How Government Agencies And Private Organizations Utilizes Media To Reach Different Populations
As you know, many government-funded agencies and private organizations have attempted to tackle different health issues by utilizing the media to reach different populations. Discuss how you think those messages/interventions affect the target populations. Do you think some of those interventions infringe on people’s rights, privacy, freedom, and cultural beliefs? Give us an example of a health promotion campaign that you believe infringes on people’s rights and freedom.
Sample Solution
Media has become an effective tool for health promotion. In recent years, government-funded agencies and private organizations have used media to spread awareness of different health issues such as mental illness, obesity and cancer (Gonçalves et al., 2017). These interventions can be beneficial, but there are also drawbacks. The messages in these campaigns may infringe on people’s rights, privacy, freedom and cultural beliefs.
A good example of a campaign that could potentially infringe on people’s rights is the Ontario Ministry of Health’s “Get Outdoors! Reduce Your Cancer Risk!” campaign (Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care Waste Reduction Office & Environmental Programs Branch 2012). The purpose of this campaign was to raise awareness about the risks associated with exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. While this message was important, it ignored other factors that contribute to skin cancer such as genetics or environmental pollution (Haines et al., 2015). Furthermore, it left out nuances about which populations are more likely to develop skin cancer due to their race or socioeconomic status (Sathish et al., 2019). By not acknowledging this information in its messaging, the campaign could be construed as infringing upon certain vulnerable populations by ignoring potential root causes of certain cancers.
Another example is a Canadian Mental Health Association anti-stigma campaign called “It\’s Time We Talked” (Canadian Mental Health Association 2018). This campaign focused on reducing stigma around discussing mental illness among young adults. While the idea behind it was sound – reduce fear around talking openly about mental health – some felt that by using words like “crazy” and “insane”, they were perpetuating damaging stereotypes surrounding those with mental illnesses(Fangen et al., 2020). Furthermore ,some argued that since these terms had been used historically against people with mental illnesses, it was insensitive for them to be evoked in an activist context even if it wasn’t done maliciously.(Ruiu & Ojuba 2020)
In conclusion, although media interventions can successfully inform audiences about different health issues ,these campaigns must consider how their messages might infringe on people’s rights ,privacy ,freedom and cultural beliefs . Examples like Get Outdoors ! Reduce Your Cancer Risk ! And It\’ s Time We Talked demonstrate how easy it can be for a well-intentioned public health intervention to unintentionally cause harm.
