My knowledge about digital media will most likely affect my citizenship in much the same way that it will affect my career path. By this I mean that as an active and passionate citizen, I intend to participate in extensive advocacy for issues that I care about. I am especially concerned with issues of social inequality, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

Producing effective campaigns and information about these issues will inevitably require a creative content production side. Again, as with public health and digital media, advocacy campaigns will greatly benefit from video and photography production to draw in the population and prove the importance and urgency of certain ideas in an interesting way.

What’s especially important for advocating for discriminated groups is connecting to the people in those groups. This is where interview tactics will come especially in handy. Asking the right questions in order to get people to tell the true, raw story behind a certain event is the most vulnerable and emotionally evocative way to draw an audience’s attention to an issue. People are inclined to be empathetic towards and connect with other people, so telling their stories is a key point in advocating for the issues they are facing.

All of this can be achieved through strategic digital production, considering what the audience would like to see, and making that content easily accessible and navigable for users. Social media as a platform is another effective way to achieve this goal. It’s one of the most common spaces, and accurately reaching an audience on such a widespread platform gives way to advocating towards important issues in the world.

All of the information that I have learned in this class will definitely be applicable to my intended career path. Ideally, I would like to work in the field of public health from a communicative perspective. I believe that the most important part of public health is communicating ideas to the public effectively and efficiently. Many aspects of digital communications will allow me to do so.

One big example is the production of video and photographic content. I believe knowing how to do so, from controlling the audio of a video by use of microphone to learning to let interviewees tell stories in their own words, will contribute to creating impactful content regarding health concerns and attitudes which may influence people to aspire for healthier lifestyles.

Understanding user experience is another integral aspect of effective public health advocacy. Creation of content on a basic level is certainly powerful, but it means nothing if the accessibility of the presentation is not taken into consideration. Websites for health organizations and campaigns, for example, must be easily navigable in order for the audience to be able to find the most important information even with just a quick scan. Many health organizations could probably use a usability professional whose job is purely to assess materials and make sure that they are easy as possible for the targeted audience to reach. This is especially important for health campaigns, such as recent ones regarding JUULs, because the populations targeted are so specific.

Another aspect of digital media that is important for public health is the idea that people truly come for the content. Presentation of information is not interesting when just listed. Instead, offering this information in a creative and enticing way will make readers much more likely to stick around and keep reading. Sometimes, this may mean inserting information into media in sly ways. Organizations exist for the sole purpose of creating health messages to insert into popular TV shows. In this instance, audiences are receiving health information without thinking that they are just reading boring information, and as such, it very well, might influence their decisions more thoroughly.

Much of the changes that I made in my blog were very surface level fixes which allowed the wording to sound smoother and more coherent. I did, however, strive to alter the concepts slightly in order to narrow my audience and direct all of the content specifically towards that audience. The audience that I chose to address was college-aged females, so I added a couple of introductory and concluding words to mention why these topics might be important for them to consider. I did my best to also sound as succinct as possible, while still getting my point across. I deleted some unnecessary words and commentary in order to make it all around easier and more pleasant to read and understand. In addition, I emphasized more of a focus on awareness of the health concepts that I was discussing. My angle with this was that all of this information is important, yes, but the most important part is to not just read some facts and move on living life exactly the same, but to internalize these ideas and be aware of a healthy behavior in the world. I tried to also reiterate often that all of the concepts I advocated for vary from individual to individual, and not everything can be taken so literally. Every individual has different needs and values, and that is totally okay. Being aware of your options, though, is an important part of being exactly who you want to be and living exactly how you want to live.

The sphere of public health revolves around the ability to reach the population in order to effectively communicate ideas that may prevent or control unhealthy behaviors. Doing so, however, becomes difficult when there is a barrier between the producers and the audience. It happens in printed media, when people have unequal access to newspapers or magazines. It happens in broadcast media, excluding those who can’t afford a television. And it certainly happens in digital media, posing one of the greatest challenges to public health professionals.

Digital inequalities are far and wide. Even in a first world country such as the U.S., access to technology is always going to be limited for certain groups of the population. Those in lower income circumstances, for example, may not have the resources to afford the digital devices which have access to social media platforms. These social media platforms are common places for advocates to incentivize people to follow a healthy lifestyle and to promote resources and services which could them to do so. Without access to these sites or technology, a large gap of the population is receiving significantly less public health guidance than the rest of the country. As a result, they are likely to be far more susceptible to unhealthy outcomes. Gender, race, and other social constructs may also limit individuals’ access to certain technology based on discriminatory regulations of providers. Similarly, age may even qualify as a disparity. Younger ages may have reduced access to technology as a result of parental rules and regulations. Given that this may be discounted by the fact that their parents are generally in control of their decisions, as kids get older and start going to school, they begin to make their own decisions. Prohibited access to platforms which advocate for public health ideals may set them apart from peers who are receiving these messages. These inequalities are known as second-level disparities, and they are significant indicators of the effects of public health outcomes on individuals as compared to populations.

The other type of digital inequality, first-level disparities, refers to the unequal knowledge regarding use of technology. Even when people have access to technology, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are proficient in its use. A wide margin of our population, especially older adults, still is incapable of efficiently navigating social sites, even if they consider themselves to be using it regularly. Incapability of proper use is, in effect, just as much of a drawback for public health professionals trying to reach individuals, as reduced physical access. Both are limiting the portion of the population that will receive these messages, and likewise, limit the extent to which they will actually change behavior on a broad scale.

Much of public health is focused around inequality. Different populations are subject to different health outcomes based on a number of factors. But the inability to reach certain members of the population and communicate healthy ideas with them is a challenge that is less often discussed. Beginning a conversation about how to bridge this divide, whether that means more public health campaigns and interventions in homeless shelters, or providing more free technology access locations, is the first step to resolving the issue. Until a solution is discovered, digital inequality will inevitably subject some people to healthy lifestyles more than others.

---

The ultimate concern in matters of communication and of public health is based around the viewer’s experience. Strategic configuration of information directly pertains to how the audience will interpret it, and this is an integral consideration in targeting broad public health issues. As we, as a society, work towards universal health, how we educate and inform members of society has never been more important. The goal of a healthy society, though, cannot be achieved without paying close attention to the way this material is presented to the public.

Offering knowledge in video format is an important piece of public health campaigns. Countless advertisements, commercials, and other public health messages have subtly creeped into our everyday lives. Almost on a subconscious level, we begin to be directly influenced by this information, granting us a broader understanding of how we are treating our bodies, how the circumstances of the world may influence this, and what we can do to be “better.”

Documentaries have proven to be a particularly effective way of educating the public on health concerns through a visual appeal. I recently watched a documentary for my Public Health class called “Sick Around America.” The film went behind the scenes into the U.S. healthcare system and the outcomes of its shortcomings. Many different aspects contributed to the compelling and appealing nature of the information presented. The production included a number of interviews with people of different situations who had been impacted by the flaws of the healthcare system. Rather than scripted directors simply listing statistics and offering opinions on the state of U.S. healthcare, individuals were able to share true stories of how the healthcare system is failing and evoke emotion from the audience in a persuasive technique known as pathos. In addition, 50 minutes of watching people talk would not have been an effective way of communicating a topic of such urgency. Instead, the producers arranged the content of the interviews in a timeline which created an increasingly dramatic effect, beginning with a man who had to stay in a job he didn’t like in order to maintain his health insurance status all the way to a young woman who actually died because of her inability to afford the health care she needed. Doing so allowed viewers, such as myself, to truly see the dire effects of our feeble system and to understand the true magnitude of the problem rather than simply being told the problem exists.

Another effective method of storytelling or information presentation is through sound. One way this medium has worked its way into the efforts of public health professionals is through informational podcasts. One particular podcast I often come across which brings its audience attention to urgent health matters is called “Stuff You Should Know.” Though the episodes of this podcast range over a wide variety of topics, the artists often focus on matters of health. They are able to educate the public on things that they should know about their health and their bodies through creative design and production of sound. These episodes are meticulously crafted to sound appealing, playing aesthetic background music in times of transition and producing high quality audio when talking in order to make it as easy as possible for the listener to tune in. Such content could not achieve its intended effects without considering all of the factors that go into sound production and being aware of the surroundings in which the content is produced.

Most importantly, whatever medium producers choose to portray information through, the audience is at the center of the production. This is especially important in public health efforts, as the whole purpose is to impact the population at large. Whether through video or sound or simply words, the story the creators are trying to tell will benefit greatly from acknowledging a way of presentation that makes it easiest for viewers to access and understand. In each stage of the process, producers should be asking themselves, “What would this look like to the audience? Would it benefit them?” In doing so, public health professionals may be able to effectively communicate the prominent ideas of healthy behavior which they are making a living off of advocating for.

---

At the forefront of concerns about nutrition and public health in today’s society is the art of communication. With the rise of social media over the last decade or so, “it appears that corporate communication,” in the words of Jan Kietzmann and colleagues, “has been democratized.” In other words, information has become readily available to just about everyone, as opposed to the wealthy previously having an advantage. For this reason, companies can reach a broader audience through the use of social media and must take this edge and run with it. This current state of accessibility of communicating with the greater public is to the considerable advantage of health officials. In such a time of opportunity for knowledge and various health issues needing to be addressed, the public health sector can benefit from following the basic guidelines of effective communication.

The most important thing to note in the communication of important health topics is that the intention of producers of text, images, videos, etc., will often be different than the way viewers interpret it. Many things go into account for how a given individual, or a society as a whole, will think of something. The time period and social context that the image or text is born into mean everything. To ignore these factors as affecting interpretations would be dangerous. An image depicting Bill Cosby, for example, would have been taken differently thirty years ago when he was known as the beloved star of The Cosby Show, then it would be now that the general public is aware of his heinous actions. Social context is always an integral piece of communicating information as accurately as possible, and this applies to health concerns as much as anything else.

Individuals, too, will interpret works based on past experiences. An individual who had the flu last year in the extremely deadly flu season, might be more attentive to a poster about getting a flu shot this year than someone who didn’t have the flu last year. Every person viewing a certain text or image will be coming from a different background, social class, race, education, and many other socioeconomic factors that will influence how they view media. All of these factors are also significant influences on health, and that’s why it’s essential to address health concerns for a wide variety of populations and different types of people. While having control over these variables is close to impossible, they are, nevertheless, always important to consider. “Meanings of images,” as Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright put it, “are created in a complex relationship among producer, viewer, image or text, and social context.”

Another important concept to consider in communicating health concerns to the public is the power held by the viewer in allowing these images and texts to influence them, and the responsibility of the producer to make that influence meaningful. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say, and the viewer is completely in control of whether or not they choose to be affected by a certain work.  “By living in society,” say Sturken and Cartwright, “we live in ideology.” These texts and images produced by media outlets provide a platform for individuals to recognize themselves, and in turn, “we become the subject that we are addressed as.” Producers have that power to direct individual interest towards certain concerns. This is essential for impacting the health decisions of a community, because the whole idea behind public health outreach is to educate, inform, and empower people to make a difference in their lives. Effective communication skills allow health officials to do so.

Finally, the actual implementation of media is just as important to its impact as the meanings behind it. Brevity and precision are always key to creating content that is the most accessible to the largest amount of people. Most people, while scrolling through social media, don’t want to pause and take time out of their day to read a full academic essay. So in order to communicate health concerns, producers must learn to write succinctly and clearly. An active and imaginative setting for the text or image always increases interest and draws attention from viewers too. This is why communicators often use an inverted pyramid style of communication, where the most important information is at the beginning where readers are most likely to be paying closer attention. Knowing the audience and purpose of a particular text or image is also a key part of its effect. The stronger of a voice the writer has, the more comfortable the reader will be with connecting to what is being said or shown and will establish a level of trust. Overall, it’s important to tell an interesting story that will alert readers that a certain issue is putting the health of many, often including themselves, at risk.

Public health outreach professionals would be at a great disadvantage not to consider the current state of communication with the social media available and the wide variety of tools and resources for communicating. As with anything else, knowledge is useless if it can’t be communicated effectively enough to impact people. The overall health of our society, as a result, would be detrimental without communication.

---