Communication Theory: Australian Development Policy and Aid Analysis

This essay explores communication theory within the framework of Australian development policy and aid. It begins by examining the motivations behind Australia's aid programs, including poverty reduction, promoting prosperity, and enhancing stability both domestically and internationally. The essay then identifies key audiences for development aid, such as private company owners, athletes, and musicians, and analyzes the messages that would be most effective in persuading them to support these programs. Furthermore, the essay investigates the role of various governments and non-governmental organizations in providing aid, highlighting their common goals and interests. Finally, it discusses the strategic planning and communication necessary to effectively convey the importance of development aid to diverse audiences, emphasizing the application of structural theories of communication. The assignment answers questions such as: Why does Australia have development and aid programs? Who are the stakeholders? What are the relevant messages?

Running head: COMMUNICATION THEORY 1
Communication Theory
By Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Communication Theory
Introduction
Communication is a process of passing a message from one person to another. Thus
communication being a procedure involves various elements which individual parties involved in
the process must adhere to, in order to achieve its objective (Giles, 2016). For this reason,
various scholars have come up with various theories of communication-oriented towards
explaining the process of communication starting from the production of information, its
transmission, methods of information transmission and finally to explain how meaning can be
obtained from the conveyed information. The content of this paper, therefore, exploits the
structural theories of communication in relation to the context of Australian development policy
and aid. To achieve this, the paper answers the various question as herein.
1. Why Do We Have Development And Aid In Australia?
According to the Australian aid program, there exists a number of validations regarding
development and Aid program established in the country (Day, 2016). The Australian aid and
development program was therefore established to overcome various issues that exist in the
country as well as in most of the developing countries. The Australian government came up with
the development Australian aid policy which covers a wide area of support at both the domestic
and international level. The major validations as to why we have development and aid in
Australia include, development and aid helps in the promotion of prosperity of people within the
country and internationally, the Australian aid policy was also established to reduce poverty at
the domestic and international level and to enhance stability as well as provide a guiding
framework which makes any performance count (Corbett & Dinnen, 2016).

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Moreover, according to the department of aid and foreign aid affairs, the world is
changing radically, and each and every nation needs to change and contributes towards growth
and development of the world. Moreover, most of the developing countries are developing fasts
currently, and there is the need for financial support to such nation as based on the fact that
foreign aid makes a very small percentage of development finance on such countries. To this
effect, the Australian government is focused on how they can leverage other economic and
development drivers to help such countries in terms of private sector investments and domestic
fiancé.
The Australian development and aid program policy can be seen to exist for both
domestic and international level. In relation to the international development aid program, the
Australian government currently focuses on the neighbourhood countries within the Indo-Pacific
region. According to the policy, the government has a sharper focus to the program in order
make sure that these countries attain human development, ensure private sector growth and
promote the countries interest international through sustainable economic development
contribution. The Australian development policy and aid are also focused on achieving the same
within the domestic borders (Cole & Parry, 2017). As much as the Australian government is
concerned, there is a need for poverty reduction within the nation, promotion of human
development and the dire need for increased development in the Australian private sector.
Therefore, there is a need to support all these sectors to ensure equitable and continuing
prosperity in Australia. For this reason, the government had to establish a development policy
and aid. The diagram below is a framework which summaries the validation for the need of
development and aid in Australia.

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2. Who are the parties to be persuaded to give development aid in Australia?
Based on the provided government validations on the need for development aid, there is
a need to support the program in order to achieve such an objective for the greater good. The
government of Australia is currently investing much in development aid, and there is a need for
support from other parties with large financial based in Australia who can support the program to
its success. In as much as the government is the centre focus for aid provision, there is the need
for other parties to be persuaded to support the program. The major parties who can be persuaded
to support development policy and aid program in Australia include owners of private
companies, musicians and renowned athletes.
Private company owners:

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According to the research released in the country two years ago, Australia private sector
is composed of 500 large companies with massive financial base. These companies receive per
year from their trading activities. Australian companies such as Cotton On Group receives in the
year 2017 a net revenue of 2.59 billion dollars, the giant eleven receives 4.9 billion dollars in the
year 2018, and Fraid family's spotlight Group received approximately 1. 25 billion dollars in
terms of revenue alone last year. In the retail sector, supermarket owners receive much money
according to the annual report where Supa IGA and Drake Supermarkets received a total of 1.07
billion dollars and 1.06 million dollars, respectively. The companies are so many in Australia the
mentioned as but just a few companies and business whose owners receive a large amount of
profit annually. To this reason, major company owners in Australia forms a bigger audience.
There is a need for them to receive the message and contributes towards development aid in the
country. They receive large amounts of money and can be persuaded to give back to the
community via development policy and aid programs.
Athletes and football players:
In the whole world, talent through sporting activities pays much money and just in one
activity and individual can obtain a large amount of money. Australia has been blessed with
world-renowned athletes who have accumulated much money through appearance in various
events over the past years. According to the economic reports of the year 2018, Australian
athletes contribute much to the economy of the state. Some of the Australian athletes which
would form part of the audience include Ben Simmons who is a basketball player legend,
Lleyton Hewitt a tennis superstar, Sam Kerr the current soccer queen in Australia, Cadel Evans
who is the world cycle racer with several Olympic medals, the world-known boxer King Jeff
Horn is an individual who has accumulated a lot of wealth, another athlete Kalyn Ponga who is

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currently the captain of Queenslanders blue team, Ian Thorpe, Awer Mabil one of the greatest
soccer player and David Pocock among other athletes. Based on their net worth and these
individuals receive a lot of money thus should be persuaded to contribute towards development
aid in the country.
Musicians:
Australia, as a country, has produced many iconic bands and iconic singers in the world
whose songs are played over time. The most famous music artists in the country, John Farnham,
Jimmy Barnes, Kylie Minogue, AC/DC, Bee Gees, Midnight Oil, Slim Dusty, INXS, Crowded
House and Savage Garden. These musicians have sold a number of albums over the years and
have accumulated a lot of wealth. Therefore, I believe that these groups have accumulated a lot
of wealth and are worth being among the audience.
3. Which governments? Are their motives the same?
Most governments of the developed countries are currently focused on development aid
for both domestic and foreign purposes. Therefore, various state governments of the developed
countries are focused on ensuring that there is sustainable development all across the globe.
Australia, a country in terms of international aid, is one of the countries in the official
development assistance list. Thus share a common interest with various other countries
governments such as the government of Norway, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany,
France, Luxembourg, China, and Denmark. Other major governments include the government of
the United States of America, Italy, and Finland, the government of South Korea, Canada, Spain
and Switzerland (Cole & Parry, 2017).

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Giving of development aid is guided by certain principles and regulations. The countries
providing aid to the developing country may have different agendas, however, through the
provided committees and the UN requirements, some of the ill motives are prevented, and this
leaves the countries with a common goal. The above-mentioned countries just as Australia, have
the desire to support developing countries in order to secure their interests in such countries. The
provided support towards sustainable economic development, human development and private
sector growth in the developing countries. These governments also offer development aids to
developing countries with the main objective of reducing poverty in the developing world
(Schneider & Tobin, 2016). For this reason, the above governments share common interests
while giving aid to the developing countries. Similar to Australia, these countries also provided
support with the aim to secure their interest through sustainable economic growth. On the
contrary to Australia, most of these countries have their developed aid focused Africa countries
with limited focus on their neighbourhood countries unlike like Australia which has focused
most of its aid to the neighbouring Indo-pacific countries.
4. Are there Non-governmental audiences worth targeting in different countries
apart from Australia?
The Australian government has over the past dedicated money in terms of domestic
elevation as well as development aid to various surrounding nations. .as already mentioned, in as
much Australia as a country is developed and its government works hard to elevate its citizens
from poverty through development aid plans, the country has challenges in most of the rural
parts more places occupied by the aboriginals. To this reason, there exist thousands of non-
governmental organization in various countries in the world which can contribute to both the

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problems in Australia as well support the country with its quests to contribute towards the
sustainable economic development of the indo-Pacific countries surrounding Australia (Karkee
& Comfort, 2016). These NGOs include BRAC, which is a Bangladeshi company focused at
microcredit and poverty elevation and Bill Melinda Gates Foundation headquartered in Seattle.
The organization is focused on improving global health and poverty eradication. Other NGOs
located in other countries with the same motives as the Australian government includes doctors
without borders located in Geneva, Switzerland and Oxfam international located in England. All
these non-governmental organizations have a similar focus on poverty alleviation and
development aid in various countries. These organizations, therefore, form the part of the
audience based on what they believe.
5. Identify messages to be sold to which audiences?
Communicating development aid to the audiences needs a lot of strategic planning and
focus which can be achieved through Structural theories of communication knowledge. The
message should reach the target audience in an attempt to make them understand why the aid is
necessary and convince them to reach their banks and make contributions toward sustainable
economic development. Moreover, the issue of corruption has various parts of the world, and
some people perceive giving aids is just making a few individuals. Therefore, the following are
some of the messages with their suitable audiences.
Audience in Australia (Musicians and Athletes)
Message #1: doing good to the poor people within our nation and overseas helps them
and help us too.

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The firsts message to the audience in Australia is focused towards making them have an
understanding that their contributions towards humanity does not only benefit people in the
developing countries overseas but also help with the alleviation of poverty within the
neighbourhoods. The purpose the message statements combines ideas of helping other people
and also helping oneself. Where doing good things to others in the case means better education
for children in the developing countries and the Australian rural areas, better healthcare job
opportunities. On the other hand, the part of the statement helping us too means reduced
insecurity threats and elevated trading opportunities for Australians overseas.
Message # 2: Share your happiness with others.
The above statement id direct and may and asks people with good financial-based to help
support others and make them happy. By sharing happiness, the audience is asked to support
others by contributing towards their better health, job creation opportunities and reduce the
poverty rate among the aboriginals and overseas nations where development and aid money sent.
Message #3: our development aid is not cash it is doing good things through the
Australian expertise.
The message is to create the understanding that the money received for developments and
poverty alleviation is not being used to support corrupt regimes and cartels but rather handled by
Australian experts. This message is also directed towards eliminating the perception that
development aids contributed by various donors are used in developing countries to support their
interests in the developing countries.
Message to other countries
Message #4: alleviation of poverty overseas creates also eliminates poverty at home.

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The content of the message is oriented towards encouraging other nations to provide
more support to the developing nations as it away of also creating wealth for the home county.
This is because, through development aid, developed countries are able to create a good trading
link with the developing countries thus securing their interest in terms of trade which in turn
generates income for the developed countries.
Message #5: supporting development overseas through development aid eliminates
threats at home.
The content of this message encourages developed countries and NGOs to provide
support to the developing countries in order to eliminate threats which may occur internally. For
instance, many people are currently crossing borders in fetching for the better life the developed
countries. Such illegal migration is perceived as a threat to the national security of developed
countries.
6. Identify messages that will be easy to sell and messages that will be hard to sell?
Selling messages to the audience is easy when the message being sold is open and easy
to understand. Based on these arguments, the above messages can be categorized into two major
divisions easy to sell and hard to sell. Therefore, message #1, message #4 and message # 2 can
be categorized as easy to sell. The reason as to why these three messages can be categorized as
easy to sell is based on the fact that they are easy to understand. The message statements contain
to ambiguity and require less critical thinking to understand the message.
On the other hand, message #3 and message #5 contain ambiguous statements which
require in-depth analysis to obtain the real meaning. The statement in message # 3, claims that
the aid we give is not in terms of cash but through Australian expertise. This statement requires a

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deeper understanding in order to get the meaning. In a real sense, the development aid required
to form the public is normally interns of cash. However, the message contradicts itself, and this
makes it difficult to sell. Message #5 on the hand claims that provision of development aid
overseas helps protect individual countries that provide support in terms of the development aid.
This message requires a deeper analysis in order to understand the meaning of the message.
Message # 3 and message # 5, therefore, has a sense of complexity which cannot easily be
understood by a layperson.
7. Identify your communication problems = messages you need to sell, but which
are hard to sell?
Communication problems in message #3 and message #5:
Problem One: Assumption and misinterpretation
As noted above, two messages #3 and #5 contains ambiguity which may make it difficult
to understand. This, therefore, has evidence of misinterpretation and assumptions. This problem
occurs in commutation when a statement is open for interpretation like in the content of message
#3 and #5. Therefore, in the case that the target audiences will assume and apply literal
interpretation, the content of the message with being interpreted (Dainton & Zelley, 2017).
Therefore, application of literal application regarding these two messages without critical
thinking will like to lead to misinterpretations.
Problem Two: Being indirect
The two messages contain indirect meanings or subtle information that usually a
communication problem. The two messages #3 and #5 are indirect message thus need critical
interpretation. Notably, in as much as critical thinking is an important activity in human life, an

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individual lacks the ability to understand or read one another' mind; thus, the problem of indirect
meaning. Taking, for instance, the message#3 states that the Australian government does not
give cash but rather use expertise in Australia to conduct development programs overseas. An
individual may not understand the real meaning of the statement based without thinking. The
statement encourages Australians to contribute towards development aids as their money is
directed towards the right course but not towards supporting corrupts regimes within the
developing countries. This is a critical message that only individuals with clear knowledge
regarding Australian development aid history could understand (Mortensen, 2017).
8. How can communication theories help us solve such problems?
Communication theories are very critical in the understanding of communication and its
process. The knowledge of communication theory would, therefore, help in solving such
problems. To begin with, communication theory helps with the organization of information
based on the understanding of the individual audience communication experience. For this
reason, the ambiguity would have been avoided through an understanding of the individual
communication experience. Notably, the communication problems that exist in message #3 and
#5 would have been avoided through proper understanding of the individual levels of message
inter predation.
Another function of communication theory is to provide a broader view and
understanding of the human communication process (Blakar, 2018)). Therefore, thorough an
understanding of the process, problems such as giving of the indirect message could be avoided.
Moreover, communication theory provides the foundation for an individual to evaluate the
communication process and the message to be communicated before passing the message.

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9. How to sell messages that are hard to sell?
According to the structural theories of communication, dealing with pushbacks is one of
challenges an individual can face while passing a message to the audience. Therefore, there is
need for an in-depth analysis of various components of communication in order to achieve the
objective of message. In consideration of the communication components, to the design, I will
use to sell the message #3 and #5 are as below:
Step 1: Understand the audience who are not able to figure out the meaning of the
message
Step 2: Listen to their reasoning and concerns
Step 3: Recast the erroneous assumption and misinterpretations
Step 4: Make the message interesting
Step 5: Provide interpret the message statement to the audience through a simple
description
Identify communication problems that cannot be solved (tell us why).
Structural theories of communication investigate elements of communication and
provides a way in which one can improve effectiveness of communication. Some of the
communication unsolvable problems identified through the foundation of structural theories of
communication include bad interpersonal relationship and the lack of knowledge, which leads to
negativity.
Reason:
In as much as communication theory provided a medium for solving communication
problems, there exist major communication problems which I believe are difficult to solve. As
indicated above, the lack of interpersonal relationship with the audience is one major problem in

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communication. This problem is difficult to solve since most of the people tend to push back
messages when they fail to connect with the message. In most situation, the audience of the
message does not push back openly, making even much harder to solve. The second problem is
the negativity that arises with a lack of knowledge by the audience. This problem is difficult to
solve based on the fact that most individual may feel embarrassed to ask for clarification.
Therefore, instead of asking for information regarding what they cannot understand, they resolve
to push back.
Conclusion
Structural communication theories are important in the understanding, organizing and
planning for communication. This communication theory communication has various functions
the enable an individual to avoid simple communication mistakes. The communication problems
involved in the development aid in the above content would have been avoided through the
application skills and knowledge acquired from the understanding of meta-communication.
Moreover, it is notable from the content that the application of knowledge from structural
theories of communication is critical creation and selling of pieces of information that were
difficult to sell.

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Reference
Blakar, R. M. (2018). Towards a theory of communication in terms of preconditions: A
conceptual framework and some empirical explorations. In Recent advances in language,
communication, and social psychology (pp. 10-40). Routledge.
Cole, R. V., & Parry, T. G. (2017). Selected Issues in Pacific Island Development: Papers from
the Islands/Australia Project. Canberra, ACT: National Centre for Development Studies,
Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University..
Corbett, J., & Dinnen, S. (2016). Examining recent shifts in Australia's foreign aid policy: new
paradigm or more incremental change?. Australian Journal of International
Affairs, 70(1), 87-103.

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Dainton, M., & Zelley, E. D. (2017). Applying communication theory for professional life: A
practical introduction. Sage publications.
Day, B. (2016). Australian aid after the ‘Golden Consensus’: from aid policy to development
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Giles, H. (2016). Communication accommodation theory. The International Encyclopedia of
Communication Theory and Philosophy, 1-7.
Karkee, R., & Comfort, J. (2016). NGOs, foreign aid, and development in Nepal. Frontiers in
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Mortensen, C. D. (2017). Communication theory. Routledge.
Schneider, C. J., & Tobin, J. L. (2016). Portfolio similarity and international development
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