Background:Knowledge mobilisation concerns translating knowledge into action and bridging the gap between knowledge production and its apt utilisation in practice. Scholars have called for more interactive models that integrate different forms of knowledge through iterative collaboration among diverse actors. However, insights on how such interactive models function in practice are scarce. This article addresses this gap by examining how knowledge is mobilised during implementation of the positive deviance (PD) approach, a problem-solving approach involving diverse actors. Methods:The article draws on an in-depth qualitative case study of a cross-sectoral project in six Norwegian municipalities, where PD was applied to address youth marginalisation. Data were generated through iterative PD processes involving practitioners, managers and stakeholders across sectors. Insights were gleaned on PD as an interactive strategy for knowledge mobilisation. Findings:The findings show that PD enabled the identification and amplification of locally embedded practices, facilitated cross-sector collaboration, and contributed to shifts in participants' understandings of problems and solutions. Rather than relying on external expert knowledge, PD supported practice-driven learning and adaptive responses, resulting in interventions being perceived as more context-sensitive and sustainable. Discussion and conclusions:The article argues that PD represents a promising strategy for interactive knowledge mobilisation by reconfiguring the relationship between evidence, policy and practice. It contributes to debates on co-creation and knowledge use by demonstrating how practice-based knowledge can act as a driver of change. Certain limitations related to institutional scalability are discussed. The findings have implications for research, policy and practice addressing complex social challenges.

LGBTQ + individuals living with mental illness (MI) encompass multiple marginalized, identities and consequently face unique experiences of the stigma leading to suboptimal quality of life. Entertainment-education (EE) strategies, which utilize stories to engage viewers with a purposive message, hold the potential to increase health knowledge, change attitudes and intentions, and influence health behaviors. Prior research has found that intersectional stories of LGBTQ + individuals living with a MI were effective at reducing MI-related stigma, but ineffective at reducing LGBTQ + -related stigma. Therefore, there is a need to explore what EE factors identification with, empathy for, and perceived similarity to the storyteller may moderate the effect of intersectional stories on reducing LGBTQ + and MI stigma. Identification with and perceived similarity to the storyteller did moderate the relationship of LGBTQ + MI stories in reducing genderism and transphobia; however, EE factors did not moderate the relationship of LGBTQ + MI stories in reducing mental illness–related stigma. There are significant implications for using EE intersectional stories as prevention and intervention strategies to minimize MI and LGBTQ + -related stigma.

Background Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI)–driven apps for health education and promotion can help in the accomplishment of several United Nations sustainable development goals. SnehAI, developed by the Population Foundation of India, is the first Hinglish (Hindi + English) AI chatbot, deliberately designed for social and behavioral changes in India. It provides a private, nonjudgmental, and safe space to spur conversations about taboo topics (such as safe sex and family planning) and offers accurate, relatable, and trustworthy information and resources. Objective This study aims to use the Gibson theory of affordances to examine SnehAI and offer scholarly guidance on how AI chatbots can be used to educate adolescents and young adults, promote sexual and reproductive health, and advocate for the health entitlements of women and girls in India. Methods We adopted an instrumental case study approach that allowed us to explore SnehAI from the perspectives of technology design, program implementation, and user engagement. We also used a mix of qualitative insights and quantitative analytics data to triangulate our findings. Results SnehAI demonstrated strong evidence across fifteen functional affordances: accessibility, multimodality, nonlinearity, compellability, queriosity, editability, visibility, interactivity, customizability, trackability, scalability, glocalizability, inclusivity, connectivity, and actionability. SnehAI also effectively engaged its users, especially young men, with 8.2 million messages exchanged across a 5-month period. Almost half of the incoming user messages were texts of deeply personal questions and concerns about sexual and reproductive health, as well as allied topics. Overall, SnehAI successfully presented itself as a trusted friend and mentor; the curated content was both entertaining and educational, and the natural language processing system worked effectively to personalize the chatbot response and optimize user experience. Conclusions SnehAI represents an innovative, engaging, and educational intervention that enables vulnerable and hard-to-reach population groups to talk and learn about sensitive and important issues. SnehAI is a powerful testimonial of the vital potential that lies in AI technologies for social good.

While social media offer an unprecedented opportunity for orchestrating large-scale communication campaigns, it is often difficult to track audience responses on various digital platforms over time and to ascertain if their engagement is aligned with the original intention. In this article, we share a promising solution-the purposive embedding and tracking of unique content elements as "markers" using text analytics techniques. Four markers were introduced in an Indian melodramatic television serial, Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon (I, A Woman, Can Achieve Anything), which was part of a larger transmedia edutainment initiative in India to promote sanitation, family planning, and gender equality. These markers served as anchors for audience engagement with the originally intended messaging embedded in the narratives as well as for program monitoring and evaluation. We applied various web-based tools to systematically track marker-related engagement on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube across eight months. We also conducted semantic network analysis to better understand how marker-related social media comments evolved over time. Our investigation of using markers for digital engagement and narrative exchange in MKBKSH makes an important and timely methodological contribution to the scholarship and praxis of social and behavior change communication.

Background Although a wide range of intervention programs and methods have been implemented to increase health professionals’ (HPs) adherence with infection prevention and control (IPC) guidelines and decrease the incidence of healthcare associated infections (HAIs), a significant discrepancy remains between the guidelines and their implementation in practice. Objectives This study proposes an applied tool based on the integrated theoretical framework of the positive deviance (PD) approach for developing more effective interventions to mitigate this discrepancy. Methods A qualitative study guided by the PD approach based on data from two sources: (1) in-depth archival analysis of systematic review articles, and (2) integration and synthesis of findings based on an extensive empirical study we conducted, involving 250 HPs (nurses, physicians, support staff and cleaning staff) from three governmental hospitals in Israel, over 35 months (January 2017 to November 2020). Results The barriers faced by HPs were classified into four main categories: (1) individual-motivational, (2) social-cultural, (3) organizational, and (4) work environment and resource-centered. For each barrier, we constructed a set of questions based on the PD approach. For each question, we adapted and applied methodological tools (e.g., in-depth interviews, focus groups, social network maps, video clips and simulations) to help solve the problem. Conclusion Translating a theory-based approach into an applied tool that offers step-by-step actions can help researchers and practitioners adopt and implement the approach within intervention programs to mitigate barriers.

This chapter outlines the genealogy of the field of communication in development and social change. It provides a brief history of this field since the post-World War II years when development and communication theories and models were influenced by the modernization paradigm. The ferment in the field that occurred in the 1970s re-oriented the field from one of ‘development’ to ‘development and social change.’ This re-orientation provided an impetus to participatory approaches involving all stakeholders in the process, giving rise to a social change communication model guided by critical and interpretive epistemologies and methods. The scholarship, since the 1980s, has increasingly moved to a critique of the socioeconomic and structural impediments that prevent people from emancipation due to discriminative and coercive structures in their societies. This critique gave rise to the concept and practice of empowerment and an emphasis on social justice imperatives in development and social change.

Entertainment-education (EE) is a theory-based social and behavior change communication strategy. The Sabido methodology of producing commercially successful prosocial telenovelas was instrumental in establishing EE as a social scientific field of research and practice globally. Early experimentations with applying theories in EE productions began in the 1970s, when entertainment theory gained a foothold in media psychology and communication research. The evolution of EE theorizing provides a parallel and complimentary perspective to the development of entertainment theories. This chapter provides a historical account of EE, highlighting its foundational theoretical strains. It also discusses the more contemporary theoretical models in EE, especially the ones that are converging in the area of narrative persuasion. Finally, we explicate on the new phenomenon of transmedia edutainment and how it could benefit and challenge the ongoing developments in entertainment theory.

The COVID-19 pandemic descended on us in an unexpected, uncontrollable, and unpredictable manner, disrupting the world order and affecting all sectors of human society. The world had little time to prepare for the ravages of a novel and highly infectious coronavirus. By February 2021, some 112 million people had contracted COVID-19 globally, and 2.5 million had died. Even with the availability of vaccines at warp speed, and vaccination efforts rolling out in early 2021, it is still uncertain how the pandemic—with all its highly infectious mutant variants—would play out. No one knows with any certainty what the endpoint will be, and what lies ahead. Since the spread of the COVID-19 was uncontrollable from the beginning, and little was known about the novel virus, the pandemic response has varied greatly at the global, national, and regional levels. Remarkably, several scientifically advanced countries had dismal pandemic responses, notably the USA and the UK. The U.S. arguably had the worst response, accounting for 25% (28 million) of the global COVID-19 cases, and 20% (500,000) of the deaths. In contrast, several developing countries of Asia and Africa have done a remarkable job of controlling COVID-19 with scant resources. For instance, to date, Bhutan has recorded only one death among its population, and Vietnam, Rwanda, and Senegal have, respectively, recorded 35, 226, and 700 deaths (Drexler, 2021). While the reasons for pandemic success vary from country-to-country, the key reasons for success centre around various communicative functions—the exercise of political will through the setting of media and public agendas (Dearing & Rogers, 1996), attentive and compassionate leadership with safety nets for the most vulnerable (Singhal & Rogers, 2003), clear cut publichealth guidance (Kim et al., 2014), early and relentless contact-tracing of people’s social networks, and a shared understanding of the value of preventive practices such as quarantining, social distancing, masking, and hand hygiene (Kim, 2020; Kim & Kreps, 2020). Unlike the disastrous leadership of Donald Trump in the USA, in Bhutan, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck set the policy, media, and public agenda for COVID-19 right off the bat by telling government officials that even one death was too many, that detailed plans be made, Journal of Creative Communications 16(2) 135–138, 2021 © 2021 MICA-The School of Ideas Reprints and permissions: in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india DOI: 10.1177/09732586211002930 journals.sagepub.com/home/crc

This Handbook reflects well our vision of humane development and social change that is anchored in social justice. The chapters examine and discuss communicative actions involved in social, economic, political, and cultural integration and transformation of individuals, communities, places and societies in the processes of development and social change. These include, at a minimum, the roles and outcomes of media and communication for social mobilization, media mobilization, community mobilization, advocacy, participation, empowerment, capacity-building, resistance, networking, and action (political, economic and social) for progressive social change. Key ideas we draw from the contributions include: enhanced role for devcom and participatory communication, active agency of stakeholders of development programs and the operationalization of social justice in development as comprising the twin freedoms of ‘freedom from inequality’ and ‘freedom for self-actualization’ of individuals.

Background Despite several intervention programs, the Bedouin population living in the Southern District of Israel has the highest mortality rate among children and adolescents from unintentional injuries. Our research questions asked: (1) How does increasing the involvement and participation of Bedouin community members influence the issue of unintentional injuries among children? (2) How does reframing of the technical issue of safety into security influence community involvement and cooperation? Objectives 1) To identify effective and efficacious positive deviance practices through community-based participatory research with adults, children, and professionals in the Bedouin community. 2) To create wider and deeper connections and cohesion between and among diverse Bedouin communities by seeding and sparking opportunities for social networking and cross-learning. Methods The study used a qualitative multi-method approach to generate a hybrid intervention model for reducing unintentional childhood injuries among the Bedouins. To frame the issue of unintentional injuries from the lived perspective of the Bedouins, we employed the Positive Deviance (PD) and Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach. Drawing upon theatrical traditions, entertainment-education (EE), was employed as a way to narratively engage and persuade the Bedouins. Results Our research resulted in: (1) the emergence of several PD ideas and practices for preventing and avoiding children’s injuries; (2) the actual creation of a safe and secure playroom for children at a neighborhood mosque; and (3) the creation of cascading and cross-learning social networks between and among members of the Bedouin community spread across various locations. Conclusion This study helped in reframing the technical issue of accidents and safety into the notion of sacredness and security, enhanced the association between emotions and cognition by means of experiential and EE methods, and stimulated creative thinking and the emergence of new culturally and contextually relevant ideas and practices through the PD process. It demonstrated the synergistic power of using a hybrid model that combined the rigor and vigor of different health communication approaches to address a significant disparity in the burden of child accidents faced by the Bedouins. Our study generated solutions that emerged from, and directly benefitted, Bedouin children—those, who face overwhelming risk of injury and death from preventable accidents.

We illustrate the principles and processes of gender transformative communication by presenting a case study of a long-running social change initiative spearheaded by Minga Perú, a community-based organization in the Peruvian Amazon. Applying a gender and power lens, we illustrate how communication transforms existing gender structures. Specifically, we analyze the monumental shifts that are occurring in roles, norms, hierarchies and relationships between women and men in the Peruvian Amazon emanating from Minga’s gender transformative approach. Our analysis highlights gendered shifts at the individual, family, community and institutional level. Through our analysis we outline a communicative process for gender transformation, highlighting how the Minga approach contributes to multiple gender-related outcomes across health, violence, participation, agency and decision-making. We argue that each component of Minga’s process is essentially communicative in nature. Simply put, communication serves as both a means and an end to achieving gender transformation.

This chapter describes and analyzes an alternative communication and social change praxis called the Positive Deviance (PD) approach. Anchored in the traditions of wisdom, PD is based on identifying, amplifying and assessing problem-solving endogenous wisdom that is hidden and elusive, context-centered and sustainable and grounded in ethical, non-hierarchical actions. In this chapter, the key tenets and principles of the PD approach are detailed, demonstrating how communication and social change practitioners can use PD’s step-by-step method to identify and amplify problem-solving wisdom. Three applications of the PD approach are investigated: (a) combating malnutrition in Vietnam, (b) reducing school dropouts in Argentina and (c) decreasing neo-natal and maternal mortality in Pakistan. The conclusion reached is that PD is an inside out and upside down approach to communication and social change that values ordinary, uncommon and actionable wisdom that could make an extraordinary difference.

Entertainment-education represents an intriguing area of translational communication research for health promotion and social change that can potentially connect theoretical models and principles with practices in the creative industry, governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as communities in need. In this chapter, we point out the gap between what works in the lab and what works in reality through two examples of recent entertainment-education collaborations: one in the United States and the other in India. In both cases, we discuss the difficulties we encountered when applying textbook clean research designs to population groups whom the entertainment-education programs aimed to serve. Most importantly, we share insights about strategic communication among project partners that are never taught in the textbook but ultimately helped us adapt during the implementation process to ensure quality program evaluation and beyond.

In the present article, we highlight three new directions for scholars interested in diffusion research. While other scholars are actively pursuing diffusion research with different emphases including large-scale randomized trials in international development, policy diffusion, and the diffusion of beliefs through social media, here we focus on dissemination science, implementation science, and positive deviance research. Each of these new directions fills a void in the traditional diffusion of innovation research and practice paradigm, while sharing a focus on improving public health and healthcare.

Television and radio serial dramas have been used as an effective entertainment-education (EE) strategy to address complex health and social issues around the world. In this article, we analyse India’s experience with the EE television serial, Main Kuch Bhi Kar Sakti Hoon Season 3 (I, A Woman, Can Achieve Anything, hereafter MKBKSH-3), broadcasted in 2019. Produced by Population Foundation of India, MKBKSH-3 purposely employed principles of narrative persuasion to tackle open defecation, promote contraceptive use, and advocate for gender equality in a deeply entrenched patriarchal system. As part of a larger programme evaluation, we conducted data collection using two complementary methods: (1) field experiments in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur Dehat district with repeated measures among viewers and non-viewers; and (2) viewer surveys through the popular interactive voice response system with callers from across 28 states and union territories. Wherever possible, we kept questions consistent to help triangulate research findings. Our results indicate a significant increase in toilet ownership and decrease in open defecation among MKBKSH-3 viewers. Further, MKBKSH-3’s characters and storylines helped raise awareness of injectable contraceptives, and viewers—both male and female—displayed an increased likelihood of moving toward adopting contraceptives that were promoted. These empirical findings add to the growing literature on the value of entertainment-education serial dramas as enabling media for social and behaviour change.

Past studies using the positive deviance (PD) approach in the field of infection prevention and control (IPC) have primarily focused on impacts on healthcare-associated infection rates. This research aimed to determine if health professionals who exhibit PD behaviours have distinctive socio-cognitive profiles compared to non-PD professionals, and to examine the impact of a PD intervention on healthcare professionals' (HPs) behavioural changes in maintaining IPC guidelines. In a cross-sectional study among 135 HPs, respondents first filled out a socio-cognitive characteristics questionnaire, and after 5 months were requested to complete a self-reported behavioural change questionnaire. The main findings indicate that socio-cognitive variables such as external locus of control, perceived threat and social learning were significant predictors of a person exhibiting PD behaviours. Almost 70% of HPs reported behavioural change and creating social networks as a result of the PD intervention in maintaining IPC guidelines, 16.9% of them are a 'PD boosters' (a new group of HPs who have adopted the positive practices of PDs that were originally identified, and also added additional practices of their own). Social networks can contribute to internalizing and raising personal accountability even among non-PD professionals, by creating a mind map that makes each person believe they are an important node in the network, regardless of their status and role. Health intervention programmes should purposely make visible and prominent social network connections in the hospital system.

Liberating Structures (LS) are simple and concrete tools that can enhance group performance in diverse organizational settings. They do so by organizing participants in different spatial arrangements and group configurations and by distributing participation and sequencing steps. In this article, we report on a pilot implementation of LS in several classrooms of a business school in a mid-sized Norwegian University. Our research is centred around four guiding research questions to gauge students’ experience of LS, including their sense of inclusion, engagement and LS’ pedagogical effectiveness. A mixed-methods approach was employed, including a quantitative survey, participant observation and debriefing conversations and informal interviews with instructors and students who experienced LS. An exploratory survey instrument was employed to measure the various attributes of LS, and four dimensions were identified and validated. Our findings suggest that LS are easy to implement, help increase participation, have the potential to enhance learning and can represent an effective pedagogical alternative to traditional lecture-centred classrooms. Our pilot study suggests that LS hold the creative potency to enhance both the instructor pedagogical experience and the student learning experience. By identifying the limitations of our pilot study, we call for more rigorous assessments of LS in the future.