Which shall it be: mass education or mass persuasion for health?

Mendelsohn, Harold

doi:10.2105/ajph.58.1.131

Cited by 21 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…It is findings such as these that pose an irrefutable challenge to bullet or hypodermic models of mass-media influence. Mendelsohn [4] provided an alternative analogy, when he said: "Rather than being a hypodermic needle, we now begin to look at mass communication as a sort of aerosol spray. As you spray it on the surface, some of it hits the target, most of it drifts away, and very little penetrates" (p. 2o6).…”

Section: Persuasion Via the Mass Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Mass media and the prevention of drug problems: a psychological appraisal

O’Connor

1990

Drug and Alcohol Review

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It is often assumed that the mass media are capable of exerting great influence over large sections of their audience. In fact, to achieve anything like mass persuasion, certain conditions need to be met. The mass media can be a powerful influence if directed at emergent trends or attitudes, or in reinforcing behaviour that is being shaped by other forces. Messages to stop, curtail, or engage in new behaviours which run counter to prevailing norms will be ineffective without instruction and access to the means for change within an integrated system approach. It is crucial that the target population is segmented to receive tailored messages to which each group will be optimally receptive. The 'stage of change' a drug user is in is likely to be of particular importance.

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Section: Persuasion Via the Mass Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Mass media and the prevention of drug problems: a psychological appraisal

O’Connor

1990

Drug and Alcohol Review

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“…This includes information on health education which, however, is only a part of the problem. The effect of health education can no longer be equated with simple exposure to health information (76), since all human beings are capable of selecting, discarding, modifying, distorting, ignoring and avoiding the bombardment by bits of information to which we are all exposed each day of our lives. Personality factors, socio‐economic position, prior interests and commitments, and individual motivations all seem to modify people's reactions to health‐message communications, and to intervene between what the communicators intended to happen and what actually does happen.…”

Section: Physical Exercise and Maintenance Of General Fitnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Personality factors, socio‐economic position, prior interests and commitments, and individual motivations all seem to modify people's reactions to health‐message communications, and to intervene between what the communicators intended to happen and what actually does happen. Often the results are such that urging people to be “healthy” may seem to be as inane and wasteful as prodding them to be “good” or to be “safe” (76).…”

Section: Physical Exercise and Maintenance Of General Fitnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health Maintenance in Older Adults

Hrachovec¹

1969

J American Geriatrics Society

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Since the period of great progress against epidemic and acute diseases, a host of major chronic diseases afflicting older adults have emerged as the key health problems of our time. Concomitantly there arises the need for deeper knowledge of the causes, dimensions and subtleties of age decline in the individual's reserve capacities and resistance to disease, and the need for better understanding of the relationship of chronic diseases to environmental factors as an integral part of our search for basic measures toward health maintenance and disease prevention in older adults. The age decline in reserve capacities and in resistance to disease can either be slowed down by preventive measures and even reversed to some extent by physical exercise, or it can be further aggravated by excessive demands beyond their declining limits. The relationship of chronic diseases to environmental factors is illustrated by the effects of nutrition on the life span, on atherosclerosis and on other diseases. The relationship of obesity, diabetes and coronary heart disease to one another, to the increased ingestion of fat or sugar, to gorging, and to long‐spaced, heavy meal‐eating habits is discussed. In view of the sum total of environmental influences, a lifetime application of basic measures for health maintenance and disease prevention is stressed. Unfortunately, much too often a compromise with health is becoming an accepted pattern, possibly because of an increasing willingness to consider health not as a pure and incontestable human good, but as a generally desirable element, in active competition with other human needs such as economic gain or just plain pleasurable living.

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“…Beyond this commonality there are different expectations and outcomes for each discipline. Medical messages are intended to positively affect the audience's attitudes toward health practices (Mendelson 1968). The authors of "Making Data Talk" take on the overwhelming task of arming biomedical scientists, policymakers and healthcare practitioners with a definitive and modestly priced treatise on this subject.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of Making Data Talk: Communicating Public Health Data to the Public, Policy Makers, and the Press

Nicogossian

2010

World Med & Health Policy

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Which shall it be: mass education or mass persuasion for health?

Cited by 21 publications

References 3 publications

Mass media and the prevention of drug problems: a psychological appraisal

Mass media and the prevention of drug problems: a psychological appraisal

Health Maintenance in Older Adults

Review of Making Data Talk: Communicating Public Health Data to the Public, Policy Makers, and the Press

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