Mobile Cinema and Community Action

Background:  This paper looks at the role of mobile cinema in the promotion of public health in Malawi and how the platform has been used to galvanize community action especially during health campaigns, disease outbreaks and other natural disasters. In a country where access to electricity is very low particularly in rural areas where over 80% of the population lives, the health communication landscape has been dominated by radio for many decades since independence in 1964 until 1997 when the first local television (TV) station was commissioned. This was followed by the introduction of cell phones and later the internet, but despite this growth in diversity of communication platforms, radio has continued to dominate due to low access to television.  However in spite of low access to TV, moving pictures are still a very popular medium in both urban and rural areas and TV ownership is gradually increasing which will increase its importance.

Program background:  In the absence of television, the use of mobile cinema (which involves the use of a vehicle usually all-terrain vehicles and audio-visual equipment, where the vehicle acts not only as a medium for moving the audio-visual equipment around but also as a platform for setting it up once on location) has been a very popular and effective medium of communication that has been used particularly in training of farmers in modern agricultural methods for many years. Mobile cinema has also been used extensively to disseminate various health education messages ranging from promotion of sanitation to use of insecticide treated mosquito nets to prevention of HIV. This platform allows for integration of entertainment, information, education and dialogue all within one package which strengthens its effectiveness and impact. Depending on the population of an area where a mobile cinema session is taking place, participation ranges from hundreds to thousands of people per session. Having such large numbers of people provides a unique opportunity for distribution of print materials, delivery of a standardized message package through creative and localized videos and also provides the opportunity for human interaction and feedback between communities and health professionals.

Evaluation Methods and Results: N/A

Conclusions:  Community cinema has been a very popular medium for delivering public health communication in peri urban and rural areas in Malawi and has therefore been widely used by Government Ministries of Health and Information as well as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) like Population Services International (PSI) and Banja La Mtsogolo(BLM). Community Cinema has been used as part of a wider multimedia strategy and it has been effective in drawing large crowds however its effectiveness in terms of actual behavior change is yet to be assessed at national level.

Implications for research and/or practice:  There is currently no standardized approach on how the strategy is implemented by the different implementers and therefore it is difficult to measure effectiveness across the board. There are existing platforms where such issues can be addressed particularly to have the government teams attain the level of proficiency demonstrated by their NGO counterparts.