Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The Journal of Development Communication


Volume 21, Number 1, June 2010

This issue of The Journal of Development Communication is the Number One of the Twenty first Volume. In other words, JDC has passed 20 years of publication smoothly and uninterruptedly. The efforts by the publisher and the editors of JDC in this context have been greatly enhanced and patronised by the readers, subscribers and contributors from all over the world. We are indeed very grateful to them.

Professor Nora C Quebral is one of the pioneer Gurus of development communication in line with the late Everett Rogers and others. Nowadays, it is not always common to come across her contribution to development communication. We are honoured to publish her latest on devcom in this issue. We are confident that readers will enjoy her article.

Ecotourism is becoming increasingly popular both as a conservation tool and as an alternative to unsustainable tourism practices. The article of Dr Stacey K Sowards examines the role of ecotourism in three national park areas in Kalimantan, Indonesia. While Stacey in the article will draw the attention of the environmental communicators, she will also draw to the number of pitfalls that can be addressed through effective communication between and among individual parties.

Professor Samsudin A Rahim presents important issues on youth development and their challenges and contradictions in his article “RegeneratingYouth Development: The Challenges for Development Communication”. Empowerment and participation are two vital concepts in the youth development and development communication approaches. Both these approaches aim at developing society in particular marginalised society to ensure that they are not left behind in the rapid expansion of the nation.

Dr Farish Ullah has undertaken a study to examine the influence of five significant demographic variables viz. locality, gender, education, socio-economic, status and age in the area of health-related information. The influence was measured on three integrated components of the effects process -- knowledge, attitude and behaviour. Among other things, the study has identified different semantic, socio-religious and structural barriers that adversely affect the success of these campaign.

Dr Meenakshi Sharma’s article on “Optimising Communication Channels for Inclusive Rural Development in India” examines some projects aimed at empowerment and inclusion of the rural people and discusses the imperative of employing old-fashioned human communication channels optimally in combination with ICT applications to best serve the needs of marginalised communities.

In this issue, we have another article based on the study that investigated the use of ICT by agricultural researches in Nigeria. The article, by Tajudeen O A Banmeke and Michael T Ajayi, will certainly be appreciated by like-minded researchers.

Anuradha Tulachan in her article presents a picture of the various telecenter initiatives in Nepal and the policy context within which they are situated. The paper presents current initiatives in addressing the challenges concerning language, content localisation and networking among the telecentres.

We have published two book reviews in this issue. Both books are related to development communication.

An International Conference on “Dialogues on Fostering Understanding and Building Bridges Across Cultures Among Young People of Asia and Europe” was held recently in Melaka, Malaysia. We have included a report written by Varsha, Chief Operating Officer of World Youth Foundation, Malaysia.

Subscription rate

Annual subscription rates per year (two issues): Malaysia RM 68 inclusive of airmail surcharge, Developing countries US$27.00 inclusive of airmail surcharge and Industrialised countries US$50.00 inclusive of airmail surcharge. Single copies of the journal are available at half of the annual subscription rate. Payment may be made by bank draft/manager’s cheque/US$ cheque. Cheques must be crossed and made payable to AIDCOM. Subscribers in Malaysia may pay either in cash or by cheque in Malaysian Ringgit.

Our contact information is as follows:

Asian Institute for Development Communication (Aidcom),
First Floor, 32 & 34
,Jalan Bangsar Utama 1,
Bangsar Utama,
59000 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.

Tel: (603) – 2287 0023 (hunting line); Fax: (603) – 2287 3023;

Email: : aidcom@streamyx.com ; Url: : http://www.aidcom.com

Contact Persons: Mr Hew Wai Sin or Ms Zel Leong (016-6382408)