Do Public Information Films Work?

One of Grunig and Hunt's (1984) 4 models of PR is Public Information. Which essentially means that PR is used to inform and often change the attitudes and behaviour of the intended audience. Moroever, it is based on using truth rather than any form of hype of manipulation. It has been typically been used by charities and governmental agencies to inform people of key information they should know about.

Those brought up on television in the 1960s and 70s, when there was less advertising, will remember a host of pubic information films, with the ones sticking in my memory being drowning prevention. In one a cat nearly drowns and the film ends with a child saying "Charlie (the cat) says....." and another someone drowning calls for help and a man says to his wife "oh look Petunia he's waving", and then they both wave back. Clearly, they had an impact as I remember them today, but did they change mine or anyone else's behaviour?

The explosion of deaths from AIDs in the 1980s led to a number of quite strong-hitting and graphic campaigns, but I am not sure they worked. I suspect that what really changed cultural attitudes and behaviour towards AIDS, and in particular AIDS victims, was Princess Diana touching an AIDS victim as one human being to another. I suspect also that a story line in the BBC soap, Eastenders, probably changed attitudes of the disease being only for gay men. The popular character Mark Fowler was diagnosed following a blood transfusion. In these two instances a famous person and a soap storyline may have been more effective than a very expensive campaign. The AIDS message from the formal campaigns was explicit and for some uncomfortable, and I suspect they 'tuned out', whereas Princess Diana and Mark Fowler was more subtle and people may have taken in the message, without necesarily realising they were receving such a message.

Most information campaigns tend to based on rational arguement, for example, scientific research is that we should eat five portions of fruit and veg each day in order to live longer. All or nearly all of my students are aware of the message, and there is a clear self-interested message of living longer. But why then do not all people eat five portions of fruit and veg a day?

Less commonly, as with the AIDS campaign, public information campaigns take an emotional approach aiming for the heart not the brain. A clear example of this has come out recently from Gwent police . This video focuses on the consequences of a young car driver texting. It is hard-hitting, graphic and widely publicised. It is an excellent campaign, but just how succesful will it be? Will it change behaviour? My own personal observation is that making driving whilst using a hand-held phone a traffic offence has not been successful. I see people using a mobile on virtually every journey I make as a pedestrian, cyclist or car-driver. One of the campaigns which has been successful is drink drving, but this has been relentless and backedup with not just legislation but police action. I am therefore sceptical that public information campaigns alone will make a huge differnence They can, as in this example, alert peopeleto a problem, but usually there needs to be a sanction as well.