The Power of Locally Driven Narratives to Support and Sustain Climate Action

Abstract

This chapter will explore the value of entertainment-education applications that center narratives that originate from the local context. The discussion will examine how centering narratives informed by local points of view have the potential to create the conditions for climate solutions to be optimally contextualized in the socio-cultural context of intended audiences. This optimal contextualization can lead to deeper engagement with the entertainment-education application and greater impact. The chapter will illustrate these concepts through two examples, the Sustainable and Thriving Environments for West Africa Regional Development (STEWARD) Program administered by the US Forest Service—International Programs Department, West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC) Program funded by and administered by USAID. Using these examples, the chapter will demonstrate how PCI Media’s My Community methodology allows local actors to authentically engage in a participatory approach to the narrative development process as part of an entertainment-education program.

Thunder rolls through the air and heavy rains fall from the sky, flooding the earthen streets of a small town in Sierra Leone. A mother cries out for her small child that has been washed away in the swift, rushing waters now running through the streets. A fisherwoman’s boats are swept out to sea and a local farmer reacts violently to losing his crops in the flood. The local chief struggles with how best to respond to the loss of life, property, and normalcy his villagers are experiencing. While they had heard about climate change before, they thought it was a foreign idea that described what naturally occurs. No one expected the rainy season to be this severe and the villagers had failed to prepare for more dangerous storms along their beloved coast. Now, in the midst of the tragedy, they wonder what the future holds and if they can rebuild together.

The scene above, from Watasay Ston (Unmovable Rock), is a pivotal moment in the journey of characters in an entertainment-education (EE) drama produced by PCI Media for coastal communities in West Africa. This drama invited audiences to reconsider the story they believed about climate change and its effect on their lives. Is climate change inevitable and natural—something that is destined by God? Or is climate change something that can be understood and mitigated? The answer to this essential question will make all the difference.

The narratives humans believe about their relationship to the natural world shape the behavior that will, ultimately avert or fail to solve the worst effects of the climate crisis on human civilization as we know it. Because familiar and internalized narratives are such critical drivers of behavior, entertainment-education can be a powerful vehicle by which people can interrogate longhand beliefs, and ways of living and also gain exposure to new ways of relating to the natural world and what stewardship looks like in the face of a growing threat to life on our planet.

PCI Media and Entertainment-Education

For over three decades, PCI Media has been a leader in impact communications—producing entertainment-education shows for radio and television to inspire audiences to act for a more healthy, just, and sustainable world. PCI Media’s productions are designed to engage and entertain audiences while sharing critical knowledge and providing character-based role models for new behaviors and social norms in order to address problems in the real world. PCI Media’s approach has evolved over the years along with changes the larger field of EE has experienced. Initially, an approach that centered the perspectives and expertise of those traditionally considered creators to an established field of scholarship and praxis in social and behavioral change communication (Wang & Singhal, 2021).

While entertainment-education can be a useful tool in reframing the climate challenge for wide audiences and reshaping behavior, we cannot overlook what the fields of conservation and development have learned about the value of local knowledge, local narratives, and local ownership to support the adoption and sustain effective resource management (Bixler, 2013).

At the heart of PCI Media’s EE methodologies is authentic participation. Our local partners and counterparts are, in a very real sense, responsible for the program. In a typical program, a host of local organizations from several sectors gain new skills to plan, implement, and evaluate various C4D, social marketing, and entertainment-education communications program elements.

Typically, our programs comprise:

• EE serial drama, which hooks audiences through compelling dramatic conflict, leveraging parasocial modeling influences and providing role modeling for desirable and undesirable behaviors.

• Call-in shows, which contextualize issues deeply within local cultures, provide access to experts and information about access to local resources, and deepen the conversation across a community, encouraging interpersonal communication (which has been shown to be a direct precursor to behavior change).

• Social mobilization and social marketing campaigns, which distill messaging, move audiences, and catalyze change on the ground, often involving civil society sectors.

Since 2010, PCI Media has been using our signature “My Community” methodology to produce entertainment-education programming (Fig. 1). This approach centers on local and locally driven narratives while aiming to deepen the communications capacity of local partners.

Fig. 1

PCI Media’s “My Community” methodology

PCI Media leverages a five-phase approach:

• 1. Coalition Building and Formative Research

• 2. Training and Program Design

• 3. Mentoring and Production

• 4. Broadcast and Community Mobilization

• 5. Monitoring and Evaluation

Phase 1: Coalition Building and Formative Research

This phase is critical for the identification and engagement of local partners that will support the EE initiative as well as developing an evidence-based foundation for effective program design and distribution, harnessing input and buy-in from a wide spectrum of stakeholders and articulating the program’s quantitative and qualitative objectives.

Phase 2: Training and Program Design

The design phase yields consensus on messaging, knowledge, attitude and behavior change objectives, target audiences, and campaign approaches. We bring together coalition partners and other relevant stakeholders to develop a research-based communications strategy. Through a participatory workshop, we analyze formative research data, provide training in communications for social change and entertainment-education processes, refine the communications strategy and planning documents, and develop tools for effective community engagement and mobilization.

Phase 3: Mentoring and Production

PCI Media closely mentors coalition partners, supporting the creative development and production of media materials, incorporating careful technical review for successful messaging, conceptual pretesting, and constant reviews to ensure the strategy remains focused on the knowledge, attitude, and behavior change objectives.

Phase 4: Broadcast and Community Mobilization

PCI Media provides continued support during the broadcast and implementation of impact communications and EE programs. This support typically includes training, designing, and producing interactive radio and television talk shows as well as on-the-ground mobilization campaigns that involve people in the desired behaviors. The community engagement, dialogue, and social learning structures are key to PCI Media’s approach. From 2012 to 2020, PCI Media produced a collection of locally driven entertainment-education dramas using the “My Community” methodology in West Africa to address various conservation issues, from forest management to coastal resilience to species conservation.

Phase 5: Monitoring and Evaluation

Monitoring and Evaluation is an ongoing process for each program. We use a variety of methods to monitor and evaluate our programs, including measuring changes in social norms and interpersonal communication, and audience behaviors.

This chapter will explore the value of entertainment-education applications for climate action in West Africa that center narratives originating from the local context. The discussion will examine how centering narratives informed by local points of view can create the conditions for climate solutions to be optimally contextualized in the socio-cultural context of intended audiences. The chapter will illustrate these concepts through two examples, the Sustainable and Thriving Environments for West Africa Regional Development (STEWARD) Program administered by the US Forest Service—International Programs Department West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC) Program funded and administered by USAID. Using these examples, the chapter will demonstrate how PCI Media’s My Community methodology allows local actors to authentically engage in a participatory approach to the narrative development process as part of an entertainment-education program.

Sustainable and Thriving Environments for West Africa Regional Development (STEWARD) Program

PCI Media served as a Communications partner to the US Forest Service—International Programs Department for the implementation of the Sustainable and Thriving Environments for West Africa Regional Development (STEWARD) Program. PCI Media produced radio dramas in four languages; Krio (the primary language of Sierra Leone), French, Sousou (a local Guinean language), and Liberian Simple English. The name of the drama, Gbengbeh Soyama in Krio and Yete Kane in Sousou translates to “Putting Pepper into One’s Own Eyes.” The story is set in a forest community and follows the saga of characters who must overcome the challenges of unsustainable forest practices and unhygienic living conditions to improve their health and future livelihoods. Each 52-episode series was complemented by radio call-in shows and discussions, led by radio show hosts throughout the region. Listeners were encouraged to call in to ask questions and share their opinions.

In 2015, PCI Media led Policy Dialogues in West Africa through our STEWARD program—in partnership with US Forest Service and USAID—to create an important space for discussion and consensus among groups from different regions such as Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia. These dialogues contributed to framing positive changes in ways that facilitated new policies and practices adopted by the Mano River Union (MRU), a group of four West African countries that share similar cultures, transborder forests, and economic and security interests. Natural Resource Management is now a priority for MRU.

In addition, these dialogues also offered insights into locally relevant ways of thinking about conservation issues and solutions. These insights were integrated into the entertainment-education work PCI Media produced in the priority zones (Fig. 2), such as Otamba Kilime National Park, Tambaka Chiefdom, Sierra Leone, which is transboundary to the Medina-Oula Forest in Kindia, Guinea, and Mount Nimba Forest, Guinea which is transboundary to the East Nimba Nature Reserve, Liberia.

Fig. 2

STEWARD program map showing radio station location for all priority zones

Ultimately, the space for discussion, dissension, and consensus building, followed by seeing the valuable perspectives of local voices direct the narrative intervention, created the conditions for ownership of new narratives for climate action by local leaders and community members essential for changes in behaviors and practices. This local ownership was invaluable as PCI Media began its next entertainment-education program in West Africa.

After the successful completion of the STEWARD, in 2016, PCI Media joined the West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC) consortium as the communication partner. The aims of this regional, multi-year initiative were to increase coastal resilience, combat wildlife trafficking, and improve sustainable management of forests in 15 countries over the course of 5 years.

The EE applications for WA BICC included a set of short first-person narrative videos and two radio dramas, Watasay Ston (Unmovable Rock), which focused on coastal resilience, and Forest Blessings, which focused on forest management.

Watasay Ston was a 24-episode radio drama broadcast on four radio stations, reaching 24 coastal communities. The drama was aired in Sierra Leone. It was produced in English and three local languages (i.e., Krio, Mende, and Temne) to expand its reach to a diverse audience in Sierra Leone. The series was created to increase the knowledge of people living in Sierra Leone’s coastal communities on sustainable natural resource management practices in order to build their resilience to climate change.

The journey to get Watasay Ston on the air began with a radio drama design workshop in October 2018 (Fig. 3). Meeting in rural Port Loko, Sierra Leone, representatives from Sierra Leone’s coastal communities, national and local government, and media entities came together to develop the blueprint for the Watasay Ston radio drama and call-in show series. PCI Media facilitated dialogue among technical experts, government officials, community representatives, and media professionals, leading the group to design a character set and narrative arc that spoke to the culture, concerns, and aspirations of Sierra Leone. The result was a drama that follows the seemingly hardheaded main character, Marie Dembad, a fish seller who used mangrove wood unsustainably to preserve her catch, and other community members who grapple with threats to their livelihoods as a result of dwindling mangrove forests and the impending impacts of climate change.

Fig. 3

Watasay Ston design workshop in Port Loko, Sierra Leone facilitated by Neemesha Brown

Seventeen of 24 intended communities listened to the radio drama. They participated in the call-in shows, where listeners were able to discuss the dramatic characters and conservation dilemmas they recognized in their own lives. These call-in shows are critical to activating opportunities for social learning among the audience. The radio drama and call-in shows highlighted the issues and provided tangible solutions. Listeners reported that the drama influenced them to enforce by-laws surrounding conservation, do selective cutting of mangroves and plant mangroves—all keys to building coastal resilience to climate change. They also said the radio program has generated discussions around the negative effects of cutting mangroves near communities, the danger of flooding, and the construction of embankments to protect the communities from coastal erosion. A total of 287 call-ins (78% males and 22% females) were made within the first 3 months of airing on the four radio stations. These callers included fishermen, farmers, fish sellers, community leaders, and students.

In addition to the increase in knowledge among coastal community members, it was noted that the production and broadcast of the radio drama series created employment for Sierra Leoneans, including radio drama writers, actors, editors, radio station staff, and community animators. It also benefited those involved in different ways.

Because of the program, I have become so popular. So many people call me to talk about Watasay Ston. The program has added value to our programming. In light of this, we volunteer to play Season 1 again. Watasay Ston is my baby.—Manager of AYV Radio, Michael Samuels

The radio drama, Forest Blessings, followed a similar development journey and aired on 9 radio stations across Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Côte d’Ivoire.

In addition to the improvements in knowledge and adoption of new behaviors by listeners, PCI Media was also able to deepen the capacity of our radio station partners to use entertainment-education methodologies. We built strong partnerships with African Young Voices (AYV) radio and Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation in Sierra Leone and Liberia Broadcasting Systems (LBS) in particular because we worked with them on many projects. We also worked with many other radio stations in the four MRU Member States. Many of our broadcast partners had not used our typical format (15-min radio drama and 45-min talk show) to feature important guests and engage listeners. Broadcasters found value in adding new formats to their toolbox.

Radio dramas are a part of West Africa’s rich culture; hence, it is no surprise that radio drama crafted as entertainment-education has quickly emerged as popular in the region. But the deeper successes we experienced can be attributed to the intentional and authentic effort to engage a range of local stakeholders (government, donors, communities, drama producers, and radio stations) and to facilitate the development process so that local actors took ownership of this series, advocate for its continuation, continue to learn from the process to improve the messages and increase listenership. This is the true value of the My Community methodology—it produces a powerful narrative intervention that creates short-term change, while seeding and surfacing the necessary sense of local value and agency that is needed to sustain change once a program ends.