Public Communication Campaigns

Exploring social marketing landscapes: a review of healthy food campaigns

by alessio cavicchi

Social marketing is a growing research field. It has been proved that social marketing has some effectiveness in... more Social marketing is a growing research field. It has been proved that social marketing has some effectiveness in health programs and can help in shaping people’s behaviour. This paper examines the role of social marketing in public communication campaigns and, more specifically, it explores the issue of healthy food habits promotion. An overview of theoretical issues surrounding definitions of basic principles and contents of social marketing is presented. Consequently social marketing is analysed within the context of healthy food promotion. The paper also provides a review of past food campaigns with relative pros and cons and, finally, some recommendations are drawn and some “best practices” recalled.

Normative Influence on Handwashing in Childcare Centers: Testing the Theory of Normative Social Behavior

by Jenn Anderson

Authors: Lapinski, M., Anderson, J., Shugart, A., & Todd, E.

This paper is under review at the Journal of Applied Communication Research.

This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association (2011).

Childcare centers are a unique context for studying social and personal expectations about health behaviors. The... more Childcare centers are a unique context for studying social and personal expectations about health behaviors. The theory of normative social behavior (TNSB, Rimal & Real, 2005) provides a framework for testing the role of social and psychological influences on handwashing behaviors among childcare workers. A cross-sectional survey of childcare workers in 21 centers indicates that outcome expectations and group identity increase the strength of the relationship between descriptive norms and handwashing behavior. Injunctive norms also moderate the effect of descriptive norms on handwashing behavior such that when strong injunctive norms are reported, descriptive norms are positively related to handwashing, but when weak injunctive norms are reported, descriptive norms are negatively related to handwashing. The findings suggest that communication interventions in childcare centers can focus on strengthening injunctive norms in order to increase handwashing behaviors in childcare centers. The findings also suggest that the theory of normative social behavior can be used in organizational contexts.

Increasing the Salience of the Value-Expressive Function of Attitudes toward Exercise among Christians

by Jenn Anderson

This paper will be presented at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association

The present paper argues for functional theory to be extended so that communicative behavior takes central stage. The... more The present paper argues for functional theory to be extended so that communicative behavior takes central stage. The paper is specifically focused on the value-expressive function of attitudes, and the potential for such a function to be shared through communication. Previous work with this function has focused on its cognitive aspects, but in the current paper, value-expressiveness is conceptualized as the communication of values through the expression of attitudes. This paper presents this new conceptualization of value-expressiveness and uses Christians’ attitudes toward exercise as a case study for examining potentially value-expressive health-related communication.

Can Twitter save Bletchley Park?

by Jonathan Bowen

Sue Black (University of Westminster), Jonathan P. Bowen, and Kelsey Griffin (Bletchley Park Trust). In David Bearman and Jennifer Trant (eds.), MW2010: Museums and the Web 2010, Denver, USA, 9-12 April 2010. Archives & Museum Informatics, 2010.

Read more: Archives & Museum Informatics: Museums and the Web 2010: Papers: Black, S., et al., Can Twitter Save Bletchley Park? http://www.archimuse.com/mw2010/papers/black/black.html
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

Bletchley Park is the historic site of secret British codebreaking activities during World War II and birthplace of... more Bletchley Park is the historic site of secret British codebreaking activities during World War II and birthplace of the modern computer. The work carried out there is said to have shortened WWII by two years, saving possibly 22 million lives. The Park is now a museum, with a 26 acre site, many exhibitions and working rebuilds of machines such as the Colossus, a forerunner of today's computers, invented to mechanize codebreaking. The museum is staffed by a 75% volunteer workforce and is grossly underfunded compared to its historical importance.

After a visit by Sue Black to Bletchley Park in July 2008, a campaign was launched to save it. A letter to the UK broadsheet newspaper The Times signed by 97 eminent UK computer scientists was published and highlighted in a BBC news broadcast. Following traditional media coverage, a blog was established, and then social media, (particularly Twitter), which have been used to great effect to raise awareness and support for the campaign. Other Web 2.0 technologies, including Facebook, have also been used as part of the campaign.

This paper explores the effectiveness of this approach, using statistical evidence as appropriate, highlighting how the use of social media has contributed greatly to campaign success. Since the Saving Bletchley Park campaign started, visitor numbers have increased, along with public awareness of the contribution of the site to world heritage and the history of the computer.

Campaign efforts have received national coverage on television, on radio, and in the press and have contributed to the Park recently receiving £460K funding and a potential further £4 million funding from the UK Heritage Lottery Fund.

Keywords: blogging, fundraising, heritage, virtual community, United Kingdom, Web 2.0, social media, Twitter

Manufacturing EU consensus: the reasons behind EU promotional campaigns

by Chiara Valentini

Global Media Journal- Mediterranean Editions 1(2), Fall 2006, pp.80-96

This article provides a new interpretation of EU information and communication actions developed in the last 5 years... more This article provides a new interpretation of EU information and communication actions developed in the last 5 years from a public relations standpoint. This study responds to five main questions concerning EU promotional campaigns towards its different publics. Specifically it seeks to understand the reasons behind such campaigns, whether they have produced certain changes in EU image formation and increased trust in its institutions and whether they have increased Europeans’ commitment and involvement in EU affairs. Firstly I will review the main concepts of image, collective identification, trust, commitment and involvement for public organizations. Then, I will present the data concerning Europeans’ perception of the image of the EU, trust in European institutions, collective identification and overall support for membership. This date together with the theoretical framework will engage these five central concerns. I will then conclude with some comments and discussion about EU information and communication actions.