Screening Messages

In class on Tuesday, we heard from Martine Hackett, Ph.D. Candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center. Martine's presentation touched on the intersections between Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and electronic media, specifically on how the Internet is being used to address SIDS.

After an overview of the history of public health campaigns, with an emphasis on the combination of visual imagery and text message in early posters, she then turned to new technology and more recent public health campaigns. Finally, she focused on how electronic media relates to audience.

In terms of how the Internet is used to communicate health messages about SIDS, Martine posited three types of communication: 1) Official Sources, including governmental agencies and non-profit organizations; 2) Professional to Professional, via a state to state listserv; and, 3) Parent to Parent, via message boards, blogs and memorial sites.

There were some interesting discussions in the class about how "horizontally segregated" these forms of communications remain. In other words, Martine posits that most of the communication is within and among professional or parent groups, and rarely are these boundaries crossed. Some in the class, like Alisa, didn't see anything wrong with this. Others, such as Velma and Lorraine, suggested that parents may know more than professionals about how they incorporate public health messages into their lives. Martine suggests that there is a middle ground for discussion between reified "scientific" knowledge and parents' culturally-grounded knowledge of parenting skills.

I'm hoping that in your blog entries about this presentation that you will find and provide links to some of the parent-to-parent message boards, blogs, and memorial sites.

All in all, a terrific presentation and a good discussion. I've posted the PPT over in Blackboard for you to review.

A meta-note about the presentation: Class members should also note that this presentation should serve as a guide for what is expected in the in-class presentations by students beginning 4/25/06. While you don't need to provide the kind of historical background that Martine so expertly did, you should follow Martine's lead in the way that she educated the class about SIDS and then looked at the way new media is being used to address this health concern. In addition, you should then look at what the peer-reviewed literature says on the use of new media related to your topic.