about to how interested they are in politics.

We want these insights to help development leaders, practitioners and researchers better understand ordinary people in the developing world so they can produce more effective strategies, projects and communications.

To mark the launch of the portal, we run through five questions that it can help answer on governance, media and resilience, while also showcasing the different types of content available on the portal.

1. What sources of information do people trust?

Being a media organisation, we wanted to know whether people believe what they hear on the airwaves, see on TV and read online. We found that trust levels in radio are universally high, at over 80% in Kenya, Nigeria and Myanmar, and reaching 90% in Nepal.

However, people are more circumspect about the truthfulness of the internet, with the Burmese especially sceptical, which is concerning given that half of Myanmar's internet users say they go online in order to read the news.

To illustrate these (and other) insights into what media people think of different sources of information, we produced a series of visualisations – some of the ones for Kenya are previewed below (media visual available here, governance one here):

2. How free do people feel to speak their minds?

We asked people in three Asian countries (Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal), four African countries (Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania) and the Palestinian territories whether they could 'say what they think'. A majority felt at least somewhat free to speak their minds in all but one of the countries: Myanmar.

But across the eight countries in our governance data set, we found that many people don’t feel they can criticise those in charge. Around a third of Kenyans, Sierra Leoneans, Bangladeshis and Palestinians ‘feel people like them are free to talk negatively about the government in public’; in Tanzania and Myanmar this drops to under one in four.

Nepal is the only place we looked at where a majority (65%) feel at least somewhat able to criticise those in charge. Nigerians are the next most comfortable with openly complaining about their leaders, a little over 40% say they could – though only half that number felt very liberated to do so.

3. Who are the keenest voters?

In six countries, we also asked whether people had voted in the last general election: Bangladesh, Myanmar, Palestine, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Nigeria.

Sierra Leone came out top, with 90% reporting having voted in the last general election, closely followed by Myanmar at 87% and Tanzania at 86%. (A quick note – we conducted our Burmese survey in 2016, after the victory of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy in 2015.)

Turnout was lowest in Bangladesh and the Palestinian territories, where 42% and 45% respectively said they’d cast a ballot in the last national election.

Of course, people don’t just get involved with public life through voting. Meetings, protests, and various forms of communication are all types of political participation. The Sierra Leone visualisation previewed below shows that while only a small proportion of people have been in touch with government officials, nearly two thirds have teamed up with others in their community to solve a problem.

4. How do people feel about those who are different to them?

Historically, Kenya has been the site of ethnicity-based politics and violence. Yet even against this background, well over 80% of Kenyans want to live with people from other ethnic groups and think it's important to know about different cultures and what life is like for those who are different to them (see below).

In a country with over 100 ethnic groups, 97% of people in Myanmar believe that peace relies on mutual respect between people from different ethnic, religious and social groups. Similarly in Nigeria – which has wrestled with religious divides – nine tenths of the population believe that people from different backgrounds have ‘more in common than they think’.

However, a large majority of both Nigerians and Burmese feel that some differences between groups are ‘just too difficult to overcome’.

5. How are people adapting to environmental change?

Building on our Climate Asia project – which examined 33,500 people’s everyday experiences of climate change – we’ve more recently asked Tanzanians and Bangladeshis about how they’re coping with changes to the world around them.

In the drought-ridden areas of Dodoma and Morogoro in Tanzania, more people think agricultural productivity has decreased than increased over the past ten years. They are split as to whether rainfall is higher or lower than it was a decade ago.

Getting their information predominantly from the radio, Tanzanians are making some – though not a lot – of changes in light of the environmental challenges they face. Popular responses include keeping food for longer and finding new water supplies.

In Bangladesh, rainfall, temperatures and extreme weather are all commonly seen to have increased in the past decade. TV is the country's go-to medium for getting information about water, food, energy and extreme weather, considerably more so than the radio, newspaper, friends and family.

Around a third of the population have changed how they live in response to environmental changes; swapping jobs is the most common way of shaking things up.

In addition to all of the data, the portal also hosts a number of other resources:

For extra guidance on navigating the portal, take a look at our ‘How-to’ section, as well as our ‘walkthrough’ and ‘running a query’ videos.

Those interested in how we collected the data should refer to the methodologies and questionnaires available on the right-hand sidebar of each of the thematic pages (media, governance, resilience).

The portal is also home to reports which summarise and analyse data available on the portal. For example, we've produced a report exploring how to better connect with the least politically engaged Kenyans. This is just a flavour of what’s to come, similar reports analysing our governance data in other countries will follow in the coming months.

On each thematic page, there are reports and tools to support practitioners to use media for development. For example, we’ve featured the communication toolkit from our Climate Asia project, which includes a guide on how to talk about climate change in an accessible and engaging way, as well as a set of cards (with instructions) for co-creating a communication strategy with partners and your target audience.

Sonia Whitehead is ��̳ Media Action's Head of Research Programmes, overseeing research across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Using storytelling to make statistics accessible

2017-02-06T09:00:00+00:00

Bangladesh-based researcher Mahmuda Hoque explains how her team created a story about “Maya”, a 19-year-old mother, to help bring their findings about antenatal preparations to life.

Researchers often uncover insights with real practical relevance but then struggle to communicate their findings compellingly to those who can make use of them.

I came up against this predicament myself when my team here in Bangladesh surveyed 3,000 mothers, 2,000 fathers and 2,000 mothers-in-law as part of a study about maternal, newborn and child health. One of the aims of our study was to explore which factors helped pregnant women prepare sufficiently – and feel sufficiently prepared – for the birth of their child. The findings would go on to inform the production of a health drama.

We found that knowing what precautionary steps to take ahead of giving birth was the most important factor. The next most significant factor was discussing the issues with family and friends, followed by living in a society where it was common for families to prepare for birth, having a positive attitude and believing in one’s ability to take action.

We wanted to share our results with the project and production team as it was important for them to understand the driving forces behind birth preparedness and their relative importance. But we were worried that they wouldn’t really engage with what we’d discovered.

Bringing numbers to life

You see, we’d reached our findings using structural equation modelling (SEM), which encompasses a series of statistical methods. SEM involves creating a model of how you think factors, such as knowledge and social norms, influence behaviour and then testing it with real-life data. The SEM model is rather off-putting to a layperson due to its complexity, associated jargon (regression analysis, factor analysis, simultaneous equation modeling) and all of the lines and numbers needed to draw it out. Take a look:

Not easy for a non-statistician to understand…

We spent hours and hours puzzling over how to tell our non-statistician colleagues about the results in a way that would resonate with them. Finally, we realised that the best way of communicating our findings to our project and production team trying to create a dramatic story was to tell them a story!

To write this story of birth preparedness, we drew not only on our model but also on our existing in-depth qualitative research, to help develop our characters and set the scene.

Telling Maya’s story

"Maya", our protagonist, represents the ideal expectant mother ahead of a home birth. She’s knowledgeable about how to prepare for the arrival of her baby, confident that she can act accordingly and knows that her social circle will support her decisions. But she also knows other women who aren't as prepared because of the obstacles they face.

An abridged version of Maya’s story is narrated below, along with notes (in italics) on the findings underpinning each part of the storyline.

As is the case with many women in Bangladesh, Maya married young and moved to live with her husband and his family in their village.

We told the story of how – after moving to her husband’s village – Maya developed good relationships with her neighbours. She's able to move around the village freely and this helps her feel more confident and positive about her ability to prepare for the birth of her baby.

Finding: When women have agency, they can move around more freely, which makes them more positive that they'll be ready for the arrival of a baby, which in turn makes them more likely to actually be prepared.

But Maya also found that there were some married women who were not allowed to go outside or talk to non-family members without their husband’s or in-laws’ permission.

Gradually, Maya discovered that it was the norm in her husband’s village for pregnant women’s families – rich and poor alike – to prepare for delivery day by saving money, pre-arranging transport and collecting emergency contact numbers.

This contrasted with the practice in the village where she was born and brought up, where preparing for a birth was bad luck. Yet Maya seized on the knowledge that preparation at an early stage could save a pregnant woman’s life in case of difficulties.

Finding: knowledge is the key factor in determining whether mothers are prepared but how they prepare is also influenced by what they think everyone else is doing – social norms are important.

Good relationships with her husband and in-laws ensured Maya was confident to involve them in her planning. Her mother-in-law initially thought getting ready in the first trimester was too early but Maya managed to win her round by discussing what could go wrong if they delayed.

Finding: talking about getting ready for a baby arriving with friends and family is the second most important factor in determining whether mothers are prepared.

However, many women have no hope of having such discussions due to shyness, a lack of awareness or belief in their ability to take action.

Fortunately, Maya has a safe delivery at home, having done all the necessary preparation.

Finding: Being knowledgeable about birth preparation, able to discuss it, living among others taking similar precautions and feeling confident about taking action are the most important factors in determining whether a mother is ready for giving birth.

How was our story received?

Our non-statistician colleagues really appreciated having the findings presented through one woman’s life journey and recognised the factors behind birth preparedness from their own experiences. Production colleagues said that the presentation helped them plot out a storyline. It really helped them to portray the role of ‘discussion’; conversations got more screentime in the drama and took place between families at home and out in the community, rather than just between health workers and pregnant women.

It’s true that statisticians speak a very different language from most people. But the findings of their work are ultimately not so removed from people’s everyday experiences as they might first appear. Storytelling is one effective way of helping people see that.

Blog:Inside a randomised control trial: insights from Bangladesh

Blog: Can mass media cause change? A randomised control trial finds out

Dispatch from the UN World Data Forum

2017-01-19T11:57:21+00:00

Head of Research Programmes Sonia Whitehead shares her three top takeaways from the first-ever UN World Data Forum.

This week, 2,000 statisticians, researchers and policymakers from across the world gathered in Cape Town for the first-ever UN World Data Forum. Focused on data’s role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the conference looked at how the sector can better understand the poorest 20% (P20) of the global population. Delegates puzzled over how to better understand and engage these people in order to uphold the commitment to ‘leave no one behind’, which underpins the SDGs.

To do this, the discussions centred on the need for well-communicated, high quality data. The collective view was that – at a minimum – national statistics bureaus should be producing data that breaks down statistics by gender, geography, age and disability. But what more needs to be done to improve our understanding of the P20 to inform policy decisions?

There is an abundance of data being collected today by companies seeking to map consumer preferences. The rise in social media usage is also helping improve our understanding of people, supplementing traditional sources of data. But does this data support development? And how can we improve the communication of data to ensure that everyone engages with and understands it?

Along these themes, there were three points discussed at this conference that gave me particular food for thought.

1) Data guardians are changing

Anne Jellema (World Wide Web Foundation) talked about how new players are collecting and understanding the kind of data that used to be monopolised by the state. National statistics bureaus have traditionally collected data from censuses and held administrative data on healthcare, education and employment – among much else. Governments have long been held accountable for how they use this data.

Technology, however, has shifted this state of affairs. Skype, Google Maps and Uber collect colossal amounts of user data, which doesn’t belong to the public and which their parent companies aren’t as accountable for as governments are.

This growing abundance of data could lead to a situation where data is increasingly in the hands of the few, seeking to utilise it for commercial rather than civic aims. Jellema raised this as a challenge that the data revolution needs to address in order to improve transparency, accountability and the accessibility of data.

Fortunately, we are already seeing how the proliferation of data can also empower citizens. In China, for example, the Bluesky Map App allows users to check the government’s real-time pollution data on factories near them, equipping them with the targeted information they need to push for better environmental practices locally. More than 1,800 factories are said to have taken steps to reduce pollution due to public pressure facilitated by the app, which enables users to tag violations of pollution standards on social media.

2) It's possible to collect data on people’s views – without asking one question

Collecting data on people’s views and perceptions has long been the preserve of researchers posing questions to respondents sampled in a systematic way. But there are now newer, faster ways of understanding views at scale, which don’t require a survey.

At the time of the Zika outbreak, Facebook and UNICEF teamed up to analyse social media content to inform the development of a digital campaign for Brazilians. Around 100 million people in the country use Facebook and Zika was a popular topic of discussion there. Anonymised Facebook posts were analysed to reveal that 58% of posts on Zika were by men.

Equipped with these insights, UNICEF went on to produce ads featuring a man kissing his daughter born with microcephaly, in a concerted effort to engage men around its Zika campaign. The analysis also showed that people didn’t want to just hear about Zika but also wanted to know find out more about other mosquito-borne diseases.

This example highlights that in an emergency where a high proportion of the population use a particular social media platform, content analysis of posts is a good way of providing audience insights quickly. ��̳ Media Action also used Facebook to run short online surveys in Nepal to inform post-earthquake broadcasts, but the Zika example shows that data on what people are concerned about can be collected without posing a single question.

3) People don’t know Global Development 101

Has the proportion of the world’s population living in extreme poverty changed over the last twenty years? Presented with the options of ‘almost doubled’, ‘remained more or less the same’ and ‘almost halved’, only 5% of Americans select the final of the three, which is in fact the correct one.

This pessimism about the true state of global development is not limited to the US; only 14% of South Africans and 23% of Swedes got the right answer. Similar questions were posed to conference delegates by Ola Rosling (Gapminder Foundation). And we were similarly downbeat about how many children are vaccinated against measles and how many years women have spent in the formal education sector. Even a bunch of statisticians fully versed in development didn’t get the answers right.

Through its Ignorance Project, Gapminder seeks to tackle these and other misconceptions about international development. The project is driven by a concern that the ‘actual facts’ about global progress aren’t getting through the clutter of people’s preconceptions, their tendency to generalise based their own experiences and the (likely outdated) facts they vaguely remembered having learned once in school.

Data clearly needs to be conveyed in a more engaging way so that people around the world can know the facts about topics ranging from global health to migration.

These were just some of my top takeaways; the conference also stressed the importance of breathing life into statistics with a narrative, improving everyone’s data literacy so they can engage with statistics better and giving greater weight to qualitative data about people's perceptions and values. I look forward to the next one in Dubai in two years' time!

Sonia Whitehead is ��̳ Media Action's Head of Research Programmes, overseeing research across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.