The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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Children in Newspapers: A World Study - Global

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The World Young Reader Network of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) is engaging schoolchildren as participants in research to evaluate the portrayal of children in newspapers worldwide. The goals of the survey, which will be conducted in 2003, are to increase consciousness about children's diversity and to look at the way children believe that newspapers reflect this.

To read results of this survey, please click here for information on the WAN site.
Communication Strategies
Media participants hail from 30 countries worldwide, and range from large papers such as The New York Times (USA), O Globo (Brazil), and The Hindu (India) to small community weeklies.

Students ages 11 and 12 at two partner schools in each paper's circulation area will study the content about children in that newspaper from Monday to Friday, March 31 to April 4, 2003. Newspapers are asked to provide children with newspapers for free this week, and to give teachers copies of a manual describing how to organise the students' study of the content about children. Students cut out all stories about children and place the cuttings into the following seven categories):
  1. Children are great/brilliant (achievers)
  2. Children in politics
  3. Children as victims
  4. Children helping others
  5. Children as wrongdoers/offenders
  6. Children and school
  7. (Teacher's choice of a topic category)
Second, students count the number of articles in each category, measure the amount of coverage in each category in centimetres, and count the number of articles that are about boys and the number about girls. Third, students respond to a survey, which asks them to formulate in one sentence what made them happy and in one sentence what made them sad about what they saw in the paper. The survey also involves describing the three most important general news articles of that week (not just those about children).

The students then discuss their findings, determining what they will report and in what format (say, using graphs and statistics). They prepare one piece of advice for their partner newspaper. This information is gathered in a three-page report (which may be in any language) to be submitted (preferably via email) by April 23, 2003. A class may either invite a newspaper representative to school, or visit the newspaper, to discuss the findings in more detail. Results will be combined into a worldwide report to be presented at the 5th World Young Reader Conference, which will take place from September 7 to 10, 2003 in Helsinki, Finland. These results will also appear on the Internet.

A Norwegian team made up of a child psychologist and the manager of Newspaper in Education (NIE) are conducting the survey with the support of UNICEF Norway. The researchers will provide a step-by-step guide for participating schools and newspapers. Newspapers do not need to be members of WAN to participate. (Note: the deadline for entry was February 15, 2003; organisers urge newspapers to contact them to inquire about the possibility of participating even after that date).
Development Issues
Children, media.
Key Points
The Paris-based WAN represents 18,000 newspapers. Its membership includes 73 national newspaper associations, individual newspaper executives in 100 countries, 13 news agencies, and 8 regional and worldwide press groups. It established a global Young Reader Committee in 1991 and the World Young Reader Network in 1999.
Partners

WAN, NIE, newspapers and students. Funding provided by UNICEF Norway.

Sources

Press release forwarded by Chris Schuepp to Young People's Media Network on January 13, 2003 (click here to access the archives); and project page on WAN site.