Media And Social Change Essay

From those early days of communication research, there has been a constant ebb and flow of theories and empirical research endeavoring to comprehend the genuine impact of media on social change. Various normative, social scientific, and critical communication theories have addressed how media influence social change. These include theories of media and democratization, theories of development communication and social learning, and theories in health communication, social marketing, and participatory communication. Numerous theories have endeavored to comprehend the impact of the media on social change from an assortment of points of view and for various targets. It is in that connection that advancement correspondence rose as a methodology

Since marketing has been largely successful in making people chose to purchased a few products as opposed to competing products, then the same techniques should be effective in encouraging people to adopt certain behaviors that would lead to better physical and mental health, and eventually to wide-scale social change. As a hybrid theory that proposed to induce positive social change, social marketing borrowed concepts from psychology, sociology, communication, and preventive medicine. Similar to communication theory and research, social marketing theory is an interdisciplinary endeavor that requires collaborative research between scholars in several traditional disciplines. First, because social problems have behavioral causes, social marketing campaigns target the individuals and groups who would benefit from a behavior change. Second, since social problems have socioeconomic causes as well, social marketing campaigns are aimed at policymakers who have the power to make policy changes that would enhance the chances of success of social marketing campaigns. This means that the target group is treated as an active audience whose members participate in the process of social change. Social marketing has been criticized for fostering a consumer approach to social change, with its underlying capitalist premise. Still, social marketing has become a preferred approach to creating and sustaining positive social