Health messages are really everywhere, including the Grand Canyon. Over the weekend, I hiked into the canyon, camped overnight and then hiked back out the following day. Determined to find a health message or two, I was estatic to come across the following employing fear appeals:

With two midterms and a presentation all due tomorrow, I have been in "ultra stress mode." I've come to realize that unlike some friends I know, eating increases whenever I'm in this bad place. I did a Google search on "stress eating" and found the following article:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-3126.html

Good to know that I'm not the only one who suffers from the condition. However, my hope is that after this semester ends, I can resume a regular schedule that includes working out and having free time on the weekends.

Returning home to Hawaii this past weekend for a friend's wedding, I realized how fortunate I was to be raised in the islands. Segmenting the various populations there would definitely be different compared to other areas in the United States.

I thought about a public library campaign that ran during my childhood. It showed children around the ages of six or seven with a book. Each child would say, "I'm Hawaiian..." and then give the other part of his or her other ethnicity (i.e. Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, etc.). Looking back at what seemed like any other advertisement, I better understand the messages its creators might have intended. Along with highlighting the multicultural background of many Hawaii residents, the idea that children should be proud of their Hawaiian ancestry was an underlying theme.

Unfortunately, Native Hawaiians have a similar history with Native Americans: issues of discrimination and having their land taken away from them during colonization by America. In this regard, while the culture in Hawaii is unique, there are overlapping patterns in both groups' past that might tie its people to one another even though this seems unlikely at the surface.

Upon preparing for my individual presentation, I realized that my topic was created most likey by someone from Japan. However, it still managed to catch my attention and thus stirred my curiosity to seek out more information. I think the Smokers' Style campaign was brilliant in its incorporation of both Japanese and English copy. As examples below illustrate, how could these not make you laugh or at least smile?

Coincidentally in my seminar on advertising research this past week, we discussed the effectiveness of the anti-drug campaigns. My instructor mentioned that the annual budgets are around $200-300 million and results are usually minimal or at times non-existant. A glaring issue we addressed was the failure to create messages for the intended target audience. How timely considering we are covering the exact same topic in our class. According to the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign's website, its target age group is between 9 to 18 with the primary youth target audience of 11-13 year olds. The secondary groups are between 9 to 11 and 14 to 18. However, as we discussed in our advertising seminar, how does the following ad (one of 32 on the campaign's website) relate to this main demographic?

http://dld31.streamos.com/2c98081e2975eca613a1c107739d33b6-44d35956/1159169729/300/31/mov/0/0/0/0a0ae9bff5d8eb98c20bb542f7899eec/ondcp072406b.mov

We concluded that several of the messages being created for this primary target group refer to things that might be irrelevant, such as driving a car or hanging out with a girl in this case.

In addition, one of our assigned readings was the National Survey on Drug Use and Health's (NSDUH) data from its 2003 survey. A classmate pointed out that the following end note completely contradicted the claims that were being made in the press release on the campaign's effectiveness:

"It should not be inferred that the associations discussed here reflect causal relationships, but only that correlations exist. Statistical controls for other factors that may explain or influence the associations were not implemented. Because of the cross-sectional nature of the NSDUH data, the direction of the relationship between Figure 4. Percentages of Youths Who Reported Past Month Illicit Drug Use by Exposure to Substance Use Prevention Messages from Four Sources, 2003 exposure to substance use prevention messages and use of substances cannot be determined."

So not only are the campaign's advertisements missing the primary target audience but message creators are claiming effectiveness only to have the fine print read that this may not be the case. Am I the only one who thinks this is problematic?

With this week's two assignments of "Spill Your Guts" and noticing various selective cognitive processes, I felt like my communication radar was on hypermode. I tried to employ active listening and actually found it difficult to get people in the customer service industry (I did this at the market, restaurant, stores, etc.) to continue the coversation once you asked them how they were. On the other hand, I found myself in a confrontation this weekend and could only listen as my friend unloaded her emotions. So in that regard, I got a good dose of unsolicited "guts."

Examples of selective attention have to be the discussions I had with my freshmen. At the start of each class, I throw out a topic and every student gives his/her answer. Yesterday's theme was, "Over the weekend, a current event I heard about from the TV, radio, Internet, a newspaper, magazine, family member or friend was..." It was disconcerting to hear some reply with, "I didn't pay attention to any news" or share the latest celebrity gossip (Britney Spears had her baby and Anna Nicole Smith's son died were popular) and sports (The Chargers won but SDSU lost). I admitted to my students that I was guilty of living in a "bubble" during my fours years in undergrad, noting that so many things (classes, work, social activities, personal issues, etc.) compete for our attention during that time. However, I expressed my hope that they would be somewhat more sensitive to events that happen locally, nationally and globally.

This brings me to a reoccuring theme we've discussed from day one, "How do we break through the clutter?" Granted the demographic of first-year college students at SDSU are only a fraction of possibile target audiences. However, if we can't reach those closest to us, how do we expect to influence those beyond our immediate grasp? My group met with our contact yesterday to discuss our upcoming project. I believe we will be targeting various student demographics on campus to increase awareness of a rape/sexual assault prevention program. I'm excited for the challenge and look forward to hearing what these target audiences have to say about what attracts them to a health-related message.

This week's readings resonated with my background in communication studies. I was not surprised that Atkin defined the types of health campaign messages similar to Schramm's four functions of communication. The more I learn about health communication the greater the similarities seem between the two disciplines.

Along the lines of application, I found Atkin's discussion of public relation's underuse interesting. With a background in public relations, I hope to apply the skill set learned through my experiences to creating materials for our class project.

The dual process persuasion model was also familiar as a course I took last semester entitled "The Individual and Mass Media Effects" devoted a week to the Elaboration Likelihood and Heuristic Systematic Models. Like advertisers and writers of television shows, health communicators need to consider the mode of thinking their audiences are employing. At the same time, health messages are competing with advertisements and entertainment programming for the attention of viewers. Integrating these messages might produce a stronger response if proper planning is executed.

Pretesting messages is a must; however, what happens when time constraints are present? Do message creators skip this vital step in order to roll out a campaign on time? Or is it worth delaying a target date and possibly decreasing timeliness in order to ensure that all messages are applicable to intended receivers?