Social issues infotainment

Abstract

Printed lea ¶ets are widely used in social issues campaigns, but there is little evidence to suggest that they are consistently successful and little research to help campaigners decide what techniques will attract audience attention. Existing research suggests that lea ¶ets may be successful for audiences who are actively looking for information, but less successful for audiences who either don't know or don't care about the topic being promoted. In this paper, I focus on the strategies that campaigners use to attract readers' attention to social issues lea ¶ets. I identify two broad message strategies -information/argument strategies and emotion/entertainment strategies -and, through a review of the social issues literature, examine how these strategies are typically used by campaigners. I review a collection of existing social issues lea ¶ets to explore the strategies most frequently used, and analyse one lea ¶et to describe how attention-getting strategies are used in practice. Through my review of existing lea ¶ets, I conclude that most lea ¶ets adopt an information/argument strategy to present their information. I argue that this may explain why lea ¶ets are most useful for audiences who are already interested in the topic. The information/argument strategy provides straightforward information: it assumes an interested audience and does little to attract audience attention. I question whether lea ¶ets may be more successful with uninterested audiences if they adopted some of the Judy Gregory Social issues infotainment: Using emotion and entertainment to attract readers' attention in social issues leaflets attention-getting devices included in the emotion/entertainment message strategy.Lea ¶ets, postcards, and other printed materials are produced in vast quantities to communicate the messages of social issues campaigns. Their subjects vary enormously; lea ¶ets are designed to convince people to quit smoking, to eat healthier foods, drive safely, understand health issues, and obey new legislation -to name just a few.Printed materials are important resources for social issues campaigners. Print is used by organisations to communicate with audiences more frequently than any other communication tool (Tips for planning your publication, 1997). And, while the growth in online communication may be transforming the ways that organisations communicate with their audiences, there are some commentators who argue that online communication will simply increase the need for all types of communication, including printed materials (Wheen, 2000).Social issues lea ¶ets are rarely produced in isolation. They are usually part of campaigns which involve multiple communication tools; campaigners combine tools such as events, news coverage, advertising, entertainment programmes, education activities, and a variety of printed materials to maximise the audience's exposure to cam-

Using Message Strategy to Capture Audience Attention: Readers' Reactions to Health Education Publications

“…In previous work (Gregory 2000), I have drawn on Moriarty's approaches to propose that two broad categories of message strategy are typically used by communicators producing publications:…”

"Zum Einfluss von Fallbeispielen und furchterregenden Bildern auf die Wirksamkeit von Gesundheitsflyern zum Thema Adipositas"

“…Ein Ressourcen sparender Weg, um Menschen gesundheitsförderliche Informationen nahezubringen, sind neben den klassischen massenmedialen Informationskanälen wie Presse, Rundfunk oder Plakatwerbung auch Gesundheitsflyer. Gesundheitsflyer sind in der Regel keine für sich isolierten Kommunikationsmittel, sondern gelten vielmehr als fester Bestandteil von Kommunikationskampagnen (Gregory 2002). 1 Sie präsentieren auf wenigen Seiten verdichtet Informationen über spezifische Krankheitsbilder, ihre Ursachen, Folgen und Präventionsmöglichkeiten.…”

“…1 Sie präsentieren auf wenigen Seiten verdichtet Informationen über spezifische Krankheitsbilder, ihre Ursachen, Folgen und Präventionsmöglichkeiten. Sie werden in hohen Auflagen produziert und variieren enorm (Gregory 2002). So gibt es "unzählig viele Broschüren zu einem breiten Spektrum an Gesundheitsthemen" (Naidoo & Wills 2003: 253).…”