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About the Center

Communication for Sustainable Social Change (CSSC) is an independent organization created as a “Center of Excellence” within the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the flagship school of the state’s five campus university system.

The Center was created in response to an urgent need for close study of society and culture in formulating communication and media strategies in order to ensure that target audiences are reached in an appropriate manner that most effectively enhances knowledge transfer and brings about sustainable social change. This is particularly so in developing countries where access to understandable information about health care (particularly HIV/AIDS), security, agriculture, literacy and other issues is vital. However, social change is not limited to developing countries, and the Center’s activities will encompass global and local activities worldwide.

The Center is envisioned as an international resource base and focal point for broad interdisciplinary studies into the theory and practice of sustainable social change communication. CSSC will do this together with researchers and scholars around the globe.

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Upcoming Events

Events

Funding Approved! Call for Expressions of Interest: Ph.D. Students in Communication Interested in Wind Energy

The NSF will fund a so-called IGERT project on Wind Energy beginning this spring.  IGERT stands for: Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program. The SBS Center 'Communication for Sustainable Social Change (CSSC)' is a member of the steering committee for this project, under chief investigator Elisabeth M. Hamin, Associate Professor of Regional Planning. Click here for faculty contacts and information. 
For more information regarding this project, check out the brochure.

Upcoming IGERT Competition
How do we communicate about our research in innovative ways? How can we channel breakthroughs in technology to share our work with the colleagues, peers, and audiences beyond our university walls for a better, brighter future for all?

This year, the 2012 IGERT Online Video and Poster Competition is bringing our labs and research from 114 IGERT projects to the world and harnessing the power of social networks to engage our community and the general public in the cutting edge work that will impact our futures.

On May 22nd through 25th, the 2012 IGERT Online Video and Poster Competition will be live on Igert.org/competition2012. Be sure to check out the videos and posters from your colleagues; offer comments, feedback and questions for presenters; and cast your votes for 4 IGERT Community Choice awards. Encourage friends to vote their favorites by ‘Liking’ them on Facebook.
 

Recent News

News

CSSC Hosts Two Fellows from China
02/03/2012 - 18:41
The Center for Communication of Sustainable Social Change (CSSC) is hosting two visiting fellows from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in Wuhan, China....

for information about our new fellows
and more on Prof. Servaes' UNESCO appointment and interview
on Isaac Ben Ezra's show,"Conversations" on ACTV, Amherst Media
please see this link from In the Loop, news for faculty and staff
at U.Mass, Amherst
US UNESCO Chairs' Letter to Secretary Clinton
12/14/2011 - 18:43
December 12, 2011

The Honorable
Hilary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, D.C. 20520


Dear Madame Secretary:

We write in support of your initiative to persuade the United States Congress to honor its moral, ethical and financial commitments to UNESCO.

As professors and UNESCO Chair holders in American universities we have seen first-hand the importance of UNESCO programs that are carried out across a variety of disciplines and in accord with the highest ideals of economic and social development for all people. This work should not be subject to a litmus test imposed by partisan political interests.

Indeed, we believe it is indefensible for the United States to use its financial support to coerce any agency of the United Nations into compliance with its own agenda. Furthermore, as the US Department of State has noted, cutting funding to UNESCO is also counterproductive to American goals at home and abroad.

We support UNESCO’s Director General Irina Bukova vision for "a new era of peace and humanism... where the values of human dignity and human rights, of equal access to education and culture, will underpin all economic and political considerations."

If there is to be a new era, we believe it is imperative for the United States to base its actions neither on military nor on financial coercion but on the higher principles of peace and justice to which both the United Nations and the United States aspire.

Sincerely,

Professor Rosental C. Alves, UNESCO Chair in Communication, University of Texas at Austin, and President of ORBICOM, a global network of UNESCO Chairs in Communication

Professor Max Kirsch, UNESCO Chair in Human and Cultural Rights, Florida Atlantic University

Professor Marguerite Moritz, UNESCO Chair in International Journalism, University of Colorado at Boulder

Professor Robert J. Naiman, UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Rivers, University of Washington

Professor Jan Servaes, UNESCO Chair in Communication for Sustainable Social Change, University of Massachusetts

Professor Steven Shankman, UNESCO Chair in Transcultural Studies, Interreligious Dialogue, and Peace, University of Oregon


CSSC Award Winner 2011
10/04/2011 - 17:47
The annual Communication for Sustainable Social Change Award aims to honor outstanding contributions by individuals or organizations to the theory and practice of communication for sustainable social change.

In recognition of outstanding achievement, the jury has recognized two very distinctive organizations: one whose work is generated and promoted from a grassroots origin; the other, established from a more traditional approach using television media for communication sources of information, thereby recommends hat the 2011 CSSC award to be presented this year to two nominees for their distinctive work in sustaining social change in communication:

Sharad Sharma, World Comics India (WCI)

and to

Canal Futura, Roberto Marinho Foundation, Brazil

 
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