Engaging media for making climate change part of popular culture by upasna.sharma

We are responding again to the Judges' comment 1 as we could not complete this the first time because the time for editing the above comment expired.

Judges' comment (1) A sentence or two of explanation on the theories from psychology and communications that are used at the top to frame the nature of the intervention. This would ideally be accompanied by an indication that one of the phases of the project specifically involves more research.

Our response: Of course, the first phase of the project is really about extensive desk-based research on climate change science, adaptation and mitigation issues and people's perceptions regarding these; and social-psychological and media theories on social behaviour change and linking it our proposed interventions. However, we are open to suggestions to further improve our research process and research objectives.

A brief explanation of the theories from psychology and communications used in this proposal is given below. However, there was not enough space left (in terms of character length) to include all the text below in the proposal text. We have included some part of it in the proposal text.

The core idea of the proposed project is formulated on the immense potential of media as a tool to influence public opinions and actions. The powerful impact of media has been repeatedly recognised by researchers, theorists as well as practitioners; both media action and theory feeding to each other at different points. Among several mass media theories, this intervention is largely designed within the framework of Entertainment-Education approach. This approach talks about integrating and purposely designing media to both educate and entertain people, thus capitalising on popular appeal of mainstream media for to alter people’s attitudes and behaviour on a developmental issue. Within this framework, ‘social role modelling’ and ‘message framing’ are two most important concepts relating to character building and narrative development respectively. Social role modelling, deriving its meaning from Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, highlight the significance of transitional characters in media. Transitional characters are carriers of the key message depicting transformation of action from negative to positive. The second component of message frames is helpful in understanding message development process – it is based on the agenda setting theory of media which talks about use of media with a definite objective. The message frames build the context of the message, providing the intended perspective from which the audience should perceive it. Within climate change communication, these become very important to convey the risk associated with climate change to change ‘we are not at risk’ attitude of people and at the same time communicate the possible ways to reduce this risk.

Judges' comment (2) More of a focus on civic action. Conversations and actions with family and friends are important end goals but the contestants should also consider broader civic action. The word “community” is used once—it would be great to see broader discourse and activity emphasized further.

Our response: Once again, thank you very much for this comment. Yes, we agree that media can foster greater civic action by influencing civic bodies, communities and constituencies other than individuals and households. These could be bodies like Resident Welfare Associations, civil society and managers of funds ear-marked under corporate social responsibility. We have attempted to include this in this text of the proposal.

Judges' comment (3) Research into similar organized efforts made to shape the consciousness of cultural producers toward progressive aims. I believe this happened in the US on efforts to reduce smoking and to promote LGBTQ equality, but even if not, it’s worth investigating whether a similar effort has been made before.

Our response: Thank you for pointing this out. Yes, there have been some instances in India too where "organized efforts made to shape the consciousness of cultural producers toward progressive aims". One of the nationwide campaigns in India with strategic media usage for behaviour change was the Pulse Polio campaign led by Ministry of Health in India. The Pulse Polio campaign was a decadal journey from 2003-2013 that resulted into complete eradication of polio from the country. WHO declared India polio free in 2014 when no new cases from reported as compared to more than 1600 cases reported per year in 2012. The campaign made successful use of videos and short films on polio immunisation by involving Amitabh Bachchan as its campaign ambassador (one of the most popular actors of Indian film industry).

Another one of the most successful examples of organised media for bringing out concrete outcomes is Bell Bajao! campaign, a multimedia initiative against domestic violence by Breakthrough (an India and U.S.-based international human rights organization). Bell Bajao! Campaign was able to reach about 130 million people and showed significant results on improving awareness and understanding of domestic violence. Another noteworthy aspect of the videos made in this campaign is that they were produced by mainstream media producers (Ogilvy & Mather) and involved popular Indian film actors such as Boman Irani, Javed Akhtar and Akki Narula; again contributing hugely to the popularity and influence of the videos on household masses.

Apart from these, there are several other instances where mainstream media is being used to shape public awareness and understanding on developmental issues such as open defecation (a recent Bollywood release Toilet Ek Prem Katha) and Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (an Entertainment Education based TV series on social issues led by Population Foundation of India). Therefore, the action proposed here essentially draws on the feasibility that these examples have demonstrated within the Indian context, with a significant distinguishing fact that it is trying to deal with the complex scientific issue of climate change here which has not been done so far within any mainstream media effort.

Judges' comment (4) Reconsidering the competition as an endpoint. I understand the impulse to provide this punctuation (especially in the context of a contest!), but I do not think it will be motivating. It might even demotivate your target audience here. I would suggest thinking instead about ways to sustain the effort over time and create collective efficacy among participants—maybe by convening a kind of think tank or in some other way. Make the reward intrinsic.

Our response: We do see your point about not keeping the "competition" as an endpoint. We have moved the competition to a middle point in our process as described in the text of the proposal. It does serve a more integrative purpose now, we think. And of course, we have now started thinking about (and included it in the proposal) the creation of an entity which will make it its overarching responsibility to keep climate change and other wicked environmental problems part of the popular public consciousness and imagination through encouraging media community to keep engaging with these issues in their outputs (films, comics, novels and radio-programs). We have borrowed your term "think-tank" for now, but I am sure in due course we will come up with more creative names for this entity.