The Edward R. Murrow School of Communication
Bruce Pinkleton
Understanding Message Effects and Increasing Message Effectiveness

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Mass media provide a continual stream of messages that inform, educate, and persuade audience members. A healthy society requires researchers to understand how individuals use and respond to messages in the media, including understanding the potential positive and negative impact of these messages on individuals’ behavior.

The persuasive messages advertisers target to adults through the media, for example, typically have unintended consequences when children receive them. Research indicates that young people often are exposed to more alcoholic beverage advertising than adults. Dr. Bruce Pinkleton’s research indicates that young people who abuse alcohol have more positive attitudes toward alcoholic beverage advertisements and believe that anti-drinking advertisements, which typically lack strong persuasive message elements, are ineffective. Health campaign experts are using this research to develop more effective health communication campaign strategies.

One way to help increase the resistance of young people to undesirable messages is to help them understand how organizations create and use media. This is the purpose of media literacy, which helps young people understand and interpret message visuals and subtexts. Dr. Pinkleton’s research indicates that media literacy programs designed to help prevent tobacco use among adolescents have a variety of positive outcomes for young people. Among study participants who had not tried tobacco, for example, media literacy participants had higher intentions to take action against tobacco use and displayed more reflective thinking about the persuasive effects of advertising. This research confirms the value of media literacy education, and provides both theoretical and practical reasons for using media literacy in health communication campaigns.

Contact Information
Bruce Pinkleton, Ph.D.
Professor
The Edward R. Murrow School of Communication

Washington State University
PO Box 642520
Pullman, WA 99164-2520

Telephone: 509-335-2795
E-mail: pink@wsu.edu