Development communication

Development communication refers to the use of communication to facilitate social development. Development communication engages stakeholders and policy makers, establishes conducive environments, assesses risks and opportunities and promotes information exchanges to bring about positive social change via sustainable development. Development communication techniques include information dissemination and education, behavior change, social marketing, social mobilization, media advocacy, communication for social change and community participation.

Development communication has been labeled the "Fifth Theory of the Press," with "social transformation and development," and "the fulfillment of basic needs" as its primary purposes. Jamias articulated the philosophy of development communication which is anchored on three main ideas, namely: purposive, value-laden and pragmatic.Nora C. Quebral expanded the definition, calling it "the art and science of human communication applied to the speedy transformation of a country and the mass of its people from poverty to a dynamic state of economic growth that makes possible greater social equality and the larger fulfilment of the human potential." Melcote and Steeves saw it as "emancipation communication", aimed at combating injustice and oppression. The term "development communication" is sometimes used to refer to a type of marketing and public opinion research, but that is not the topic of this article.

Nora Cruz-Quebral, Ph.D., in the lecture she delivered for an Honorary Doctorate at the London School of Economics, University of London in December 2011, clearly accounted that development communication was first articulated on December 10, 1971 at the University of the Philippines in Los Banos (UPLB). At that time, the UPLB College of Agriculture held a symposium (in honor of Dr. Dioscoro L. Umali, a national scientist in the area of plant breeding) titled, "In Search of Breakthroughs in Agricultural Development"

A recent and more encompassing definition of development communication states that it is:

...the art and science of human communication linked to a society's planned transformation from a state of poverty to one dynamic socio-economic growth that makes for greater equality and the larger unfolding of individual potentials.

Erskine Childers defined it as:

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