Do You Like it On The …?: A Case-Study of Reactions to a Facebook Campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Awareness has long been a primary element of public relations and communications campaigns. For example, Grunig and Hunt (1984) classified publics as latent, aware, and active, with an aware public being described as recognizing there is a problem. Additionally, Rogers (2003) mentioned awareness, defined as exposure to an idea, as part of the first step toward adoption of a new concept in the diffusion of innovation model. Scholars and educators have incorporated awareness into the public relations lexicon as, at a minimum, a gateway into other activities, but also, increasingly, an outcome in its own right. For example, Lattimore, Basin, Heiman, and Toth (2012) list "increasing awareness" as an example objective in a public relations textbook.The emphasis on awareness in public relations circles coincided with an increase in education initiatives in the health and medical fields. For example, Media Advocacy and Public Health: Power for Prevention outlines strategies and "the skills public health advocates need to amplify the voice of public health and ensure that the stories being told reflect basic public health goals and values" (Wallack, Dorfman, Jernigan, Themba-Nixon, 1993, pp. 2-3). Perhaps the most prominent of the initiatives are related to cancer, such as Georgia's Cancer Awareness and Education Campaign featured on the National Institute of Health website (Parker, 2004). The intersection of public relations and health initiatives has also occurred as social media has proliferated, giving rise to discussions of "slactivisim" - a criticism that people interact on social media but do not take actual action."Awareness" has proliferated, with more than 1,000 Facebook pages including the word "awareness" in the page name. However, a limited amount of research exists on the effectiveness of the awareness campaigns. Of course, studying "effectiveness" presumes that the campaign will have some effect in increasing awareness. Even less studied is the possibility that campaigns could have an unintended or even negative impact in the creation of "counter publics" (Pezzullo, 2003).Hill and Hayes (2014) conducted a case study of the Huffington Post's publication of stories related to Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, sponsored by the American Childhood Cancer Organization each September. The case-study analyzed reactions to Childhood Cancer Awareness Month through feedback to the article published September 10, 2013, in Huffington Post entitled "Awareness...What a Bullsh*t Word" and found two themes emerged from responses to the article: "Action is Needed" and "Slacktivism and Misinformation as a Barrier to Action." An additional finding was that "Personal Experience Motivates Action." The results indicated that perhaps awareness as an end goal in cancer campaigns is misdirected. The researchers recommended that "awareness months" might better be advocated as "action campaigns" and noted the need for an earnest scholarly and practically driven conversation regarding the role of awareness in public health campaigns.While there are seemingly endless health related awareness campaigns for a variety of conditions, Breast Cancer Awareness, which was the initial focus of the Georgia initiative, is arguably the most visible campaign. In summer of 2014 for example, there were more than 1,000 groups on Facebook that included the phrase "Breast Cancer Awareness." A page entitled "Breast Cancer Awareness" had more than 4 million likes, and the "Breast Cancer Awareness Month" site had more than 400,000 likes.Literature Review"Awareness" is a common goal of public relations campaigns. In fact, awareness is often seemingly the main goal of some communication campaigns as can be seen through the proliferation of "awareness months" for various health and medical conditions, particularly cancer. However, a sentiment has also developed that awareness is setting the bar too low. A growing chorus is lamenting "slacktivism" and saying campaigns should include more definitive action steps. …