Community Participation

The earliest examples of community-driven participatory projects emerged from the global south as communities driving locally based solutions demonstrated the value of local participation. Participatory communication emerged in rural development programs as examples for engaging rural communities in brainstorming solutions and in developing programs and policies that address the problems experienced by local communities. Design of solutions was founded on the principles of community participation. Questioning the diffusion of innovations framework that disseminated innovations in top-down forms in mainstream development communication research and practice, local participatory communication efforts focused on fostering local engagement in the development, design, and implementation of solutions. In this sense, the emphasis on participation emerged from a focus on local communities as active participants in the decision-making process, shifting the onus ...