Media Advocacy In Public Health

Health communication research has rapidly expanded within the larger discipline of communications studies and subfield researches have explored the relationship between health and communication in interpersonal, organizational contexts (Gibson, 2009, Maibach, 2002).

Departed from traditional health campaign, which focused on individual behavior change, media advocacy roots in seeking social changes particularly from policymaking level (Wallack, 1993).

Media advocacy was used successfully in supporting the implementation of local non-smoking ordinances across the United States. Advocates use media advocacy as a tool to maintain local news coverage (Holder and Treno, 1997).

Definition

Media advocacy is “the strategic use of mass media to support

They are navigated by the idea that increasing personal information will change behavior. Traditional public health campaigns target individuals with information on what they can do to avoid illness or injury or treat a problem they already have, media advocacy focuses on the environmental context for health outcomes and looks to policy as the mechanism for changing them. The messages campaigns created are meant to fill the “information gap” among individuals. They rooted in the assumption that when large number of the population is educated with the messages, behavior change will happen (Winett & Wallack, 1996; Wallack & Dorfman.

How will my media advocacy objectives help achieve my policy objectives? In his book, Wallack (1993) and his colleagues used the examples of the successful smoking ban on airplanes. Tobacco industries have long been framing smoking as individual choice, freedom and personal courtesy, and they have strong support from politicians. Wallack attributed the success of out powering the influence from the tobacco industry to media advocacy. Media advocates framed smoking on airplane from a public policy perspective, which shifting primary responsibility for the problem from individuals to the industry, countering the blame-the -victim strategy of the industry.

Media advocacy has been applied to many public health issues. Beyond tobacco control issues, media advocacy is used in children’s health advocates, drunk and driving prevention, and even gun control issues (Wallack & Dorfman, 2001). Case studies are frequently used in evaluating the progress of media advocacy (Wallack & DeJong, 1996; Woodruff, 1996). For example, one study examined the strategies and outcomes of Dangerous Promises, an anti violence against women media advocacy attempt and how it increased community participation and speeding up the policy making process. Studies have also been done using content analysis study media coverage upon advocacy initiatives (Niederdeppe, Farrelly & Wenter, 2007; Cronin, Evans & Ulasevich,