Affirmative action was a significant issue in the 1996 national and state elections. This framing memo, based on a news analysis of the issue, shows how affirmative action supporters and opponents framed their arguments and how supporters could have done a better job of making their case.
The purpose of media advocacy is to promote public health goals by using the media to strategically apply pressure for policy change. It emphasizes public policy rather than personal behavior. This article uses two case studies to illustrate key aspects of media advocacy. The first is a 5-year statewide violence prevention initiative for young people in California. The second focuses on the activities of a mothers’ group working to improve public housing.
This article describes one effort to help prevent violence against women by addressing some of the larger societal factors involved. The Dangerous Promises campaign is based on the premise that sexist advertising images contribute to an environment conducive to violence against women. Using the community organizing and media advocacy, the campaign pressures the alcohol industry to change how they portray women in much of their advertising. The article examines the strategies and outcomes of the campaign and makes a case for using media advocacy in the policymaking process.
Although drug use in the U.S. was declining in the late 80s and early 90s, “drug war” rhetoric and punitive solutions continued to run rampant. A large body of literature suggests that media played a large role in that. This article reports on a content analysis of network news reports on illegal drugs to see how portrayals of their usage stacked up against reality.
This article investigates how local television news reported on health system reform during the week President Clinton presented his health system reform bill. The authors find that although health system reform was the focus of a large number of local television news stories during the week, in-depth explanation was scarce.
Using the mass media to improve public health can be like navigating a vast network of roads without any street signs — if you are not sure where you are going and why, chances are you won’t get there. The purpose of this article is to provide an abbreviated road map of three approaches that incorporate mass media in their strategies to advance public health goals.
This exploratory study takes those who may be unfamiliar with Spanish language television news through a comparative analysis of television portrayals of youth and violence. Findings reveal that local Spanish language TV news stories on youth and/or violence are framed with a social, political, and economic context three and a half times more often than such stories in English language local TV news.
Health is typically seen as a matter of individual responsibility — eating well, avoiding tobacco, exercising. Yet this view overlooks important social and economic variables that contribute to disease, disability and injury. This article shows that health care providers have an important role to play in advocacy efforts to push for policies that improve those variables.
This is the story of a group of women who, with limited resources, used media advocacy to challenge misconceptions about public housing tenants and cast residents of Chicago’s housing projects as empowered advocates rather than cliched victims of crime, poverty and hopelessness.
Media advocacy, the strategic use of mass media to advance public policy initiatives, is a new strategy that is emerging in the public health community, particularly in communities of color. Unlike traditional mass media strategies, media advocacy shifts the focus from the individual to the political, from behavior to the environment — a major determinant of health.
