Communication poverty: A rights-based approach

Abstract

"Views about the relationship between communication and poverty are rooted in differing understandings and beliefs about the origin and causes of poverty. When poverty is seen as a human creation, it is not difficult to find links between communication and poverty. Communication is at the heart of human creation, at least those human creations that involve more than one person. Views about the relationship between communication and poverty are also rooted in understanding public communication processes. The powerful have long seen communication as central to political processes and political power, whether acquired by forceful or peaceful means. For instance, colonial slave owners banned drumming by imported African slaves to prevent them from communicating among themselves across distance, the better to preserve the social order desired by the slave owners. Appropriately entitled Can Anyone Hear Us?, it claimed to be the first large-scale comparative research using participatory methods to focus on the voices of people living in poverty. The study found that in addition to obvious dimensions of poverty such as lack of assets, secure livelihoods, food, water, adequate housing and sanitation, people living in poverty identified powerlessness and the inability to make themselves heard as a key aspect of poverty."