The Future
This chapter reflects on the future prospects for the field of communication for development (c4d) and social change. It begins with an example that illustrates different thinking about poverty worldwide and the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in helping to solve the problem: Kiva organization's use of the internet to get people involved in contributing to change in developing countries. It then discusses passing paradigms, shifting discourses, and pragmatic practices in the field of c4d, suggesting that c4d paradigms do not necessarily disappear but are absorbed in practice by institutions and reappear in different policies or practices at different times. It also describes current contexts and challenges facing c4d, along with new ways to approach them. The chapter concludes with five suggestions of how universities and research centers might contribute to reinvigorating the c4d field in the next decade, one of which is how to adapt the paradigm of social entrepreneurship to c4d.