The Role of the Media in Health Awareness

The Role of the Media in Health Awareness 1
THE ROLE OF THE TELEVISION MEDIA IN HEALTH AWARENESS
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The Role of the Media in Health Awareness 2
The Role of the Television Media in Health Awareness
In essence, mass media is a technological channel with the intent of reaching a large
audience. Some of the common platforms within the mass media portfolio include the likes of
magazines, television, newspapers, radio, and the internet. Currently, the general public is known
to be highly reliant on mass media on information tied to social issues, legal, health-related,
political, general news, and entertainment among others. The television media would be helpful
in countering excessive tobacco use.
This piece places focus on social marketing of health tied issues for the wellbeing of the
society as a whole via mass media. Health and wellbeing go beyond the absence of disease or
frailty. It is defined as a steady state of absolute mental, physical and social wellness (Lapointe,
Ramaprasad and Vedel, 2015). This definition exhibits consistency with health’s overall model
of wellbeing which takes psychological, physiological, and social elements and the interactions
between these pointed out factors (Bou-Karroum et al., 2017). On the other hand, social
marketing is a means of developing activities that would otherwise prove vital in alteration or
maintenance of a person’s behavior for personal or societal benefit. As an approach, social
marketing allows for combining ideas in the world of social science, health, and commercial
marketing. These characteristics ensure that the media remains proven as a behavioral
influencing tool that is both cost-effective and sustainable.
Essentially, the use of media platforms such as television, print, radio, and the internet;
almost guaranteed that campaigns will reach large populations quickly. Exposure to such
campaign messages is therefore considered as passive (Henderson and Hilton, 2018). Often, the
campaign messages are in competition with factors which include but not limited to pervasive
social norms, product advertising, and habitually or addiction driven behaviors.

The Role of the Media in Health Awareness 3
Media campaigns are known to extend over long periods or short ones. In this case,
television campaigns may run alone or be tied with other featured programs. In line with health
care, they could pair with clinical outreach programs for ease of access to fresh or existing
available products and services, or complimenting policy-related changes (Bauman and Chau,
2016). Mass media has a lot to offer given that it boasts of great ability to convey well
coordinated and behaviorally guided messages to a large population repeatedly, incidentally, and
over-time at a fairly low cost (Hou, 2015). Moreover, multiple techniques of message
conveyance might be employed in cases where health-related campaigns are part of the wider
social marketing ventures.
Television Media Campaign against Tobacco use
The World Health Organization considers tobacco use as one of the most pronounced
health threats on the face of the world. Based on data, tobacco is known to result in
approximately 8 million deaths annually. Additionally, close to 80 percent of the world’s 1
billion smokers hail from middle-income regions as highlighted by the heavy burden and death
from tobacco-related ailment (World Health Organization (WHO), 2015). In that light, the
television media would be a vital means for staging segmented marketing campaigns against
tobacco use.
Ideally, two marketing mix elements of price and population would be considered in this
promotional venture. Given that tobacco use is widespread in middle-income regions, audience
segmentation will be considered so that the messages on tobacco use can be tailored to
specificity (Crosswell, Porter and Sanders, 2018). This move will help reduce the risk of tobacco
use campaigns being run to undesired targets.