PSYCHOLOGY AND MASS MEDIA

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Mass media campaigns through platforms, including television and billboards, to influence healthy behaviors are aimed at passing a passive message through the incidental effects and routine. Since media campaigns can be extended for longer and short durations, they depend on disseminating behaviorally-focused messages to large audiences that affect their decisions. Mass media is effective in these campaigns through their direct and indirect pathways. Direct pathways invoke the emotional and cognitive responses to influences an individual’s decision making, while indirect routes seek to alter a person’s behavior by observing and adopting healthy behaviors (Wakefield, Loken, and Hornik, 2010). Mass media campaigns aimed at improving public good achieve this role through direct and indirect pathways that influence the cognitive and emotional responses, helping to adopt healthy behaviors.

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