The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
Volume VIII, Number 3, Winter 2002
Issue Topic: Public Communications Campaigns and Evaluation
From the Director's Desk
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| Heather Weiss |
A good message bears repeating. A little over a year ago, we released an issue of The Evaluation Exchange on the topic of strategic communications (Vol. VII, No. 1). We knew we were stepping into largely uncharted territory at the time; we didn’t anticipate just how high the demand would be for help in navigating it. As a result, we are devoting another issue to this topic, focusing this time on public communication campaigns.
We define public communication campaigns as those that use a coordinated set of media, interpersonal, and/or community-based communication activities to shape behavior toward desirable social outcomes. As some of the campaigns discussed in this issue demonstrate, those behaviors might include getting more involved in our children’s education, mobilizing for investments in early care and education, using methods of family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention, or carpooling to work to reduce ground-level ozone emissions. The outcomes of those behaviors—the campaigns’ ultimate goals—may include healthier children, families, and communities or specific policy results that lead to these outcomes.
Public communication campaigns are growing more sophisticated every day. Campaign designers are diversifying their strategies and abandoning the flawed notion that information alone changes behavior. More campaigns are using public media efforts in tandem with community-based organizing and complementary “ground campaigns” to enhance the campaign’s reach and effects. And more campaigns are tackling the complex challenges of moving large groups of people to take policy-related actions (that may or may not affect them personally). The first half of this issue offers articles to inform such promising campaign practice.
The second half of this issue focuses on campaign evaluation. Earlier this year, HFRP did an environmental scan of this field (see the New Resources From HFRP box in the New & Noteworthy section for information on how to obtain a copy). We found overall that evaluation has not kept pace with campaigns’ innovations, and information is lacking on appropriate designs, methods, and outcomes.
At the same time, and as the articles in this issue demonstrate, we have some fertile ground on which to learn and grow. We have, for example, decades of behavioral change and communications research that offers much in the way of theory and methods to help us design and evaluate campaigns. We have rich examples of domestic and international campaign evaluations, many of which come from the public health arena. We have decades of experience from organizations like the Ad Council that demonstrate how to approach and use campaign research and evaluation.
As the experts in this issue reveal, this field is ripe for more exploration and development. For example, few evaluators are directly informing campaign design and strategy, feeding back what is and isn’t working, and suggesting how to apply that information. And we have yet to tackle how to measure and determine a campaign’s effects on policy.
HFRP will continue to track responses to these challenges and uncover new developments. As always, we welcome your thoughts and contributions. We also hope you will help us with our Evaluation Exchange “ground campaign” by sharing this issue with others who will find it relevant and provocative.
Heather B. Weiss, Ed.D.
Founder & Director
Harvard Family Research Project