Introduction

Community leaders are essential to community development. They are perceived as someone who is capable to collaborate with people for joint effort towards a better change of the community, as well as the improvement of social condition. They are also people who inspire other people in the community to achieve common goals. Undoubtedly, they are seen as people with the ability to influence people and honor to cherish most among other people in the community; be it through authority and influence. Their characters are powerful and influential to the public. With their responsibility for other people, they assume an intermediary act in promoting mutual cooperation of the people in the community (Srithong, 2009). Nevertheless, such cooperation can be realized if members of the community communicate, talk, exchange ideas, as well as executing various activities to achieve goals. Thus, communication within the community is a crucial mechanism to transform social energy within the community into “a Strong Community” (Kasemsuk, 2009).

Community communication will allow an influx of information from various sources; be it top-down, bottom-up, and horizontal. Hence, information may be seen to flow from development planners to the people and media to society. In parallel, villagers may send information to government officials, or even an exchange of information is communicated among the villagers themselves (Kaewthep et al., 2000). In connection to this, (Sothanasathien, 2020) claimed that a message sent to a recipient will cause one or another effect. Such an impact makes the communication process meaningful because it produces a desire within the sender or receiver. Upon considering linear communication, the nature of communication can come in different stages. For example, a receiver receives a message from the first sender and later acts as the second sender to the third party as another receiver. Generally, this type of communication allows the simple spread of the information, but some drawbacks remain to unfold as a message can be distorted from the source.

The community leaders, therefore, must rely on communication strategies. Many local and international studies have been conducted, including (Surasit, 2012) along with an effort to explore communication strategies to create a better understanding of the community based on the opinions of community leaders. Based on his research, senders in the form of the community leaders are advised to stand neutral, emphasize participation, articulate information before it is communicated, be at the forefront of subjects, as well as become a good listener.

Furthermore, Saenphuwa (2016) also examined the role of community leaders in security-building participation along the Thai-Cambodian border. According to this study, the community leaders have been confirmed with a strong role in building relationships between communities in times of stress; the people become calm upon receiving various information and news as they believe in the leaders and adhered to leaders’ pieces of advice. This commitment enables the community to easily cooperate with government agencies, become cautious in their works, and listen to community leaders and government agencies for information. Whereas Palanan (2002) studied the communication abilities of community leaders and later found a communication strategy contributing to successful community leaders through a method of message reception and transmission. The method is built upon four components: 1) the “Su Ji Pu Li” principle, 2) the Learning principle, 3) the Two-Sided coin for different views, and 4) the “Far-Sighted Eye” principle. While the transmission method is held on three phases: problem identification, motivation building, and motivation for development. As for the communication strategies among foreign leaders, five styles of communication for leadership are revealed to contribute to their success; an audience is placed as the center of decision-making, transparency in decision-making, mutual decision-making with a leadership team, trust is emphasized through face-to-face communication, which is deemed as one of the essential communication skills in building trust, and emotional intelligence (Barrett, 2006; Tyler, 2016).

However, the above strategies are seen as inapplicable in the context of the three southern border provinces, because this region comes with unique characteristics compared to other areas of the country. This research explains this uniqueness in two key dimensions as the following.

Security and Condition

The southern border provinces are still found themselves in conflict and insurgencies leading to massive losses to government officials and disturbance in economic activities and urban communities. In addition, the area is encountering an issue of conflict of interest among pressure groups; be it drug smuggling, illegal trades, and illegal invasion of natural resources and the environment. This effect is all due to the high level of inequality, and thus, causing unfair distribution of benefits from economic development to insufficient income distribution. The development is not widely supported and distributed. Society is still experiencing social gaps in knowledge, information access, and social services. This consequence further broadens the social gaps in thinking, attitudes, and beliefs across different groups and areas. As a result, access to different economic and social opportunities becomes increasingly limited, and that creates social conflict in due course (Southern Border Provinces Strategic Administration Division, 2017).

Quality of Life

The three southern border provinces are considered and placed among the underprivileged communities in Thailand, especially when it takes poverty into account. The Office of the (National Economic and Social Development Council, 2017) has assessed the people via the Human Achievement Index at the provincial level. Based on its findings, the three southernmost provinces are indicated with the least human development ranked in the top-five position of the country.

Competence in communication for community leaders is indispensable to rural communities. This claim is due to the social dynamic as an identity and high religious beliefs (Baldwin & Poje, 2020). By considering both dimensions in security and life quality, a key solution in the right problem-solving is to rely on community leaders, who are close to the people equipped with broad information. They are required to comply with a unique communication strategy to enable information communication from government agencies to the people in the area with accuracy and goal attainment. Converting policies into action on poverty alleviation, therefore, becomes a significant focus on the development of the three southern border provinces. This concern has urged and becomes the reason for the development of this research. It is developed and advanced to study communication strategies for policy-to-action transformation in the context of unrest among successful community leaders in poverty alleviation. The findings of this research are expected to employ in a policy formulation based on the characteristics of the three southern border provinces.

Objectives

1) To study the communication process for policy transformation into the action of the successful community leaders in poverty reduction within the unrest condition.

2) To explore the communication strategies for the transformation of policies into action under the unrest among the successful community leaders in poverty reduction.

3) To investigate the communication channels for policy-to-action transformation in the unrest context of the successful community leaders in poverty reduction.

Literature Review

Concepts and Theories on Communication Strategies

Communication strategies are decisions related to communication behavior, or the use of communication for the development to efficiently meet the goals (Nanthamontri, 2002). Community leaders are considered as information sources responsible for message production and dissemination while evaluating the effectiveness of communication. The source is the party to decide what to send, whom to send, and which purpose a message is sent. These decisions are based on content, audience, and intention. For this reason, the source decides how a message is delivered and when to deliver it. They are the components composing the central of the communication strategies (Udompong, 2005; Kanlhong, 2000). The communication strategies in this research addresses the communication method used by the community leaders in solving the poverty issue during the unrest of the three southernmost provinces.

Concepts on Communication Process

The communication process is composed of many elements. Each element is interrelated to one factor on another, yet it is essential to communication. An efficient sender must equip with knowledge and a good understanding of what to utter. Also, the sender must possess the knowledge and the ability to analyze oneself, the message, and the audience. Communication skills also take a place in influencing a sender’s ability to analyze the sender’s purpose and intention. Simply put, they provoke the thought of a sender, as well as the ability to relay it (Stavetin, 2003).

Community Communication Concept

Kaewthep, et al., (2000) presented the characteristics of community communication from the point of various thinkers, and they can be summarized into five points: 1) Two-way communication where senders and receivers interact at all times in the form of both formality and informality, 2) The flow of information comes with various directions; be it top-down, bottom-up, and horizontal, 3) The purpose of community communication can be defined by leveraging on different stakeholders in accordance with the direction of the information flow, 4) It is a communication based on the orientation of people needs, and 5) It carries different functions, including expressive function, social function, information function, and control activation function.

Theory of the Two-Step Flow of Communication

The Two-Step Flow of Communication is the theory pressing on the consideration of the environment, which may affect the communication or otherwise. Mostly, the impact is contributed from the reinforcement of information by opinion leaders to form a public consensus. These leaders in the theory will consider, articulate, or expand the information to provide the message from media to the hands of the opinion followers. Usually, the leaders will filter information and pass it to the audience through the form of mutual information sharing (Sothanasathien, 2020).

Community Leaders Concept

A leader is a person who is assigned either by election or appointment recognized by the members with honor and roles over a group. It is the person with the ability to induce or direct the members of the group to join forces in successfully completing a number of missions of the group (Phongsriwat, 2007). Leaders are agents of change, who can influence others (Gibson et al., 1997). Thus, the community leaders are the people deemed crucial to the community development work. This verse explains that they are a person capable to allow people in the community to work together for a better community while acting as an intermediary agent in promoting people's cooperation to collaborate with each other in the community (Srithong, 2009).

Policies and Achievements in Poverty Alleviation

China has managed to strive for absolutely poverty eradication by implementing Targeted Poverty Eradication (TPE) measure, which considers as a core policy deploying regional expert teams to households for at least 3 years to analyze the root of poverty, define target groups, and assess the potential of the target groups in order to design a solution to the problem of poverty with the right manner. As a result, poor households are found to become self-reliant in the long term. Hence, both statistical data and deep insights from the above policy play a vital role in implementing the measure. However, monitoring and evaluation, communication, and raising awareness of the outcome of poverty eradication must be done in a concrete manner (Office of National Higher Education, Science, Research, and Innovation Policy Council, 2020). For Thailand, the success in solving poverty should be placed with the emphasis of the state and local measures by analyzing external environmental factors hindering a poverty resolution at the local level, as well as innovating policy formulation in compliance with disruptive technology and practical changes. In terms of individuals and family behaviors, knowledge and skills enhancement should be promoted among the poor households enabling the development of community enterprises and community economy. Whereas community action should focus on the development of community plans by designing a clear and concrete community plan based on indicators and regular evaluation. This effort is highly expected to improve community infrastructure, as well as community economic development (Rattanapornwong et al., 2020).

Upon reviewing the above relevant concepts, it has resulted in the development of the research conceptual framework as shown in Figure 1 for the study of communication strategies to transform policies into action within the context of insurgency of the successful community leaders in eradicating poverty.

Research Methodology

In the process of conducting the study of the communication strategies for policy-to-action transformation under unrest among the successful community leaders in poverty alleviation, a qualitative research method has been optimized and discussed as follows:

Key Information Providers

1) Community leaders: A total of three awardees of the Best Subdistrict and Village Headman Award of the year 2020 recognized by the Ministry of Interior is taken as a sample study. The study deploys a purposive sampling method for sample selection with the additional requirements of their achievement in addressing poverty. The awardees are 1) Mr. Layi Maming, a subdistrict headman of Lalo Sub-district, Rueso District, Narathiwat Province, 2) Mr. Maruding Yango, a subdistrict headman of Prachan Sub-district, Yarang District, Pattani Province, and 3) Mr. Kulae Yamirudeng, a subdistrict headman of Yala Sub-District. Mueang Yala District, Yala Province.

2) Poor households: A total of nine representatives of the households is selected with the history of incomes below the Basic Needs Index (38,000 baht/person/year) to support themselves and their families. Presently, their incomes are found to meet the index criteria and manage to feed themselves and their families. Since it is a poverty concern, the household details are kept secret and undisclosed for integrity purposes.

3) Government agencies: A total of seven government representatives dealing with poverty eradication in the three southern border provinces is selected. They are two scholars of professional community development (strategic affairs on poverty alleviation and community leadership); Narathiwat Provincial professional and another former Pattani Provincial professional, a director of Community Development Strategic Division, a director of Community Development Information Division, a senior professional community development officer from Yala Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre, a deputy district chief representing public demonstration, and a policy and planning analyst of the Narathiwat Office of Agriculture and Cooperatives.

Research Tools

The study applies a research instrument of semi-structured interviews for key informants; community leaders, and poor households, with respect to the communication process and communication strategies in the form of a focus group. The key information providers include the representatives of community leaders, poor households, and officials from government agencies. The focus group is provided with questions pertaining to the communication channels for policy transformation into action during the insurgency to the successful community leaders in poverty alleviation. An in-depth interview is conducted and facilitated by the authors themselves. In ensuring the quality of the research, content validity is tested by experts with an IOC index (Index of Item Objective Congruence) of 0.60 to 1.00. This output confirms the validity of the questions as it meets the index criteria of 0.50 and above. Furthermore, the questions are continuously revised in compliance with experts’ pieces of advice. The expert group comprises three academicians in communication arts, community development, and social work.

Data Collection

The data is retrieved by the authors through an in-depth interview method to the extent that the interviewees are contacted for appointments specifying the dates, timings, and places of the interview. Together, they are asked for permission to record audio and note during the interview and focus group (semi-structured interview). Permission is requested for collecting data and providing the details about the objectives of the research through signing a consent letter and ethically pledging before an in-depth interview and focus. This research is also primarily approved by the Ethics Committee (No. SCPHYREC-015/21 dated on 3/3/2021) of the Research and International Relation Division of Yala Sirindhorn College of Public Health to deal with human subjects and observe their rights prior to data collection.

Data Analysis

The research is analyzed with the data collected from the in-depth interviews and focus groups. These methods are designed to emphasize the perspectives of the informants by optimizing a systematic descriptive analysis. The subject matters of the study consist of the communication process, communication strategies, and communication channels for policy transformation into action during the insurgency among the successful community leaders in solving poverty. The study is categorized based on key content, variables, and defined themes, and filter them for proceeding analysis and discussion in order to draw conclusions with recommendations.

Research Outcomes

The study of communication strategies for policy transformation into action under the unrest context of the community leaders, who are successful in eradicating poverty provides the research results into 3 core objectives as following.

Objective 1: To study the communication process for policy transformation into action under the insurgency of the successful community leaders in poverty alleviation.

Sender

Based on the findings, this study reveals that the community leaders as a sender should have the following qualities and skills.

Among many good qualities, the sender should be able to portray sincere communication, possess true work intentions, equip with knowledge in problem-solving, exercise tactics, have understanding and reach out to the villagers, retain public acceptability, as well as be entrusted by the villagers in solving poverty problem.

Community leaders in the role of the sender should possess a responsive problem-solving skill based on observation, act decisive, maintain public confidence among the people through knowledge, and understand how to maximize resources, lifestyle, and identity, which are deemed to be the primary capital of the community and the basis of poverty solution. The sender should also possess the ability to analyze the receivers in order to ensure the right and understandable information is communicated from outside agencies to the public.

Message

According to this study, the result has indicated four key messages as follows:

It is the primary message addressing poverty factors; unemployment causes insufficient income for family members, the unrest condition interrupts daily life and income flow, local migration emerges, as well as the economic price of rubber and Long Kong drops, which considers the main source of income of the people in the area. The above message is retrieved from government agencies by community leaders with the help of a message filtering method before communicating it to the right people to meet their needs and solve their issues. The method is extended by converting information into an understandable and clear message in the local language. For this reason, the people as a receiver can mutually comprehend the importance of solving the poverty problem.

It is the core message communicated by the sender aiming at tackling the poverty problem. This information means the use of local “words” by community leaders when there is any assistance from external agencies and public surveys with the people. The "words" are widely and only known to the people in the community in case of any unrest occurrences in the area, or protecting the community. For instance, the leaders may say “Mai Tong Ma Wan Nee Mod Man Kat Kan,” translating into “Do not come in today, the ants are fighting each other,” or “Wan Nee Tanun Mai Khoi Dee Yha Kao Ma Leu,” translating into “The road is bad today, do not come in.”

It is the message used as a criterion to measure the success of poverty alleviation. It includes the increasing income of the households exceeding the Basic Needs Index measured by the Community Development Department under the Ministry of Interior. This increment in income is generated from a secondary occupation to cover the loss in the main income from regular employment, and it is meant to feed the breadwinners themselves and their family members under the condition of continuous employment.

It is the message leading to success in poverty alleviation. It is the information used by community leaders to communicate with poor households in order to help improve households’ income to meet the criteria set by the Community Development Department of the Ministry of Interior. It consists of messages clarifying the overview of the government projects; background, objectives, target groups, results, implementation methods, benefits acquisition, measurability, and public cooperation.

Communication Channels

This study depicts two communication channels used to solve the poverty problem: 1) Formal Setting; it is a way to retrieve information from people forums, sub-district peace council meetings, career empowerment projects, “Phanom” (Quality of Life Advancement for Villagers) projects, “Pracharath” (Civil State) project, village fund projects, sufficiency economy project, “Khok Nhong Na” (Indigenous Farming Wisdom to Modern-day Farming) project, and “Stability, Wealthiness, and Sustainability” project, and 2) Informal Setting; it is to use a coffee circle for communication and gathering, a mosque for Islamic religious ceremonies on Fridays. The key personal media relies on village headmen as a vice president, district government representatives, religious representatives, youth representatives, graduate volunteers, and village health volunteers (VHVs).

Receiver

In line with this study’s findings, the receiver is categorized into two groups as the following.

Poor households as a receiver: There are five categories of the poor households; 1) Poor households due to unemployment, 2) Poor households due to the conflict, 3) Poor households due to economic status, 4) Poor households due to migration, and 5) Poor households due to insufficient income from their regular employment.

Receiver relying upon an analysis of the community leaders: There are four categories of this type of receiver; 1) Religious leaders, whom the people offer most credibility, 2) Poor households, that are interested to seek for solution to poverty, 3) Tea circle-based receiver, and 4) Categorized group of poor households in accordance with their common issues or needs.

Objective 2: To study the communication strategies for policy transformation into action under unrest of the successful community leaders in poverty eradication.

According to this study’s findings, it confirms that the best communication strategies amid unrest are inclusive of sincere communication and expression, mutual participation between communities, leaders, and external agencies, reaching out to the public, acting as a friend to the people when a problem occurs, communication for truth-seeking, and problem-solving based on factual data as to build public confidence in solving problems.
In this regard, the successful community leaders in poverty eradication implement various strategies, including the following.

1) Bridge Strategy: Good personal media takes account of the problems of poor households, communicates with them while reflecting on their issues in order to seek solutions together with the help of the associating agencies. A two-way communication is used to coordinate with government agencies or external organizations for poverty eradication action, such as Community Development Office, Special Settlement Community, Skill Development Office, Public Health Office, Social Development and Human Security Office, Red Cross Chapter, and “Yalannan Baru” (New Path) Unit.

2) “Paka” (Cooperation) Strategy: The word "Paka" means sharing to establish community participation. According to the findings of this study, it depicts that the strategy is formed by a divided responsibility communication. It starts through people forum and peace council joining hand together to plan, design, and organize activities while mutually attaining opinion and feedback towards solving the common problems.

3) Peer Strategy: It is direct communication with the use of dialects communicating with people. The leaders are easily accessible; the people feel at ease to file a complaint, talk to, and offer a greeting.

4) “Kit Dai Chai Khon Pen” (Labor Smart Deployment) Strategy: It is when community leaders solve poverty problems by deploying their own methods or adopting other methods guided by the policies of various agencies through thinking, initiation, and development to achieve tangible outcomes. Such a strategy is also guided by consideration, assignment, order, and analysis of the receiver before embarking on successfully tackling poverty. In addition, the strategy posits the ability to connect between poor households and government agencies, and access to target poor households, as well as the ability to convey information in the form of the problems of poor households to community leaders for solutions together with the credibility it upholds in the face of poor households as the receiver. For instance, it can be observed when either a village headman or sub-district headman can analyze and tackle an issue of a loan shark. Nevertheless, the communication process applied in each strategy is explained below Figure 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Note: A, B, C, and D represent the receivers responsible to convey messages to poor households.

Objective 3: To explore the communication channels for policy transformation into action amid unrest of the successful community leaders in poverty alleviation.

Based on this study’s outcomes, it indicates four key causes contributing to poverty in the three southernmost provinces including a slump in rubber prices, drug addiction, unemployment, and loan sharking (informal debt). These founding factors can be successfully tackled by the implementation of the projects. However, the pressing concerns hindering the project’s execution upon analyzing the poor household database are: 1) Poor households do not value the importance of land ownership after the death of the landholders, who are their family members, 2) Some community leaders do not utilize the use of the poor household database in their assistantship works, 3) The three southern border provinces are unique as most people have great trust in religious leaders, and 4) The assistance to poor households in some areas is neither prioritized with accurate databases nor by their community leaders, who are close to them, yet possess a governing power. Therefore, the communication channels for policy transformation into action under unrest of the community leaders should lie within these five concepts: 1) Empowering poor households with knowledge and understanding about the benefits of converting the inherited lands for complete legal ownership, which poor households neglect it presently, 2) Raising awareness among community leaders in optimizing the central database for poverty eradication works, such as the Basic Need Index of the Community Development Department, and the House Registration Database of the National Statistical Office, 3) Assigning religious leaders as personal media in communication building knowledge and understanding to support various agencies in their fieldworks during the insurgency, 4) Executing a prioritization of poor households for assistance from the poor household database by their community leaders not external agencies, and 5) Adapting communication channels for poverty alleviation projects based on true needs of the people.

Conclusion and Discussion of the Research Outcomes

Conclusion

The study on communication strategies for policy transformation into action during the insurgency of the successful community leaders in poverty alleviation is developed to study the communication process, communication strategies, and communication channels in transforming policies to action under the condition of unrest among the community leaders, who have been successful in solving poverty. It applies an in-depth interview method and focus groups of the key informants. Upon analysis, the results of the study can be summarized in line with the following objectives as shown below.

According to the first objective in examining the communication process for policy transformation into practice under unrest situation of the successful community leaders in poverty eradication, this study concludes that some good qualities a sender must possess when dealing with poverty eradication are comprised of sincere communication, problem-solving skill, knowledge possession and understanding in utilizing resources, lifestyle, and identity, which are deemed to be the basis of the community for poverty alleviation, in addition to the ability to analyze the audience. In terms of messages, they can be divided into four categories: a message on poverty factors, a message on poverty eradication, a message on criteria as a measurement success of poverty alleviation, and a message on successful poverty alleviation. This study also summarizes the communication channels in the form of coffee circles, people forums, peace councils, different projects, mosques, and personal media. Furthermore, the poor households as a receiver can be found in five groups: poor households due to unemployment, poor households due to the insurgency, poor households due to low economic status, poor households due to migration, and poor households due to insufficient income from their regular employment.

With regards to the second objective of investigating the communication strategies for policy transformation into action during conflict of the successful community leaders in solving poverty problem, this study discovers four key strategies exercised by the community leaders, namely Bridge Strategy, “Paka” Strategy, Peer Strategy, and “Kit Dai Chai Khon Pen” Strategy.

Furthermore, the third objective is held to explore the communication channels for policy transformation into action under unrest of the successful community leaders in poverty eradication. This study concludes that there are five key channels used by the community leaders to transform policies into action amid the insurgency.

Discussion of the Outcomes

Community leaders play a vital role in communication for solving poverty issues in the studied areas. In accordance with the concepts and theories on communication strategies, communication process, and community leaders, the community leaders are described as information sources responsible for producing messages, disseminating them, and evaluating their effectiveness. The source decides what to send, whom to send, and what purpose. Such a decision is made according to information, receivers, and intentions. Thus, this reason allows the source to decide how a message is delivered, and when it is to be delivered. This decision is observed as a methodology considering the heart of the communication strategies (Udompong, 2005; Kanlhong, 2000). Upon further analysis, it is confirmed that an audience analysis or recipient classification is the required ability the community leaders must possess. When considering such an ability in compliance with the concept of (McQuail, 1997), it has shown that the recipients or receivers can be classified into four categories: 1) Social group; community leaders analyze recipients according to their leadership appetite, especially religious leaders act as personal media and are given great trust by the people in the three southern border provinces, 2) Interested group; community leaders analyze audiences according to their aptitude in implementing projects for poverty eradication, 3) Media-based group; community leaders know the communication context of their people and decide to adopt "a Tea Circle" as a platform to communicate and discuss problems with the people based on agendas/topics/important issues, and 4) Message-based group; community leaders analyze the audience based on poverty triggers by categorizing poor households according to their common suffering in order to plan and seek solutions.

Besides, the bridge strategy is considered as an important means of communication of the good personal media by listening to and reflecting on the problems of poor households in order to look for solutions with the associating agencies. This effort can be done by using two-way communication to coordinate with government agencies or external organizations in eradicating poverty, and it is consistent with the study on Southern Local Leadership by Yongvanich, et al., (2010) expressing the role of leaders in the southern region to coordinate with government agencies, the private sector, and the people. This particular bridge strategy is also observed as a method considering the message production and dissemination, and the evaluation of communication in terms of effectiveness. This statement is further consistent with Srithong, (2009) claiming that community leaders are critical to community development as a change agent for the better community liaising between people and executing projects with people in the community. They are also seen as the academic representatives to the community in terms of facilitating people with providing materials, technology, and accurate and recent information from outside the community. Most importantly, they are the supporter and working partners with government officials and the private sector to make a change for a better community.

However, the communication channels for the transformation of policy into action under unrest of the successful community leaders should emphasize the poor household database contributed by community leaders, and the classification or prioritization of poor households for assistance, because the database will determine external assistance. This statement is also consistent with the study of Kaewthep (2003) indicating that the message reflects the impact on the information receiver. That means the message is the link between the producer/sender and the receiver. If we were to know what impact that communication has on the receiver, we must and revert back and analyze the main message. In addition, the message can reflect the fact of society, for example, it can be drawn whether the quality of life of people in the area is improving or otherwise after assistance is rendered.

Upon the development of this study, it has made a number of contributions in the field while reinforcing the aforementioned research works. The communication for policy transformation into action during the insurgency of the successful community leaders in poverty alleviation should pay great attention to the personal media, and religious leaders in particular. There are four types of communication strategies to optimize, namely Bridge Strategy, “Paka” Strategy, Peer Strategy, and “Kit Dai Chai Khon Pen” Strategy. However, the above strategies depend on conditions and the ability to analyze the audience by community leaders. Under the context of the three southern border provinces, analyzing the audience/receiver based on the media is seen effective by using a platform of coffee circles, and mosques, where religious ceremonies are carried out.

Recommendations

The Community Development Department under the Ministry of Interior and/or Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC) should design workshops for community leaders in the southern border provinces to develop communication skills, and boost knowledge and understanding in utilizing resources, lifestyle, and identity.

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