Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

The bulwark of health communication is built on the premise of communication as a tool of behavior change. Since the invention of film, communication scholars, practitioners, and policy makers have been obsessed with the power of media technologies to transform behaviors of audiences that can be targeted through messages. Mass media as tools of propaganda are invested with miraculous powers of transformation. The power of communication to bring about magical transformations in the behaviors of those it touches forms the mainspring of the lay obsession with magic bullet theories of the media. The media effects literature over the last four decades has robustly debunked the magic bullet ideology. These magic bullet theories have been witnessing a catalytic return since the advent of social media in the form of the renewed interest in behavior change theories, now packaged in big data analytics, nudge, and behavioral insights. What these renewed fascinations with media technolog...

We need all the solidarity we can have, you say, Now is the time to stand up Brown, black, yellow, White All together Voices raised together. You say, Now is not the Time for critique Within As the power must be checked We need all the solidarity We can have. But solidarity Can't be dictated you see. I don't trust you. Don't trust your brand of imperialism that stinks of its colonial overtones and undertones. Your solidarity doesn't stand by me I remember In your liberal glory I become another victim, a relic of incivility. But now, You want my solidarity? No, I just can't roll over and lend you my solidarity. For solidarity is won shoulder to shoulder through struggles fought and bodies on the line.

The White liberal is in essence an interventionist that fundamentally believes in the God-ordained American right to intervene in the World to spread the message of democracy. She comes in many colors, White, Brown, Black, Yellow. But in her heart, she is White. Her Whiteness is epitomized in her unshakeable faith in her American values of democracy that must be spread the world over. She is the defender of democracy. Spreading democracy is her moral responsibility. The dazzling glare of Whiteness leaves no room for critique or reflection. For the White liberal, the colonial nature of Whiteness must be erased as it is an inconvenient truth. Any conversation on democracy and the imperial mission is a distraction, we are told. To retain the hegemony of Whiteness therefore is to place your unquestioned faith in the pillars of White liberalism and its uplifting message that saves dark souls. The parochialism of Whiteness is in essence the tool that perpetuates the hegemony of ...