Public Service Announcements - Essay Example

Module Public Service Announcement Introduction Public Service Announcements (PSAs) are unlike product or service advertisement which are intended to attract some clients or customers for profits rather PSAs are initiated to educate and inform large population mainly about a problem. In this regard PSAs are awareness campaigns having goal to change public opinion. It will be erroneous to say that PSAs are broadcasted or aired freely all the time but most of the time PSAs are broadcasted as a donation of the media to some social cause (Bator and Cialdini). By and large Public Service Announcements serve political, religious, social, governmental health & safety issues such as smoking campaigns, education campaigns, fitness campaigns, safe driving, gambling awareness, obesity campaigns, safe sex responsiveness and alcohol prevention operations etc. PSAs are released on all media formats including radio, television, mass media, print media, and social media through indoor & outdoor advertisements etc. In a nutshell, public communication campaigns are a purposive endeavor to influence behaviors of larger audience in a short span of time whilst utilizing multiple channels to communicate mediated message with intentions to reap social benefits. There is a universal process across the globe to design PSAs, which entails situational analysis of the cause after which target audience and objective of the campaign are specified. Later on using coherent set of strategies an informational and persuasive message is developed providing information, organization details and tagline of the campaign. In this assignment, The I Know Campaign has been discussed in detail which was initially created in Los Angeles due to the disturbing rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea dominance among women of color that later on spread throughout America. 1. Theoretical Perspective History of Public Service Announcements dates back to World War II in United States of America when radio broadcasters and other advertising agencies presented their services towards war efforts and in the process war advertising council also came into existence which served as voice of war information to people through radio, print and outdoor advertisements. Later on after World War II, advertising council turned into an institution to serve nationwide campaigns such as "Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires", "Fight Cancer with a Checkup and a Check" and "A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste" etc. Such PSAs raised public awareness along with raising funds for research too. Now even after 70 years since first Public Service Announcement, no explicit theory has been established to understand and influence public communication. In this regard theories from social marketing framework (Schultz), commercial advertisement campaigns and communication persuasion matrix provide identical spectrum in marketing awareness of health, social and environmental issues. Thus indistinguishable aspects of social marketing which provide an emphasis on audience and provides attractive packages of consumer orientation can be utilized for achieving targeted goals in a Public Service Announcement (McKenzie-Mohr, Nancy and Lee). This theory primarily focuses on macro aspects in defining costs & benefits and multifaceted conceptions of the service. Furthermore, some theories which influence public communication in commercial advertisement process are also noteworthy. 1.1. Agenda setting phenomenon affects public opinion by suppressing upon the importance of societal issues and relating policy measures to be the prominent solution for the cause. Hence entailing effectiveness to Public Service Announcement (McCombs and Maxwell). 1.2. Health Belief Model (HBM) enforces potency of health threats to the concerned groups or audience utilizing the basic fact of susceptibility burgeoned by seriousness of outcomes whereas performing the recommended behavior or practice is usually associated towards the response effectiveness ensuring self-efficacy too. 1.3. Diffusing innovations announces information having relative advantage over previously known/ unknown solutions and products. The innovation is diffused on trailability whereas adoption to innovation and opinion leaders further disseminate the cause and announcement through interpersonal channels and social networks (Morone, Piergiuseppe and Richard). 1.4. Instrumental learning adopts publicizing credible information and knowledge to audience ensuring reinforcement incentives of doing so in the form of threat prevention or futuristic advantages. 1.5. Gain frames strategy ensures effectiveness of message delivery that how message should be presented which appeals promotion of positive behavior hence ensuring gain frame. On the contrary message frame displays message which appeals prevention from negative behavior hence ensuring loss frame (OKeefe, Daniel and Jakob). 1.6. Uses and gratifications strategy ensures consumer satisfaction whereas message and information is in turn collected in accordance with customers’ satisfaction and motivation. In this strategy it is also ensured that announcement must be made focusing upon the audience friendly media selection (Littlejohn, Stephen and Karen). 1.7. Social Cognitive Theory helps exaggerating the impact of message delivery by demonstrating certain behaviors and reinforcing prohibited behaviors through role models. 1.8. Trans-theoretical Model is also known as a progression model which specifies audience into classifications according to their changing health behaviors such as pre-completion, preparation, completions ad maintenance etc. This approach help audience to identify their standing in the process and shapes the readiness to undergo, adopt and sustain a specified behavior for achievements. Similarly communication persuasion matrix is another strategy to convey messages and advertising announcements which includes input variables as source of cause, message to be conveyed, channel to utilize and the targeted audience. Whilst the output is considered to be effectiveness of above tools through exposure, processing, learning, yielding and finally behavioral changes. 2. The I KNOW Campaign 2.1. Context The I KNOW Campaign was a public service announcement formed concerning the health issue of chlamydia and gonorrhea dominance among women of color in Los Angeles County. Chlamydia and gonorrhea are the sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and can easily be transmitted by having sex with the infected person. Chlamydia and gonorrhea basically are bacteria that transmit during intercourse and can be cured by the right medication and treatment. Since they are bacteria which enhances chances of getting infections again and again. Awareness campaign regarding chlamydia and gonorrhea was the dire need of time because such infections go unnoticed for a very longer period of time. Keeping in view the unawareness of people towards chlamydia and gonorrhea demanded a nationwide public service campaign to be launched. This program was instigated to let people know about its symptoms, get tested for the disease and prevention. 2.2. Objectives The main objective of The I Know campaign were to influence women of color to take identification test and get treated if required. In this regard the campaign consulted Centers for Disease Control for recommendations to suggest methods for annual screening. CDCs recommendations provided credibility to the program ensuring implementation of instrumental learning strategy to deliver message and target audience. Second objective of this public service announcement was to spread awareness about chlamydia and gonorrhea diseases; their symptoms, prevention mechanism, transmission from infected person to others, complications in the process and control from infection. 2.3. Design The I KNOW Campaign was designed for the target audience of women of color ranging from the age of 15 years to 25 years who were living in urban areas of Los Angeles having regular sexual appetite. The whereabouts of infected women were from African American women, Spanish speaking Latinas and English speaking Latinas. The campaign initially implemented Health belief model by informing targeted audiences about the seriousness of the disease as what chlamydia or gonorrhea infections can do the bodies of women if the bacteria is not treated at right time with right medication. Women were informed that chlamydia or gonorrhea causes pain in lower belly and back, can also affect women fertility to have babies, may also transmit into the baby fetus, causes pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and worst of all women with chlamydia or gonorrhea can also transmit HIV virus to other which then leads to AIDS (Donnellan). In further continuation of the awareness, agenda setting technique was used by suppressing importance on the number of infected women identified through testing were declared. The statistics revealed that around 8,415 reported cases of gonorrhea and shockingly 43,431 reported cases of chlamydia were reported in 2008. The above figure was acquired from the tested women whereas the actual spread of disease was much higher which demanded immediate and viral awareness to public for treatment and prevention. Based on agenda settings theory the campaign stressed upon getting tested to know either women have chlamydia & gonorrhea or not. Campaign design also presented symptoms to women before taking test as they feel burning or hurting when they pee, they have pain during sex or bleed after sex or during periods. The campaign followed message framed strategy to deploy the advertisement towards community as chlamydia and gonorrhea have serious consequences on health and future of women. Disseminating message of consequence was led by gain frame policy in which young women were encouraged to take tests so that testing could be normalized without stigmatization. Later on message for regularization of testing on yearly basis among women was circulated for STDs. 2.4. Outcomes As a result to the public service announcement through theoretical strategies, campaign receive inspirational response as may women responded in favor of the empowerment idea and were involved in the testing process. Furthermore, friends with benefits helped reaping greater and timely impact over success of the campaign. The I KNOW Campaign adopted mantra of “Don’t think. Know” which created curiosity among people to behave differently. It preached a sense of gap for chlamydia and gonorrhea among people which could be fulfilled by taking test and get to know what they think, they don’t know. Moreover, the campaign used ideas as pride, assured treatment and confidence to recover which emerged to be a powerful tool for the campaign. Since the campaign was intended to grab public attention, hence advertisement at public spaces left a long lasting impression. Finally the use of satisfaction and gratification desired from the treatment turned out to be the driving force for young women as staying healthy, future benefits, reproduction organ stability and complications of STDs motivated women towards treatment (Connolly). The I KNOW awareness campaign also informed women of ways to prevent chlamydia and gonorrhea through avoiding random sex, use of condom was advised to avoid STDs and pregnancy and in case if women are active sex appetite then they were instructed to take chlamydia and gonorrhea test every year or when they switch partners. 3. Conclusion The I KNOW public service announcement helped identifying women of color suffering from chlamydia and gonorrhea to know about the disease and receive in-time medication which secured their future health and brightened prospects to have healthy babies. Most importantly women were informed about the prevention techniques and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). This campaign exploited all aspects of social marketing, communication persuasion matrix and commercial advertisements to deliver the message through useful channels and accomplished its goal very efficiently. This campaign encourage women to prevent unemotional and unsafe sex, to communicate with their partners about STDs and HIV, not to share needle, get tested and take intense care in case of chlamydia and gonorrhea identification. Work Cited Bator, R. and R. B. Cialdini. "The application of persuasion theory to the development of effective proenvironmental public service announcements." 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Community-based social marketing pilot to increase do-it-yourself oil recycling rates. Sacramento: California Integrated Waste Management Board, 2006. Read More