Smokers and ex-smokers reaction to anti-smoking advertising : a mixed methods approach

Anti-smoking advertising is a central component of modern public health policy. Nevertheless, some smokers have reported that viewing anti-smoking advertising provokes intense nicotine craving. Anti-smoking advertising frequently features images of cigarettes and of individuals smoking. However, research indicates that images of tobacco paraphernalia may induce cravings in individuals addicted to nicotine. The effects of the presence of smoking cues in anti-smoking advertising were considered in the present study. Smokers and ex-smokers (N=63) were randomly assigned to view an anti-smoking advertisement or to complete a control task. Urge to smoke was measured pre- and post-test. Qualitative responses to anti-smoking advertising were also elicited from all participants in the intervention groups. According to both qualitative and quantitative data analyses viewing anti-smoking advertising, even with images of smoking related paraphernalia, led to decreases in craving amongst smokers. Ex-smokers experienced no change in quantitatively measured craving after viewing anti-smoking advertising. These findings are inconsistent with findings from studies using neutral or positive smoking cues. Qualitative data shows that no smokers or ex-smokers who viewed anti-smoking advertising reported an increase in tobacco craving as a result of viewing the campaign. Implications of these findings for future research and anti-smoking campaigns are discussed.

The association between alcohol interventions and Dui incidents in Geelong, Victoria

Introduction and aims : Driving under the influence of alcohol is a major public health problem, every year affecting the lives of billions around the world - and not least in Australia. Since 2001, several Traffic Accident Commission (TAC), police, and community interventions have been implemented in Geelong, Australia to curb drink driving. The current paper aims to assess the impact of 13 alcohol interventions on drink-driving rates in the Geelong region of Australia. The interventions comprised seven TAC media campaigns, three Victoria Police operations, two community interventions targeting licensed premises, and the alcohol interlock program.

Method : This study examined two types of Victoria Police frequency data: Driving under the influence (DUI) offences, and roadside preliminary breath testing (PBT) rates. Multiple regressions were carried out to determine if any of the interventions were significantly associated with frequency fluctuations in the data.

Results : Of the 13 alcohol interventions examined, three TAC campaigns and one Victoria Police operation precipitated significant decreases in drink-driving rates, while another three TAC campaigns were associated with significant increases in drink-driving rates. Over one in five (22.5%) had recorded prior DUI offences.

Conclusions : The most promising approach to curbing DUI-rates in Geelong, appear to be through informative media campaigns which show people specific settings where they might become mildly intoxicated without being aware of it, such as TAC’s ‘Education 1’ campaign. However, there remains a worrying level of recidivist drink drivers in Geelong suggesting the need for tailored approaches.

'Corporate affairs' - public relations and asbestos production: a social history

This paper focusses on asbestos production in Australia and the public relations campaigns used in the 1970s to enable their continued operations in the face of social resistance advociating for changes in policy and regulation.

Web-based counseling for problem gambling: exploring motivations and recommendations

Background:

Performing an intervention

What does it mean to intervene, or to perform an intervention? Presumptively conflictual, the term finds meaning in its clinical and behavioural application as an enforced practice of modification: one performs an intervention on an (often) unwilling subject. Cut one way, you could tell a history of sex/ualities education as a history of interventions of this kind: efforts to interrupt and redirect affective investments, sexual practices and undesirable identifications. The sexually active young person, the homosexual, the single mother, people of colour, people with disabilities, indigenous people, promiscuous poor people – these are some of intervention’s favourite things. These are subjects constituted in part through histories of psycho-therapeutic, medical and health educational correction, histories that are still elaborating themselves through a series of familiar contemporary concerns and campaigns.

The impact of divergent historical and cultural factors on convergence in global communication practice

Communication practice is increasingly converging around globally consistent approaches and techniques shaped by both globalisation and globalising communications technologies. However, this paper argues, national and regional practice histories and cultural characteristics have shaped, and continue to shape, practice in individual markets. The paper analyses the extent of that these divergent histories and cultures have shaped the structure and practices of the public relations industry in Australia and other countries. The paper challenges the common assumptions about public relations development and industry practice having developed from a predominantly US-based model progressively disseminated globally. It traces the history of public relations in Australia, counterpointing its distinctive origins, to the US-origin thesis. It also examines the impact of demography and diverse national culture on industry shape and practice, comparing the Australian industry to that of other industries around the world. It uses mini-case studies of campaigns in specific countries to assess the extent to which they are culturally bound by historical and cultural differences and the extent to which they are capable of being transferred or adapted to individual markets. For instance, assumptions about globally consistent brand identities are contradicted by McDonald’s’ branding practices in markets such as Canada and Japan. The paper also discusses how emerging market PR industries are being shaped by distinctive and divergent cultures and development paths and may create new structural and practice models as the emerging economies becoming dominant internationally. The authors suggest that history and cultural diversity continue, and will continue to, shape national and regional practices.

Gender differences in beliefs about condom use among young, heterosexual Australian adults

Objective: To investigate gender differences in beliefs about condom use among young, sexually active, heterosexual Australian adults. Design: Cross-sectional survey of 1,113 adults aged 18–26 years. Setting: Higher education institutions across New South Wales and Victoria, Australia. Method: Participants were recruited during higher-education orientation activities and asked to complete an anonymous survey. The survey captured beliefs about condom use and demographic data. Results: Although males were more likely than females to agree that their partners endorsed the consistent use of condoms, they were less likely to agree that their friends would support consistent condom usage. Males were also more likely to believe that condoms reduce sexual pleasure and give the impression that they are sexually promiscuous. Conclusion: Normalizing the purchase of condoms, repositioning condoms as erotic stimuli, and creating a supportive peer environment using peer-to-peer communication tools may bring about more positive perceptions regarding consistent condom use. Gender-specific safe sex campaigns should also be developed to address the different pattern of condom beliefs held by males and females.

When nutritional guidelines and life collide: family fruit and vegetable socialisation practices in low socioeconomic communities

Parents play a critical role in promoting fruit and vegetable consumption, for eating patterns established early in life tend to persist into adulthood. Despite this, the factors that facilitate or inhibit parents’ capacity to socialise fruit and vegetable consumption into their children’s daily diets remain poorly defined. Thirty-eight semi-structured interviews with residents, allied healthcare professionals, community leaders, community programme leaders and a local government leader living or working in two low socioeconomic suburbs were consequently conducted to ascertain factors exogenous and endogenous to the family unit that shaped parental food socialisation practices. Budgetary and time constraints emerged as exogenous factors that constrained fruit and vegetable socialisation. Constraining effects were also found for a range of endogenous factors, including commensal experiences, children’s food fussiness and the feeding styles employed by parents. As such, while many caregivers may wish to socialise fruit and vegetable consumption into their children’s daily diets, their capacity to do so is often inhibited by factors beyond their volitional control. Failure to take heed of these factors could therefore result in the development of social marketing campaigns that are ineffective at best or give rise to unintentionally harmful outcomes at worst.

The communication of diabetes health campaign information in remote Botswana

This study was essentially about health promotion, and specifically about diabetes health campaigns in remote rural villages of Botswana. Its overall objective was to explore whether or not diabetes campaign messages were communicated in ways that were beneficial to remote villagers in Botswana. It was driven by social constructionist scholarship which emphasizes embedding the dissemination of information within the socio-cultural context, norms and value systems of target audiences.

Race lines and spaces of political action among migrant youth

Recently proposed Anti-Racism Strategy established within a framework of the Australian Government's multicultural policy, People of Australia, identifies ‘youth engagement’ as one of the key areas that needs to be promoted and supported. Young people have been invited to join youth councils and youth forums and work with national, state and local policy-makers. Some have taken up this challenge and became public faces and active members of anti-racism campaigns. Others, however, either remained silent about the discrimination they face, or organised their own grassroots youth-based and youth-led initiatives. This paper discusses individual and collective responses to racism among young people in Australia, focusing on Melbourne, and examines possibilities in which racism, as a common experience among migrant youth, can be utilised to form alternative spaces for political action, challenging not only interpersonal, but also systemic forms of racism. By drawing attention towards institutional and systemic forms of racism, and the historical perpetuation of racist practices, these youth initiatives rely on legal measures, and argue that racism should be discussed in the context of the broader Australian society, not only in relation to minority groups.

The effect of community interventions on alcohol-related assault in Geelong, Australia

Alcohol has consistently been demonstrated to increase levels of aggression and violence, particularly in late night licensed venues. Since 2005, the City of Geelong in Australia has implemented a substantial number of interventions to reduce alcohol related violence, including a liquor accord, increased police surveillance, ID scanners, CCTV, a radio network and an alcohol industry sponsored social marketing campaign. The aim of the current study is to assess the individual and collective impact of community interventions on indicators of alcohol-related assaults in the Geelong region. This paper reports stage one findings from the Dealing with Alcohol-related problems in the Night-time Economy project (DANTE) and specifically examines assault rate data from both emergency department presentations, ICD-10 classification codes, and police records of assaults. None of the interventions were associated with reductions in alcohol-related as-sault or intoxication in Geelong, either individually or when combined. However, the alcohol industry sponsored social marketing campaign ‘Just Think’ was associated with an increase in assault rates. Community level interventions appeared to have had little effect on assault rates during high alcohol times. It is also possible that social marketing campaigns without practical strategies are associated with increased assault rates. The findings also raise questions about whether interventions should be targeted at reducing whole-of-community alcohol consumption.

North Korean human rights and the international community: responding to the UN Commission of Inquiry

Of all the difficult conversations to have with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) regime, the one over human rights has proven the most troubling for the international community. Once human rights issues are placed on the table, diplomatic efforts become quickly de-railed. Because of this, and because issues such as non-proliferation are seen as more pressing than human rights, there has been a conspicuous absence of any official, systematic response to the question of human rights violations in North Korea. Of course, most human rights campaigns experience some amount of politicisation. This is unsurprising, given the deeply political nature of the very concept of human rights. The North Korean human rights issue, however, suffers from this phenomenon more than most, tied up as it is with wider ideological battles that hark back to the circumstances of the division of the Korean peninsula. In this context, the 2014 report delivered by the United Nations (UN) Commission of Inquiry (COI) into North Korean human rights represents an effort to move above and beyond the politicisation of the issue and was largely successful in this regard.