Understanding Truth in Health Communication

Abstract

This study examines truthfulness through eight dimensions to explicate truth in health communication and explores the relationships between message truthfulness and message attributes and audience characteristics. A content analysis of 974 television antismoking ads from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reveals a high degree of truthfulness. Message truthfulness is related to thematic frames, emotion appeals, source, age, social role and smoking status, and positive framing of consequences. Ads targeted at teens/youth and smokers tend to have lower message truthfulness than ads targeting older age groups and non-smokers. Ads with humor and fear appeals are found to be less truthful.

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“…The efficacy of health messages presupposes that health communication is targeted and purposive communication whose goal is to effect positive changes in people’s lives through health promotion and disease prevention. Hence, its goals are benevolent, righteous, virtuous and altruistic ( Andreasen, 2001 ; Guttman, 2000 , 2003 : Kirklin, 2007a , 2007b ; Kozlowski and O’Connor, 2003 ; Lee, 2011 , 2013 ; Lee and Cheng, 2010 :; Seedhouse, 2004 ). Celebrations of the virtues of health communications tend to overlook that the quality, policy objectives and symbolic intentions of health communication are equally contestable just as any other empirical and academic pursuit.…”