During times of crisis and controversy there are often calls for social change. This can involve getting people to change the way they act or behave, creating change in organisations and institutions, or sometimes making changes to regulations and the law. To make these changes happen it’s important to get the right messages across at the right time.

Dr Alison Henderson at Waikato University Management School specialises in communication about social change and says as individuals, organisations and governments struggle to manage resources and tackle climate and environmental issues it’s become even more important to create the right kind of dialogue. “Part of doing that is to get people with different perspectives to understand each other’s point of view,” says Dr Henderson, “New sciences like biotechnologies and nanotechnology are challenging traditional world views about health and the environment and at the same time we’re being challenged by new forms of communication. It can be a minefield working out how best to talk about and manage social change.”

Dr Henderson currently has a Marsden Grant of $300,000 over three years to study food producers and how they attempt to influence the debate about healthy food, and this semester she’s also teaching a paper on Communicating Social Change.

“I think people working in the health sector, in environmental planning, and in areas of public policy need to be equipped to deal with communication issues in what can often be tricky situations. It’s all about understanding sustainability, risk and well being, knowing strategies, implementing large scale campaigns and having skills to manage social change in a range of organisational settings.”

The Management Communication Department where Dr Henderson teaches has put together a set of four complementary papers that students may study as part of a degree programme, or as part of a graduate diploma as a way of upskilling. The remaining three papers, Communication, Health and Wellbeing; Managing Health Relationships, and Events and Communication Management will be taught in Semester B, starting in July.

Contact: Alison Henderson: alison@waikato.ac.nz