The first is to encourage Member States to use all communications media, old and new, to develop a climate conducive to social change for women. The second is to encourage the education of girls. A number of development projects have also shown that people's lives can be altered substantially by appropriate messages through the mass media, reinforce with practical activities. This is being achieved, for example, in the field of health, where communication programmes alter people's fundamental attitudes towards diarrhoeal diseases. In population programmes, social marketing seeks to encourage even those who may have a negative disposition towards family planning to become more socially responsible.
Development communication is already a firmly established field of effort.
Preliminary research on existing attitudes determines both who are the target audiences and what are the appropriate messages for each audience as well as the appropriate vehicles for dissemination of those messages. Frequently, an important message may need to be directed towards a group that is not the beneficiary. A primary target for communication related to development projects for women may well be men. In addition to the mass communications media, appropriate vehicles for carrying message of change in rural areas are activities such as folk theater, songs and puppetry. These can reinforce discussion in the more traditional open forums.