MTI Flashcards
Review the definition of (public) communication campaigns.
– book
Public Communication Campaigns: purposive attempts to inform or influence behaviors in larger audiences within a specified time period using an organized set of communication activities and featuring an array of mediated messages in multiple channels generally to produce non commercial benefits to individuals and society.
What is the point about the universal quality of campaigns, and below what is the comparison to commercial marketing?
The campaign as process is universal across topics and venues, utilizing systematic frameworks and fundamental strategic principles developed over the past half century. Campaigns across many spectrums show some similarities to commercial advertising campaigns. Thus, it is useful to apply social marketing, which emphasizes an audience-centered consumer orientation and calculated attempts to attractively package the social product and utilize the optimum combination of campaign components to attain pragmatic goals.
Note the segment on identifying the audience, and pay attention to message efficiency and effectiveness.
Rather than attempting to reach the broad public, campaign designers typically identify specific (often “at risk”) segments of the overall population. There are two major strategic advantages of subdividing the public in terms of demographic characteristics, predispositions, personality traits, and social contexts. First, message efficiency can be improved if subsets of the audience are prioritized according to their centrality in attaining the campaign’s objective as well as receptivity to being influenced. Second, effectiveness can be increased if message content, form, style and channels are tailored to the attributes and objectives of subgroups.
Focal Segment
Focal Segments: subpopulations that might benefit from the campaigns because they are at risk for harm or in need of help or improvement
- most campaigns aim messages directly at focal segments
Influencers
Influencers: opinion leaders who are in a position to personally influence focal individuals
- a major advantage of the interpersonal relationships is that the influencer can customize the messages to the unique needs and values of individuals in a more precise and context relevant manner than most media messages.
Policy Makers
Policy Makers: responsible for designing constraints and creating opportunities that shape focal individuals decisions and behaviors.
Note the two basic strategic approaches
Prevention campaigns: present fear appeals to focus attention on negative consequences of a detrimental practice rather than promoting the desirability of a positive alternative
- most potent in cases where harmful outcomes are generally threatening or positive products are insufficiently compelling
Social Marketing Perspective (Promotion Campaigns): especially applicable to promoting desirable behavior, which involves offering rewarding gains from attractive “products (e.g. tasty fruit, etc)
⇒ Note!!! Central strategic consideration in determining the degree of difficulty is receptiveness to the focal segment
What are awareness messages
Awareness messages: present relatively simple content that informs people what to do, specifically who should do it, or provides cues about when and where it should be done.
What are instruction messages
Instruction messages: preset how-to-do-it info, in campaigns that need to produce knowledge gains or skills acquisitions, including enhancing personal efficacy in bolstering peer resistance and acquiring media literacy skills.
What are the five major aspects of strategic message dissemination
The five major aspects are: 1) total volume of messages, 2) amount of repetition, 3) prominence of placement, 4) scheduling of message presentation, and 5) temporal length of campaign.
- A substantial volume of stimuli helps attain adequate reach and frequency of exposure as well as comprehension, recognition, and image formation.
- A certain level of repetition of specific executions facilitates message comprehension and positive affect toward the product, but high repetition produces wear out and diminishing returns
- Placement prominence of messages in conspicuous positions within media vehicles (e.g. front page of a newspaper, heavily trafficked billboard locations, etc) serves to enhance both exposure levels and perceived significance.
- Scheduling of a fixed number of presentations; depending on the situation, campaigns may be most effectively concentrated over a short duration, dispersed thinly over a long period, or intermittently by bursts of flighting or pulsing.
- Length, the realities of public service promotion and problem prevention often require exceptional persistence of effort over long periods of time to attain a critical mass of exposures.
What is the author’s point about campaign’s impact
“Most experts conclude that contemporary public communication campaigns attain a modest rather than strong impact, notably on the health behaviors… particularly due to meager dissemination budgets, unsophisticated applications of theory and models, and poorly conceived strategic approaches.”
What are public service campaigns
Public service campaigns: campaigns where their goals are widely supported by the public and policy makers.
What are advocacy campaigns
Advocacy campaigns: campaigns where the goals are controversial
What were the typical campaign stakeholders prior to World War II
voluntary associations, mass media, and the federal government.
What additional stakeholders became common after World War II
foundations, trade unions, and corporations.
Note the concept and an example of Objective campaigns
focuses on one group’s intention to change another group’s beliefs or behaviors. This definition comes to the fore when intentions are controversial… change objectives may be accomplished through a communication campaign or through nonverbal communication strategies.
Note the concept and an example of Methods campaigns
what the campaign does… a conventional mix of brochures, posters, advertisements, and commercials or an array of communication methods
What are the three E’s of public communication campaigns? You need to know what each of these means in the conduct of communication campaigns.
Education – public communication campaigns focus here – ex) safety belt campaigns
o Typically involves modifying knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, or behavior; it is the predominant communication arm of social change (e.g polio virus)
Engineering – developing programs, movements, or technology to facilitate the campaign
o Typically occurs with the development of a technology or innovation that can alone remedy the solution
Enforcement – implementing the campaign
o Typically involves the passage of laws, the use of coercion, or other forms of mandating change (e.g. seat belt laws, immigration vaccination laws, and mandated child safety protection)
What is agenda
what the public feels is important.
What is entitlement
either law, public policy, or public acceptance that gives the public rights etc
o Constitutional entitlement is a given in the US.
o Public acceptance is the final test of entitlement
What are second party advocates
A second party group is one that gets involved in someone else’s grievances. Second party groups will step forward to serve as advocates, sometimes putting themselves at risk as surrogate first parties.
Ex) Whales, seal pups, and future generations of Americans are the first parties of campaigns, but they are not their own advocates. Some save-the-whales groups increased their entitlement when the public saw them risking harm on the ocean.
Note the authors three basic characteristics of public communication campaigns in the 18th, 19th, and 20th Century.
- Prior to 1800, American public communication campaigns were often conducted by strong-willed individuals who reached the public through the pulpit or the printing press.
- 19th century… issues that are entrenched in law or custom may require decades of lobbying, campaigning, and confronting the opposition. The numeric strength and continuity of associations have proved to be invaluable in achieving reform over the long term. Abolition associations were the first to adopt the modern form of local chapters coordinated by a headquarters office.
- At the end of the 19th century, the initiative for refroming many social problems shifted from associations to the mass media. Many of the problems, by their very nature, were not the rallying causes of organized activity. New printing technologoes, the rise of literacy, and momentous national events combined to put more publications in the public’s hands than ever before in history. The 20th century reform passed into the hands of civil service as most of the reforms conceived by the muckrackers had to be reared by government officials.
How did government change re: public communication campaigns in the 20th Century?
Responding to pressure form reformers, muckrackers, and public opinion at the dawn of the 20th century, the federal government was drawn into causes that were far removed from its original charter… many social reform laws to the Constitution (e.g. 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, 1910 White Slave Traffic Act, 1916 Child Labor Act)
What does the author mean by public distrust
Public distrust: The last third of the 20th century saw a crisis in public trust that threatened to undermine public communication campaigns… notwithstanding the wrongs revealed in this second era of American muckracking, many negative events after WWII had positive
What does the author mean by episodic issues
Episodic issues: issues rise and fall on the agenda according to external factors such as crises, incidents, and the appearance of effective advocates on the national scene. Some issues are solved by actions or events; they drop off the national agenda until they become unsolved again. Many persisting issues are subject to issue fatigue; they leave the agenda for a time then return with new advocates or proposals… An issue by any other name is a different issue… ideological based issues tend to fluctuate according to which political party they are in
What does the author mean by issue literacies
issue literacies: the problem of too many issues, too little time has led to creative strategies to reclaim our attention. Many advocates now contend that their concern is not an issue but a literacy. In recent years the public has been urged to attain scientific literacy, technological literacy, legal literacy, sexual literacy, and much more… at one level, the redefinition of issues as literacies is only as strategy to regain attention in the crowded marketplace of issues. At another level, this trend acknowledges the complexity of issues like cancer prevention and treatment.
How does the author define human rights
Human Rights: The essential idea that people have rights that is inherent in their humanness and not contingent on states.. .“recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”
Note the description of the three traditions of communication and social change scholarship
- Infrastructure: the oldest tradition of scholarship (and of applied investments in communication) focused on the role of communication infrastructure rather than on the content of communication; it was not interested in deliberate, persuasive campaigns but only in building up the capacity to do communication
- scholars argued that if access to information technology was high and governments assured the free flow of information and a free press, this would create “modern societies” featuring “democratic institutions.” - -Effects: second tradition of research extends the focus on technology diffusion and institutional rules around technology to consider the effects of the content spread by the technology. Not concerned with deliberate efforts to “sell brotherhood like soap” but rather with the effects of content typically diffused by media sources.
- Important info regarding human rights
- Agenda setting = convincing an audience that they ought to be paying attention to a specific issue
- Framing = to convince audiences that when they think about an issue they ought to be understanding it in a particular way
- Important info regarding human rights
- -Purposive, contend-specific uses (e.g., campaigns): third major research tradition… the one that bears most directly on building interventions to ameliorate human rights concerns… is about purposive uses of communication technology to educate, persuade, and produce social change – what are called public communication campaigns (e.g. the focus of this book)
- This goes beyond the diffusion of technology and beyond the effects of the typical media content toward deliberate attempts to influence behavior
What are the two types of communication campaigns
Controlled Communication Campaigns: campaigns where producers develop specific messages and transmit them through well-defined channels with an expectation that they will produce measurable behavior change
Public Relations Campaigns: make use of press releases and other materials to encourage attention to an issue by media and other institutions.
Note the different types of campaign focuses
Campaigns focused on low-cost, high-reward behaviors: Ex) campaigns to reduce SIDS
o These cases are rare as few things are simple and highly rewarding and otherwise unknown to an audience
Campaigns linked to substantial changes in the material environment: Ex)
Long-lived, long-term programs: Ex) Anti-smoking campaign
What are the basic issues human rights communication would need to address?
- Poor messages: many communication programs confuse the goal of their program with the messages they need to distribute. Programs often put a lot of resources into producing pretty messages (nice formats, attention getting) but spend too little on understanding how target audience members think about their behavior of concern.
- Too little exposure: many serious communication efforts fail because their good messages are not seen or heard at all or are not or heard with sufficient frequency to be persuasive. Even when substantial effort goes into message creation, there may not be sufficient funding to purchase exposure or not an adequate strategy to earn free exposure.
o getting sufficient continuing message exposure is a crucial problem to be solved for any human rights agency that intends to make use of public communication - Individual persuasion when the behavior belongs to social networks or institutions: much of the history of communication has been focused on persuading individuals to change their behaviors. Even for issues when individual behavior is the focus of a campaign, this may not always be the most efficient strategy. If a behavior is open to influence from an individual’s social network, then it may prove productive to focus a campaign on changing social norms and only through social norm change try to influence individual behavior (e.g. making it illegal to smoke inside the workplace makes it harder to smoke it work making it less likely to smoke)… many human rights issues are about institutional change
- It is not really a communication problem: if the problem is one of lack of material resources to permit changes, or if current circumstances are consistent with interests reflecting the distribution of power in a society, is communication really a solution? Sometimes it is in the interest of policy actors not to change policy; they understand the issues and human rights arguments behind change, but think that change is not in their own interests or the interest of the constituencies who support them (especially relevant to environmental campaigns)
- Confusing communicating with doing something about a problem: communication efforts can make actors feel like they’re doing something, which is not the same as doing something. Agencies that turn to public communication to address an issue are either: (ideally) trying to make things better or (maybe just) trying to look like they are doing something… because communication is a public intervention, it carries with it a particular risk of allowing the appearance of action to replace effective action or to create other outcomes.
Purposive communication is likely to be effective in what circumstances?
It is likely to be effective because it influences behavior over the long run through lots of exposure, through the use of multiple channels, and because it produces incremental rather than dramatic change.
Campaign evaluation research encompasses what stages?
- Formative Stage = evaluation research encompasses collection of info about audiences
- Process Evaluation = to assess implementation as the campaign unfolds
- Summative Evaluation = to track campaign impact
What are the two types of formative research?[
- Preproductive research: data are accumulated on audience characteristics that relate importantly to the medium, the message, and the situation within which the desired behavior will occur.
- Production testing (pre-testing): draft prototype messages are evaluated to obtain audience reactions prior to final production
Formative evaluation draws upon what?
Draws upon concepts and influence processes from theories, models, and frameworks in communication, social psychology, marketing, and health education.
During the preproduction stage what does the analyst try to learn?
the strategist seeks to learn as much as possible about the intended audience before articulating goals and developing strategies. Specifically, the research helps identify intended audiences and focal behaviors, specify significant intermediate response variables, ascertain channel exposure patterns, and determine receptivity to potential message components.
For what is formative research useful regarding audience subgroups?
it is useful in identifying high-priority subgroups by gathering data about which categories of individuals are most relevant to the campaign goals, which are most receptive to media persuasion on the topic (through which media) and which are in a position to influence interpersonally the intended audience.
Understand the five types of pretesting discussed
- Focus Group Interviews: a form of qualitative research adapted by marketing researchers from group therapy. They are conducted with a group of about 5-10 respondents simultaneously. Using a discussion outline, a moderator builds rapport and trust and keeps the session on track while allowing respondents to talk freely and spontaneously. The moderator must be experienced and knowledgeable as they must probe further and lead the group.
- Individual In-Depth Interviews: used for pre-testing issues that are very sensitive or must be probed very deeply and for respondents who are difficult to recruit for focus group interviews, such as physicians, dentists, and CEO’s. These can last a long time(30min-1hr) and are used to assess comprehension as well as feelings, emotions, attitudes, and prejudices. Despite being very costly and time consuming, they may be the most appropriate form of pretesting for sensitive subjects (e.g. breast reconstruction)
- Central-Location Intercept Interviews: involve stationing interviewers at a location frequented by individuals from desired intended audiences and, after asking a few screening questions, inviting qualified respondents to participate in the pretest… One advantage is that a high-traffic area can yield many interviews in a reasonably short time. Second, it is cost effective means of gathering data. Disadvantage, the method is obtrusive because respondents know they are participating in a test, their responses may be less valid.
- Self-Administered Questionnaires: used to pretest concepts and rough messages. They can be mailed to respondents along with pretest materials or distributed at a central location. Advantage – Internet has enhanced this approach making it inexpensive, speedy, and encourages broader participation. Disadvantage: low overall response rate, tendency toward self-selection of individuals who have either strongly positive or negative responses to the pretest materials, and sample biases relating to respondents being Internet users.
- Theater testing: uses forced exposure to test rough television message executions in controlled settings. Testing takes place with several hundred randomly recruited representatives of the message’s intended audiences; responders are seated in a group of about 25 people around a large TV monitor. The test spots are embedded among other TV commercials in TV program material to camouflage the intent of the testing situation and simulate the home viewing context… asked to recall all messages they remember by brand name, product type, etc.. followed by diagnostic questions… provides an opportunity to use electronic devices to record and display moment-to-moment evaluation of messages.
What is the article’s conclusion regarding pretesting and formative research?
By collecting preproduction information and feedback reactions to pretest theoretically derived versions of the message concepts and executions, campaign designers are in a much better position to devise more effective campaign plans and messages before final production and full-scale dissemination. Formative evaluation facilitates the development of more sophisticated campaign strategies, helps avoid pitfalls, and improves the quality and effectiveness of the created messages.
What is evaluation?
the systematic application of research procedures to understand the conceptualization, design, implementation, and utility of interventions (here, communication campaigns).
What are the three functions of evaluation research
- Determine the expected impacts and outcomes of the program
- To help planners and scholars understand how or why a program succeeded or failed – that is, the theoretical and causal as well as implementation reasons – increases the likelihood that successes can be repeated and failures avoided in future behavioral promotion programs.
- To provide information relevant for planning future activities
What are the 3 phases of evaluation research
- Formative research (learned it in Ch. 4)
- Process research (monitoring)
- Summative research (outcome)
