The next MediaCom Seminar hosted by the School of Media, Communication and
Sociology at the University of Leicester will take place on *Wednesday 8
March* with *Professor **Jo Tacchi* from Loughborough University London.
The seminar will take place *4:00-5:30pm* *on* *Wednesday 8 March in*
*Bankfield
House Seminar Room *– all welcome.
School of Media, Communication and Sociology
University of Leicester
Bankfield House
132 New Walk
Leicester
LE1 7JA
*Applied Media Ethnography: neat campaigns and messy realities *
In this paper I consider ways in which an ethnographic approach can help
our understanding of large scale development initiatives, and the role of
communication and community engagement and mobilisation within them. The *Sabar
Sabouchar Campaign* (SSC) was celebrated in India for eliminating open
defecation at a District level (population of 5.2m), within just 18 months.
While the process and elements of the campaign are described in some detail
by a number of people, there remain questions about why the SSC worked so
well in this district, while similar campaigns have failed to do so for a
number of years, right across India. The question of why it worked here,
and how, is made more complex by examining whether it is sustainable
amongst the most vulnerable groups in the district. Responding to UNICEF
India's challenge to find a way to understand what happened in the
district, we started by engaging a range of stakeholders in the
participatory design of the study and then engaged in intensive fieldwork
in a limited number of sites, concentrating on marginalised groups, to
uncover the key issues for sustainability, and how these might be addressed.
*Dr Melanie Kennedy*
*Lecturer in Media and Communication*
School of Media, Communication and Sociology
University of Leicester
Bankfield House
132 New Walk
Leicester
LE1 7JA
Tel: 0116 223 1624
https://leicester.academia.edu/MelanieKennedy
Book Reviews Editor for *Celebrity Studies* (Routledge)
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