Public Health Messaging and Media Relations

Asiye Çiğdem ŞİMŞEKa

aUniversity of Health Sciences Gülhane Faculty of Medicine, Department of Public Health, Ankara, Türkiye

ABSTRACT
The first studies on public communication campaigns; It has been shown that mass media are more effective in raising awareness about an innovation and encouraging its dissemination, while interpersonal channels are more effective in encouraging adoption of the behavior. It is argued that interpersonal communication is more effective than mass communication because people perceive the former as more sincere than the latter. However, despite its known persuasive advantages, face-to-face interpersonal communication is not possible for large-scale public campaigns. The communication capacity of social media to affect public health is significantly high and increasing day by day. The popularity and technical sophistication of social media platforms may lead to more mainstream health discourse to an unprecedented extent. Rather than fighting emerging technologies, aligning technology with humanity’s interests and learning how to best use it will help promote better health and spread health-related information.
Keywords: Communications media; public health; social media

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