Elizabeth Crisp Crawford

The Impact of a Student-Driven Social Marketing Campaign on College Student Alcohol-Related Beliefs and Behaviors

Researchers examined a student-driven campaign intended to reduce high-risk drinking at a Midwestern, public research university in the United States. The campaign was implemented as part of a comprehensive social marketing effort to address high-risk drinking. Efforts employed on campus addressed various aspects of the marketing mix, including product, price, place, and promotion through late-night alcohol-free activities, increased enforcement, a substance abuse mentoring program, and the student-driven promotional campaign. Outcome measures of the campaign evaluation included assessing the effectiveness of promotional materials in prompting student visits to the campaign website and assessing the impact on students’ reported drinking-related beliefs and behaviors. Following extensive formative research, student developers designed campaign promotional materials that incorporated socially relevant images and messages to enhance students’ confidence related to making simple, low-risk decisions about drinking. Evaluation included an anonymous survey sent to a stratified random sample of undergraduate students. Responses were gathered regarding student demographics, appeal of promotional materials, self-reported drinking patterns, and whether the campaign impacted students’ reflections on drinking or beliefs and behaviors concerning their own alcohol consumption. Study results indicate online and interactive promotional materials (i.e., Facebook page and campaign video) increased the likelihood of student visits to the website, and students exposed to the website reported increased confidence and use of techniques to reduce alcohol-related harm. Use of socially relevant messages and online or interactive campaign components appear to be promising when implementing campaigns to address college student high-risk drinking.

The Mass Comm Type Student Personality Traits, Motivations, and the Choice between News and Strategic Communication Majors

A study of news media and strategic communication majors (n = 273) revealed differences in regard to personality indices and impetuses for selecting to pursue degrees. Showing overall agreement in the importance of openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, strategic communication students were significantly higher in their ratings of agreeableness. News media students were significantly higher in their ratings of openness. In addition, news media students stated a significantly higher rating of the importance of altruistic purposes. Strategic communication students placed higher emphasis on financial gain. Implications for pedagogy and the profession are discussed.

Organization Personality Perceptions and Attraction: The Role of Social Identity Consciousness

The current study explores the theory of symbolic attraction. The theory suggests that social identity consciousness moderates the relationship between symbolic inferences between organizations and attraction to those organizations. The study explored the two dimensions of social identity consciousness (i.e., social adjustment concern and value expression concern) as moderators of the relationship between organization personality perceptions (i.e., boy scout, innovativeness, dominance, style, and thrift) and organization attraction. The results of the study suggest that value expression concern moderates the relationships between boy scout, innovativeness, style, and thrift perceptions and attraction such that the relationships between these variables are stronger among those high on value expression concern. There was no support for social adjustment concern as a moderator of these relationships.

Social Identity and Convergence News Faculty and Student Perspectives on Web, Print, and Broadcast Skills

This research examines the role of intergroup bias in mass communication students and faculty perceptions of the importance of various media technology skills. This study differs from previous research because it compares the views of both print journalism and broadcasting students and faculty about media skills and convergence. A scale of social identity pinpoints a relationship between social psychology and attitudes about media skills. A weak negative correlation between the absolute value of the print-minus-broadcast skills-preference variable and web-skills preferences among all mass communication student and faculty participants was found, and the correlation strengthened when only broadcast students and faculty were analyzed, indicating that those inclined toward broadcasting were more likely to prefer traditional mass media skills training over cross-platform, new media, and Internet skills. Broadcast students and faculty also differed from other participants in how their preferences for the skills of their own profession relate to their openness to nontraditional media skills. Students reported a greater preference for skills training than faculty did. Comparisons of students and faculty preferences for print, broadcast, and web skills showed strong, statistically significant differences, with students rating all skills more highly than faculty did.

Strategic Communication Campaigns

One of the best ways to promote good health in society is through the use of communication campaigns to inform and educate the public about healthy habits and good health care. Although the importance of mass communication in promoting health is widely acknowledged, creating effective communication campaigns can be a complex process. Health messages have a variety of characteristics that differentiate them from other types of mediated messages. Among these are the sensitivity of health issues, the fear that some health messages evoke, the attendant feelings of resistance to some health messages, and the complex nature of many health problems. Many health messages focus on sensitive and personal issues such as sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse and addiction, abortion, and mental illness. Because these subjects are difficult and emotional for many audience members, they can be especially challenging to develop effective communication campaigns to check.

Who's Really Converging Anyway: A Survey of Broadcast and Print Journalism Student and Faculty Attitudes on Cross-Platform Journalism Education

This study uses self categorization theory to explore whether convergence is perceived as more pertinent to print than broadcast education. The findings suggest that print-focused students and faculty embrace the web more than broadcast students and faculty. The research also suggests that print-oriented students and faculty adopt a more converged attitude and value convergence skills more than their broadcast counterparts. Participants identifying as broadcasters appear to adopt an attitude of superiority regarding their own medium and are less inclined toward convergence in general. This study also shows that broadcast education is not reflecting the professions emphasis on integration.

Crossing Cross-Platform: Comparing Skills Preferences and Convergence Attitudes in Strategic Communication and News Disciplines.

National survey of college mass communication students (N = 247) analyzed attitudes on the teaching of print and electronic media skills, using journalism students as comparison group. Previous research had not explored strategic communication student responses to convergence. Found identity variables within public relations (PR) field related to preference for web skills, as well as other strategic communication skills, but no such link among advertising students. Advertising students were most open to web skills overall, and PR students least.

Undergraduate choice of major and major satisfaction: an expanded role for personality measures

ABSTRACT Students’ personality traits are among the most important determinants of students’ choice of major and their satisfaction with that major. A survey of 849 students at three public universities and one private university in two regions of the United States finds that a student’s personality also affects the power of non-personality influences on the choice of major. These influences, in turn, affect the likelihood that a student will be satisfied with the major. These findings will allow academic advisors and counselors to draw additional value from personality measurements often used in helping students choose their majors.

The Origins of New Voices U.S.A.: A Lesson in Teaching Advocacy to Improve Teaching and Learning

For more than 30 years, student journalists’ freedom of expression has been in flux. Freedom of expression is central to journalism education. Without this freedom, teaching students the courage and truth telling central to the profession becomes impossible. To reinstate compromised freedoms, North Dakota student journalists created The John Wall New Voices Act in an undergraduate class based on the teaching of civic and citizen journalism. The New Voices Act (NVA) has exemplified expression legislation across the nation. The purpose of this essay is to document the origins of the NVA and provide a guide for journalism educators when students choose an advocacy-oriented project.

From Introducing the World Wide Web to Teaching Advertising in the Digital Age: A Content Analysis of the Past Twenty Years of the Journal of Advertising Education

For 20 years, the Journal of Advertising Education (JAE) has “toiled in the vineyards of advertising academe” to become the primary venue for advertising education scholarship (Johnson, 1996, p. 3). The chronology of the journal has seen many changes in the way advertising professors and instructors educate their students about various topics in advertising. We explored the last 20 years of literature in JAE. A content analysis revealed patterns in areas such as topical focus, methods, authorship and Carnegie classifications of university authors. The study also compared JAEs data with two other journals that have a partial focus on advertising education. The study sets the stage for an exploration of new scholarship for JAEs next 20 years.