This module, created as part of the Health ExChange Academy’s Communicating for Change training series, allows advocates to practice being spokespeople for their issue. The module helps advocates learn to anticipate and practice answering the tough questions reporters ask. Other trainings in the series are available here.
This module, created as part of the Health ExChange Academy’s Communicating for Change training series, gives advocates an overview of basic digital communications tools, including blogs and viral marketing, so they can tailor their advocacy communications to specific goals and audiences. Other trainings in the series are available here.
This module, created as part of the Health ExChange Academy’s Communicating for Change training series, provides resources and interactive teaching techniques for advocates who want to train others in their organization on the fundamentals of media advocacy. Other trainings in the series are available here.
Prior to the 2017 National Sexual Assault Conference in Dallas, Texas, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center hosted the 2017 RPE Leadership Training. Ignite Talks sparked important conversations about advancing prevention work. In this Ignite talk, BMSG’s Pamela Mejia reflects on the journey she took from believing that sexual violence was just an unfortunate part of life to realizing that it can be prevented. Pamela shares her insight into what it takes to move other people’s hearts and minds to support prevention and to communicate that sexual violence prevention is possible, achievable and happening.
Media advocacy is the strategic use of the mass media to support community organizing to advance a social or public policy initiative. Media advocacy differs from other health communications strategies in its target audience: Rather than targeting the people experiencing a particular health problem with information, media advocates target policymakers and those who can be mobilized to influence them. This article, published in Oxford Bibliographies’ Public Health section, provides an annotated bibliography of the foundational literature on media advocacy, agenda setting, framing, and communicating about health equity. The article also provides case studies and practical resources to help practitioners use media advocacy.
In this panel as part of the 2017 Circulating Health Conference hosted by the U.C. Berkeley Center for Social Medicine, BMSG Director Lori Dorfman discusses the intersection between media and public health, including the role environments and policy play in shaping population health; the way the news influences people’s understanding of issues that affect health; and how health is framed in the media — often as an outcome of individual behavior, rather than social factors. Dr. Dorfman also explains the difference between media advocacy and social marketing, and she highlights the role of journalism in holding government accountable for its actions that impact health.
Food and beverage product reformulation is a nutrition policy strategy that has the potential to benefit public health and the food and beverage industry. However, reformulation has also been criticized as being driven by industry interests. In this article for Critical Public Health, Courtney Scott and BMSG’s Laura Nixon investigate how and why reformulation became a public health initiative and uncover important context for debates on voluntary initiatives.
In November 2014, voters in Berkeley, California, overwhelmingly approved a measure to tax sugary drinks. In this video, BMSG’s Laura Nixon and U.C. Berkeley’s Karen Sokal-Gutierrez discuss research on the soda tax, including how public debate surrounding it appeared in the media, what parents of young children think about sugary drinks and efforts to tax them, and how advocates can harness lessons from Berkeley to help pass sugar-sweetened beverage taxes in other locations.
BMSG Director Lori Dorfman moderates “Beyond Brexit, the Elections & False News: Implications of the Changing Information Ecosphere for Health Promotion, Policy & Advocacy,” a panel discussion held in May 2017 at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The panel was organized by David Jernigan, an associate professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society and features the Center for Digital Democracy’s Jeff Chester, who investigates how marketers collect and use our data; Daniel Kreiss, who has been exploring how social media systems influence political debates; Jonathan Albright, who has extensively researched the influence of fake news; and American University’s Kathryn Montgomery, who studies the promises — and pitfalls — of using wearable devices to collect individual consumers’ health data.
Countermarketing campaigns, an effective component of comprehensive tobacco control, use health communications to reduce the demand for unhealthy products by exposing industry motives and undermining producers’ marketing practices. Could countermarketing campaigns also be used to reduce the consumption of alcohol and unhealthy foods? This review describes common elements of tobacco countermarketing and assesses the strategy’s potential for being applied to other public health endeavors.
