CDC's Use of Social Media and Humor in a Risk Campaign—“Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse”

Abstract

This is a multiple methods study that highlights the tension between awareness-and behavioral-based campaign successes, particularly when communicating using social media and pop-culture-referencing humor. To illustrate, it examines the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) "zombie apocalypse" all-disaster-preparedness campaign. An interview with a CDC campaign manager, campaign document analysis, and a 2 (information form: social vs. traditional media) × 2 (message strategy: humorous vs. non-humorous) experiment uncovers benefits and pitfalls of using social media and humorous messaging for risk communication. Findings show social media can quickly spread information to new publics for minimal costs; however, experiment participants who received the humorous (i.e., zombie) risk message reported significantly weaker intentions to take protective actions in comparison to those who received the traditional, non-humorous risk message.

Negative body talk as an outcome of friends’ fitness posts on social networking sites: body surveillance and social comparison as potential moderators

“…Social movements and campaigns on SNSs regarding fitness posts would provide a direct connection to the audience that is most impacted by these posts: both those who make the posts and those who are exposed to them. Previous research has evaluated campaigns endorsed on different SNSs by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and have reported that SNSs are a cost effective way to spread the campaign to millions of people quickly (Fraustino & Ma, 2015). These campaigns can be effective at implementing change, as Facebook, for example, recently removed a 'feeling fat' option and emoticon from status updates after users filed a more than 16,000 signature petition online stating that such options make fun of people who feel overweight (CNN Money, 2015).…”

Communicating with children and adolescents about the risk of natural disasters

“…Fraustino and Ma (2015) examined a humorous disaster-preparedness message that spread through social media, involving how to prepare for a zombie apocalypse. This was a viral hit and reached many people in a very brief time.…”

“…However, the results showed that the humorous appeal resulted in a weaker intention to take preparedness actions than did non-humorous message strategies. Moreover, the humorous strategies caused significantly weaker intentions to seek additional emergency information in comparison to the non-humorous strategies (Fraustino & Ma, 2015). Using a humorous appeal might draw attention to and increase the liking of a campaign, but runs the risk that people do not take the message seriously.…”

“…The above-mentioned ‘zombie apocalypse’ disaster campaign became popular across social media platforms. Despite its success, the reported behavioural intentions to engage in emergency-preparedness behaviours were relatively low across conditions both in terms of emergency-preparedness behaviours as well as information-seeking behaviours (Fraustino & Ma, 2015). While the campaign was successful in rising awareness by creating a buzz, it was unsuccessful when it came to changing people’s behaviour.…”

Humor in public health messaging

“…Reder (1997) reported both conversations with friends and conversations with partners as behavioral outcomes; the friends outcome was included as it had a larger sample size. Fraustino and Ma (2015) and Kruvand and Bryant (2015) both examined the same message regarding emergency preparedness and reported multiple types of behavioral intentions, ranging from intentions to seek information to intentions to prepare an emergency kit. Intentions to develop a plan were chosen, as this was included by both articles and falls in the middle of the spectrum between information seeking and kitmaking in complexity.…”