Mass Media and Drug Prevention

Classic and Contemporary Theories and Research

William D. Crano, Michael Burgoon, Stuart Oskamp, William D. Crano, Michael Burgoon, Stuart Oskamp

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781135662073
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book tells the story of the mass media's potential in the war against drug abuse. It is based on scientific evidence on the use of media in health promotion and disease prevention. Past approaches--successes and failures alike--are included to help enlighten future programs of research and practice. Advice about the logical steps that must be taken to help alleviate the crisis of drug abuse is featured throughout. The book will appeal to social scientists interested in persuasion and the media Each chapter offers information to help the conscientious practitioner maximize persuasive effects of a mass-mediated presentation.

II
CONTEMPORARY THEORIES AND RESEARCH

4
Using Interactive Media Tools to Test Substance Abuse Prevention Messages

Michael Burgoon, Eusebio M.Alvaro, Katherine Broneck, Claude Miller, Joseph R.Grandpre, John R.Hall, and Cynthia A.Frank
University of Arizona

Social awareness of public health issues has reached an unprecedented level, given the serious and aversive consequences of disease, disability, and even death that are potentially preventable. High-risk behaviors (e.g., tobacco use, risky sexual behavior, and illegal drug use) have contributed to pandemic prevalence of infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS, increasing rates of cancer and cardiovascular disease, and a plethora of economic and health problems associated with drug abuse. Because attitudinal and behavioral modifications are required to manage such potentially preventable maladies, unprecedented efforts have been mounted to develop communication campaigns aimed at disease prevention and control and substance abuse abatement. As is usually the case with only such campaign development, policymakers and researchers have turned to tried-and-true communication channels such as print products and general broad-based radio and television spots to “educate” and “inform” the general public of the aversive consequences of specific health-related behaviors.

Over time, the amount of money spent on health campaigns has increased geometrically. Concomitantly, there has been a monumental increase in the information available to the body politic about a number of health issues, preventable diseases, and dangerous behaviors. However, there is increasing evidence that the correlation between the amount of information available and the acceptance of advocated behavioral/attitudinal change is disappointingly low. One can point to a number of cam-paigns conducted at great expense over long periods of time that have resulted in little or no change in outcome measures of import.

It is possible that traditional print and broadcast media may not be the optimal channels for either reaching or impacting relevant target groups such as youth, adolescents, and specific minority groups. It is becoming Increasingly apparent that these target groups are not particularly amenable to change as a result of the passive reception of messages exhorting them to alter behaviors. Finding ways to tailor prevention messages to specific audience segments is difficult, if not impossible, with a reliance on such traditional media sources.

Increasingly, there is recognition that new communication technologies, including those allowing for interactivity, require research attention. In a society where the target groups of interest are increasingly computer literate and prefer the web to the newspaper or the television, it appears appropriate to conduct theoretically-driven research taking advantage of all the richness and flexibility of new communication technology. The addition of computer-based interventions is mandated as a next step, given the relative lack of success in the unidirectional message campaigns used in past (traditional) public health campaigns.

INTERACTIVE MEDIA

As previously suggested, new communication technologies incorporate the interactivity of the microcomputer with traditional media and other new information technologies to form an innovative information delivery system simultaneously using multiple communication channels (i.e., audio, video, text, still imagery and interactive games). The term interactive technology refers to computer-based media that enable users to access information and services of interest, control how the information is presented, and respond to the information and messages in the same context in which they were delivered (Street & Rimal, 1997).

In a number of applied research venues, the advantages of using such sophisticated communication systems cannot be ignored. Interactive multimedia computer programs can be designed to deliver information to very discrete target populations (e.g., adolescents, minorities) while demanding the continual participation of the end user. Traditional media and information technologies (i.e., printed materials, slides, and videotape presentations) generally cater to relatively broadly defined target populations while promoting passive learning by demanding very little active participation by the end user. Active participation on the part of the end user has been found to promote better comprehension and receptiv-ity of information (McGrane, Toth, & Alley, 1990). Moreover, active participation also challenges end users to make decisions, resolve problems, and practice new behaviors. Interactive media can be easily programmed to link messages (using hypertext) with related data banks, and thereby provide more detailed explanations of subject areas end users find particularly interesting or difficult to understand. In addition, interactive multimedia computer programs have been found to increase end users’ selfawareness, thereby making attitudes more salient and accessible than does traditional media (Metheson & Zanna, 1988).

User Advantages. Long before the advent of computer-based interactive technology, communication researchers found that when an individual is highly involved with a task (Brynes & Kiger, 1990; Cacioppo & Petty, 1981; Crano, 1983; Schilling, El-Bassel, & Gilbert, 1992), has hands-on experience with it (Toth, 1987), is empowered by it (Bates, 1979; Jones, 1987), and perceives the task as having important personal consequences (Crano, 1995, 1997), the probability that the individual will manifest knowledge-consistent behavior is significantly increased. New media, unlike traditional mass media, challenge users to make decisions, resolve problems, and practice new behaviors. These actions, in turn, increase feelings of self-efficacy and confidence, and reduce uncertainty about behavior change (Kalichman, Hunter, & Kelly, 1992). In addition, new media can be easily programmed to provide positive feedback to the user, acting as a “qualified observer,” and in this sense fulfill a fundamental role in what educators consider to be the ideal learning environment (Pollack & Breault, 1987). Further, end users can be made responsible for teaching other users how to use the interactive system, providing many opportunities for “postbehavior consolidating,” which also has been found to be an important variable in learning and implementing new behaviors (McGrane et al., 1990).

Research Advantages. There are several added advantages of using interactive computer systems for those conducting social influence research in health, organizational, and educational contexts. For example, interactive media programs can be designed to track each individual user’s approach to the materials offered; measure the time each user spends perusing each message; monitor each user’s total time spent on specific tasks; record each user’s choice of additional information links; and provide detailed data summaries of the user’s interaction with the program at the end of each experiment. Such computer-mediated measures have been shown to provide significantly more objective evaluation of users’ behavior and performance during exposure to information than traditional coding or self-report measures (Pollack & Breault, 1987). In addition, interactive modules can be designed to control each partici-pant’s access to experimental messages by programming participant assignment to experimental conditions, while simultaneously collecting comprehensive data on variables of interest.

MULTIMEDIA/INTERACTIVITY IN HEALTH PROMOTION AND DISEASE PREVENTION

The majority of health promotion and disease prevention messages use brochures, television and radio spots, billboards, and magazine ads to promote better, healthier lifestyles. Moreover, many of the traditional forms of health messages are usually unidirectional, one-to-many presentations. Message recipients cannot interact with or ask questions as the information is being presented. Consequently, health care researchers have started using interactive technologies such as the Internet, computerized compact disc programs (CD-ROMs), and video games to distribute interactive health prevention messages.

Health promotion and disease prevention messages delivered via interactive multimedia often fall into one or a blend of four mediated presentational categories: problem solving, informational, networking, and personalized messages. A fifth category of research-oriented applications includes projects that largely use interactive multimedia as a research tool. Such applications often draw on the preceding four message categories for content. Each of these applications is discussed in detail before moving on to an overview of two applied research projects designed to test the relative efficacy of drug prevention messages by using interactive multimedia technology.

Problem Solving. Problem-solving programs are self-management and decisional in nature. They provide a computerized environment where users are faced with various health related problematic situations. Users are asked to make decisions based on what they would do given these situations. Forerunners in self-management health prevention programs are the Health Hero video game series (Lieberman, 1995; Lieberman & Brown, 1995) and the Body Awareness Resource Network (BARN) (Bosworth, 1994; Bosworth, Gustafson, & Hawkins, 1994; Hawkins, Gustafson, Chewning, Bosworth, & Day, 1987).

The Health Hero video game series consists of four video games targeting children and addressing health issues such as smoking, asthma, and safety. Knowledge about each given topic is presented through animated sequences explaining and demonstrating healthy behaviors. Players manipulate their game characters through a computerized environment where they make health decisions based on the information presented earlier in the game.

Video games regarding health goals allow people to make health decisions and in turn receive immediate, cumulative feedback on their performance. Lieberman (1997) argued that by being motivated to win the game, the people playing the game will learn the skills and information necessary to win, thereby internalizing information about the health prevention message that was being presented. Field tests as well as controlled laboratory studies have demonstrated that after playing the Health Hero video games, children ...