Thirty years ago, Ross Kidd and Krishna Kumar (1981) wrote about how non-formal education projects have taken the language of Paulo Freire’s approach to rural adult education and applied it to processes that embody all the practices and attitudes that Freire was seeking to overturn; how people use the language of ‘conscientisation’ and ‘empowerment’ to describe educational programmes that seem to reinforce stereotypes and the ‘culture of silence’ and disempowerment that Freire identified as at the heart of corrosive, dependent relationships between rural and urban, poor and rich, global South and global North, powerless and powerful, oppressed and oppressor (Freire 1972).
I was reminded of the Kidd and Kumar article by a piece in yesterday’s Guardian by Felicity Lawrence – ‘Fat profits: health hangover as big brands woo world’s poorest shoppers’ (online version is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/nov/23/corporate-giants-target-developing-countries?intcmp=122). Lawrence describes how multinational food and consumer product companies are expanding their reach into rural communities through recruiting local men and women as ‘door to door’ salespeople. The main thrust of the article is about how promotion of processed foods – high in salt and fat, low in fibre, low in the nutrients obtained from local diets that are rich in fresh produce – is contributing to the rapid rise in health problems so far associated with richer, urban populations: obesity, type-2 diabetes, life-threatening heart conditions, for example. But what caught my eye were the quotes from those who speak for the big companies. The ‘global media relations’ director of Unilever was quoted as saying that their initiative has ‘essentially empowered people in rural communities, mainly women, to become entrepreneurs, generating income’; while Nestlé’s spokesperson said it is ‘providing products that are healthier, safe and affordable for consumers wherever they are … often in emerging markets, processed food appeals to consumers because it is guaranteed to be safe’. A clear example of the co-option of the language of ‘development’ to describe initiatives that are designed simply to boost sales, regardless of the appropriateness of the product to the context and of the potential consequences for individuals’ health and national health budgets.
There are several communication themes here that resonate with the discussions that go on in our postgraduate courses at Reading, including the MSc in Communication for Innovation and Development. We speak about the ‘agenda setting’ role of the mass media; well, Felicity Lawrence’s article certainly set the agenda for my thoughts for a couple of hours, prompting me to find out more about what these companies are doing, leading me to information on the web about Unilever’s Shakti programme in India, for example, which they claim ‘is unleashing the potential of rural India and thus changing lives. It is ushering in prosperity and, more importantly, self-respect’; and Nestlé’s ‘floating supermarkets’ on the Amazon in Brazil which they describe as an ‘unprecedented business model [that] will service the riverside communities in the Amazon and will extend the company’s presence in … Brazilian households’.
Then there is the use of ‘horizontal’ or ‘peer to peer’ communication, which is widely used in health education (including HIV/AIDS communication) to encourage pro-health behaviours, and in ‘farmer-to-farmer extension’. The reason it is so powerful is that it makes communication personal; it is people we know, people with whom we want to maintain friendship, people we trust, people we see everyday in our village or workplace or school, who are interacting with us. Interpersonal communication is influential in our behavioural (including purchasing) decisions. Big business is taking models and concepts from development communication practice and using them to boost their global sales and profits.
And what about the power of the brand? We see their products everywhere; people we know buy them; they must be good; we can surely trust them; we buy their shampoo, let’s try their foodstuffs. Which brings us straight to the bottom line. Coca Cola spent US$2.9 billion on advertising in 2010, which is more than the entire annual budget of the World Health Organisation. Ministries of health around the world are trying to promote healthy eating and living (‘five a day’, avoid excessive fat and salt, use unprocessed foods, get plenty of exercise, and so on) on budgets that are simply dwarfed by the marketing and advertising spend of the big food and fizzy drink companies. As South Africa’s Minister of Health said in the Lawrence article, ‘It’s a globalised world; we can’t expect to be left untouched’. But perhaps we should expect communication practitioners to respect the language and practice of development communication and not subvert them for purely commercial goals. And expect development organisations to use their limited communication budgets intelligently and strategically in the battle of images and ideas around consumption and health.
References and sources
Kidd, R., and Kumar, K. 1981. Co-opting Freire: a Critical Analysis of Pseudo-Freirean Adult Education. Economic and Political Weekly 16 (1) 27-36
Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth. Penguin
Unilever’s Shakti programme is described at http://www.unilever.co.uk/careers/insideunilever/oursuccessandchallenges/shaktiprogrammeindia.aspx (accessed 25/11/2011)
Nestlé’s floating supermarket initiative is described in a company press release at http://www.nestle.com/Common/NestleDocuments/Documents/Media/press-release/2010-february/Nestl%C3%A9%20Brazil%20Press%20Release%20-%20A%20Bordo.pdf (accessed 25/11/2011)
WHO budget information at http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/19/us-who-idUSTRE74I5I320110519 (accessed 25/11/2011)
