Rural audience
360-degree communication strategy
BBC Media Action’s approach and solution to development problems is to disrupt existing paradigms by rethinking the problems. One of the key innovations we came up with was the “360-degree approach”, whereby we aimed our communication not just at childbearing Bihari women, but also at the people who most influence her health and decisions, such as her husband, mother-in-law and health worker. Drawing on evidence that multi-pronged approaches – where different channels reinforce each other and ensure repeated exposure to new ideas – can create a sense of normality around new behaviours, we applied ideas across multiple platforms, such as radio, TV, self-health groups, street theatre and mobile health services, to saturate the community and reach diverse audiences. In effect it served to create ‘surround sound’ for health messages, while also creating a ‘ripple’ effect, which made the strategy enduring and cost effective.
It also recognised that different types of communication elicit different psychological responses. For instance, radio dramas may help in shaping perceptions about social norms, while street theatre allows contextualisation, helping people to consider what a “new” practice looks like in their own environment. The strategy also reflected the relatively low media reach in Bihar and thus, the critical importance of interpersonal communication channels in the state.