Skip to main content

About the What and the How: Communication Concepts

Communication is one of the essential components of our human existence: we use it every day. Verbal or nonverbal, in written or spoken words, in our gestures, our actions, in the way we express ourselves or don’t. It seems like we’re communication naturals. But are we really?

Our journey through the health communication world has made me think about how messages work and how we relate to them. Have you also noticed that sometimes, different strategies are needed to convince different people of the same thing? That, while you might be more likely to consider adopting a healthy habit if you’re reading about its benefits, others will be more easily convinced to change their behavior if they're made aware of the risk of not doing so? People are different in the way they react to how messages are presented. One of my main takeaways of this course is related to this phenomenon. The seemingly intuitive act of using different appeals to communicate one particular issue actually has a name – and is accompanied by a large body of evidence: COMMUNICATION CONCEPTS.

 

The great variability of communication is not only about the WHAT. Whatever content you want to convey, it's worth thinking about the HOW. This is where communication concepts come into play. When developing a message, one of the first steps should be the question: “What do I want people to think and feel about it?”. I was amazed to learn that there are several established categories of appeals that can be used to address the specific needs of various audiences. From the “fear appeal” which is supposed to evoke a strong emotional response to the message—an approach which is being discussed controversially in the literature—to “perceived benefits” or concrete “action steps”: there are multiple ways to communicate the same thing!

 

How messages are worded can make a big difference. The content of “If you don’t get vaccinated, you can have a higher risk to die of cancer” is very close to “If you get vaccinated, you can increase your chance to have a healthy and longer life”. However, the emotions triggered by these two messages are fundamentally different from each other. Whether it's perceived threats or benefits, fear or empowerment: this single contrastive example shows how important the rigorous consideration of communication concepts is for the successful development of the final message. 

 

The way we convey our message decides who is reached by it, how they think about it, and if they are encouraged to change a behavior or not. So: do your research! Knowing your audience, their needs, and their preferences will help you to develop the messages needed to affect change. 

 

Yours, 

Johanna


[Source and further reading: Schiavo, R. (2014). Health Communication: From Theory to Practice (Second edition). Jossey-Bass.]

Popular posts from this blog

Let's Talk About Sex

We have now gotten to the action (tactical) plan phase of this project. The action plan is when you get to take all your research, planning and objective and come up with an actionable, feasible and strategic plan for all of the communication messages, materials, activities, channels and so on that you would like to use on the key audiences for your communications program. For our communications program HPVAX we are looking to build awareness and increase the number of men who have sex with men (MSM) in Harlem to get the HPV vaccines and have protected sex to diminish the spread of HPV and oral cancers. One of the key secondary groups we want to target with our program are sexual partners. Sexual partners are such an important group to target for this program as they have such an influence on the primary group- 18–26-year-old MSM in Harlem. Research shows that MSM perceptions of condom use are primarily shaped by social norms and their interactions with sexual partners. If sexual partn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Incorporating Pharmacists into the HPVAX Action Plan

    Throughout the course of this project, my group and I have discovered that local pharmacists can play an important role in HPV vaccine uptake among harder to reach community members. Compared to primary care providers, pharmacists tend to be more accessible, have extended hours, and walk-in options. Pharmacies are typically situated more conveniently in communities that major health centers, as well. Additionally, Gov. Hochul recently signed legislation allowing pharmacists to administer HPV vaccines. The combination of these factors widens the opportunity for vaccination uptake among our primary audience: young adult MSM in Harlem.      In the action plan, we honed in on how to best raise awareness among pharmacists about the need for increased vaccination among MSM in Harlem. One tactic we came up with is called "Data Bites: A Lunch & Learn Series." This monthly series will allow local pharmacists and physicians to get to know one another and disc...
Post a Comment
Read more

Budgeting for Evaluation: A Critical Step in the Process

   In addition to working on the budget for tactics for our communication plan I was also responsible for working on the budget for evaluation. Budgeting for evaluation may not be the most exciting portion of this project but it is incredibly vital to long-term success. Evaluation is critical to see if our communication plan made a difference and reached the goals we set out to achieve. This is especially valuable to show funders and project partner. Evaluation helps you determine if your project was successful and if it is evaluation data can be useful for attracting more funding sources for future endeavors. Evaluation is especially important for our group’s topic because the reason we were drawn to the topic of HPV-related cancers in men who have sex with men aged 18-26 because very little has been done before on this topic in this population. We need to evaluate the success of our program in order to understand what messages and tactics are effective with our different gr...
Post a Comment
Read more