bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Big Data’s Role in Health and Risk Messaging
Authors: Hesse Bradford William
Published: September 2017

The presence of large-scale data systems can be felt, consciously or not, in almost every facet of modern life, whether through the simple act of selecting travel options online, purchasing products from online retailers, or navigating through the streets of an unfamiliar neighborhood using global positioning system (GPS) mapping. These systems operate through the momentum of big data, a term introduced by data scientists to describe a data-rich environment enabled by a superconvergence of advanced computer-processing speeds and storage capacities; advanced connectivity between people and devices through the Internet; the ubiquity of smart, mobile devices and wireless sensors; and the creation of accelerated data flows among systems in the global economy. Some researchers have suggested that big data represents the so-called fourth paradigm in science, wherein the first paradigm was marked by the evolution of the experimental method, the second was brought about by the maturation of theory, the third was marked by an evolution of statistical methodology as enabled by computational technology, while the fourth extended the benefits of the first three, but also enabled the application of novel machine-learning approaches to an evidence stream that exists in high volume, high velocity, high variety, and differing levels of veracity.

In public health and medicine, the emergence of big data capabilities has followed naturally from the expansion of data streams from genome sequencing, protein identification, environmental surveillance, and passive patient sensing. In 2001, the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics published a road map for connecting these evidence streams to each other through a national health information infrastructure. Since then, the road map has spurred national investments in electronic health records (EHRs) and motivated the integration of public surveillance data into analytic platforms for health situational awareness. More recently, the boom in consumer-oriented mobile applications and wireless medical sensing devices has opened up the possibility for mining new data flows directly from altruistic patients. In the broader public communication sphere, the ability to mine the digital traces of conversation on social media presents an opportunity to apply advanced machine learning algorithms as a way of tracking the diffusion of risk communication messages. In addition to utilizing big data for improving the scientific knowledge base in risk communication, there will be a need for health communication scientists and practitioners to work as part of interdisciplinary teams to improve the interfaces to these data for professionals and the public. Too much data, presented in disorganized ways, can lead to what some have referred to as “data smog.” Much work will be needed for understanding how to turn big data into knowledge, and just as important, how to turn data-informed knowledge into action.
“keepin’ It REAL”: A Case History of a Drug Prevention Intervention
Authors: Hecht Michael L. , Miller-Day Michelle
Published: September 2017

Adolescent substance use and abuse has long been the target of public health prevention messages. These messages have adopted a variety of communication strategies, including fear appeals, information campaigns, and social marketing/branding strategies. A case history of keepin’ it REAL, a narrative-based substance abuse prevention intervention that exemplifies a translational research approach, involves theory development testing, formative and evaluation research, dissemination, and assessment of how the intervention is being used in the field by practitioners. The project, which started as an attempt to test the notion that the performance of personal narratives was an effective intervention strategy, has since produced two theories, an approach to implementation science that focused on communication processes, and, of course, a school-based curriculum that is now the most widely disseminated drug prevention program in the world.

At the core of the keepin’ it REAL program are the narratives that tell the story of how young people manage their health successfully through core skills or competencies, such as decision-making, risk assessment, communication, and relationship skills. Narrative forms not only the content of curriculum (e.g., what is taught) but also the pedagogy (e.g., how it is taught). This has enabled the developers to step inside the social worlds of youth from early childhood through young adulthood to describe how young people manage problematic health situations, such as drug offers. This knowledge was motivated by the need to create curricula that recount stories rather than preaching or scaring, that re-story health decisions and behaviors by providing skills that enable people to live healthy, safe, and responsible lives. Spin-offs from the main study have led to investigations of other problematic health situations, such as vaccination decisions and sexual pressure, in order to address crucial public health issues, such as cancer prevention and sex education, through community partnerships with organizations like D.A.R.E. America, 4-H clubs, and Planned Parenthood.
New Methodological Approaches to Intergroup Communication
Authors: Angus Daniel , Gallois Cindy
Published: September 2017

Intergroup communication, given its interdisciplinary roots in communication and social psychology, has been eclectic in methodology. Earlier approaches tended to be quantitative and experimental. In the early 21st century, the full range of qualitative approaches—thematic analysis and grounded theory, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, and others—have come to prominence. A key issue has been how to reconcile the broad-brush aspects of surveys, tightly-controlled contexts in experiments, and very limited numbers of participants in qualitative research.

In the past decade or so, rapid improvements to the capabilities of computational technologies have brought forth a new generation of computational methods for communication research. Broadly known as visual text analytics, these methods provide communication scholars new ways to model, visualize, and analyze intergroup communication processes. They also allow larger scale in the detailed analysis of texts and discourse.

In spite of their great interest to intergroup communication, these new visual text analytic methods also present challenges. In presenting several newer visual text analytic methods, we articulate some ways to approach the tools to achieve maximum research benefit.
Intergroup Communication: Asia/Australasia
Authors: Liu Shuang
Published: September 2017

Located in the Asia Pacific region, Asia and Australasia have established a long and close relationship over the past centuries. Asian immigrants play a key role in the development and maintenance of this relationship between the two continents. As Australia not only occupies 86% of the Australasia region but also has a long history of receiving Asian immigrants, dating back to the 18th century, research on intergroup communication between Asian immigrants and host nationals tends to be concentrated in Australia. Under the early White Australia Policy, restrictions on Asian immigrants were imposed to protect the White Australia. This reflected the values and attitudes at the time when many Australians considered Asia as a threat and defined themselves as separate from it. Since the removal of this policy in 1973, particularly in the past four decades, there has been a substantial boom of Asian immigration to Australia. They transformed Australia’s economy, society, culture, and more importantly, Australians’ attitudes toward Asia and Asians. Asian immigrants are therefore central to the study of intergroup communication in Australasia.
Apprehension and Anxiety in Communication
Authors: Rahmani Diyako
Published: September 2017

Intergroup anxiety is a form of restlessness and negative feeling caused by communicating with someone with a different social and cultural identity. Just like any other form of anxiety, intergroup anxiety has negative consequences, such as disability in social interactions, weak cognitive performance, and even life consequences. Intergroup anxiety is the result of fear of being disapproved, embarrassed, and rejected across different racial, ethnic, religious, and social groups’ interactions. Theoretically, intergroup anxiety is influenced by the previous experiences one has had with the members of other groups, one’s knowledge of other groups, and the situation in which one interacts with other groups. Intergroup anxiety has behavioral, cognitive, and affective consequences. There are different theories of communication that explain the nature and function of intergroup anxiety. Uncertainty reduction theory, for example, defines anxiety as a result of uncertainty and asserts that to maintain communication, parties should decrease their uncertainty and consequently their anxiety. Anxiety/uncertainty management theory focuses on anxiety and argues that to have effective communication the level of intergroup anxiety should be managed between a minimum and a maximum threshold. A decrease in anxiety and uncertainty is also essential to intercultural adaptation. Different factors can increase the amount of anxiety in intergroup contexts, namely ethnocentrism, prejudice, and discrimination. These factors are related to individuals’ feeling of threat due to one or some of the following: intergroup conflict, unequal group status, in-group identification, knowledge of out-group, and intergroup contact. To settle intergroup conflicts individuals are advised to establish more high-quality intergroup contacts and to change the way they make distinctions among various groups. Quality intergroup contact can be reached through strategies such as establishing cross-cultural friendships and intergroup disclosure. One form of intergroup anxiety is intercultural communication apprehension, which is the apprehension individuals feel due to real or imagined intercultural communication. Intercultural communication apprehension is positively correlated with uncertainty and ethnocentrism, and negatively correlated with intercultural willingness to communicate.
Intergroup Metaphors
Authors: Holland Elise , Stratemeyer Michelle , Haslam Nick
Published: September 2017

Intergroup metaphors represent human groups as nonhuman entities, such as animals, objects, plants, or forces of nature. These metaphors are abundant, diverse in meanings, and frequently but not invariably derogatory. Intergroup metaphors may be explicitly represented in language or implicitly represented as nonconscious mental associations. Research and theory on dehumanization offer a useful perspective on these metaphors, and show that likening outgroups to animals is a particularly common phenomenon. Frequently, groups are metaphorically compared to disgusting or degrading animals during times of conflict, but people also tend to view members of outgroups as subtly more animal-like or primitive than their own group even in the absence of conflict.

Depending on the use of intergroup metaphors in the contexts of race, gender, social class, immigration, mental illness, and terrorism, intergroup metaphors can have damaging consequences for intergroup relations. Metaphors that represent some people as subhuman entities can diminish empathy and compassion for their suffering. Metaphors that represent certain groups as bestial or diabolical can enable violence, including support for harsh treatment by the state. Some metaphors not only promote violence and discrimination but also help people to legitimize violent behavior and injustice after the fact. Metaphors therefore offer an intriguing insight into the nature of intergroup relations, and how these relations are colored not only by positive or negative attitudes but also by dehumanizing perceptions.
Identity and Online Groups
Authors: Siitonen Marko
Published: September 2017

Questions related to identity have been central to discussions on online communication since the dawn of the Internet. One of the positions advocated by early Internet pioneers and scholars on computer-mediated communication was that online communication would differ from face-to-face communication in the way traditional markers of identity (such as gender, age, etc.) would be visible for interlocutors. It was theorized that these differences would manifest both as reduced social cues as well as greater control in the way we present ourselves to others. This position was linked to ideas about fluid identities and identity play inherent to post-modern thinking. Lately, the technological and societal developments related to online communication have promoted questions related to, for example, authenticity and traceability of identity.

In addition to the individual level, scholars have been interested in issues of social identity formation and identification in the context of online groups and communities. It has been shown, for example, how the apparent anonymity in initial interactions can lead to heightened identification/de-individuation on the group level. Another key question related to this one is the way group identity and identification with the group relates to intergroup contact in online settings. How do people perceive others’ identity, as well as their own, in such contact situations? To what extent is intergroup contact still intergroup contact, if the parties involved do not perceive it as such? As online communication continues to offer a key platform for contact between various types of social groups, questions of identity and identification remain at the forefront of scholarship into human communication behavior in technology-mediated settings.
Imagined Interactions
Authors: Honeycutt James M. , McCann Robert M.
Published: September 2017

Imagined interactions (IIs) are a process of social cognition and mental imagery in which individuals imagine and therefore indirectly experience themselves in anticipated and/or past communicative encounters with others. They have been studied in intergroup communication in terms of communication apprehension (CA), group conflict, teasing and bullying, cross-cultural differences, political partisanship, and sexual orientation. They have their theoretical foundation in the work of classic symbolic interactionists and phenomenologists, as well as cognitive script theory. IIs possess many of the same attributes as real conversations, in that they may be fragmentary, extended, rambling, repetitive, or coherent. They are a means of problem solving by allowing an individual to think through a problem.

There are 14 features of IIs, comprised of eight attributes (frequency, proactivity, retroactivity, valence, discrepancy, self-dominance, variety, and specificity) and six functions (compensation, rehearsal, understanding, conflict linkage, relational maintenance, and catharsis). Brief descriptions of the functions follow: They compensate for lack of real interaction, they maintain conflict as well as resolving it, they are used to rehearse messages for future interaction, they aid people in self-understanding through clarifying attitudes and beliefs, they provide emotional catharsis by relieving tension, and they help maintain relationships through intrusive thinking about a relational partner outside of their physical presence.

In terms of the attributes, frequency represents how often people experience them. Proactivity and retroactivity are concerned with the timing of the II in relation to actual conversations. Proactive IIs occur before an anticipated encounter, while retroactive IIs occur afterward. Retroactivity is very common in films and movies in which characters have flashbacks. Proactive and retroactive IIs can occur simultaneously, as individuals replay prior conversations in their minds while preparing for ensuing interactions. Discrepancy occurs when what was imagined is different from what happens in actual conversations. Since IIs can be used for message planning, most of the imaginary talk comes from the self, with less emphasis being placed on listening to what the interaction partner says. This reflects the self-dominance attribute. The variety characteristic of IIs reflects individual differences in the number of topics that are discussed in the IIs and whom they involve. IIs tend to occur with significant others such as relational partners, family, and friends. They do not occur with people whom we rarely see. Valence reflects how positive or negative the emotions are while having an II. Finally, IIs vary in their specificity, or how vague the imagined lines of dialogue are, as well as the setting where the imaginary encounter occurs.
Online Contact and Intergroup Conflict Resolution
Authors: Amichai-Hamburger Yair , Etgar Shir
Published: September 2017

People tend to divide the world into categories. One of them is the group of people I belong to (the ingroup) and the group I do not belong to (the outgroup). People have a tendency to stereotype the outgroup and behave toward it with prejudice and discrimination. In many cases these forms of behavior lead to intergroup conflict. One of the major proposals for resolving this situation was suggested by Gordon W. Allport and is called the Contact Hypothesis. According to this model, when a contact between the groups is held under certain conditions—equal status, institutional support, and cooperation between the rival groups toward the achievement of superordinate goals—people are likely to change their negative perception of the outgroup and improve their relationship with its members. Despite the success of the model, it has been shown to suffer from three major obstacles. First, it is logistically complicated to achieve the requisite conditions; secondly, the physical proximity to the rival group’s members is likely to cause high anxiety among participants, which may well prevent any positive change; thirdly, the contact, even if successful, is unlikely to be generalized to the groups as a whole. Online intergroup contact appears to overcome these challenges.
Indigenous Languages: Their Threatened Extinction Is a Global Responsibility
Authors: Cárdenas Diana , de la Sablonnière Roxane , Taylor Donald M.
Published: September 2017

Indigenous languages are at the verge of extinction. For many indigenous communities, saving their languages means protecting one of the last-standing symbols of their cultural identity, a symbol that has survived a history of colonization and that can impact their well-being. If indigenous languages are to survive, language revitalization strategies need to be adopted by indigenous communities and governments. One such strategy is language revitalization planning, where communities and governments are actively engaged in changing the way group members use language. Language revitalization plans are often derived from two theoretical stands, either language reversal theory (which adopts a language-autonomy perspective) or language vitality (which focuses on the factors that favor a linguistic group’s survival).

Language revitalization strategies also involve some form of bilingual education. Bilingual education in indigenous communities allows indigenous children to learn, and hence to gain competency in, both their indigenous language and the mainstream language. Strong forms of bilingualism, as opposed to weak forms of bilingualism, have great potential for nourishing competency in indigenous languages, because they give equal value to the indigenous language and the mainstream language.

Language revitalization strategies also need to consider the collective functions of language, or how groups use their language. Language can be used by groups as a vehicle for cultural knowledge, as a symbol of identity, and as a tool for communicating in formal and informal settings. Strengthening the collective function of indigenous languages is essential to their survival.

In the case of indigenous people, every single step taken to revitalize their languages (language planning, bilingual education, and the collective functions of language) is an affirmation of their continuous existence in the world, upholding their distinctiveness from colonizers. This “collective existential affirmation” of indigenous people may very well be the drive needed to achieve language revival.
Aging and Organizational Communication
Authors: McCann Robert M.
Published: September 2017

In the last 20 years or so, the field of intergenerational communication as seen from an intergroup perspective has evolved to encompass a wide range of social, cultural, and relational contexts. Research into communication and age in organizations represents one particularly exciting and rapidly changing area of investigation within the intergenerational communication domain. The workplace, by its very nature, is rich with intergroup dynamics, with age in/out group distinctions being but one of many intergroup characterizations. Stereotypical age expectations—by management and coworkers alike—can serve as powerful harbingers to behavioral outcomes such as ageist communication, considerations of (early) retirement and reduced and/or lost training among older workers, and even reduced intentions among young individuals to take up careers involving older people. Ageist behaviors (including communication) are also at the core of many types of discriminatory practices toward older (and sometimes younger) workers. Age diversity strategies, which include intergenerational contact programs, cross-generational mentoring, age diverse teams, and the use of positive symbols of older age, are becoming more common in organizations.
Gay Male Culture and Intergroup Communication
Authors: Hajek Christopher
Published: September 2017

Like members of many social identity groups, gay men within certain racial or ethnic groups (e.g., gay white men in the United States) generally share a sense of group entitativity that is characterized by the experiences of unity, coherence, and organization. Notwithstanding its members’ overall sense of entitativity, gay white male culture in the United States, specifically, has formed an array of diverse subgroups along dimensions such as physical attractiveness, musculature, masculinity, and age. These subgroup categorizations often are highly salient to individuals, and they frequently serve these gay men’s drive to self-enhance through intragroup comparisons. Given that many of these subgroups are well established, with members who share not only unique physical characteristics but also particular communication patterns and/or traditions that contribute to group stereotype formation, it is possible to consider communication and comparisons across these subgroups to be intergroup in nature as well.

Social psychological theory provides useful frameworks for understanding the intra-/intergroup dynamics among such subgroups of gay men. One framework is self-categorization theory. According to this theory, individuals engage in self-stereotyping. That is, they react to themselves and others not as unique individuals, but as members of a group who share common characteristics and have similar needs, goals, and norms. It is through such categorization that group members differentiate themselves from members of other groups or subgroups. Another framework, social identity theory, also sheds light on intergroup dynamics within the gay white culture in the United States. In line with this theory, gay men may cope with discrimination from the heterosexual mainstream through the adoption of one or more coping strategies. These strategies include leaving their group or changing negative values assigned to the in-group into more positive ones. Additionally, they may avoid the use of the higher-status heterosexual group as a comparative frame of reference, instead making downward comparisons with members of other gay male groups that they consider to be inferior in order to self-enhance. Of course, though not to achieve positive distinctiveness, members of lower-status groups also orient themselves in gay culture by making upward comparisons with members of subgroups they consider to be superior to their own. Again, these subgroup distinctions may include those based on physical attractiveness, musculature, masculinity, and age.
The United States Military: Sites of Intergroup Discourses
Authors: Sahlstein Parcell Erin
Published: September 2017

The United States military is a frequent point of public conversation since the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. Approximately two and a half million service members have deployed in the Global War on Terror, and many have completed multiple deployments with almost 7,000 fatalities across operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Communication research on the military has a long history but since 9/11 has picked up pace with scholars seeking to understand the military’s relationship with the media, its discussion in the public sphere, and the interpersonal/familial experiences of service members and their families. The theoretical and methodological approaches are wide ranging within the discipline, but an intergroup perspective is noticeably absent. Many opportunities exist for answering intergroup communication questions, most notably at the military and civilian divide and, in turn, offering insight about and practical suggestions for communication within and about the military.

Given the numerous possibilities for intergroup communication research related to the military, researchers should seize the opportunity to bring new theoretical and methodological approaches to the area. One theory, which has not been used in the intergroup communication scholarship but has great potential for this part of the discipline, is relational dialectics theory. Relational dialectics theory (RDT) is a critical/interpretive theory/method package that explores the substance and form of relational talk with a keen eye for dominant and marginalized discourses. For example, intergroup communication scholars who study the military from an RDT perspective could help illuminate how different groups (e.g., military families and civilian families; same-sex military married couples; and opposite-sex military married couples) understand and construct, for example, their similarities and differences with the goal of improving their interactions. Intergroup communication scholars could use also RDT to study how multiple group-related discourses are present within military groups who have diverse membership (e.g., Family Readiness Groups, FRGs) where members constitute the intersections of several identities (e.g., military wives are simultaneously members of military culture but technically are not military personnel; members are also often simultaneously women, spouses, who, in some cases, are mothers who come from different socioeconomic and ethnic groups, as well as identify as officer or enlisted wives).
Integrated Threat Theory
Authors: Croucher Stephen M.
Published: September 2017

Despite rises in immigration and attempts to manage immigration, anti-immigrant threat and prejudice remains a major concern at the individual and societal levels, and often surfaces as a key political, economic, and social issue. Research shows anti-immigrant prejudice is widepread. One of the explanatory factors for widespread anti-immigrant attitudes is threat perception. Attitudes towards immigrants and immigration have become less positive amidst the outbreak of the current refugee crises in Europe. This can lead to many anti-immigration demonstrations and to anti-immigration sentiment. Many nonimmigrants worry about the economic burden immigrants pose to society and the potential danger immigrants represent to the dominant culture and society. Overall, research shows that believing people from other cultures are a threat to one’s own culture and survival leads to prejudice and discrimination.

Stephan and Stephan’s integrated threat theory (ITT) offers an explanation to these feelings of threat. ITT proposes that prejudice and negative attitudes towards immigrants and out-groups is explained by four types of threats: realistic threat, symbolic threat, negative stereotype, and intergroup anxiety. Realistic threats are to the physical well-being and the economic and political power of the in-group; symbolic threats arise due to cultural differences in values, morals, and worldview of the out-group; negative stereotypes arise from negative stereotypes the in-group has about the out-group; and intergroup anxiety refers to anxiety the in-group experiences in the process of interaction with members of the out-group, especially when both groups have had a history of antagonism.
Contextual Theory of Interethnic Communication
Authors: Kim Young Yun
Published: September 2017

The contextual theory of interethnic communication is an interdisciplinary theory that provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary account of the associative and dissociative communication behaviors of individual communicators when interacting with ethnically dissimilar others. Integrating a wide range of salient issues, concepts, theories, and related research findings across disciplinary lines of inquiry across social sciences, the theory offers a multidimensional and multifaceted model explaining a full spectrum of interethnic decoding and encoding communication behaviors from highly dissociative to highly associative. Grounded in an open-systems perspective, the interethnic behavior and the context surrounding the behavior are conceived as co-constituting the basic interethnic communication system, operating simultaneously in a dynamic interplay. In varying degrees of salience and significance, all contextual forces are regarded in Kim’s theory to operate in any given interethnic communication event, potentially influencing, and being influenced by the nature of individual communication behaviors of association and dissociation. The theory identifies eight key contextual factors of the communicator (identity inclusivity/exclusivity and identity security/insecurity), the situation (ethnic proximity/distance, shared/separate goal structure, and personal network integration), and the environment (institutional equity/inequity, relative ingroup strength, and environmental stress). Eight theorems are proposed for empirical tests, linking each contextual factor with associative/dissociative behavior. Together, the eight theorems explain the dynamic and reciprocal behavior-context interface in interethnic communication. The theory also provides a conceptual blueprint for conducting case studies on specific interethnic communication events, and suggests pragmatic insights into ways to strengthen the social fabric of an ethnically diverse society from the ground up.
Rhetorical Approaches to Communication and Culture
Authors: Bardhan Soumia
Published: September 2017

The convergence of rhetoric, culture, and communication has led to the development of two predominant areas of study within the field of communication: intercultural rhetoric and comparative rhetoric. Intercultural rhetoric illustrates how culture-based arguments are constructed by advocates during intercultural interactions and how the arguments make sense within a particular cultural frame or worldview. These studies attempt to represent the cultural sensibility and rhetorical traditions invoked by a particular intercultural interaction. Rhetorical practices are seen as emerging from the beliefs and values of distinctive cultural communities, and the convergence of intercultural communication and rhetoric becomes evident when people act rhetorically and their diverse cultural assumptions gradually or suddenly become apparent during intercultural interactions. Comparative rhetoric focuses on the cross-cultural study of rhetorical traditions, past or present, in societies around the world. Comparison of (rather than interaction between) the rhetorical practices of two or more cultures is often the focus of comparative rhetoric studies. Comparison helps in the identification of rhetorical features in one culture that might not be evident otherwise, to unearth what is universal and what distinctive in any rhetorical tradition, including that of the West. Intercultural rhetoric and comparative rhetoric share some conceptual and methodological features; both fields are characterized by similar beginnings and some shared debates. However, they also have distinct characteristics, challenges, and historiographies.

For intercultural rhetoric, approaching intercultural contexts and situations utilizing theories and concepts from rhetorical studies affirms non-Western modes of reasoning and advocacy. Recent methodological developments have allowed critics to more comprehensively represent rhetorical traditions and to discover novel ways to understand intercultural conflicts and mediate cultural differences. Conceptualizing rhetorical situations as intercultural dialogues suggests the ways in which intercultural rhetorical theorists need to be mindful of the multivocal quality of social discourses.

Rhetorical interpretation of texts benefits from a comparative approach that allows for speculation with respect for and grounding in another culture’s history, as well as reflection on the cultural outsider’s motive and assumptions. It is useful for the quest of meaning not to be limited to the standpoints within each disparate culture; pragmatically, they must have a dialogue since comparative rhetoric allows the analysis of different discourses, the discovery of common grounds of engagement, and the revelation of cultural assumptions.
Motivated Information Management and Other Approaches to Information Seeking
Authors: Afifi Walid A.
Published: September 2017

The turn of the 21st century has seen an explosion of frameworks that account for individuals’ decisions to seek or avoid information related to health risks. The four dominant frameworks are Risk Perception Attitude Framework, the Risk Information Seeking and Process model, the Planned Risk Information Seeking Model, and the Theory of Motivated Information Management. A comparison of the constructs within each and an examination of the related empirical tests reveal important insights into (a) factors that have consistently been shown to shape these decisions across these approaches and (b) constructs in need of additional theorizing and empirical testing. Specifically, the analysis suggests that uncertainty, efficacy, affect, risk perceptions, and subjective norms all play crucial roles in accounting for decisions to seek or avoid risk-related information. However, inconsistencies in the direction of influence for uncertainty or information discrepancy, risk perceptions, and negative affect argue for the need for considerably more theoretical clarity and empirical rigor in investigations of the ways in which these experiences shape decision making in these contexts.
Campaign Evaluation in Health and Risk Messaging
Authors: Perrault Evan K.
Published: September 2017

Due to their sheer scope in trying to reach large sections of a population, and the costs necessary to implement them, evaluation is vital at every stage of the health communication campaign process. No stage is more important than the formative evaluation stage. At the formative stage, campaign designers must determine if a campaign is even necessary, and if so, determine what the campaign’s focus needs to be. Clear, measurable, and realistically attainable objectives need to be a primary output of formative evaluation, as these objectives help to guide the creation of all future campaign efforts. The formative stage also includes pilot testing any messages and strategies with the target audience prior to full-scale implementation. Once the campaign is implemented, process evaluation should be performed to determine if the campaign is being implemented as planned (i.e., fidelity), and also to document the dose of campaign exposure. Identifying problem areas during process evaluation can ensure they get fixed prior to the completion of the campaign. Detailed process evaluation also allows for greater ease in replicating a successful campaign attempt in the future, but additionally can provide potential reasons for why a campaign was not successful. The last stage is outcome evaluation—determining if the objectives of the campaign were achieved. While it is the last stage of campaign evaluation, campaign designers need to ensure they have planned for it in the formative stages. If even just one of these stages of evaluation is minimized in campaign design, or relegated to an after-thought, developers need to realize that the ultimate effectiveness of their campaigns is likely to be minimized as well.
Resistance Induction in the Context of Health Decision Making
Authors: Fransen Marieke L. , Mollen Saar
Published: September 2017

During the past few decades we have witnessed increased academic attention on resistance to persuasion. This comes as no surprise, as people are often persuaded by external forces when making important decisions that may affect their health. Public health professionals, scholars, and other concerned parties have developed numerous trainings, interventions, and regulations to teach or assist people to resist unwanted persuasion, deriving from media exposure (e.g., advertising) or social pressure. The extant literature on resistance induction encompasses strategies such as inoculation, media literacy interventions, trainings on specific persuasive techniques, warnings, and social influence interventions. Although the research findings of the discussed strategies vary in how straightforward they are, they do offer promising avenues for policymakers and health communication professionals. Furthermore, several avenues worthy of further study can be identified.
Narcissism as a Consideration When Designing Health and Risk Messages
Authors: Hill Erin M.
Published: September 2017

Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by perceptions of grandiosity, superiority, and the need for attention and admiration. There has been an increase in focus on examining the development of narcissism and how the trait influences a range of social and health behaviors. A key feature of narcissism is that it is characterized by high self-esteem with a simultaneously fragile ego that requires continual monitoring and manipulation. Therefore, much of the behaviors narcissists engage in are linked to the drive to maintain perceptions of superiority and grandiosity. In the area of health and well-being, narcissism has been positively correlated with psychological health, a relationship that may be accounted for by self-esteem. However, there has been less research on the relationship between narcissism and physical health and well-being. There is some evidence that narcissism is linked to a variety of physical appearance-oriented health behaviors (i.e., behaviors that could affect body weight or other aspects of physical appearance, including eating and exercise). Narcissism has also been positively linked to risk-taking behaviors, including use of substances, as well as risks that could significantly impact others, including sexual behaviors and risky driving. The relationship between narcissism and health is therefore complex, with some positive correlates (e.g., physical activity), but also various health risk behaviors.

In considering how narcissism might interact with health messages, communicators have to keep in mind that narcissists seem to have some deficits in judgment and decision-making, such as overconfidence and a narrow focus on rewards associated with behaviors. Their behaviors tend to be driven by managing their own ego and by drawing attention and admiration from others to maintain perceptions of superiority and grandiosity. In turn, health communicators may need to rely on creative strategies that tap into these domains of narcissism in order to effectively modify health behaviors among narcissistic individuals. Further research on the influence of narcissism in healthcare seeking and related preventive behaviors would also help to provide a more detailed understanding for how the trait influences health decisions, information that would be useful for both health researchers and practitioners.
Advertisers as Agents for Change in Health and Risk Messaging
Authors: Mackert Michael , Guadagno Marie
Published: September 2017

Advertising as a field and industry often has a contentious relationship with both health communication and public health due to legitimate concerns about how advertising for certain products, such as alcohol and tobacco, could contribute to less-healthy decisions and behaviors. While acknowledging such concerns, advertisers and their approach to solving communication problems could also provide valuable lessons to those working in health communication. Indeed, advertising agencies are designed to develop creative and effective messages that change consumer behavior—and health communication practitioners and scholars aim to change population-level behavior as well. The perspective and approach of the account planner in the advertising agency—a role whose chief responsibility is to bring the consumer perspective into every step of the advertising development process and inspire effective and creative campaigns—would be particularly valuable to those working in health communication. It was account planning work that shifted traditional milk advertising from promoting it as a healthy drink to the iconic “got milk?” campaign, which positioned milk as a complement that makes other food better—an approach that drove positive sales after years of declining milk consumption. Yet many who work in health communication and public health often know little of how advertising agencies work or their internal processes that might be productively adopted. This lack of understanding can also lead to misperceptions of advertisers’ work and intentions. As an example, one might assume dense medical language in prescription drug advertising is intended to add unnecessary complexity to the advertisements and obscure side effects; instead, advertising professionals who work on prescription drug advertising have often been trained on clear communication—but cannot fully utilize that training because of regulations that require medically accurate terminology that might not be comprehensible to most viewers. Improved understanding of how advertisers can act as agents of change, and increased dialogue between the fields of advertising and health communication, could contribute to improved health communication research, practice, and policy.
Self-Affirmation
Authors: Zhao Xiaoquan
Published: September 2017

Self-affirmation theory posits that people are motivated to maintain an adequate sense of self-integrity. It further posits that the self-system is highly flexible such that threats to one domain of the self can be better endured if the global sense of self-integrity is protected and reinforced by self-resources in other, unrelated domains. Health and risk communication messages are often threatening to the self because they convey information that highlights inadequacies in one’s health attitudes and behaviors. This tends to lead to defensive response, particularly among high-risk groups to whom the messages are typically targeted and most relevant. However, self-affirmation theory suggests that such defensive reactions can be effectively reduced if people are provided with opportunities to reinforce their sense of self-integrity in unrelated domains. This hypothesis has generated substantial research in the past two decades.

Empirical evidence so far has provided relatively consistent support for a positive effect of self-affirmation on message acceptance, intention, and behavior. These findings encourage careful consideration of the theoretical and practical implications of self-affirmation theory in the genesis and reduction of defensive response in health and risk communication. At the same time, important gaps and nuances in the literature should be noted, such as the boundary conditions of the effects of self-affirmation, the lack of clarity in the psychological mechanisms underlying the observed effects, and the fact that self-affirmation can be easily implemented in some health communication contexts, but not in others. Moreover, the research program may also benefit from greater attention to variables and questions of more direct interest to communication researchers, such as the role of varying message attributes and audience characteristics, the potential to integrate self-affirmation theory with health communication theories, and the spontaneous occurrence of positive self-affirmation in natural health communication settings.
Simultaneous and Successive Emotion Experiences and Health and Risk Messaging
Authors: Kloss Andrea , Bartsch Anne
Published: September 2017

Emotions are an important part of how audiences connect with health and risk messages. Feelings such as fear, anger, joy, or empathy are not just byproducts of information processing, but they can interact with an individual’s perception and processing of the message. For example, emotions can attract attention to the message, they can motivate careful processing of the message, and they can foster changes in attitudes and behavior. Sometimes emotions can also have counterproductive effects, such as when message recipients feel pressured and react with anger, counterarguments, or defiance. Thus, emotion and cognition are closely intertwined in individuals’ responses to health messages. Recent research has begun to explore the flow and interaction of different types of emotions in health communication. In particular, positive feelings such as joy and hope have been found to counteract avoidant and defensive responses associated with negative emotions such as fear and anger. In this context, research on health communication has begun to explore complex emotions, such as a combination of fear and hope, which can highlight both the severity of the threat, and individuals’ self-efficacy in addressing it. Empathy, which is characterized by a combination of affection and sadness for the suffering of others, is another example of a complex emotion that can mitigate defensive responses, such as anger and reactance, and can encourage insight and prosocial responses.
The Great Green Wall in the Sahel
Authors: Mbow Cheikh
Published: September 2017

For several decades, the Sahelian countries have been facing continuing rainfall shortages, which, coupled with anthropogenic factors, have severely disrupted the great ecological balance, leading the area in an inexorable process of desertification and land degradation. The Sahel faces a persistent problem of climate change with high rainfall variability and frequent droughts, and this is one of the major drivers of population’s vulnerability in the region. Communities struggle against severe land degradation processes and live in an unprecedented loss of productivity that hampers their livelihoods and puts them among the populations in the world that are the most vulnerable to climatic change. In response to severe land degradation, 11 countries of the Sahel agreed to work together to address the policy, investment, and institutional barriers to establishing a land-restoration program that addresses climate change and land degradation. The program is called the Pan-Africa Initiative for the Great Green Wall (GGW). The initiative aims at helping to halt desertification and land degradation in the Sahelian zone, improving the lives and livelihoods of smallholder farmers and pastoralists in the area and helping its populations to develop effective adaptation strategies and responses through the use of tree-based development programs. To make the GGW initiative successful, member countries have established a coordinated and integrated effort from the government level to local scales and engaged with many stakeholders. Planning, decision-making, and actions on the ground is guided by participation and engagement, informed by policy-relevant knowledge to address the set of scalable land-restoration practices, and address drivers of land use change in various human-environmental contexts. In many countries, activities specific to achieving the GGW objectives have been initiated in the last five years.