This edition of Wumen Bagung explores four key themes, each focused on how communication outcomes are influenced by the role of the community, and whether it is passive or active participant. The first theme brings together analyses from across Asia of different ways of communicating to local communities starting with a review of how water, hygiene and sanitation services are communicated in Cambodia, fresh approaches to communication underway in Myanmar by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the use of cable television in local Philippine communities.

The second theme – which details outside approaches to communication for development (C4D) – opens with Robert Boughen’s challenge for us to rethink Chinese media development investments, not from a neoliberal development perspective, rather through acknowledging that Chinese media assistance in Africa ‘has an active function in a cohesive model of the ‘development economy’. Edwar Hanna and Jackie Davies of C4D Network consider the effects of urbanisation on communication for development, while Sina Øversveen critically examines the Freedom of the Press Index.

The third theme focuses on the lessons to be learned from local communities by directly involving them in C4D. In ‘The Space Between’, Donna Griffin takes us on a journey of learning the Aboriginal way of understanding the world, while Winifredo Dagli reviews the learning development training offered by the University of Philippines Los Banos. Kylie Smith and Melissa Fan close this theme with an examination of C4D in the age of feminism.

The final theme provides examples of the community as leaders in communication and looks at how video is actively being used to interrogate local development challenges in India, followed by an analysis of public art as a critical tool in democratic communication.

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