In this fully revised and expanded Fourth Edition, Ronald E. Rice and Charles K. Atkin provide readers with a comprehensive, up-to- date look into the field of public communication campaigns. Updated to reflect the latest theories and research, this text extends coverage to new areas, including sun protection, organ donation, human rights, social norms, corporate social responsibility, condom use, ocean sustainability, fear messages, and digital games. Classic chapters include updates on topics such as campaign history, theoretical foundations, formative evaluation, systems approaches, input-output persuasion matrix, design and evaluation, meta-analysis, and sense-making methodology.

This second edition of "Public Communication Campaigns" represents a major revision and establishes new parameters in campaign research. Original chapters are significantly revised in the light of a decade's research and experience. New chapters sketch eleven notable campaigns and their implications; provide a tutorial on formative evaluation; discuss community campaigns; analyse the conduct of political campaigns; suggest uses of persuasion in adolescent AIDS prevention campaigns; analyze critically alternative channel effectiveness hypotheses; study a remarkable pro-social soap opera in India; and, challenge some of the basic assumptions about the role of mass media in campaigns.

The media influence how we live--and die. Tobacco can kill us, yet we continue to smoke. Drinking and driving is a lethal combination, yet we continue to drive when inebriated. Poor diet slowly destroys us, yet we continue to eat unhealthily. Why? Evolving from a national conference, Mass Communication and Public Health examines why public information campaigns have achieved limited success and what can be done to improve their effectiveness. This up-to-date volume has a fourfold focus: