From Extension to Communication for Innovation 229such as novel market arrangements, new government regulations and/or alterna-
tive forms of organization. The main purpose of this type of communication serv-
ice, then, is to arrive at appropriate and coherent innovations in the face of certain
challenges and/or problems. Due to the collective nature of innovations, this com-
munication service usually requires the bringing together of various stakeholders
in group sessions and/or semi-permanent ‘platforms’ (Röling, 1994a). Here a wide
range of activities can take place, including joint experimentation and exploration,
aimed at generating new knowledge, insight and mutual understanding. In addi-
tion, forging effective links and knowledge exchange between such platforms and
various knowledge institutions (e.g. applied research, universities etc.) can be an
important stimulant to innovation. Again, the key function for communication
workers here is to facilitate the process, and it is important to work towards a bal-
ance between new technical devices and novel social-organizational arrangements.
Thus, besides learning-oriented activities such as experimentation and explora-
tion, sufficient attention should be paid to the creation of support networks and
the negotiation of new arrangements between various stakeholders. This often
means that communication workers have to deal with tensions and conflicts that
emerge during the innovation process. Investments in these kinds of innovation
processes are often made because of specific societal problems and/or the desire to
foster progress in areas where this is thought to be lacking. Moreover, this type of
communicative intervention is inherently interactive (at least to some extent) and
is frequently legitimized with reference to specific qualities attributed to an inter-
active mode of working.
Conflict management
In some situations, serious tensions and conflicts among stakeholders form the
starting point for communicative interventions, rather than the intervention
emerging during an interactive process (see above).^1 In many communities or
regions conflicts exist around the distribution and use of collective resources (e.g.
water, arable land, grazing land, fish etc.). Such conflicts often have cultural, eth-
nic, moral and/or political dimensions too. In some cases conflicts are productive
in the sense that innovative solutions arise from the pressures and competition that
accompany conflict. All too frequently, however, conflicts have negative conse-
quences (e.g. natural resource degradation) and/or hinder progress and innova-
tion; that is, in some cases it can be a long time before conflicts are resolved and/
or become productive. Communication workers are often confronted with con-
flicts that affect their work and they can even become entangled in them. From the
literature on conflict resolution (e.g. Pruitt and Carnevale, 1993), however, we
know that the involvement of relative outsiders – in the form of mediators, facilita-
tors or referees (e.g. judges) – may help to partly resolve conflict and/or to make
conflicts productive. Thus, rather than becoming a party in the conflict, commu-
nication workers may at times be able to play a positive role in conflict manage-
ment. Depending on the situation, this can be either by adopting a mediating or
facilitating role, or by encouraging the handling of the conflict by others who are