Mass Media Campaigns: The Odds Against Finding Behavior Change

Lawrence Wallack

146 citations0/0 files storedHealth Education Quarterly

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Media Influence and Health Public Health Policies and Education Behavioral Health and Interventions

Abstract

The use of mass media has long been an attractive method for implementing and discharging institutional responsibility for the promotion of good health practices and the prevention of various social and health problems. Although there is a long history of such efforts, relatively little is known about the effects such campaigns might have. The large number of programs currently being conceived and implemented on local, state, and federal levels have not benefited as much as they might have from the experience of past mass media efforts. This paper reviews the history, commonalities, assumptions, and effects of planned largescale campaigns to communicate information to the general population to encourage moderation or abstinence in the use of alcohol, drugs, or tobacco. The concept of experimental design is critiqued regarding the appropriateness of such a model for evaluation of mass media campaigns. Suggestions are offered for making evaluations of such campaigns more able to generate useful information for program and planning purposes. This includes expanding evaluation questions through additional forms of inquiry rather than constricting the information obtained through methods based on assumptions of experimental design.

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References

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1993The Influence of Mass Media and Interpersonal Communication on Societal and Personal Risk Judgments 1996Communicating the Greenhouse Effect to the Public: Evaluation of a Mass Media Campaign from a Social Dilemma Perspective 1992Mass media coverage of technological and environmental risks: a survey of research in the United States and Germany 2005Psychometric Properties of the Hong Psychological Reactance Scale 2007Promoting Healthy Eating and Physical Activity 2004

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