Successful Communication?

During our time in Impfondo, INCEF’s educators carried out several screenings of the films for their project on violence prevention, and held several focus group discussions with both men and women about the films. This time in Impfondo gave me the opportunity to observe INCEF’s communication work first-hand, which is an important and necessary part of the research process. The more of these discussion groups that I see, the more I understand the important role they play in INCEF’s communication methodology.

The educators consistently told me that they felt the discussions were necessary for the audience or the community to fully appreciate or internalize the messages from the films. It was in the discussion groups that educators also received what were, to them, clear indications that successful communication had taken place – community members would ask questions, offer examples from their own experience, make jokes, and engage with one another and with the educators on the topic(s) at hand. Educators reported that the various non-verbal signals they could see – smiles, gestures, eye contact, and other expressions – were clear indications to them that the audience understood and accepted the information and messages in the films. They also reported numerous verbal exchanges with participants that further supported their belief that the communication had been successful. In particular, educators would relate powerful anecdotes of individuals who had told them how the messages in INCEF’s programs had led them to change their own behavior or intended future behavior, and thanked the educators for the programs.

The question of effect is, for all communication organizations, the key issue that must be proven to other stakeholders, including national partners and international donors. Communication projects are undertaken because, at some point, someone or some organization has determined that one part of a complex problem is linked to a lack of information, or to attitudes and behaviors that may be amenable to change through communication intervention. Thus, at some point there has been a judgment made that change needs to happen in a community, and communication has been identified as one way to achieve that change. There are, obviously, important questions to ask about who has determined that change is needed, and what sort of change, and how it is to be achieved, but ultimately the common preoccupation of all development programs, health programs, and environmental programs is to produce some sort of effect, and to be able to prove that the program was responsible for that effect.

Local partners and community members are also concerned about the effects of communication programs, as was clear when INCEF’s educator and I made our pre-departure calls on the Sub-Prefect in Impfondo. The purpose of our visit this time was to give an oral account of the activities that had been carried out by INCEF during our visit, a reverse process of les civilites we had performed when we arrived. After he listened to the account, the Sub-Prefect expressed his approval, saying that the local authorities always noticed an improvement in the town after an INCEF project. He then said, speaking in the plural for all the local authorities, “We are satisfied.” He expressed appreciation for INCEF’s work, and for the effect he perceived it to have on social relations and behavior in Impfondo and the surrounding area. Since the most recent INCEF activities had to do with violence prevention, he cited a decrease in reported acts of violence and a sense of “calmness” that was observed by local authorities.

An ethnographic approach is not the appropriate method to use for program evaluation, as it is not equipped (or intended) to prove any cause and effect relationship between phenomena. One place where ethnography of communication may help in the evaluation process, however, is in understanding what successful communication looks like in a local context, and in knowing how members of a particular speech community interpret their own and others’ communication as either effective or ineffective.

My time in Impfondo, observing projects as they were implemented, and also observing everyday interactions and communicative events has given me an introduction to some of the ways that participants in this community evaluate their own speech and the speech of others. This is a long way from a full understanding of the speech code or codes operating here, but it does provide a starting point for further investigation. 

Malheureusement

One could perhaps be forgiven for starting to think that one word, malheureusement, dominates spoken French in Congo. According to the dictionary, it means, “unfortunately.” At times, it feels like the only word one needs to know, and the truly important translation is, “Whatever follows this word is not something you want to hear.” Whenever someone is about to tell you that your flight has been canceled, it is too rainy to travel, the generator has broken down, the internet or cell phone network is not working, there is no more drinking water, the documents have not arrived (or are not the right ones), or for some other reason your plans are going to have to change, speakers usually begin the sentence with malheureusement.

A feature of life in the US that we hardly ever notice is the fact that things almost always work as they are supposed to, or at least don’t all break down at the same time. Yes, flights get canceled, but you can whip out your smart phone and re-book, and you have a decent hope of getting at least some of the price of the new ticket covered by the airline. Yes, electrical power failures happen, and sometimes last longer than we think they should (days or weeks), but there is someone on a customer service line somewhere who will listen to us complain.

It takes a while to realize how much the expectations created by this ubiquitous experience of functioning systems shape and color a view of the world, and affect one’s reactions when confronting systems that routinely, almost as a matter of course, do not function smoothly. Thus, when a French-speaking Congolese person has to deliver the news to an English-speaking foreigner that, unsurprisingly, plans will have to be adjusted because although there was supposed to be gasoline available to purchase, there is none, the French-speaking Congolese person will almost always begin the sentence, “Malheureusement…” Unfortunately, a perfectly normal roadblock to your plans has appeared. Unfortunately, I know you will be angry about this. Unfortunately, you may express this anger to me, although I had nothing to do with the situation. Unfortunately, you will also be angry that you don’t know exactly how to deal with this new problem.

The frequency of this particular communicative interaction eventually compels the researcher (me) to try to figure out what is going on here. One concept that appears to be key is the issue of “blame.” To blame someone is, in fact, a communicative action, an act that is performed in and through speaking. While the English concept of “taking responsibility” has positive connotations, and is a culturally understood communicative action that should be performed by “responsible” people at the appropriate time and in the appropriate setting, “blame” has almost entirely negative connotations, and is an action directed by a speaker towards another person. The question of “blame,” especially when the action is directed (or perceived to be directed) by a foreigner or non-French speaker towards a Congolese person, also appears to be an extremely sensitive issue when it arises in interpersonal or inter-group communication.

It will take more time and more observation and experience to piece together the rules operating in this type of communicative interaction, and the meanings and premises that underlie the speech produced in such encounters, but this does seems to be one potentially productive place to keep looking. And figuring out where to look is often the first step in figuring out something possibly important.