Chapter 11: Health Images in the Media

Mass Communication

The dissemination (the action of spreading something) of messages from one person or group to large numbers of people, via media including television, radio, computers, newspapers, magazines, billboards, video games, and other means.

There is evidence that media messages encourage people to overeat, doubt their attractiveness, drink alcohol, smoke, and neglect physical activity

Media content can have harmful effects on health, but it also means of sharing information that may enable people to better understand their health and health-related options.

Third-Person Effect

To describe this perceptive feeling where most of us are not personally susceptible to persuasive messages in the media but other people are.

Ex: Teens often believe their peers will be more likely to smoke if they see pro-smoking messages in the media, but they tend to feel immune from that effect themselves.

Cultivation Theory

Helps explain why children may be especially vulnerable to advertising messages.

-People develop beliefs about the world based on a complex array of influences, including the media.

Social Comparison Theory

Suggests that people judge themselves largely in comparison to to others.

-Can be useful when they enhance self-esteem or serve as the basis for reasonable self-improvement.

Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) Advertising

Those encourage everyday people to consider and ask about particular drugs-comprise a $3-billion-a-year- industry in the United States.

Advantages of DTC Advertising

Advertisements for needed products are beneficial.

-Without them, consumers might not know that treatment options are available for indigestion, asthma, allergies, depression, restless legs, and thing alike.

Active presumably benefit when drug companies strive to offer the most appealing and useful products. Advertising is an active competition that can inspire product development.

Disadvantages of DTC Advertising

Expensive advertising has drawbacks

-Big drug companies now spend more on advertising than they do on research and development.

-Prescription drug prices have risen more than 26% since 2005 for the drugs used the most by older Americans

Health professionals worry that, based on the dazzling scenarios in prescription-drug commercials, people may believe that high-priced designer drugs are better than others that drugs will not only cure anything that ails them but will yield increased happiness and excitement as well.

-A high percentage of models in HIV treatments, Arthritis, and cancer-related commercial ads appear to be healthy and physically active

In attracting consumers, drug companies sometimes downplay their products risks.

Pathologizing the Human Body

Making natural functions seem weird and unnatural.

-In short, advertisers are accused of making people feel bad about themselves so they will be willing to pay for "needed" changes.

-Teenagers are more susceptible to these messages.

Sexual Objectification

Occurs when an individual is treated primarily as the object of another person's desire, not as a whole and unique person with needs and desires of her own.

Rape Culture

The attitude among some people that it is acceptable, sexy, or even funny to force sex on women, men, or children.

-Many people feel that Fifty Shades of Grey and similar books and movies trivialize rape and abuse and make them seem acceptable.

Entertainomercials

to characterize sales pitches that resemble entertainment programing.

Product Placement

A sponsor pays (with cash, props, services, or so on) to have a product or brand name included in a movie, a television program, a video game, or some other form of entertainment.

Product placement uses stealth ads as a

form of subliminal advertising, in that the viewer may not be consciously aware of seeing items displayed but may develop an impression about them based on their association with other elements of the drama.

Entertainment-Education Programming or Prosocial Programming

Efforts to benefit the public using an entertainment format.

-Producers may embed subtle messages in programs, not to sell products but to educate or persuade people regarding health matters.

Communication Infrastructure Theory

Proposes that people build an integrated sense of community through the interface of resources and storytelling at three levels: a micro-level (via interpersonal communication), a meso level (as through businesses, nonprofit organizations, and neighborhood associations), and a macro level (including mass media).

Communication Infrastructure Theory acknowledges...

that communities are constrained by the resources and opportunities available to them, and at the same time, that community members are (and should be) interdependent and active agents in shaping how their resources are interpreted, used, and perhaps expanded.

Media Literacy

as awareness and skills that allow a person to evaluate media content in terms of what is realistic and useful.

According to Dorothy Singer and Jerome Singer's (1998) seminal overview...

media-literate individuals are aware that advertisers are apt to highlight (and even exaggerate) the attractive aspects of their products and to downplay the disadvantages.

-They are skillful at identifying portrayals that are unrealistic or have been enhanced by special effects.

Informative Stage

Participants in media literacy programs learn to identify different types of messages (persuasive, informative, and entertaining) and different types media (television, radio, news-papers, and so on).

Analytic Stage

Participants discuss their perceptions of media in general and of specific messages

-In this stage they typically deconstruct messages with guidance from a trained leader.

Deconstructing

A message means breaking it down into specific components, such as key points, purpose, implied messages, production techniques, and goals

Ex: Beer commercials make out that drinking is fun but that's not all it does.

Experiential Stage

media literacy programs challenge participants to write their own news stories, design ads, perform skits, and participate in other creative efforts to help them understand the process and demystify the way media messages are created.

Parental Mediation

Media literacy can be taught at home when parents help children understand aspects of the media messages they encounter.