When reading the Pink Book reading on developing media materials, it was really interesting to see the methods that are used in media campaigns. It made me realize how difficult it is to portray an effective message to a specific target audience in such a short time span – in order to really capture intended audience’s attention. What also struck me is the differences in how media tries to appeal to the audience currently and in the past. In the first day of class, we watched the video on health communications where most advertisements attempted to evoke a sense of fear to elicit behavior change. It’s interesting how fear arousal was the primary means of advertising, whereas nowadays humor is more often used.
The anti-tobacco TRUTH campaigns use both fear and humor in their commercials.
“You don’t Always Die from Tobacco”
I also thought that the “Patches: An Innovative Format to Reach Girls” (Girl Power! Girl Scout patch program) was a great national public health education program used to reach adolescent girls. By using the girl scouts as a channel for their educational materials, they are able to make a difference in many girls’ lives. It brings me back to my girl scout days! I remember loving all the "girl power" messages that would be incorporated into the activities. Using colors to appeal to adolescent girls is a good technique to get them to pay attention to the messages. It would be great to see this message in public school education programs to reach and empower more adolescent girls nationwide (especially ones from lower ses).
In the Maddock article presented in class, I thought it was interesting to see the steps in the implementation of a statewide healthy eating/ physical activity campaign. I thought it was a good idea to focus on specific behaviors such as “walking at least 30 minutes each day” and “increasing fruit & vegetable consumption by one serving each day”. It can be difficult to target specific behaviors in a general population, especially when they are at different baselines, but I think their aims were very reasonable.
With our project for physical activity with 6th-8th graders, Kristi I like the F^3 idea. I commented on Jen's post, but in case others didn't view it, I am available on Mondays and Wednesdays- Fridays at 3:25 for the focus groups (mentioned in Jen's post).
Also Lanny suggested going on google docs on Sunday night to work on the two grids, so that everyone can login/ join and view the document even if they are unable to meet. Looks like we're off to a great start, and hopefully we'll have more time in class next week to discuss the rest of Project #1, since everyone has such crazy schedules (: Have a great week!
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Jessica, I like your post :) I always enjoyed the truth campaign commercials, particularly a few years ago. It seems like most of the group likes the F^3 idea so that may make it as one of our messages. Which a friend of mine pointed out, may be a good way to get the attention of certain kids who are really into school and not so much into activity, because its kind of "nerdy" haha.
ReplyDeleteI'll try to post some stuff on google docs and send it out to you guys before sunday, since I probably won't be able to hop on at 6pm.
My first insight from Module 1 comes from my post above, talking about what kind of ways to portray your message in order to capture your audience (evoking emotions, fear, straight facts, etc) It made me really take a step back and think about the media messages that are being portrayed to me on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteMy second insight is on the implementation of theory in health media interventions. Although it was tough in 661 memorizing/ understanding the application of each theory, I realize the importance of applying theory in order for programs to be effective.
My last insight is on the development of an intervention in this group project. I realize how important formative research is in order to really understand the target population and effectively plan an intervention. It will be interesting to see how our focus groups turn out!