The Papua New Guinea University of Technology - Bachelor of Technology in Communication for Development and Master of Communication Studies

The Bachelor of Technology in Communication for Development (BTCD) lasts eight semesters (four years), which includes one semester of industrial experience.
The programme is intended to respond to a national need for professionals who can competently communicate, negotiate, and disseminate information, and resolve conflicts concerning the development of Papua New Guinea’s natural resources.

The C4D degree programme is designed to offer appropriate professional training for public relations, community development, and liaison officers, especially for work with resource development companies, government departments, or landowner associations. The degree programme is interdisciplinary in nature, including subjects from disciplines within the University which provide students with the relevant background expertise and knowledge in technical, scientific, commercial, legal and social fields, as well as the appropriate communicative skills, techniques and strategies to carry out their work effectively.

It is hoped that students who successfully complete the C4D degree programme will have, at the appropriate level, a fundamental grasp of the issues involved in community relations and liaison work and an ability to exercise the necessary judgment, flexibility, circumspection, initiative and sensitivity to cope successfully with the demands of their profession.

The objectives of the Master of Communication Studies are to:

• Critically review the current and relevant literature: books, journals, monographs thesis, discussion papers, conference proceedings and other suitable material pertinent to the research topic under investigation. 
• Teach students to appreciate a broader understanding of the various structures and dynamics of society and their connections to patterns of human behaviour and individual life changes.
• Offer various communication theories and their applications as foundations for further analysis and research in the field of communications.
• Provide knowledge and skills using mass media to complement and supplement the development of human attitudes and behaviours for societal progress.
• Provide advanced training in writing by creating an academic environment for students to develop critical awareness of the organisation, linguistic features, and production of selected academic writing genres.
• Train the students not only to understand the knowledge skills and techniques in planning and carrying out an independent research but also to grasp the key methods of data processing using a computer software.
• Engage students in a semester of intensive fieldwork and research to use research tools/instruments to collect first-hand data and information as evidence to support the dissertation.
• Produce high quality dissertations reflected by technical competence, originality of scholarly research, critical assessment, logical structure, and scholarly discussion of findings to address research questions and problems.

The Bachelors Degree lasts eight semesters (four years), which includes one semester of industrial experience. Course options with a particular focus on C4D include:

Introduction to Communication for Development (C4D) - What is Development? Paradigms, Models and Assumptions; Communication: Models, Media and Barriers; Development Communication: What it is and is not; Foundations and Practices; Development Communication and Relations to the Policy Sciences; Development Communication in the Community: Contests and Change; The Six Success Factors for Effective Rural Communication.  More information at this link.

Conflict Resolutions and Negotiation Skills -  The nature and types of conflicts in PNG and Melanesia: case studies of specific conflicts in Melanesia involving land disputes, negotiating resource rights and benefits; preparing of verbal and nonverbal communication, making concessions and breaking lead-locks, foreseeing problems that are likely to arise; stress management; ethics and discipline; bribery, corruption, and how to deal with them. More information at this link.  

Communication and Media Studies - Communication: types and process; Models of communication: functions and characteristics of mass media; Media: its development, its freedom and its relevance in Papua New Guinea; Media reception: its impact on people and its influence on culture and lifestyles, political, environmental and gender attitudes. More information at this link.

Social Change - Definitions and orientations to social change: What is social change? What is cultural change? - the place of social change in sociological theory, the place of social change in cultural change, the notions of material culture and non-material culture; Sources of social change: invention and diffusion, factors necessitating and restricting diffusion; Factors necessitating social change: the role of demography, population growth as a cause and result of social change, the role of technology, the role of changing values, and the role of “great men” in changing society. More information at this link.

Community Development Strategies - Understanding community development: the meaning of community and community development; Community Development Process Model; principles of community development; introduction to sustainable development; Community development skills: information collecting and analysis, interpersonal skills, written and oral communication for community development; Community development projects: what is a project? project cycles, development cycles, and project planning; Identifying community resources: community action resources, working with - donors – media, participatory development, community development standards, what is participatory development?  More information at this link.

Click here for a fill list of courses (Under “Course Structure” tab).

For the Masters Degree, the candidate must complete 8 units of courses that are taken in the first year and a research dissertation in the second year. The following courses are offered during the first year:

• Communication Theories
• Sociological Thought
• Advanced research methods
• Media editing and reporting
• Dissertation (introduction)
• Advanced writing skills
• Participatory Communcation and Community Development
• Sociology of Crime and Deviance
• Public Relations, Advertising and Campaigns
• Dissertation (methodology)

For the Bachelors, the overall aim of the programme is to integrate theory with practice. To this end, there is a strong practical component in the form of periods of community engagements through social research and industrial experience. In addition, the teaching includes classes conducted by professional officers currently practising in the field.

The following are some of the core teaching materials related to the courses outlined above:

• Castello, R. & Braun, P. M. (Eds). 2006. Framework on Effective Rural Communication for Development. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization ofthe United Nations and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH.
• Ongkiko, V. I. & Flor, A. G. 1998. Introduction to Development Communication. Manila: Open University of the University of the Philippines.
• Servaes, J. (Ed.). 2002. Approaches to Development Communication. Paris: UNESCO.
• Berlo, David K., The process of communication: an introduction to theory and practice, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, USA, 1960.
• National Information and Communication Policy of Papua New Guinea, Department of Information and Communication Services, Waigani, 1994.
• Watson, J., Media communication: an introduction to theory and process, Palgrave Macmillan, New York USA, 2016
• Keesing, Roger M., Kin groups and social structure, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, USA, 1975.
• Chambers, R., Conway, G. R., Sustainable rural livelihoods: practical concepts for the 21st century, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK, 1992.

Eastman, S. & Gilder, E. (2017). As America trump (ets), the world gets tinnitus: Construing the personal/political sphere of Donald Trump’s supporters and its effects upon accurately forecasting the election of 2016. “Uncertainty: Elections, Brexit, Terrorism, Geo-Policies, Islamic Revolution,” Romanian Review of Political Science and International Relations XIV (1): 11–40.

Essacu, F. B. (2017). A case study to establish insights into reasons and nature of conflicts in resource based development projects in Papua New Guinea, Journal of International Understanding 43 (Japan): 5-24.

Essacu, F. B. (2017). Understanding emerging relationships between institutional structures and leadership modes in natural resource development communities in Papua New Guinea, JCDS: Journal of Communication and Development Studies III-IV: 44-60.

Mishra, K.D. (2017).  A Love Story of fantasy and fascination: Exigency of Indian cinema in Nigeria, Annals – Series on Philosophy, Psychology and Theology 9(1-2), on-line ISSN 2067-113x Open Access, and print form, ISSN 2067-5690, 2017

Mishra, K.D. (2017). Social Media revolution: The new digital frontiers of Journalism, Journal of Advances in Humanities 5. DOI: 10.24297/jah.v5i1.6068.

Sali, G. (2017). Papua New Guinea state university students in conflict with social morality and the rule of law, Korean Journal of Correctional Discourse11 (1): 237-277.

Faculty members include:

• Dr Garry Sali - Associate Professor and Head of Department
• Mr George Wrondimi – Deputy Head of Department
• Dr Eric Gilder – Professor
• Dr Rachel Aisoli-Orake – Senior Lecturer 
• Dr Kaveri Mishra – Senior Lecturer
• Dr Apoi Yarapea – Senior Lecturer
• Ms Rhonda Gwale – Senior Lecturer
• Mrs Mary Aisi – Lecturer
• Mr Michael Winuan – Lecturer 
• Imelda Ambelye - Lecturer (on study leave)
• Mrs Sheryl Makara – Lecturer (on study leave)
• Mr Joshua Frank Kuri – Lecturer  
• Miss Wilma Molus – Lecturer
• Lucy Maino (Lecturer)
• Joel Sefo (Lecturer)

Click here for a list of all faculty staff.