Pre-conflict, conflict, post-conflict Media intervention type 5
Nashe Maalo (Our Neighbourhood) is a television programme for children, ages 8-12, produced by Search for Common Ground in Macedonia. In Macedonia, television programming with pro-social contents for kids is virtually non-existent. The volatility of interethnic relations derives from the absence of social or political structures intended to integrate the country's communities across their ethnic and linguistic divides. Although Nashe Maalo alone is not a prescription for altering the social ambience of fear, mistrust, and suspicion still prevalent in Macedonia today, intended-outcomes television programming nonetheless is a demonstrably potent and effective tool.
The volatility of interethnic relations derives from the absence of social or political structures intended to integrate the country's communities across their ethnic and linguistic divides. Public schools, for example, are organised along ethno-linguistic lines. Children have the right to instruction in their native language and most go through their entire schooling never having made contact with children outside their own community. Over recent years, especially since the war of 2001, Macedonia has experienced increasing residential segregation, which has further reduced contact between children of different ethnic backgrounds.
Like education, mass media are also defined by language. Again as part of Macedonia's Yugoslav heritage, all communities are guaranteed the right to native-language media - both print and broadcast. Once strictly controlled by the central government, the present broadcast media environment is largely unregulated. Broadcasting in various languages, hundreds of radio and TV stations-mostly unlicensed-make Macedonia one of the densest per-capita electronic media markets in the region. The capital, Skopje, alone has over 20 television stations, including one full-time broadcaster in Albanian and two in Romane. Aside from the one state-run radio and TV network, few media make even a symbolic effort to reach beyond their own ethno-linguistic groups.
Like broadcasters, newspapers and magazines are mono-lingual, reporting to and about their own communities. Most commonly, the media report about the 'others' in Macedonia at times of crisis, when inflammatory, prejudicial, and oftentimes inaccurate images and information tend to prevail. Consequently, the people Macedonia have little perspective into the everyday concerns and experiences of their country's ethnic groups. In the final analysis, rather than contributing to the creation of common ground, the media contribute principally to the atomisation of Macedonian society into its fragmented ethno-linguistic parts; that is, to the reinforcement of ethnically and linguistically defined 'information ghettos'.
Children and the media
Children born in Macedonia since independence in 1991 have been surrounded by
negative images and social values coming from various sources, private and public.
Among most families in Macedonia children quickly learn the prejudicial vocabulary
and attitudes around inter-ethnicity present in common social discourse. For
their part, public schools with their ethnically and linguistically segregated
classrooms, give official sanction to the distinction 'us' and 'them'. The mass
media, however-especially television that reaches over 90 per cent of households-elevate
passive structural segregation to more hostile, personal levels of 'us' versus
'them'.
In Macedonia, television programming with pro-social contents for kids with is virtually non-existent. Children's TV consists largely of call-in or magazine-style programmes; re-broadcast music concerts; and cartoons. What children watch mostly is cartoons, local and international news reports, sports, Spanish-language soap operas, and films meant for adults. Cartoons, despite their fantasy elements, rely heavily on violent confrontations between characters. TV news is the primary source of information for most Macedonian families. Though not intended for children, its inflammatory language and images reach children, influencing their perception of the general social environment in which they live. Films shown on TV, mostly from the US, are now of a higher calibre than previously. Nonetheless, adult movies typically expound that 'might makes right'.
When these educational and media axes intersect, children get and absorb a dual message: that the world is divided into opposites, namely the accepted/familiar (us) and the rejected/alien (them); and that violence is an effective and justifiable method for addressing conflict between opposites. In a fragile society such as Macedonia, this is a potentially lethal combination that Search for Common Ground has been addressing through its media programmes.
Search for Common Ground in Macedonia
Search for Common Ground in Macedonia (SCGM) is a field office of Search for
Common Ground (Washington DC) and the European Centre for Common Ground (Brussels).
Its launch in March 1994 reflected the international community's interest in
preventive diplomacy; that is, in taking proactive steps to forestall the outbreak
of war that had afflicted other former Yugoslav republics earlier in the decade.
During SCGM's first five months, its founding director ambassador Robert Frowick
(ret.) established SCGM's place in the constellation of NGOs in country. With
his replacement by executive director Dr. Eran Fraenkel (1994-2002), SCGM assumed
its present programmatic focus.
Based on Fraenkel's decades-long familiarity with Macedonia, as well as on extensive local research and consultation regarding key areas for meaningful conflict transformation activities, SCGM has concentrated on two domains: education and the media. Stated succinctly, the reason for this choice is that education and the media are the two crucial public vehicles for creating and reinforcing social values and attitudes. With adults, SCGM's objective is 'crossing lines'. That is, through the media SCGM facilitates opportunities for Macedonia's communities to familiarise each other and become familiar with aspects of their reality, thereby stimulating everyone to reconsider how to best forge a common future. With youngsters, however, SCGM's goal is more fundamental: to affect a change in how children form their initial social attitudes; that is, to broaden their horizons to a more inclusive, tolerant, and embracing view of the complex, pluralistic society in which they live.
Nashe Maalo: what it is and how it works Now in its 5th season, Nashe Maalo (Our Neighbourhood) is a television programme for children, ages 8-12, produced by Search for Common Ground in Macedonia. Based on an educational curriculum containing measurable 'educational goals' (intended outcomes), the three primary objectives of Nashe Maalo are to model/teach: 1 intercultural understanding; 2 conflict prevention through increased cultural awareness; 3 specific conflict resolution skills.
SCGM's long-term goal is to affect positive changes in the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour of Macedonia's children regarding their multi-ethnic society. Formative research conducted before beginning the project, together with summative research conducted between all consecutive seasons, illustrate unambiguously that Nashe Maalo reaches children and impacts their perceptions of each other, of conflict, and of how to resolve disputes constructively. Although Nashe Maalo alone is not a prescription for altering the social ambience of fear, mistrust, and suspicion still prevalent in Macedonia today, intended-outcomes television programming nonetheless is a demonstrably potent and effective tool.
When SCGM first proposed a pro-social children's television programme in 1996, it seemed like a straightforward idea requiring people with production TV skills and others with basic knowledge of conflict resolution. In transferring the concept from paper to screen, however, it became evident how complex, delicate, and difficult a process this is. Nashe Maalo comprises well-written and well-produced television (entertainment) blended seamlessly with expertly researched and carefully developed messages (contents). Achieving the optimal combination of these elements rests on a tri-partite model consisting of research, contents and production; a model developed years ago by the Children's Television Workshop.1
In the two years (1997-1999) between the initial impulse to create a TV programme and the onset of production, SCGM moved from its original shorthand of conflict-resolution television to the current complex definition of intended-outcomes television. Conflict-resolution television implies that a show's primary purpose is to identify and resolve conflict. In preparing the educational curriculum, however, it was determined that conflict - especially for children - is a social response rather than a root definition of their relationships, even across ethnic lines. Consequently, the programme concept was re-oriented to reflect a curriculum weighted towards intercultural understanding and conflict prevention through greater inter-cultural understanding. Conflict resolution skills, though still distinctly present, are less emphasised. The remainder of this chapter will examine how the Nashe Maalo team has utilised research, contents, and production to arrive at the show's desired three intended outcomes, positive changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour.
When SCGM began developing Nashe Maalo, it had already been actively working in Macedonia for several years, including projects with elementary-school children. From that, and the director's long familiarity with Macedonia, SCGM had an image of how children in Nashe Maalo's target-age group lived day to day. SCGM also had experiential knowledge of children's social attitudes towards each other, and of their behavioural patterns. But, determining measurable outcomes for a TV show's educational curriculum obliged the team to obtain empirical data regarding children's knowledge of the lives of other children; their specific attitudes/beliefs about each other; and their own description of their behaviour in situations calling for interaction with children from ethno-linguistic groups other than their own.
This information, once obtained by a local Research Team, became the baseline data for all future decisions about what elements needed to be present in Nashe Maalo, and their relative importance. The research data were first compared to SCGM's basic premises for the curriculum. This and the draft curriculum were then analysed in an extensive seminar attended by people with expertise in education, developmental psychology, sociology, media, and politics, among others. Through this seminar the Nashe Maalo team determined that the show's measurable outcomes needed to be weighted primarily towards intercultural understanding, followed by conflict prevention and conflict resolution. Behind this decision was the reasoning that children's segregated lives preclude the opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge of each other and that children's views of each other were therefore predicated on stereotypes, misinformation, or simple ignorance.
To arrive at the three-part intended-outcomes paradigm of the TV show, the curriculum first had to address the audience's lack of knowledge (intercultural understanding). Acquired knowledge is also the most easily measurable outcome for summative research. The second premise was that through providing knowledge, the programme could affect children's attitudes about each other. If children's negative attitudes about each other derive from a negative knowledge base, positive knowledge can stimulate positive changes in beliefs and attitudes. In other words, preventing conflict with the 'other' is predicated on better understanding the "other" thereby averting the potential escalation of conflict through misunderstanding. Though more subtle than knowledge, it is nonetheless possible to create curricular components for attitudinal change that can be measured in summative research. The most difficult intended outcome to incorporate into the curriculum and to measure is behavioural change. Ultimately this is the intended outcome most critical to positive social transformation, since people's actions rather merely their words determine the health and future of society. For a television programme such as ours, measuring behavioural change is challenged by the indeterminate life of the project. The transition from acquiring knowledge to altering attitudes to engaging in new behaviours takes an unpredictable length of time. SCGM has been producing Nashe Maalo for four seasons and has benefited from research conducted between each season. Data from summative research for a season just completed becomes formative data for the season ahead. As our knowledge Nashe Maalo's impact on our target audience has increased, we have been able to adjust to improve the show's ability to convey knowledge and to affect attitudes. Even after four years, however, our evidence of behavioural change is largely anecdotal rather than empirical. Nonetheless research-particularly the tandem of summative/formative research-remains a key element in the conceptualisation and realisation of this project.
'Contents' is shorthand for what the TV programmes are about. Included in the concept are a number of key elements that distinguish intended-outcomes from other types of media. Contents are often-and mistakenly-equated with script review; that is literally assuring the appropriate blending of the curriculum's intended outcomes into the drama of each episode as it is written. Contents, however, are both more complicated and content review necessarily penetrates the entire process as the fulcrum that leverages, or balances, the functions of research and production.
At its core, contents refers to the body of intended outcomes that a programme such as Nashe Maalo is meant to convey. In that capacity, the Contents Team is responsible for crystallising the educational goals included in the curriculum and for overseeing their inclusion in the TV programmes that derive from it. The specific functions of the Contents Team are determined by the nature of the programme being produced. For example, for Nashe Maalo given its target age group of 8-12-year olds, the Contents Team included an early-childhood development specialist who advised on the age appropriateness of all contents-related matters. Likewise, since intercultural understanding was highlighted as the programme's primary educational goal, the Contents Team has always included consultants from Macedonia's various communities, whose role has been to advice on how accurately a programme is representing their community; whether the language, attire, or behaviour of a character. In this respect, Contents and research are mutually reinforcing. That is, the Contents Team refers any question arising in the creation of an episode back to research. Obtaining the missing information may require the Research Team to conduct a quick survey or may only require a cultural consultant to investigate a limited topic within his/her own community. Similarly, the Contents Team takes research results and oversees their integration to programmes. For example, summative research for Season 1 identified the audience's difficulty in distinguishing the ethnic identity of several main characters. To remedy this, the scriptwriters and producers had to use additional identifying markers to help the audience understand who was who. The Contents Team, however, was responsible for avoiding the use of stereotypes or other devices that would damage the show's intended outcome of genuine intercultural understanding.
Given the three intended outcomes of changes in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour, the Contents Team has to be vigilant at all stages of any show's development. The greatest single task for the team remains script review. A script is the blueprint for an episode and, as such, must follow the guidelines of the curriculum to attain specific educational goals. Nashe Maalo's dramatists, despite their training in intended-outcomes scriptwriting and in basic conflict resolution, still require oversight by the Contents Team. There is a natural dynamic tension between the writers' instinct to create interesting and entertaining drama and the Content Team's responsibility to assure the accuracy and measurability of the educational goals. Once a script is complete, however, similar dynamic tensions exist between the Production Team and Contents Team. The producer/s, director/s, and editor/s strive to create the most engaging visual TV programme, whereas the Contents Team is concerned that the visual messages are as accurate as the verbal materials. For example, in 'Mali Has a Little Lamb', from Season 1, there is a critical scene that, in the script, takes place in an Albanian household. The Production Team, however, in designing that scene's set created confusion between what the audience sees and what it hears. The dialogue is in Albanian, but the visual cues are Roma (Gypsy). Hence some of the confusion about the ethnic identity of characters revealed by that season's summative research. Because SCGM was entirely new to intended-outcomes media at that seminal stage of the project, the Contents Team was not involved once a script went into production. Four years later, every episode is reviewed by Contents during production, often as filming is taking place, and during post-production as the episode is being edited. Just as the writers and Production Team had to adjust their creative instincts to include input from the Content Team, conversely the Contents Team has had to temper its strict attitude about educational goals to accommodate the reality of TV production. It is through dialogue that Nashe Maalo seeks to effect changes in knowledge and attitudes. Television, however, is mostly a visual medium and therefore the curriculum has to be translated into what characters do not only words they speak. Some of the characters' actions are specifically based on the curriculum and are intended to teach/model new behaviour. The ultimate goal of the whole Nashe Maalo team is to create the right balance/blend of contents and art-of words and actions-to produce programmes that children want to watch and through which their education and entertainment occur seamlessly and simultaneously.
Note
1 Children's Television Workshop (CTW), producers of Sesame Street, is now known
as Sesame Workshop. The late Dr. Edward Palmer, co-founder of CTW, was SCGM's
key partner in writing the educational curriculum (Statement of Intended Outcomes)
that underlies all of Nashe Maalo. Brett Pierce, then also of CTW, directed
the process leading to creation of the Nashe Maalo format and was co-producer
of the show's first season in 1999.