-: Hi everyone and welcome back
to another lecture here in module four.
Today we are doing a quick recap of some highlights
from chapter four in our Snyder Et. Al text,
titled "Communicating the Message."
So let's dive in.
Public health communication
is incredibly important to
any public health advocacy initiative
or development of any public health campaign.
A really powerful example of this
is an example in our text
from the "Health for All" social media campaign
that I hold very near and dear to my heart.
The "Health for All" was a social media-based campaign
that was working to increase
healthcare coverage to all residents of California,
regardless of US citizenship status.
What the campaign was geared toward,
was providing testimonies from undocumented persons
throughout the state of California
and highlighting the stigma
surrounding healthcare coverage
and connecting it to existing
and parallel different initiatives with success,
to
provide the basis for a reform of healthcare policy,
to cover healthcare for all persons
regardless of citizenship status.
They worked on a health equity framework
and allowed for testimony
to come from a variety of people
from undocumented persons themselves,
notable allies in the community, as well as celebrities.
Their slogan was, "I am you, you are me. We belong."
The efforts of this campaign
and effective communication skills
to the public and to decision makers
was incredibly successful,
with over 200,000 children receiving healthcare
under the "Health for All Kids Act."
Parallel work, semi parallel work to this topic,
I just wanna do a plug-in
for U V M Extension's "Bridges to Health" program.
They work throughout the state of Vermont
with farm workers and employers
to ensure that individuals who are Spanish speaking
have access to health education and resources
that are in their own language
and respectful of their cultural beliefs.
In addition, they have a workshop
that allows for education and awareness
to be provided to employees, employers of farm workers,
to ensure that there's increased communication
and needs are being met between employers and workers.
For more information on that program,
and to learn a little bit more about
UVM Extension's Bridges to Health,
you can go to uvm.edu/extension/agriculture
and for that specific employer/employee website,
that additional link is "slash FACCP."
And before diving into the rest of the lecture material,
I just wanted to go again over the four steps
to effective public health campaigning.
The first is to "Define the problem and make your plan,"
we have gone over that earlier in the lecture.
"Gather the facts,"
that was what we were focusing on in module three;
and today we are looking at "building support
and communicating a clear and compelling story
of what is wrong and what should be done."
Much like anything in public health,
media advocacy and communicating a campaign's message
is much easier said than done.
Communication of a public health campaign
is not just giving out our message to interested folks,
but rather, it's allowing for us to draw
and illustrate a proposed hypothesis
of what could happen with our change,
drawing out future plans and providing it in a way
that allows for our audience to understand, support
and continue to follow our campaign
until we reach our systemic change of a law,
or a policy being enacted.
Because we live in such a media platform-focused society,
we often are seeing social campaigns
taking over our news feeds,
and that is not just somebody going viral.
A lot of times this has to do with media advocacy,
which is a very complicated process
that calls for strategic planning
and careful consideration of every aspect of the campaign,
and specifically designing our messages
to go to our audience
and be a vessel of what we are looking to change.
Just a quick plug-in here,
going back to mentioning the important,
that we live in a media, slash, platform focused society
when developing a campaign,
I would just like to remind everyone
to please consider individuals
who do not have access to technology,
or the certain platforms that you are looking
to carry out your campaign.
The digital divide in the United States
is still an issue amongst older adults
and individuals who are lower income
who cannot afford technology.
And as you develop your campaign,
I would just advise to take careful consideration
to allow that everyone in your audience
is being captured and able to hear your message
in a way that is applicable to them.
When we are effectively communicating
our message in an advocacy campaign,
there are three careful considerations
that our text outlines.
The first is our message.
The second is how we are framing our message,
our campaign and how that is resonating with our audience.
And lastly, what is our campaign's narrative?
When talking about the message of our campaign,
we are really looking to ensure
that our message that we are portraying
to the public and to our audience
really considers three major topics.
The first is, what is our core idea?
So what is our message trying to say?
The next is, who is the messenger?
For example, are we using peer-to-peer support?
Are we using an advocacy group, speaking to a crowd,
or are we using a legislative personnel
to their constituents?
Lastly, who is the primary audience?
This is asking who are we intending
this message to be carried to?
Are we looking for this to be geared towards
family members of somebody with X illness?
Are we looking for this to be an audience
targeted to an age group or a location?
These are all very careful considerations.
The fourth I'm mentioning is my own personal thoughts,
and not reflected in the book,
would be a 2-A and a 3-A.
So why is group or person X your messenger,
that's important to consider as well.
As well as why is your primary audience
the primary audience?
And oftentimes as advocates,
as we learned in module three,
this would be supported with research
or between primary or grade literature.
Just to highlight the three considerations for message,
I wanted to provide a real-world example.
I wanted to talk a little bit
about the "End the Stigma" campaign.
This is a completely web-based social media campaign,
where teens are able to share
their stories surrounding mental illness
and their struggles with mental illness
under a hashtag of #endthestigma,
and the campaign is meant to
de-stigmatize mental illness and share stories
to create a sense of inclusivity,
and light to what are currently large disparities
in mental health access and education
for this young adult demographic.
In this campaign, so the core idea would be
ending the stigma surrounding
adolescent mental health concerns,
and advocating for acceptance of mental illness,
and accessing needed care and services.
The messenger, this would be testimonies
of mental health struggles from teenagers.
We see that all of the messages from the campaign
are from teenagers to the primary audience of teenagers.
And to answer the "why,"
I'm just referencing back
from exploring endthestigma.org.
They mentioned on their website that this age group
had higher rates of stigma surrounding mental health,
and I would assume that would be
why we had messengers of teens to the audience of teens.
In addition, this can also help
break the silence and stigma,
and cause a sense of belongingness
and understanding between peers,
and sharing stories from peers and shared experiences
may allow for increased inclusivity
and creating that trusted and validated
feeling of being understood.
The next careful consideration
to our message would be framing.
So this is how we frame our campaign
to be placed in a certain narrative by our audience,
and trigger a response to our audience
by paying attention to different themes in our campaign
to garner support for our cause.
Lastly, we must pay very close attention to our narrative.
This is the story of our campaign.
It's how we capture our message
that is being framed appropriately
and built into our campaign
and aligning with our goals for change.
This is a really big driving point of a campaign
and allows for us to bring our points home to others.
In total, we need all three.
We need an effective message
that answers all of our considerations,
we have to have it framed in a way
that resonates with our audience,
and we have to have a narrative
that really brings home our points
in order to effectively communicate
our goals of our campaign and
what we're advocating for to garner support,
which is absolutely vital for us
to make the systemic changes that we want.
Once we have our message clear,
there are four effective steps
to communicate our message that were outlined in our text.
The first is that, no matter the size,
or how much funding we have,
there are four foundations that are absolutely critical.
The first is that when we are communicating our message,
we have to offer accurate facts with respect to an analysis.
This includes citing peer reviewed articles,
and also this must be in a way
that is broadly acknowledged human value.
So we also need to tell a compelling story
and reach the right audience with the right message.
In essence, we need to ensure that
we are taking appropriate data,
applying it with a touch of empathy, the great narration,
and also in a way that is understandable to the audience.
Lastly, I wanted to highlight that
communication can come in many forms.
Our text highlights the importance
of both using online platforms,
as well as in-person communication.
Directly communicating with decision leaders
for certain causes for our campaigns
is incredibly important.
One thing I wanted to add that was not in the text,
was the importance of using online platforms
such as Zoom or Teams,
especially in the current COVID 19 pandemic
and its important role in coalition building.
Lastly, just to highlight,
I wanted to mention that everything
we are working towards in our communication steps
may sound daunting,
but it's always important to remember
that every action we are making,
even if it's making a communication plan
and a mission statement,
is all working towards our cause
of advocating for specific policy changes and laws,
to happen in order for us to make
an equitable environment for our communities.
Our text highlights that media coverage
is really important to a campaign.
This can come in many forms,
from news releases, press conferences, to op-eds.
They also highlight the importance
of social media and also I wanted to highlight
the importance of hashtags.
So over the last few years,
there have been many different hashtags
that have garnered a lot of support
for different social rights justice groups,
human rights groups, as well as for organizations
for advocating for certain conditions,
or addressing policy reform.
Some examples are the famous ALS Ice Bucket Challenge,
the Black Lives Matter movement.
I stand with her, #metoo,
and I also wanted to highlight again,
as I am filming this concurrent
to the Iranian women's movement,
is the current use of social media
in supporting, garnering international support
for what's going on over in Iran.
I have attached a link here,
for anyone interested in learning more.
Lastly, here are the references for this lecture.
Again, this was a recap of the chapter four
in Snyder and Iton's text.
Therefore, most of this lecture,
if it was not an outside example,
was based off of this chapter.
If you have any questions,
feel free to give me a shout.
Otherwise, I will see you in lecture two.