Common themes from the extremes: Using two methodologies to examine adolescents' perceptions of anti-violence public service announcements

Purpose: To determine in what ways adolescents perceive public service anno uncements (PSAs) in general and, more specifically, anti-violence health me ssages. Methods: Seventy-nine adolescents who were involved with the issue of viole nce (39 pro-social, 40 incarcerated) participated. These youth were from fo ur sites (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Detroit, Michigan, Albuquerque, New M exico, and portland, Oregon) and were chosen at random from a pool recommen ded by community leaders. First, adolescents were questioned on their demog raphics and knowledge of, attitudes about, and experience with, violence. T hen, adolescents rated eight PSAs on levels of interest, understanding, bel ievability, and perceived effect. In semistructured individual interviews, the adolescents discussed each of the PSAs as well as how health messages c an effectively reach young people. We used quantitative and qualitative met hodologies to analyze the data. Results: Adolescents had similar opinions about the presented messages and using PSAs. Across both the pro-social and incarcerated groups, adolescents (a) opposed celebrity spokespeople, (b) preferred authentic-looking charac ters and realistic situations, (c) dismissed messages directed at either yo unger or older audiences, (d) confused abstractions, (e) focused on visuals , and (f) suggested using graphic images. Conclusions: The similarities observed between the pro-social and incarcera ted adolescents may arise from the fact that, although the nature of their experience varied, both groups had high levels of issue involvement. From t his study, we can make three recommendations for creating messages: (a) use authentic-looking characters in realistic situations; (b) employ simple, v isual, and graphic messages; and (c) do formative evaluations with target a udiences. (C) Society for Adolescent Medicine, 2000.