HEALTH education designed to alter people鈥檚 behaviour will fail unless
the message is positive and personalised. In Britain, posters designed to
halt the spread of AIDS have consistently failed to meet these criteria,
although the most recent campaign 鈥� launched this February on St Valentine鈥檚
day 鈥� is a considerable improvement on its forerunners, according to a psychologist
from the London School of Economics.
Janet Stockdale of the LSE鈥檚 department of psychology, told delegates
this week that previous campaigns perpetuated the view among heterosexuals
that even if other heterosexuals do contract HIV, they are 鈥榥ot like me鈥�.
This means that even when heterosexuals are faced with an image suggesting
that they themselves are at risk, they still see little match between their
behaviour and people who are at risk.
Stockdale, who has studied and measured statistically the impact of
AIDS posters on groups of subjects, explained that while 鈥榤ass media poster
campaigns cannot be expected to achieve dramatic results (they can) influence
health-related attitudes and practices鈥�.
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Ideally, she explained, a poster grabs the attention of a viewer because
viewers identify with the image on display as being relevant to their lifestyle.
Once attention has been captured, the message must be presented in a positive
way so that people are more ready to accept the information provided and
may even change their behaviour accordingly.
Stockdale said that the most recent AIDS poster campaign in Britain
provoked by far the most positive response from heterosexuals. They are
more explicit sexually, and convey the idea that 鈥榮afer sex is trendy and
fun; safer sex doesn鈥檛 interfere with love, and is practised by attractive
people鈥�. The most popular one bore the slogan 鈥業t鈥檚 that condom moment鈥�
(see picture).
Stockdale had noted in earlier studies that homosexual men reacted warmly
and positively to posters targeted at and published in the gay community.
Heterosexuals, however, were left largely cold by posters aimed at the 鈥榞eneral
population鈥�. Invariably, said Stockdale, the posters for homosexuals bore
warm, erotic images and evoked a positive response to the message.
By contrast the posters for the general population provoked despair
鈥� 鈥楢IDS is killing the human race鈥� 鈥� for example, engendered fear. The message
also implied that the best (but possibly impractical) idea is to give up
sex.
The most recent poster campaign, launched by the Terence Higgins Trust,
Britain鈥檚 biggest AIDS charity, is radically different. It is aimed explicitly
at young people, and presents the happy, not sombre, face of sex.
鈥業n this new set of posters, the aim was to get people to think positively
about sex, rather than putting them off altogether or marginalising the
problems of HIV. Moreover, there was the explicit aim not to perpetuate
the idea that these problems are confined to minority groups,鈥� commented
Stockdale. She added that if they were to succeed, posters 鈥榤ust stimulate
our awareness, make us question our beliefs and supply new, positive directions
for our social (self-perceptions) and behavioural repertoires鈥�.
