America\u27s P.R.I.D.E.: Entertainment Education as a Health Communication Intervention Strategy for Middle School and High School Students

The purpose of this dissertation research was to study the ways that members of the P.R.I.D.E. club at Houston High School in Germantown, Tennessee used entertainment-education communication strategies in their presentations and the interpersonal persuasive strategies members used when talking with peers about substance abuse. Participants in this study were members of the P.R.I.D.E. club and ranged in age from 14-years-old to 18-years-old. My research questions examined how P.R.I.D.E. incorporated constructs of entertainment-education (emotional involvement, identification with characters, self-efficacy, perceived realism, and fear appeals) into their presentations to persuade peers to abstain from using alcohol, tobacco, and drugs, and examined the use of persuasive strategies in P.R.I.D.E.\u27s presentations. To gain insight into these questions, I conducted focus groups and semi-structured interviews and completed a textual analysis of club materials. The qualitative data analysis of the focus groups revealed three communication strategies that P.R.I.D.E. members use when talking with peers about substance abuse:indirect communication, reframing, and nonjudgmental communication. The focus groups and textual materials also revelaed the use of rhetorical appeals, in order of frequency:emotional appeals, logical appeals, and ethical appeals. The qualitative data analysis of the interviews revealed the use of entertainment-education themes in order of frequency:perceived realism, self-efficacy, fear appeals, emotional involvement, and audience identification. The interviews also yielded three themes:Impact, Inclusion, and Commitment, with Impact being the foremost theme. Four subcategories of this theme emerged:members as role models, feeling of confidence, members as teachers, and reciprocity. In addition, the explicit metaphors of Family and Members as Missionaries emerged from the interviews. Altogether, these themes reflected the impact of belonging to P.R.I.D.E. as experienced by its members. My recommendations include working with P.R.I.D.E. to develop a theory-based approach to their presentations; helping P.R.I.D.E. develop a series using the same characters for continuity and the strengthening of entertainment-education strategies; encouraging them to collaborate with other health-based clubs in their school to jointly develop materials about health issues that are relevant to both groups; and encouraging them to pair entertainment-education with interpersonal communication that includes experiential activities for their audience

Implications of the selfie for marketing management practice in the era of celebrity

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of the selfie for marketing management in the era of celebrity. The purpose is to show that the facilitation of the creative performance of consumer identity is a key element of the marketing management task for the media convergence era. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses the selfie, the picture of oneself taken by oneself, as a metaphor to develop a conceptual exploration of the nature of marketing in the light of the dominance of celebrity and entertainment in contemporary media and entertainment. Findings: The paper suggests that marketing management in the era of convergence should facilitate consumers’ identity projects through participatory and engaging social media initiatives. Marketers must furnish and facilitate not only the props for consumers mediated identity performances, but also the scripts, sets and scenes, plot devices, cinematographic and other visual techniques, costumes, looks, movements, characterizations and narratives. Research limitations/implications: This is a conceptual paper that sketches out the beginning of a re-framed, communication-focussed vision of marketing management in the era of media convergence. Practical implications: Marketing managers can benefit from thinking about consumer marketing as the stage management of consumer visual, physical, virtual, sensory and psychic environments that enable consumers to actively participate in celebrity culture. Originality/value: This paper suggests ways in which marketing practice can emerge from its pre-digital frame to embrace the new digital cultures of consumption

MTV’s The Hills: A Leading American Docusoap

This thesis explores the relatively uncharted academic territory of the American docusoap, and case studies The Hills as a pertinent example of this burgeoning television genre. Docusoap is a ‘mixed-genre’ that enhances factual material with the story-telling techniques of fictional drama. Whilst many academics have studied the origins of British docusoap and have registered the influence upon it of ‘public service’ objectives in programming, less attention has been paid to the emergence of the docusoap in the commercially-driven American television context. It is in this context that the docusoap has entailed a more overt blending of the attributes of ‘documentary’ and ‘soap opera’ for purely entertainment purposes. Testifying to the need to reconcile risk with conservatism in a commercially-driven schedule context, the generic mix within The Hills draws from the genres of soap opera and ‘reality’ TV, both of which bring the advantages and assurances of a well-demonstrated audience popularity. Having recently completed its sixth and final season, The Hills exemplifies current developments within the American docusoap form. This docusoap details the lives of a group of attractive, affluent young people in their early twenties who work and socialise within the entertainment and fashion industries of Los Angeles. Significantly, The Hills maintains the voyeuristic allure of a ‘reality’ TV premise and enhances this by adapting the melodramatic aesthetics and distinctive narrative strategies of soap opera to a degree that is more overt than other docusoaps, aside, of course, from that which characterised its forerunner, Laguna Beach. This thesis undertakes a close examination of the generic and institutional positioning of The Hills in four distinct chapters. Chapter One examines the generic position of docusoap as a ‘mixed-genre’ and the institutional role The Hills performs for the youth-oriented MTV network. Chapter Two analyses the specific fictional narrative techniques The Hills uses to enhance its documented footage whilst Chapter Three addresses the controversies that have emerged due to this docusoap’s blending of the fictional and the factual. Finally, Chapter Four details how the docusoap’s ability to appeal to lucrative young viewers positions The Hills as a powerful promotional tool for MTV’s consumerist messages

Apathy in Action: Baby Boomers\u27 Attitudes towards Product Placements in the Mass Media

Product placement, or the paid inclusion of branded products in to entertainment media, is a highly lucrative and popular practice. While much research has been done on the attitudes of college-aged individuals towards the practice of product placement, none had been conducted on any other populations’ attitudes towards product placements in media besides television and motion pictures. The current quantitatively-focused study employed a 23-question survey instrument to examine a baby boomer enumeration’s attitudes towards product placements in film, television, music videos, video games and internet web sites. Chi-square analysis, tests of correlation, ANOVA and simple means comparison were used to analyze the results. The majority of subjects approved of product placements in all media formats examined. When disapproval of product placements was voiced , it was towards the inclusion of alcohol or tobacco products in entertainment content aimed at children. Overall, the research in this study strengthened and extended the findings of previous studies to a baby boomer population

Narrating The Body Shop: A story about corporate identity

The narrative turn in organisation studies locates organisations as authors of their own identities. Organisations in all sectors are talking about values, engaging in ongoing conversations with the larger society and telling their story to multiple audiences in their never-ending construction of meaning. Today, modern organisations are entwined in a constant struggle to remain distinctive from their competitors and articulate their identities in the marketplace of discourse and images. While some organisations work to personalise their identities through visible characters, others position themselves in terms of values such as environmental awareness and social responsibility. The purpose of this research was to examine how the identity of The Body Shop has been expressed and transformed through an ongoing corporate narrative of which the founder, Anita Roddick, has been the primary storyteller. Specifically, the thesis examined the relationship between the founder’s (charismatic) leadership and the organisation’s identity in a value-driven company. Within this context, the founder’s narrative, as well as supporting and competing narratives by other characters, were crucial to understanding the development of a corporate identity so closely tied to the values, goals and identity of a person. In this study, narrative is treated as a perspective on human communication that emphasises the story as more than merely an artefact of language but as a dominant mode of appeal and influence. In relation to the ‘narratives’ examined in this thesis, I adopt Czarniawska’s (1995) use of the term to refer to a sequential account of events, usually chronologically, whereby sequentiality indicates some kind of causality, and action-accounted for in terms of intentions and deeds and consequences and is commonly given a central place. From an organisational communication perspective, stories reinforce the development of identity and create meaning for the organisation. In this way, organisational identity has a narrative character that persists - usually through the leader or founder's ability to narrate the organisation's life. The analysis of organisational stories thus serves to provide a better understanding of the influence of individuals in the construction and management of corporate identity. Data for this chronological case study consisted of narratives which were collected through extensive documentary analysis and an-depth interview with Anita Roddick and the two New Zealand Body Shop Directors. The narrative analysis then progressed through three distinct levels, beginning with a thematic analysis and moving ultimately to a critical-interpretive approach that drew especially on concepts from rhetorical criticism and critical discourse analysis. The findings from this research highlighted the influence of Roddick's personal identity and values on the identity of The Body Shop, which resulted in the organisation personifying its founder. The unity and uniqueness of The Body Shop's identity was achieved through the process of narrativity as Roddick conceived her own, as well as The Body Shop's existence, as a special story. In the early years of The Body Shop's history, Roddick linked her own personal identity to the corporate identity of The Body Shop through the retrospective narrative construction of the self in autobiography and other Body Shop texts. Roddick used her first autobiography, Body and soul, in 1991, to document the organisation's evolution, and to connect the past to the present. This idea of the Self as socially constructed – in interactions between individuals within the social worlds relevant to them – is exemplified through Roddick's storied reactions to those who questioned the authenticity of The Body Shop's identity. Roddick's (2000a) second autobiography, Business as unusual, saw Roddick reinvent both her personal and organisational identity against alternative plots, augmenting the existing epic as constructed by Roddick in Body and soul. Her discursive strategy involved reconstructing the original characteristics that set The Body Shop apart from the others and revisiting her original stories which negotiated boundaries for, and with, the rest of the business community. In 1998, traces of a more conventional business discourse found its way into The Body Shop narrative, augmented with the arrival of a new management team. Consequently, several authorised and unauthorised versions of the corporate story coexisted at The Body Shop, all of them struggling for dominance and recognition. More recent Body Shop narratives actually expose a significant fracture in the relationship between individual and organisational identity, signalling the end of the founder's era. In fact, the irony only confirms the linkage of individual and organisational identity in that as Roddick distanced herself from The Body Shop, the organisation no longer spoke through her voice. Roddick's conversations with the larger community no longer served to affirm the identity of The Body Shop but her own. What was once one, unified identity (‘Anita Roddick of The Body Shop’) became two distinctly separate identities (‘Anita Roddick and The Body Shop’)

Entertainment-Education in the New Media Landscape: Stimulating Creative Engagement in Online Communities for Social and Behavioral Change

The Entertainment-Education (EE) strategy uses dramatic serials on radio or TV to motivate audiences to engage in behavioral changes to designed to improve safety, health and equality. This dissertation explores how the EE strategy can be extended to the Internet

How is web design related to sales? The relationship between sales and web design within Amazon.com

Internship Report presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Marketing IntelligenceThe development of technology has caused significant changes in the business environment and the management of companies, and business competitiveness has become an increasingly important factor. Thus, companies must capture consumers' attention and convince them to buy. Therefore, it is necessary to understand how small and medium-sized businesses can differentiate themselves in an extensive medium like the Internet. This study aims to delve into the importance of web design according to the four defined elements - image, text, color, and video - on the Amazon website. An interview was conducted with thirty regular Amazon.com consumers to understand their behavior. The results provided an understanding of consumer perception and feelings about web design through data categorization and in-depth analysis. The results reveal that consumers question several factors before buying, such as the credibility and trustworthiness they have for the brand, which is influenced by its web design. Therefore, brands need to use the four pre-defined elements to positively influence consumers at the time of purchase and segment their audience to understand the type of consumer and, consequently, each element's impact