Towards successful campaigns

Effectively communicating to illiterate populations is a communications challenge. In the case of health messages, it is a challenge that has particular consequences if it is not met.

As stated earlier, society may well consider that everyone should have the same opportunity to be healthy. If some portions of the population have better access to health information because of having more resources, they will be healthier (Windahl et al, 1997).

It is clear that if someone receives a letter of invitation to participate in a breast cancer screening program and cannot read the letter, understand it and act on the information, that person is put at a disadvantage compared to someone who is able to read. If the illiterate person is not able to adopt the innovation and take part in a preventative health activity, that person's health may suffer as a result of the inability to read.

This is supported by Rogers (1983) who, as stated earlier, suggests that the adoption of an innovation usually widens the socio-economic gap between earlier and later adopters.

Rogers suggests three strategies for narrowing the gaps.

In using Rogers' strategies to analyse the case presented in this dissertation, the terms "resourceful" and "privileged" apply to literate persons, while the terms "lower socio-economic status" and "underprivileged" apply to illiterate persons.

1. When the resourceful have greater access to information:
   • make the information appropriate and interesting to the lower socio-economic status portion of the audience, even if it becomes less interesting to the higher socio-economic status portion
   • use communication channels that target the underprivileged
   • form small groups of the resource-poor to discuss the innovation
   • concentrate the efforts of those carrying out the communication on late adopters

These points are highly instructive when looking at the problem of communicating to illiterate populations. The premise in this strategy is that if there is an underprivileged element to a target population, direct the planning towards that element.