Media Advocacy: Changing the Media's Perspective
Learn tested communication strategies for influencing the media themselves, in order to increase the favorability of local media coverage.
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WHAT IS THE MEDIA'S PERSPECTIVE ON COMMUNITY ISSUES?
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HOW DOES THE MEDIA TALK ABOUT ISSUES?
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HOW DO YOU CHANGE THE MEDIA’S PERSPECTIVE ON COMMUNITY ISSUES?
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HOW DO YOU WANT THE MEDIA TO LOOK AT COMMUNITY ISSUES?
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HOW DO YOU CHANGE THE PRESENTATION OF YOUR MESSAGE?
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WHAT IS CREATIVE EPIDEMIOLOGY?
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WHAT IS A MEDIA BITE?
WHAT IS THE MEDIA'S PERSPECTIVE ON COMMUNITY ISSUES?
When people talk about community issues, they often talk about how individuals need to change their lifestyles to make things better for themselves. It's easy to say, "Well, you should've done this instead..."
For example, consider the tragedy of an American woman, in a California city. As she was walking to her car from a public transportation stop, she was kidnapped, stuffed into the trunk of her own car by her kidnappers, who later robbed, raped, and murdered her. Although the woman's brutal assault and murder received intense media coverage and people cried out for increased public safety, the general media focus was on the drama of the crime.
The conditions that led up to the woman's attack and the issues of community-wide safety and personal well-being were ignored. Instead, the media provided "tips" on how to "be safe" as a user of public transportation or parking lots.
It's easy to think that somehow people who suffer didn't do enough to keep themselves safe or healthy. The media have the tendency to present, or frame, health and community issues as individual rather than social problems.
In effective media advocacy, health and community advocates not only reframe news stories to show the influence that politics, economics, health policy and stereotyping have on health and community issues, but also work with media representatives to help them understand those issues more clearly and present them more straightforwardly. Their job is to show the media – and, through them, the public and decision makers – that health and community development problems can only be solved by community effort.
HOW DOES THE MEDIA TALK ABOUT ISSUES?
We've discussed the importance of understanding the media before approaching them. It's also important to be aware of how news is reported.
Issues are presented, or "framed", by turning facts, scientific knowledge, and analysis into symbols, pictures, sounds, and labels. For example, suppose you are a public health advocate. You know that cigarette smoking is linked to asthma in children who live around second-hand smoke. Instead of writing a story that gives only the statistics - e.g. how many new cases of childhood asthma are reported - you could present a picture of an adult trying to hand a baby a lit cigarette to illustrate the dangers of secondhand smoke.
Public opinions on health and community issues are greatly influenced by strong symbols and labels that capture a widely held (and supposedly correct) attitude. For example, the Beef Producers of America have combated recent publicity on links between heart disease and high cholesterol food such as red meat by broadcasting commercials that show delicious meat dishes being prepared, with famous cowboy music in the background and a narrator talking about the nutritional benefits of red meat. Here, the beef producers play up the American love of the cowboy and its association with cattle ranching and beef eating.
News sources often use positive images and labels to highlight viewpoints they support and negative images and labels to derogate view points they oppose. For example, the lawyers of O.J. Simpson used his record-setting football statistics and reputation as a "nice guy" to portray him in a positive light during his murder trial, while the prosecution used his history of wife beating to portray him as a raging animal capable of murderous behavior.
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