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Capstone: Save the Salton Sea

The rapid deterioration of California’s largest inland body of water has implications for the health and well being of our neighbors, ourselves and other species that inhabit the region and the hemisphere. Although this problem has been recognized for more than two decades, it has continued to grow.

So…

What health communication messages would you suggest for taking this issue on?

Who would your target audiences be, and how would vary messages by different audience segments?

How would you brand your effort?

Unfortunately, environmental campaigns face the challenge of persuading individuals that the the problem occurring on/in land, sea, air etc. has direct impact on them. Similar to health risks that have a longer latency period, environmental issues may often be perceived as important, but not “crucial” to make any immediate change as there is not a direct influence from the issue on people’s daily lives. We know this to be true (these issues DO impact everyone), however the lack of immediacy creates a lack of motivation to create  the change. Therefore, I would suggest creating a message that embodies the urgency of saving the sea- primarily through demonstrating the direct (and short-term) costs of not saving the sea. Perhaps an image of dead fish on a dinner plate- depicting the lose of animal/wildlife that in tern, affects our food/dietary patterns. While controversial, I do think fear-based messaging has the potential to be effective in promoting urgency to take action in saving the Salton sea. For example, pictures of a suburban neighborhood transforming into to a desolate abandoned health-risk ridden desert could be created - asking the audience “would you let this happen to your home?” If not fear-based, increasing awareness of the importance of this issue could be through presenting the salton sea (large picture; or painting recreating the sea) as the focal point of a large poster/banner, with an arrow that leads to a major health risk (picture of affected lung, cancer). It would be quite a bizarre image to see, however, I think others would view this image and want to know more details about it. 

Target Audience: I think younger generations in Southern California would be focus for this campaign. One group/place to advertise may be at Coachella or Stage Coach. These concert goers are not only near where the Salton is, but also are all in one place, at one time- increasing the volume of audience seeing the campaign. Another audience could be college students in Southern California schools- as they are the demographics that will be dealing with the consequences of not saving the Salton Sea- and also in an environment where learning and advocating for change is encouraged.

Branding: It would need a very catchy, yet simple image and a #hashtag to capture the audience attention. Suggestions could be: silhouette of the Salton Sea; image of blood seeping below the sea surface to depict its effect on human health. 

Capstone: Save the Salton Sea

The rapid deterioration of California’s largest inland body of water has implications for the health and well being of our neighbors, ourselves and other species that inhabit the region and the hemisphere. Although this problem has been recognized for more than two decades, it has continued to grow.

So…

What health communication messages would you suggest for taking this issue on?

Who would your target audiences be, and how would vary messages by different audience segments?

How would you brand your effort?

To take this issue on I would suggest using communication messages that activate the audience to take political action to protect their own health.  The article referenced states that due to the drying of the Salton Sea harmful chemicals are being emitted into the atmosphere that can have severe benefits for the resident living in nearby areas.  I would suggest using fear messages that illustrate what the harmful effects of such chemicals can have on adults as well as for young children and pregnant women & developing fetuses.  

Who would your target audiences be, and how would vary messages by different audience segments?

Target audiences for the campaign would be adults with young families, young adults, and potential real estate investors.  Messages for young families will focus on the harmful effects that the chemicals emitted by the sea can have on their families, the food they eat, and environment they surround them.   Messages for young adults will also focus on the harmful effects of the chemicals but will also encourage them to become advocates for their communities and encourage them to disseminate information. This approach will allow us to gain more allies among a youthful population that will have the time to advocate for change on behalf of their families and communities.  Lastly, we will target real estate investors who have an interest in making sure their investments will be secured.  The article mentioned that as urban areas are expanding thus, development of land and housing is expanding closer to the sea.  Potential real estate investors would be interested in ensuring that the land they invest in is successful.

How would you brand your effort?

I would brand the campaign as an advocacy campaign aimed at protecting the people of the surrounding area.

Would you use media advocacy, and if so, how?

Part Three: Do’s and Don’ts of Motivation and Persuasion

A variety of methods can be used to improve the audience’s reception of motivation and persuasion messages. First, serious health issues cannot be treated too lightly, but at the same time the consequence of not taking an action should not be exaggerated. Credibility can be lost if people are shown dying from a fairly minor or obscure illness but also the message must make a realistic connection between a problem and its consequence. What mismatches between the feel and content do you see in these messages (choose 2)?:

Now try these two:

Analyze the potential effectiveness of one of these smoking control ads;

“Don’t Treat Others the Way You Don’t Want to Be Treated” is a good example of mismatch between the feel and content of the message. Once again there’s a horrifying image of baby’s body covered in blood with the seal holding the weapon that was behind this gruesome death. The point of the message content is to make a connection in the audience’s mind between this and seals being clubbed to death by humans as part of their anti-animal cruelty campaign. However, unless you had prior knowledge and have seen images of humans doing this to seals, you would not understood the content of this piece. Especially since the text of the message is so small, light (almost transparent), and all the way in the bottom right corner. The feeling you have, which is you’re basically horrified and shocked, mismatches the content. Also, the consequences of animal cruelty here is not clear and what is offered, gruesome clubbing of humans as payback, is a very exaggerated and almost impossible consequence.

Anti-smoking ad: The first ad, which shows cigarette smoke becoming a bag over a child’s head that is suffocating him, has the potential to be effective as it plays on the heartstrings and has a fear tactic. Naturally, people would not be okay with anything that would harm a child. Therefore this ad attempts to utilize that to make the point in its anti-smoking efforts. However, there’s isn’t enough information explicitly informing the audience that the source of the smoke is cigarettes, therefore diminishes the effect of the ad a little bit. There’s not a lot of text or any call to action being made in the ad. It only depends on the emotional response this ad is suppose to elicit to activate that behavior change.

Part Two: Messages that convey motivation and persuasion

Whether the objective is to announce, advise, activate or advocate, the message’s motivational and persuasive contents emphasize change in individual attitudes and group norms with respect to a certain health issue while making the health issue (behavior, social issues and challenges, etc.) foremost in the target audience’s mind. Specific examples of applying activation objectives often derive from fear appeal messages: attempting to arouse fear in the audience by demonstrating to individuals the scary aspects of engaging in a certain behavior and not doing something to mitigate the damage that that behavior can cause. Fear appeal messages usually involve a scary or threatening image or feel to create the desired reaction and promote subsequent behavior change.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model developed by Richard Petty and John Cacioppo and Kim Witte’s Extended Parallel Processing Model provide excellent theoretical bases to frame messages that derive from motivation and persuasion objectives, especially those that appeal to fear. A problem with fear-based messages however is that they may cause maladaptive responses when an individual either does not find the image sufficiently threatening or conversely avoids the message (for example, when its images are overly gruesome). For example, The Partnership For A Drug-Free America’s campaign “this is your brain on drugs” has been criticized for engendering more curiosity than fear among teens in the target audience. Also, if the message is sufficiently threatening, the individual may lack the ‘efficacy’ or confidence to take actions that would eliminate the threat. Feelings of helplessness may actually cause the individual to avoid the message altogether. Therefore, fear messages must be used with caution.

However, other emotions can also be invoked which will help individuals remember a specific message and recall the facts and perhaps the reinforcement associated with the behavior change related to those evoke emotions. Humor, sympathy, excitement and other emotions can also create an association that may help an individual remember the importance of the behavior change. For example, contrast the “feel” of the some of the below messages, all of which have the same general purpose.

And these: http://www.bestmswprograms.com/10-brilliantly-creative-condom-ads/

Research Activity #2:

COMPARE THE FOLLOWING TWO SPOTS WITH RESPECT TO FEAR AND RESPONSE EFFICACY-RELATED CONTENT

https://jasonbiviano.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/health-effects-of-smoking1.jpg

https://twitter.com/nyc_dot/status/314067899079872514

Emotions can be evoked not only by the specific nature of the message but also by images, sounds, and other elements that have both an emotional and physical impact on an individual. For example, concordant and discordant musical notes and colors may contribute to a message oriented toward fear and anxiety on one hand or harmony and sympathy on the other. Individual colors may convey different feelings (Example 1; Example 2) though this may vary from culture to culture.  As musical chords mix different notes to create distinct feelings for different compositions, combinations of colors also vary as a function of the light or heat of a message (see here for more info about this).

In terms of sight and sound, which of the following 3 pieces do you think would create the strongest reaction in an audience?

Research Activity #3

LISTEN TO A VARIETY OF THESE SOUNDS. WITH REFERENCE TO 5 OF THE SOUNDS, GIVE A ONE SENTENCE DESCRIPTION EACH OF 5 DISTINCT FEELINGS THEY CONVEY AND COMBINED WITH 5 MESSAGES THAT SOUND AND FEEL COULD BE PAIRED WITH.

“Smoking Means Becoming a Slave to Tobacco”

Equating oral sex with “being a slave” will cause defensiveness in anyone who has received or given oral sex.  The image conveys a more sexual violence scenario of shame and degradation.  Like most sexual assault survivors, this leads to a numbing non response.  Ostensibly, many of the age group that smokes will have engaged in oral sex and suggestions of involvement slavery or sexual assault engenders defensiveness.  This defensiveness will lead to rejection of the message.  In addition to the inappropriateness of the slave comparison, it entirely takes any notion of self efficacy off of the table and can produce feelings of fear and loss of control.  If you’re already smoking, aka a slave, you have little agency, therefore you will do little to change.

5 Sounds

A Rich Fun Violin Sound Sustained on F.  Dark and ominous, preparing for a long road ahead.  Acute medical problem unfolding like a stroke, heart attack, or premature birth.

A Single Synthetic Bass Drum Kick.  Gives feelings of being taken aback with surprise.  Would accompany a grave cancer diagnosis or very unexpected news like triplets.

Record Scratch with a Woman Saying Everybody’s Doing It.  Feeling overwhelmed due to pressure lonely and isolated.  Combined with an anxiety awareness campaign.  Especially social anxiety.

Musical Accent With Tribal Hand Drum Melodic Percussion Fill.  Feels innovative, aimed toward new horizons, fresh and original and empowered.  Motivation for getting a gym membership.

A Sustained Chime from a Tibetan Bell.  Calm alertness feeling.  Realizing you’d overcome an impulsive behavior, like not being addicted to cigarettes anymore, or not declining a 3rd alcoholic drink.

This is very engaging and effective because it balances emotional appeal with severity and control.  The audience has the ability to comprehend the severity of abuse without being overwhelmed with emotion.  By watching a cartoon when with a real life child it could be too emotional.  The audience is motivated to respond because while they interpret the child as having no control, they do and probably interpret objective motivation.  Given an accessible danger control measure, a hotline, the receiver can respond.  

“Real Children Don’t Bounce Back”

“When You Look at a Young Girl as Something More You Need Help” The juxtaposition of the young child face with a mature female is attention grabbing.  The absurdity of the image discredits its written message.  For an issue as complex as ‘statutory rape,’ the message should be direct and clear with no gimmicks or layered meaning.  The difference between a consenting teenager and a child not yet at puberty is enormous.  Because the image is so unrealistic, the entire message loses credibility.  Any public ad in the US related to sex doesn’t need much to grab attention because United Statesians are already so uncomfortable about their sexuality.  Older men that are ‘statutory raping’ ‘children’ below the age of 18 will dissociate from this image because nothing about it will likely resemble their experience.  They might agree that anyone that sexualizes young children DO need help, and never consider that it is directed toward them.  The destination effect is completely lost.

“Smoking Means Becoming a Slave to Tobacco”

Equating oral sex with “being a slave” will cause defensiveness in anyone who has received or given oral sex.  The image conveys a more sexual violence scenario of shame and degradation.  Like most sexual assault survivors, this leads to a numbing non response.  Ostensibly, many of the age group that smokes will have engaged in oral sex and suggestions of involvement slavery or sexual assault engenders defensiveness.  This defensiveness will lead to rejection of the message.  In addition to the inappropriateness of the slave comparison, it entirely takes any notion of self efficacy off of the table and can produce feelings of fear and loss of control.  If you’re already smoking, aka a slave, you have little agency, therefore you will do little to change.

This is very engaging and effective because it balances emotional appeal with severity and control.  The audience has the ability to comprehend the severity of abuse without being overwhelmed with emotion.  By watching a cartoon when with a real life child it could be too emotional.  The audience is motivated to respond because while they interpret the child as having no control, they do and probably interpret objective motivation.  Given an accessible danger control measure, a hotline, the receiver can respond.  

“Real Children Don’t Bounce Back”

5 Sounds

A Rich Fun Violin Sound Sustained on F.  Dark and ominous, preparing for a long road ahead.  Acute medical problem unfolding like a stroke, heart attack, or premature birth.

A Single Synthetic Bass Drum Kick.  Gives feelings of being taken aback with surprise.  Would accompany a grave cancer diagnosis or very unexpected news like triplets.

Record Scratch with a Woman Saying Everybody’s Doing It.  Feeling overwhelmed due to pressure lonely and isolated.  Combined with an anxiety awareness campaign.  Especially social anxiety.

Musical Accent With Tribal Hand Drum Melodic Percussion Fill.  Feels innovative, aimed toward new horizons, fresh and original and empowered.  Motivation for getting a gym membership.

Part One

This module, our first, is structured around McGuire’s Communication-Persuasion Model for health communication. Modules and the broader sections to which they belong parallel McGuire’s “inputs” and “outputs”.   This module emphasizes McGuire’s central input, the Message.

The message is the ‘what’ of communication. Communication messages tend to combine both logical and factual content with emotional or artistic expression. The content is the “light” of communication: It lays out specifically how individuals can improve their health or that of the community or at least avoid or reduce risk. Content can be presented in a variety of forms but has to be adjusted to the cultural and economic context of the audience.

The emotional, artistic and expressive aspects of a message comprise the “heat” of the health communication piece. Messages often employ humor, sympathy or empathy, anger, anxiety or even fear with respect to a specific health issue. Colors, sound and other touches may be added to contribute to a multisensory and more memorable audience experience with the message. A message is a stated or implicit statement that presents a key aspect of communications destination and strategy to the target audience or a segment of the target audience. Messages should derive from key campaign objectives; without such objectives, messages may seem unclear to a target audience.  These campaign objectives represent what the source or ‘sender’ of the message wishes to do: announce, advise, activate or advocate. (Note that messages can manifest more than one or even all of these objectives…but in doing so may risk clarity!).

Brief definitions of these actions are presented below. In practice, many health communication pieces combine two or more of these objectives:

Campaign Objective: Announce

Presentation that direct individuals as to where they can obtain services, buy a product, or (in the case of health fairs) get more information about a specific health issue. They can also direct the individual to watch or read other media which will provide them with additional information and motivation.

Examples:

https://www.prostateconditions.org/outreach-programs/prostate-cancer-screening Or…

http://www.rbcdesign.net/Examples%20of%20Design%20Work%20for%20RBC%20Design%20Studio/styled-4/medical-advertising-marketing-graphic-design.html

Campaign Objective: Advise

Factual statements regarding health behaviors, risk factors, medications, etc. Information objectives are fairly simple knowledge oriented factual statements informing the target audience about the positive aspects of certain behaviors or other actions or their negative impact. Advice takes the form of information that can help address the challenge of presenting new knowledge or can help clarify misperceptions that people may have. Finally, this information may serve as “booster shots”, reinforcing existing knowledge and reminding the target audience of certain issues.

Examples:

https://gettested.cdc.gov/reasons/default.aspx

Campaign Objective: Activate

Motivating or persuading the audience to attend to and act on the advice or other information presented.

Example:

http://osocio.org/message/aids-campaign-takes-a-different-look-at-social-diseases/

Campaign Objective: Advocate

Documentaries and articles, movies, public demonstrations or ads that embrace and promote a social or political point of view.

Examples:

This current one: http://blacklivesmatter.com/

And this one from nearly 50 years ago: https://www.flickr.com/photos/13476480@N07/20510410925/in/photostream/

Campaign Objective: Combined Objectives

Pieces that attempt to achieve two or more of the above objectives.

Examples:

Research Activity #1

This poster informs viewers of when and where they can receive additional information on adolescent mental health.

The featured campaign informs viewers of the facts regarding behaviors towards using water bottles.  

This Girl Can campaign intends to motivate women of all ages to participate in physical activity.

The Black Lives Matter campaign is an example of “advocate” because it demonstrates the political and social movement in regards to police brutality in the African American community.

Capstone: Save the Salton Sea

The rapid deterioration of California’s largest inland body of water has implications for the health and well being of our neighbors, ourselves and other species that inhabit the region and the hemisphere. Although this problem has been recognized for more than two decades, it has continued to grow.

So…

What health communication messages would you suggest for taking this issue on?

Who would your target audiences be, and how would vary messages by different audience segments?

How would you brand your effort?

 The health communication messages that I would suggest for taking this issue on would be that the deterioration of the Salton Sea would uncover deadly toxins that are already causing health problems in children in nearby communities.  I would also emphasize that spending money now will save tens of billions of dollars in the future in human health, environmental and property values.

My target audience would be the nearby communities and I would segment the audience by parents, health and government officials and businesses.  Obviously the message to the parents would be the danger the deterioration poses on their children’s health.  The message to the health and government officials would be about making the decision to save the population from these deadly toxins and to make a smart economic decision now vs. a huge economic deficit in the future.   The message towards businesses would illustrate the deterioration of their business as the Salton Sea deteriorates, since everyone would be sick or move way to save their health.

I would brand my effort as an investment in future health and prosperity.  

Part Six: Edutainment 

“Edutainment” is defined either as education done in an entertaining style or entertainment with an educational message built in. A prime example of the former is the Soul City TV/Radio series that emphasizes sexual health, produced in South Africa, and the American PBS program “Sesame Street” that targets preschoolers. Examples of edutainment that comprise primarily entertainment but also include important health or social messages are popular songs about social issues (e.g. Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane”), and movies that focus on the power of the tobacco industry, either from a dramatic or comedic tone.

Part Five: Branding

Branding is the process of pairing an image slogan or other stimulus with a product or practice until the two have become synonymous in the mind of the audience. The concept of “branding” derives from the discipline of marketing, with many years many of successful (e.g. Coca-Cola, Marlborough, Mercedes-Benz, Nike, Apple) as well as unsuccessful efforts.  Successes in branding “build relationships between consumers and products” or services that are being marketed.  Audiences eventually become familiar with a product and are reminded of it by seeing the image or hearing a slogan representing that product. One of the best examples of branding in health communication is represented by the long-standing condom promotion and HIV prevention program in Germany, “Macht’s mit: Gib AIDS keine Chance”.  Note that this was initially primarily delivered through billboards and posters; now they have a very impressive web presence as well. 

Examine this measles vaccine poster. Could/should this be better branded, and if so, how?

Part Four: Social Marketing: A Different Slant on Message Objectives

Of major importance to the field of health communication is the Philip Kotler’s “social marketing” framework. Health communication has a mixed ancestry: while generally its roots are in psychology (social, perceptual and behavioral psychology) its other ancestor is in business and economics. Kotler took a business marketing model and applied it to community efforts for health and social change. Building on the work of others in the business world who developed the concept of the “marketing mix” Kotler describes ”4 Ps”: product price, place and promotion. This alliterative framework overlaps to some extent with that of McGuire but specifically details what aspects of the messages content should be included, especially in terms of:

The “Price” of a new behavior (not just as monetary but personal effort and other resources required…and perceived benefits of changing the behavior),

How best to describe ”Product” (e.g. the behavior change itself or the social or environmental change that one attempts to achieve),

The channels by which to send the message that should be used in terms of ”Place” (where a message can best reach someone in terms of a channel or program, and in what stage of life or time of year),

 And finally the overall Promotion (which is often referred to in social marketing as “media mix”: what best mix of print and broadcast etc. to used to initiate and sustain a campaign).

Some have added a fifth “P”, that of “Position”, indicating the specific comparison we can make between our product and that of another on the market (for example, the advantages of getting iron and protein from legumes and quinoa rather than red meat).

As an example, analyze the below anti drunk-driving piece from Kotler’s social marketing perspective:

Research Activity #4

EXAMINE TWO ADDITIONAL HEALTH COMMUNICATION PIECES BRIEFLY, FROM A MCGUIRE AND THEN A KOTLER PERSPECTIVE.  WHICH ONE PROVIDES A CLEARER AND MORE USEFUL EXPLANATORY MODEL, AND WHY?

Part Three: Do’s and Don’ts of Motivation and Persuasion

A variety of methods can be used to improve the audience’s reception of motivation and persuasion messages. First, serious health issues cannot be treated too lightly, but at the same time the consequence of not taking an action should not be exaggerated. Credibility can be lost if people are shown dying from a fairly minor or obscure illness but also the message must make a realistic connection between a problem and its consequence. What mismatches between the feel and content do you see in these messages (choose 2)?:

Now try these two:

Analyze the potential effectiveness of one of these smoking control ads;

Children will put anything in their mouth is just so disgusting that I can’t even bring myself to read what this is a PSA for.  This ad does not make me want to report those who don’t pick up after their dogs.

 The first smoking control ad with the two toddlers has the highest potential to make smoker parents think about quitting because it likens the second hand smoke to putting a plastic bag over their child’s head.  Essentially both actions can kill your children.

Part Two: Messages that convey motivation and persuasion

Whether the objective is to announce, advise, activate or advocate, the message’s motivational and persuasive contents emphasize change in individual attitudes and group norms with respect to a certain health issue while making the health issue (behavior, social issues and challenges, etc.) foremost in the target audience’s mind. Specific examples of applying activation objectives often derive from fear appeal messages: attempting to arouse fear in the audience by demonstrating to individuals the scary aspects of engaging in a certain behavior and not doing something to mitigate the damage that that behavior can cause. Fear appeal messages usually involve a scary or threatening image or feel to create the desired reaction and promote subsequent behavior change.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model developed by Richard Petty and John Cacioppo and Kim Witte’s Extended Parallel Processing Model provide excellent theoretical bases to frame messages that derive from motivation and persuasion objectives, especially those that appeal to fear. A problem with fear-based messages however is that they may cause maladaptive responses when an individual either does not find the image sufficiently threatening or conversely avoids the message (for example, when its images are overly gruesome). For example, The Partnership For A Drug-Free America’s campaign “this is your brain on drugs” has been criticized for engendering more curiosity than fear among teens in the target audience. Also, if the message is sufficiently threatening, the individual may lack the ‘efficacy’ or confidence to take actions that would eliminate the threat. Feelings of helplessness may actually cause the individual to avoid the message altogether. Therefore, fear messages must be used with caution.

However, other emotions can also be invoked which will help individuals remember a specific message and recall the facts and perhaps the reinforcement associated with the behavior change related to those evoke emotions. Humor, sympathy, excitement and other emotions can also create an association that may help an individual remember the importance of the behavior change. For example, contrast the “feel” of the some of the below messages, all of which have the same general purpose.

And these: http://www.bestmswprograms.com/10-brilliantly-creative-condom-ads/

Research Activity #2:

COMPARE THE FOLLOWING TWO SPOTS WITH RESPECT TO FEAR AND RESPONSE EFFICACY-RELATED CONTENT

https://jasonbiviano.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/health-effects-of-smoking1.jpg

https://twitter.com/nyc_dot/status/314067899079872514

Emotions can be evoked not only by the specific nature of the message but also by images, sounds, and other elements that have both an emotional and physical impact on an individual. For example, concordant and discordant musical notes and colors may contribute to a message oriented toward fear and anxiety on one hand or harmony and sympathy on the other. Individual colors may convey different feelings (Example 1; Example 2) though this may vary from culture to culture.  As musical chords mix different notes to create distinct feelings for different compositions, combinations of colors also vary as a function of the light or heat of a message (see here for more info about this).

In terms of sight and sound, which of the following 3 pieces do you think would create the strongest reaction in an audience?

Research Activity #3

LISTEN TO A VARIETY OF THESE SOUNDS. WITH REFERENCE TO 5 OF THE SOUNDS, GIVE A ONE SENTENCE DESCRIPTION EACH OF 5 DISTINCT FEELINGS THEY CONVEY AND COMBINED WITH 5 MESSAGES THAT SOUND AND FEEL COULD BE PAIRED WITH.

The speeding PSA has high fear, high response efficacy.  The high fear because of the scary statistics and high response because all you have to do is slow down to 30 mph.  The smoking PSA has high fear, low response efficacy because the image is scary but there isn’t a call to action or information how people can stop smoking.

 Research activity #3

·      The futuristic classical style solo grand piano playing in A minor sound conveys sadness and innocence and could be used in a spot to stop a behavior that inadvertently hurts children.

·      A tibetan bowl singing is very suspenseful and could be used in a slow motion spot about car crashes from distracted driving.

·      A spacious piano-like texture with a twisted spectral action sounding like seagulls floating in a huge ocean is serene yet suspenseful and can be used in a slow motion spot about what happens to the body when it’s drowning and how it can be prevented (drowning as a result of drinking maybe?).

·      A dark pad with some effects and scratching is disturbing and hurts the ears and can be used to show the effects of doing ecstasy at an EDM concert.

Part One

This module, our first, is structured around McGuire’s Communication-Persuasion Model for health communication. Modules and the broader sections to which they belong parallel McGuire’s “inputs” and “outputs”.   This module emphasizes McGuire’s central input, the Message.

The message is the ‘what’ of communication. Communication messages tend to combine both logical and factual content with emotional or artistic expression. The content is the “light” of communication: It lays out specifically how individuals can improve their health or that of the community or at least avoid or reduce risk. Content can be presented in a variety of forms but has to be adjusted to the cultural and economic context of the audience.

The emotional, artistic and expressive aspects of a message comprise the “heat” of the health communication piece. Messages often employ humor, sympathy or empathy, anger, anxiety or even fear with respect to a specific health issue. Colors, sound and other touches may be added to contribute to a multisensory and more memorable audience experience with the message. A message is a stated or implicit statement that presents a key aspect of communications destination and strategy to the target audience or a segment of the target audience. Messages should derive from key campaign objectives; without such objectives, messages may seem unclear to a target audience.  These campaign objectives represent what the source or ‘sender’ of the message wishes to do: announce, advise, activate or advocate. (Note that messages can manifest more than one or even all of these objectives…but in doing so may risk clarity!).

Brief definitions of these actions are presented below. In practice, many health communication pieces combine two or more of these objectives:

Campaign Objective: Announce

Presentation that direct individuals as to where they can obtain services, buy a product, or (in the case of health fairs) get more information about a specific health issue. They can also direct the individual to watch or read other media which will provide them with additional information and motivation.

Examples:

https://www.prostateconditions.org/outreach-programs/prostate-cancer-screening Or…

http://www.rbcdesign.net/Examples%20of%20Design%20Work%20for%20RBC%20Design%20Studio/styled-4/medical-advertising-marketing-graphic-design.html

Campaign Objective: Advise

Factual statements regarding health behaviors, risk factors, medications, etc. Information objectives are fairly simple knowledge oriented factual statements informing the target audience about the positive aspects of certain behaviors or other actions or their negative impact. Advice takes the form of information that can help address the challenge of presenting new knowledge or can help clarify misperceptions that people may have. Finally, this information may serve as “booster shots”, reinforcing existing knowledge and reminding the target audience of certain issues.

Examples:

https://gettested.cdc.gov/reasons/default.aspx

Campaign Objective: Activate

Motivating or persuading the audience to attend to and act on the advice or other information presented.

Example:

http://osocio.org/message/aids-campaign-takes-a-different-look-at-social-diseases/

Campaign Objective: Advocate

Documentaries and articles, movies, public demonstrations or ads that embrace and promote a social or political point of view.

Examples:

This current one: http://blacklivesmatter.com/

And this one from nearly 50 years ago: https://www.flickr.com/photos/13476480@N07/20510410925/in/photostream/

Campaign Objective: Combined Objectives

Pieces that attempt to achieve two or more of the above objectives.

Examples:

Research Activity #1

 This is an example of “announce.”  It is directing women 40+ where to go for a breast cancer screening as well as directing people to a first point of contact to determine eligibility for no-cost services.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJxX82ydhOU

 This is an example of “advise.”  It is the CDPH director giving factual statements about vaccinations and schools.

 http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies.htm

 This is an example of “activate.”  It is the CDC zombie preparedness that motivates the audience to be prepared for an emergency by presenting the possibility of a zombie apocalypse.  

 http://occupywallst.org/

 This is an example of “advocate.”  It was the public demonstration of the 99% versus the corruption of the wealthy 1%.

 http://www.2expertsdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/BPSA19.jpg