Patterson S J
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg.
J Drug Educ. 1994;24(4):351-61. doi: 10.2190/GPW5-MEVU-1CTB-9RJ0.
The electronic media have been an instrumental tool in the most recent efforts to address the issue of illicit drug abuse in the United States. Messages about illicit drugs appear in three places in the media: advertising content, news content, and entertainment content. Many studies have documented the amount and types of messages that appear on the electronic media, but few have asked the audience how they interpret these messages. The purpose of this study is to investigate how much and what type of information college students receive from the media about drugs. Interviews were conducted with 228 students using the message discrimination protocol. The messages were then content analyzed into theme areas. Results indicate the majority of messages discriminated from advertising content were fear appeals; that the majority of messages discriminated from news content documented the enforcement efforts in the war on drugs; and that messages about drugs in entertainment content were more likely to provide clear accurate information about drugs than the other two content sources. The results are discussed in terms of the audience receiving fear and fight messages from the electronic media rather than clear, accurate information necessary to make informed decisions about drugs.
电子媒体在美国近期应对非法药物滥用问题的努力中一直是一种重要工具。关于非法药物的信息出现在媒体的三个方面：广告内容、新闻内容和娱乐内容。许多研究记录了电子媒体上出现的信息数量和类型，但很少有人询问受众如何解读这些信息。本研究的目的是调查大学生从媒体获得了多少以及何种类型的毒品信息。使用信息辨别方案对228名学生进行了访谈。然后将这些信息进行内容分析，归纳为主题领域。结果表明，从广告内容中辨别出的大多数信息是恐惧诉求；从新闻内容中辨别出的大多数信息记录了毒品战争中的执法努力；与其他两个内容来源相比，娱乐内容中关于毒品的信息更有可能提供关于毒品的清晰准确信息。研究结果讨论了受众从电子媒体接收到的是恐惧和斗争信息，而不是做出关于毒品的明智决策所需的清晰、准确信息。
