This article disaggregates the population information, education and communication (IEC) sector into: population information which includes the technical and statistical information of awareness creation; population education through formal institutions (e.g. schools) and non-formal ones (e.g. adult education programmes); and population communication aimed at fostering interest, creating demand and supporting population programme activities. It describes the typology of population information end-users (information brokers) as including policy/decision makers and implementors, service providers and professionals, NGO administrators, university lecturers and researchers, community leaders, and media workers (journalists and producers). These end-users are characterized by the fact that they are non-demographers and hence the need to put in place a 'brokerage' system for translating specialist material into non-specialist information an important aspect of popularization. The mass media are then to be used to diffuse the information so processed to target condiences. The article surveys the mass media situation in Africa and proposes ways in which they may be used to disseminate population information more effectively and accurately.
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