PETA

Ah, it has been a while since I have posted. I have been swamped with midterms and the project for this class. Which I must say is coming along quite well. It helps that i have an amazing group and a topic that I am very interested in.
So in class this past week we took a look through the newspaper and counted the number of articles/ads broadly related to health. It was pretty remarkable at the quantity that we cam up with. So there isn't a lack of information out there, it is just the quality of the information that I am concerned about and getting people attention.

One radio spot that got my attention was the vice president of PETA on NPR. He was very well spoken and really drove home a lot of what we are learning in this class. One stood out the most to me was when caller criticized PETA for using Pamela Anderson as a spokesperson. She said she has been Vegan for 6 years and vegetarian for 20 and lost a little respect for PETA when she saw the ad. The vice-president responded politely by saying that she is not their target audience because she already shares the values of PETA. He then continued by describing their audience as being the Frat boys that don't care at all about animal welfare. That brought up a very good point, how far can you go to alienate someone who already believes to capture the attention of those who do not? He also talked about why they use celebrities (naked celebrities at that). His answer was that people don't want to hear about animal cruelty but their interested is peaked when you have a naked person on TV or in an ad. He said they can't even get a spot on the news when only talking about animals and that their only hope to get airtime is to have risky/provocative/sometimes offensive ads. This brings back the topic of wrong reason health-promotion. PETA often uses the wrong reason because people won't pay attention otherwise. I do agree that some of PETAs ads are hard to watch/look at but that is their point. They definitly go for shock value and fear appeal. Here is the link with the MP3. If you have 20 minutes I would listen to it, it is worth it and brings up some very important and intersting points. http://www.kpbs.org/radio/these_days;id=11222

Is Shrek Obese?!?!

How far do you go to get people to pay attention? Where to you draw the line when using sex, looks, and money to get someone to change a bad health behavior to a good health behavior? It is so hard to say. There are so many ads out there and health messages aren’t necessarily the funniest so I don’t blame the creators for getting creative! However, I don’t think the health messages should contradict what they are advertising.


I thought it was a little odd that Shreck was promoting childhood obesity prevention (isn't he kind of tubby?!?!)
It won't let me put the video directly in so just go to the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-zEDbl04NY

Then there was a link for this video…



and this video


Talk about contradictory!

Airborne!!!!

So time has been short this week because so my blog got put on the back burner. It is mid term time again, and I have just come to the conclusion that I am not very good at juggling everything that needs to be done. Oh well, at least this semester my tests are spread apart and not all in one week like last semester. So because I have been spread so thin I have been drinking my fare share of Airborne. I figure it is a good way to get my vitamins and get hydrated. Well, I was talking to my mom and she informed me that there was a class action lawsuit against Airborne because before November 2007 they had falsely advertised that Airborne can ‘cure or prevent the common cold.’ I guess people took that literally and got upset that a bunch of vitamins can’t really do that so they sued and a bunch of lawyers are reaping the benefits. And anyone else can benefit from it to because you can claim that you bought up to six bottle of Airborne with out showing proof and get reimbursed up to 10.50 per bottle! So that is $63 for nothing, now will your morals let you do it? Check out the website if you want more information. http://www.airbornehealthsettlement.com/

I guess they didn't do their formative research and test how people interpreted that wording well enough before they put the product on the market, ooppss....

Negative Segmentation in the Food Court

So we were sitting there in East Commons Food Court on a high after completing our first successful focus group for our Family PACT project when a man came up with one of those petition clipboards. I NEVER stop and sign them but I guess I was feeling safer because I was in a group and/or I was feeling like I pay it forward because 5 very nice people had just spoke to me about their sexual health practices. So I took the board and then he quickly handed 3 more out to the rest of my group mates. That was the beginning of the end. The man sat down and his friend came over and sat on the other end of the table. I read the first petition, it was about allowing victims to know the status of their perpetrators (or at least I think that was what it was). After I read and signed that one, the man sitting next to me said, oh there are 7 total, just keep flipping and signing. So I flipped to the next one, I think it was about making sentences harder for people who commit violent acts, so I signed it. The next, was rezoning San Diego, I didn’t sign because I didn’t understand it. When the man saw that I didn’t sign he said to me “Oh, you don’t want to get corrupt politicians out of office?” I responded with “Of course I do, but I can’t tell that that is what this is saying so I am choosing not to sign.” He rolled his eyes and repeatedly said that by not signing I want to keep corrupt politicians in office. The next petition was about informing parents when there child is having an abortion. For me that was a definite NO. Next, ban gay marriages, again, NO. Lastly, there was one for sustainable energy, sure I signed that one. (That doesn’t add up to seven but I don’t remember what the other ones were) I handed the clipboard back to the man and so did another one of my group mates. He then looked through the petitions to see which ones we signed. When he saw that we didn’t sign the one about informing parents he asked us why. Both of us responded by saying that we don’t think it is right and that the girls should be allowed to if they wish. I was thinking in my head, what nerve does this guy have to question what he sign and don’t sign and then he opened his mouth with “Well, I think that girls should just keep there legs closed (and he used his hands to demonstrate) and then there wouldn’t be a problem.” WHAT?!?!?!?!? How dare he say that? But it only got better, he looked at us and said “Oh, you are girls that is why you don’t want to sign.” The other man piped in with “We shouldn’t of found such smart girls to sign. Those who read don’t sign and those who sign don’t read.” This simple act of reading and signing petitions was turning into an offensive segmentation experience. It gets better. The man sitting next to me, flips over the clipboard and there is a voter registration form on the back. He asks me to just sign it. Of course, I as why because I am already registered to vote. He asks me when I registered. I informed him that I registered in January. He told me that was too long ago (ONE MONTH!) and that my signatures would be invalid and that all I need to do is sign and he will fill out the rest. I was so disgusted at this point I rolled my eyes and said “You have got to be kidding me, I am not going to sign that” At this point, I was so upset with them that I don’t even know if they said anything else and they just left. After they left the four of us discussed the experience and how disheartening it was to be ‘attacked’ like that. Later, one of the staff from the food court came up and told us that he kicked the two guys out. I don’t want to let that one experience with petitioners taint my perception of the rest of them but it is hard, I don’t foresee myself stopping and giving them the time of day any time soon. I hope that the man is right, that my signatures will be thrown out and he doesn't get a cent.

I was telling my boyfriend about my experience and he said that he had seen a report on the news where people are illegally re-registering people to vote and they change their political party without them knowing it. He said the scam was exactly what happened to me, a person signed the voter registration form and then the petitioner filled out the rest, changing their political party. The news report he mentioned it was Republicans doing it but I am sure it goes both ways. Now that I think about it, the topics were very much Republican issues. Ah, I really wish I would have never taken that clipboard!