How PCI-Media Impact Works
Telling Stories, Saving Lives
We
Tell Stories
 Stories capture the dynamics of everyday life, offering the
opportunity to reach people on a deeply personal level. Our
stories are grounded in social learning theory, and include
positive characters who are rewarded, negative characters
who are punished, and transitional characters whose experiences
embody the difficult choices we all face in everyday life.
Over the course of a broadcast, the audience bonds with these
transitional characters and, as a result, they begin to emulate
the positive behaviors included in the stories. Learn
more
We Create Change
 The shows PCI-Media Impact develops portray
people’s everyday lives. Each dramatizes the problems
people struggle with, and models functional strategies and
solutions to them. This broadcast approach succeeds because
it motivates people to make personal choices that improve
their lives. Field tests of the impact in diverse cultural
milieus verify its power to create healthier lifestyles. Learn
more
The
Power of Partnership
 We work with local organizations to produce, air, and sustain
programs with health and poverty messages, and facilitate
the dissemination of these programs as widely as possible.
The thousands of hours of programming we have produced has
improved the health of and alleviated poverty for millions
of underserved people in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
PCI-Media Impact is a leading provider of
technical assistance to governments, non-governmental organizations
and foundations working on media campaigns (television, radio
and research) with a social marketing dimension. Learn
more
Measuring Our Impact
 From our founding, PCI-Media Impact has used
research, monitoring, and evaluation to refine and evolve
our programs to best meet needs of those whom we serve. Formative
research is used to identify the target audience’s educational
needs, cultural beliefs, realities, and barriers to change.
This information enables us to propose clear objectives, indicators,
outcomes and outputs, and a plan for monitoring change and
impact evaluation.
For example, studies of PCI-Media Impact’s
radio serial drama, Taru, which
focused on reproductive health and women’s empowerment,
indicated that the show achieved impressive results in its
target communities when it aired in 2002. Due in large part
to the broadcast of the show in the northern state of Bihar,
India, four villages experienced dramatic increases in the
sales of condoms, oral contraceptive pills, and pregnancy
testing devices, with increases reported in the 200% to 600%
range. Learn more
Effective
Media Delivery
 PCI-Media Impact knows that different groups
of people respond better to different forms of media. This
is why our programs have ranged from national-scale television
and radio shows, to grassroots community radio initiatives,
to partnership programs with education ministries. We strive
to create programs that best engage the target audience—not
“one size fits all” initiatives, but comprehensive
communications strategies tailored to the needs and concerns
of those whom we serve.
Documenting Results
 Many PCI-Media Impact programs have been
studied by independent, university-based researchers looking
at the effects of social content radio and television soap
operas on listeners and viewers. These impact evaluations
complement PCI-Media Impact's own evaluation
efforts and inform our work on other programs. Numerous research
papers demonstrating the effectiveness of PCI-Media
Impact's approach have been published in peer-reviewed
academic journals. Learn
more
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