ABSTRACT
The use of entertainment platforms such as popular music, radio, and television programming to diffuse information, attitudes, and behaviors has received considerable attention in recent years (Singhal & Rogers, 2001, 2002; Storey et al., 1999; Storey et al., 1996). Of particular relevance is the growth of participatory communication techniques in entertainment education (E-E) programs. The Radio Communication Project (RCP) in Nepal has been cited widely in the E-E literature to demonstrate the effectiveness of the participatory E-E approach and to delineate E-E from the more top-down diffusion of innovations models (Boulay et al., 2002; Storey et al., 1996, 1999). In this project, we critically analyze the published scholarship on the RCP to closely examine the claims of participation made by the developers and evaluators of the programs in the backdrop of the participatory communication techniques that are actually used in the program. This exploration is necessary because claims of participatory communication by mainstream civil society organizations often co-opt the true participatory potential of marginalized communities (Dutta-Bergman, 2004a, 2005). Also, programs such as the RCP that emphasize family planning centralize the consumption of health by the individual, shifting the locus of responsibility on the individual and typically leaving out the culture and context within which the behavior is embedded. In doing so, these programs continue to marginalize those individuals and groups that they propose to help by ignoring the structural elements that fundamentally impede access to basic health care. Our critical review in this chapter is informed by the culture-centered approach to health communication because it provides a theoretical lens to examine a) the interplay of structure and culture in health communication programs, and b) the participatory processes among subaltern groups (Airhihenbuwa, 1995).
