Communication For Social change!

Activity no. 4

http://www.sisgigroup.org/Institute_for_Social_Change.html

When we say social change, it refers to a variation in the social order of a society. Changes happen in the ways of living of human beings and our social relations get influenced by this. Changes are everywhere because all societies are in a constant state of instability. Each society, despite of being old-fashioned and traditional, is constantly undergoing change because “CHANGE” is an unavoidable and consistent law of nature. That is the reason why social change becomes a necessity; it is the revolution of culture and social organizations over time and it is an “ongoing process”. These changes cannot be stopped, Society is subject to continuous change, and it cannot be preserved in a museum to save it from the ravages of time.

The term social change is used to describe differences in social interactions, processes and social organizations. In explaining the concept of social change, they came up with some expressions like evolution, growth, progress, development, revolution, adaptation etc. discarding one in preference to the other.

In analyzing this, we find that social change needs “communication”. The role of communication in social change is to consider the importance of growth in the society. It plays a basic role in the existence and development of the society. As the time progressed, more developments were made in the field of communication which helped humans to better understand the fellow human beings.

Communications is used for sustainable social change and development. With the use of communication, we are able to improve inefficient systems, processes, or modes of production. We are also helping people to acquire knowledge and skills that they can use to improve their personal, social and economic status. Questions need to be raised so that, we can combine our ideas to achieve community goal.

Last semester with Mrs. Tagle, we learned about the Millennium development goals, it is for the improvement of living conditions in developing countries so that people will not move to other places that offer a better lifestyle. With this MDG’s people will be facing social change through communication. I believe that communication is the most essential tool in reaching Millennium development goals. With the use of media’s we can supply the public with information and communication that eventually will contribute to capability growth of poor men and women, to become principal actors in their own development, to get wider choices in their priority areas of concern, to increase their power as well as their material resources to make a better living. Every individual expresses its thoughts and carries out its affairs through the medium of communication. It could improve unproductive ways of living because sharing ideas and receiving information can create social changes.

Communication is also a transaction because anything that occurs between 2 or more people is a transaction, whether these are ideas, opinions, etc. The process of transaction is facilitated by feedback. It is helpful information or criticism that is given to someone to say what can be done to improve something. Communities should be the agents of their own change. Communication for social change can be defined as a process of public and private dialogue through which people themselves define who they are, what they need and how to get what they need in order to improve their own lives.

There are a lot of examples of social change; one of the good examples, People has fewer children as society industrialized because role of family changes and technological advancements allow control of reproduction.

With the use of communication people are now aware that they have to control the population because of what they have seen, heard and read. Before couples don’t mind having a lot of children but now they are aware that it is difficult to sustain the needs of many children. We have known a lot of disadvantages of having over-population and I think that is one of the good examples of Communication for social change. The process of changing the way couples think gave an Idea on how to live a better life, and the most important instrument here is Communication.

Social change has many causes. It happens everywhere, but the rate of change varies from place to place; that social change is sometimes intentional but often unplanned; that social change may generate controversy; that some changes matter more than others do. I got major factors that highlight the causes of social change. Number one is culture, within a society; processes leading to change include invention and culture loss. Culture loss is an inevitable result of old cultural patterns being replaced by new ones. New ideas and modification of old ideas in a new perspective bring wide-scale changes in society. Demographic change is caused by an increase in birth and decline in death and migration of populations also leads to social change. It’s also caused by tension and conflict. Structural strain, deprivation, cultural revitalization has been the major causes of conflict. They also generate new identities and a new perspective. These characters that involve in social change use COMMUNICATION as the most important tool in improving way of lives.

References:
Figueroa, M., Kincaid, D., Rani, M., & Lewis, G. (2002, January 1). Communication for Social Change Working Paper Series. Retrieved from http://www.communicationforsocialchange.org/pdf/socialchange.pdf
What is Social Change? (n.d.). Retrieved March 17, 2015, from http://animatingdemocracy.org/place-start/what-social-change
Social Development: 5 Main Causes of Social Change. (2013, October 15). Retrieved March 17, 2015, from http://www.sociologydiscussion.com/society/social-development-5-main-causes-of-social-change/963