Hunger has been declared «the greatest human tragedy of our time» (Pojecte FAM, 2019). It’s no wonder, then, that it has been constantly portrayed in NGO’s advertising campaigns since a few years back.
Usually, the narrative constructed by the media focuses in the victims of starvation (aren’t we a little too used to that black woman, trying to feed a badly undernourished baby, too thin and too small to actually live?) and «the vicious circle of donation», which gives the viewers the impression we can actually save lives with just a few euros from our pockets (Nos, 2018).
And let’s not forget food banks and shelters, both viewed as great tools to fight hunger in local communities. From childhood, we are used to give away food to those who need it and we get the feeling we have done what we could, and that’s it (Crowe, 2019).
Moreover, we are given a representation of hunger as an issue we are able to solve, but not as the symptom, the consequence, of something much bigger and deep it actually is (Nos, 2018).
This type of communication has been proven to be inefficient multiple times and there have been some suggestions to create ways of «transformative learning and reflection» to make visible the causes of hunger. There has to be a reason, at any rate, that almost one billion people are still starving in the world (Projecte FAM, 2019).
Communication has to be horizontal and participative in order to uncover the political roots of hunger and to achieve real transformation processes and cultural effectiveness (Nos, 2018).
Technology could be our greatest ally if used correctly. Such is the example of the UN World Food Programm (WFP) with the Feed Our Future campaign to respond to «the needs derived from hunger» (Corresponsales, 2019). This campaign, which has been working for two years now, is accompained by a free app called ShareTheMeal.
Feed Our Future spot has been released strictly on cinemas, because they offer room to creative and sensitive content. Moreover, its effectiveness has been more tahn proved: «the 2018 campaign raised more than half a million dollars» and «helped to double the knowledge of WFP’s work» (Corresponsales, 2019).
The latter is of special importance, as the ultimate goal of WFP is to end hunger from the root, «achieve food security, improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture» (Naciones Unidas, 2018).
So, while FoF is a campaign of cultural efficiency due to its obvious management objective that can be identified (this is, after all, a campaign to collect donations, i. e., to get the means they need to pursue their social goals), together with the app and the informative website, it achieves a cultural effectiveness.
So, yes, the FoF spot starts as a culturall efficiency campaign, but we can say that thanks to all the complementary actions that surround it, it achieves true cultural efficiency as it becomes publicity. That is, a type of communication that pursues public, collective and educational objectives.
References:
Corresponsales. (2019). El cine demuestra ser un arma eficaz contra el hambre en el mundo. 27 de septiembre de 2019. Recuperado de: https://www.corresponsables.com/actualidad/ods2-cine-demuestra-ser-un-arma-contra-el.hambre. Fecha de consulta: 13 de diciembre de 2019.
Crowe, Jasmine (2019). Jasmine Crowe: What we’re getting wrong in the fight to end hunger. [Archivo de vídeo]. Recuperado de: https://www.ted.com/talks/jasmine_crowe_what_we_re_getting_wrong_in_the_fight_to_end_hunger.
Naciones Unidas. (2018). Hambre Cero. Recuperado de: https://es.wfp.org/hambre-cero. Fecha de consulta: 13 de diciembre de 2019.
Nos, Eloísa. (2019). Comunicación transgresora de cambio social. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6035/Sapientia158
Projecte FAM. (2019). El proyecto. Recuperado de: http://www.projectefam.cc/proyecto. Fecha de consulta: 10 de diciembre de 2019.
Bình luận