Author: Victor Portillo

This collection of 10 original essays honors the intellectual legacy of Professor Everett M Rogers (1931-2004), a pioneering and distinguished teacher-scholar of diffusion of innovations, communication networks, and social change. Well-known colleagues and contemporaries write on social change topics that not only piqued Roger’s curiosity, but to which he made seminal and lasting contributions. Overall, this book demonstrates the diversity of Roger’s contributions to the fields of communication science, marketing, organizational change, sociology, and social psychology. Each essay illustrates some of his insights in practice. Together they add up to a stimulating picture of social change approaches which are effective across disciplines, and which will serve as a starting point for future scholarship and practice.

There’s a myth that educational TV and media for young people and adults have to be dull and serious, that it cannot be fun, engaging and entertaining. This publication questions this myth. We believe that one can address serious social issues through popular, entertainment media genres. Entertainment-Education (E-E or edutainment from now on) strategies for social change use traditional and nontraditional entertainment formats and the power of their narrative attributes, to engage mass audiences to question their existing realities and mobilize for social change. E-E strategies produce pop culture with a purpose.

Some girls in conflict-ridden Northern Uganda resort to transactional sex to have a mat to sleep on at night. And…

At Billings Clinic in Billings Montana, healthcare associated infections plunged when all members of the organization – nurses, physicians, housekeepers, food servers, therapists, and executives – joined a collaborative effort that allowed each person to contribute to the cause of saving lives and preventing suffering. The initiative was based on Positive Deviance, the organizational and behavioral change strategy that enables communities to discover and amplify the things that are already working and devise new solutions tailored to their own specific work environments. In the process, they improved patient safety, developed healthy human networks that increased cooperation, enhanced harmonious workplace relationships and inspired continual commitment to a culture of high quality care.

Promotion of healthy behaviors and prevention of disease are inextricably linked to cultural understandings of health and well-being. Health communication scholarship and practice can substantially and strategically contribute to people living safer, healthier, and happier lives. This book represents a concrete step in that direction by establishing a strategic framework for guiding global and local health practices. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, the volume includes state-of-the-art theories that can be applied to health communication interventions and practical guidelines about how to design, implement, and evaluate effective health communication interventions.
Few books have synthesized such a broad range of theories and strategies of health communication that are applicable globally, and also provided clear advice about how to apply such strategies. This volume combines academic research and field experience, guided by past and future research agendas and on-the-ground implementation opportunities.