School-based Smoking Prevention with Media Literacy: A Pilot Study

School-based tobacco prevention programs have had limited success reducing smoking rates in the long term. Media literacy programs offer an innovative vehicle for delivery of potentially more efficacious anti-tobacco education. However, these programs have been neither widely implemented nor well evaluated. We conducted a pre-post evaluation of a cross-disciplinary tobacco media literacy program. The sample consisted of 204 students across six schools. Results indicated that students’ smoking-specific media literacy and general media literacy measures increased significantly over the course of the intervention

Ten Years and 1 Master Settlement Agreement Later: The Nature and Frequency of Alcohol and Tobacco Promotion in Televised Sports, 2000 Through 2002

Objectives. I sought to identify what kinds of promotion for alcohol and tobacco products are found in televised sports programming, as well as how frequently they occur. I compared my findings with data from 5 and 10 years earlier to examine the effects of the Master Settlement Agreement and detect industry trends. Method. A content analysis of more than 83 hours of televised sports programming from 2000 through 2002 was conducted. Composite week sampling was used to ensure results were representative of the overall population of television sports programs. Programs were examined for traditional advertising (commercials) and nontraditional advertising (stadium signs, announcer voiceovers, etc.). Results. Rates of certain types of alcohol advertising have decreased, but what remains is strategically chosen to increase the likelihood of audience exposure. Despite the Master Settlement Agreement, tobacco advertising remains prevalent in many sports. A new trend of placing alcohol and tobacco brand names in commercials for other products is evident. Conclusions. Alcohol and tobacco marketers appear able to cleverly adapt to advertising challenges, such as digital video recorders and legislation. Alcohol and tobacco brands remain visible on sports programming

Looking Back to Look Forward: Ukraine’s Evolving Use of Digital Space for Resistance and Public Diplomacy, 2014-2022

This study considers how the communication strategies used by Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022 are contextualized by its response to the Russian invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine 8 years earlier. Survey data and interviews with Ukrainian citizens in 2015 reveal a civil society with distrust of media, well-developed information literacy, a willingness to play an active role in finding credible information, and a strong spirit of self-reliance resulting from distrust of their government and Russia. Ukrainians’ early recognition of the importance of digital information space in challenging Russia’s sophisticated disinformation tactics enabled their under-developed public diplomacy to rapidly evolve after the 2022 invasion and contributed to their success in soliciting support and exhibiting resistance in the war against their long-standing adversary

Evidence of the Value of the Smoking Media Literacy Framework for Middle School Students

BACKGROUND Susceptibility to future smoking, positive beliefs about smoking, and perceptions of antismoking norms are all factors that are associated with future smoking. In previous research, smoking media literacy (SML) has been associated with these variables, even when controlling for other known risk factors for smoking. However, these studies were performed with older teenagers, often in high school, not younger teens at a crucial developmental point with respect to the decision to begin smoking. METHODS This study uses survey data collected from 656 American public middle school students representing multiple zip codes, schools, and school districts. RESULTS Smoking media literacy levels for middle school students were similar to those of high school students in earlier studies. Higher SML levels were associated with lower susceptibility to future smoking and predicted susceptibility to smoke when controlling for other risk factors. This suggests that the same relationships found with teenagers may exist with middle school students. CONCLUSIONS Although follow-up studies using larger and more controlled administrations of the SML scale are warranted, this study suggests the utility of the SML framework and scale in the development and investigation of media literacy as a prevention strategy in students this age