Not only do stories connect us to the past and express universal beliefs, they can also help us develop a better understanding of the world and those we share it with. This is part of the reason why your brain loves stories. With around a hundred billion neurons and almost a quadrillion connections between the neurons your brain is an extraordinarily complex organism – so complex, in fact, it borders on the wondrous. Yet it is still a pattern-seeking instrument that looks to put the chaos of the world into some kind of recognisable order. Stories represent our most powerful and meaningful way of doing just that.
Click here to read the full article by Micheál Heffernan.
y unearthing the connections between the literatures on participatory communication and civic engagement with the reality of postconflict peace, this article demonstrates how a communication for development (C4D) approach to engaging citizens in peacebuilding contributes to strengthening the reconstruction process at the end of the violence, while engendering a bottom up process based on dialogue and inclusivity. After offering a brief overview of the peacebuilding contexts, this article presents a theoretical discussion that brings to the surface not only the role of C4D in facilitating citizens participation in government decision making, but also its significance in creating an inclusive peacebuilding process that starts from the community. At the same time, this discussion begins to shed light on the relationship between communication for development and participatory governance.