The Impact of Media Literacy on Substance Use Behavior: Analyzing the Role of Media Consumption Behaviors as a Moderator.

Purpose: To investigate how media literacy and varied media consumption influenced substance use behavior.

Design: A cross-sectional survey was conducted.

Setting: Online survey was conducted June 22-July 18, 2020, with quality checks.

A mixed methods examination of a text message-based mHealth media literacy intervention for U.S. college students amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

: During the COVID-19 pandemic, college students were navigating confusing and often conflicting information on social media. Media literacy can help people interpret information online. We developed and tested a text-message media literacy intervention designed for college students.

Integrating Science Media Literacy, Motivational Interviewing, and Neuromarketing Science to Increase Vaccine Education Confidence among U.S. Extension Professionals.

This article presents an Integrative Model of Sustainable Health Decision-Making and a toolkit to equip U.S. Extension professionals with knowledge and skills to engage in adult immunization education.

Media Literacy Practices to Prevent Obesity and Eating Disorders in Youth.

Purpose Of Review: Obesity and eating disorders share common issues related to media use and effects, especially in the USA. Current research increasingly demonstrates that media literacy can address this problem. This narrative review highlights current media literacy-based research for obesity and eating disorder prevention among youth.

Social Cognitive Theory and Willingness to Perform Recommended Health Behavior: The Moderating Role of Misperceptions.

More than 6 million people have died due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to slow down the spread of COVID-19, health authorities have created numerous guidelines. In the current study, we use survey data from the U.

Youth Perspectives on the Effects of a Family-centered Media Literacy Intervention to Encourage Healthier Eating.

A pretest-posttest field test with control group (N = 189 parent-child dyads) tested a structural model representing youths' (ages 9-14) perspectives to examine the efficacy of a family-centered, media literacy-oriented intervention promoting fruit and vegetable consumption. The intervention facilitated critical discussion about nutrition and media, mentored by the parent. Results showed that youths' increases in fruit and vegetable consumption flowed from parent-child discussion of nutrition labels, which was predicted by child-initiated discussion, critical thinking about media sources, and critical thinking about media content.

How Media Literacy, Trust of Experts and Flu Vaccine Behaviors Associated with COVID-19 Vaccine Intentions.

Purpose: To assess how previous experiences and new information contributed to COVID-19 vaccine intentions.

Design: Online survey (N = 1264) with quality checks.

Setting: Cross-sectional U.

COVID-19 Vaccine Intention and Social Cognitive Theory: The Role of Individual Responsibility and Partisan Media Use in a Moderated Moderated Mediation Model.

Despite the sheer devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, vaccine hesitancy is a major barrier to a successful implementation of the vaccine. We apply two moderators to examine the associations of efficacy and expectancies with COVID-19 vaccine intention. Specifically, we use national survey data collected online in 2020 (N = 1264) and a moderated moderated mediation PROCESS model to examine 1) the associations between self-efficacy about COVID-19 and vaccine intention mediated by positive outcome expectancies and 2) moderating roles of individual responsibility and partisan media use.

Conservative Media Use and COVID-19 Related Behavior: The Moderating Role of Media Literacy Variables.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no vaccine to cure or slow its impact due to the novelty of the virus, nor were there were any other standardized measures to handle its spread. Yet, despite the detrimental consequences of the pandemic and its impact on people's lives, the behavior of individuals to combat the pandemic was not necessarily consistent with official guidelines. To make things worse, the pandemic was highly politicized in countries such as the U.

How Media Literacy and Science Media Literacy Predicted the Adoption of Protective Behaviors Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Individuals must navigate complex media environments filled with frequently changing and varyingly credible information to acquire and apply health information during times of uncertainty and danger. A process model tested in two U.S.

A Media Literacy-Based Nutrition Program Fosters Parent-Child Food Marketing Discussions, Improves Home Food Environment, and Youth Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables.

Media use is a known contributor to childhood obesity, but encouraging reductions in screen use only partially eliminates media influence. We tested a family-centered, media literacy-oriented intervention to empower parents and children 9-14 years to skillfully use media to reduce marketing influences, enhance nutrition knowledge, improve the selection of foods in the home environment, and improve fruit and vegetable consumption. A community-based, 6-U program included separate parent and youth (ages 9-14 years) sessions, each of which was followed by a session together in which skills from the individual sessions were reinforced.

Effects of Family-Centered Media Literacy Training on Family Nutrition Outcomes.

Parents frustrated about food marketing influences need media management skills to challenge marketing messages and interpret factual content. We tested a media literacy-based, family-centered intervention to reduce effects of appealing, but unrealistic, food marketing. We hypothesized that participation would facilitate family discussion that improves the home dietary environment and increases youth consumption of fruits and vegetables.

The Effects of a Nutrition Media Literacy Intervention on Parents' and Youths' Communication about Food.

Interventions addressing links between media exposure and obesity risk for school-age youth have not explicitly addressed the role of family communication about media. Youths' influence attempts on parents to purchase advertised foods can create conflict and negatively affect parental food choices. This study tested whether a family-based media literacy curriculum improves parents' media management skills and decreases youths' susceptibility to appealing but unrealistic food marketing.

An Exploration of the Associations of Alcohol-Related Social Media Use and Message Interpretation Outcomes to Problem Drinking Among College Students.

College students' use of digital communication technology has led to a rapid expansion of digital alcohol marketing efforts. Two surveys (total usable n = 637) were conducted to explore college students' experiences with alcohol-related social media, their decision making related to alcohol use, and their problematic drinking behaviors. Study results indicated that students' use of alcohol-related social media predicted their problem drinking behaviors.

Examining How Media Literacy and Personality Factors Predict Skepticism Toward Alcohol Advertising.

To examine the potential effectiveness of media literacy education in the context of well-established personality factors, a survey of 472 young adults, focused on the issue of alcohol marketing messages, examined how individual differences in personality associate with constructs representing aspects of media literacy. The results showed that need for cognition predicted social expectancies and wishful identification with media portrayals in alcohol advertising only through critical thinking about media sources and media content, which are foci of media literacy education. Need for affect did not associate with increased or diminished levels of critical thinking.

The Role of Parents' Critical Thinking About Media in Shaping Expectancies, Efficacy and Nutrition Behaviors for Families.

A convenience survey completed online by 137 4-H parents in Washington state explored their orientation toward critical thinking regarding media sources and content and its implications for family dietary behaviors. Parents' critical thinking toward media sources predicted their information efficacy about content. Critical thinking toward media content predicted information efficacy about sources, expectancies for parental mediation, and expectancies for family receptiveness to lower-fat dietary changes.

The relationships of information efficacy and media literacy skills to knowledge and self-efficacy for health-related decision making.

Objective: To compare the extent to which information efficacy (confidence for acquiring useful information) and media literacy skills predict knowledge and self-efficacy for preventing or treating the health threat of influenza.

Participants: A random-sample survey of 1,379 residential students enrolled at a northwestern public university was conducted in fall 2009.

Methods: Students accessed an Internet survey through a link provided in an e-mail.

The role of media literacy in shaping adolescents' understanding of and responses to sexual portrayals in mass media.

This study was a theory-based, pretest-posttest quasi-experiment conducted in the field (N = 922) to determine whether and how a media literacy curriculum addressing sexual portrayals in the media would influence adolescents' decision-making processes regarding sex. Results of the evaluation, based on the Message Interpretation Process Model, indicated that participants who received media literacy training better understood that media influence teens' decision making about sex and were more likely to report that sexual depictions in the media are inaccurate and glamorized. In addition, participants who received media literacy lessons were more likely than were control group participants to believe that other teens practice abstinence and reported a greater ability to resist peer pressure.

Media literacy education for elementary school substance use prevention: study of media detective.

Objectives: Media Detective is a 10-lesson elementary school substance use prevention program developed on the basis of the message interpretation processing model designed to increase children's critical thinking skills about media messages and reduce intent to use tobacco and alcohol products. The purpose of this study was to conduct a short-term, randomized, controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of Media Detective for achieving these goals.

Methods: Elementary schools were randomly assigned to conditions to either receive the Media Detective program (n=344) or serve in a waiting list control group (n=335).

The role of realism, similarity, and expectancies in adolescents' interpretation of abuse-prevention messages.

Scholars continue to identify the conditions under which exposure to alcohol-related messages predict related behaviors and outcomes. To examine this issue further, researchers used an experiment (n = 452) to investigate the role of participants' perceptions of prevention message realism, similarity, identification, and desirability in their expectancies regarding alcohol use and impaired driving. Results of the experiment indicated that exposure to the messages reduced participants' expectancies for drinking and driving and increased their efficacy for avoiding potentially dangerous situations only when the messages activated mediating variables.

Effects of a peer-led media literacy curriculum on adolescents' knowledge and attitudes toward sexual behavior and media portrayals of sex.

The United States has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and birth in the Western industrialized world, and research indicates that television and other mass media are important sources of sexual information for young people. The purpose of this study was to determine if a teen-led, media literacy curriculum focused on sexual portrayals in the media would increase adolescents' awareness of media myths concerning sex, decrease the allure of sexualized portrayals, and decrease positive expectancies for sexual activity. A posttest-only quasi-experiment with control groups was conducted at 22 school and community sites in Washington state (N = 532).

How does alcohol advertising influence underage drinking? The role of desirability, identification and skepticism.

Purpose: To investigate, using an information processing model, how persuasive media messages for alcohol use lead to concurring beliefs and behaviors among youths.

Methods: Data were collected in 2000-2001 using computer-assisted, self-administered interviews with youths aged 9-17 years (n = 652).

Results: Latent variable structural equations models showed that skepticism was negatively associated with positive affect toward alcohol portrayals and positively with the desire to emulate characters portrayed in alcohol advertisements.

Benefits and costs of Channel One in a middle school setting and the role of media-literacy training.

Objectives: Channel One is a public-affairs program that includes 10 minutes of news and 2 minutes of paid product advertising or public service announcements. Advocates assert that it increases public-affairs knowledge, but critics charge that it garners a captive audience for teen-targeted advertising. This experiment analyzed the differential effects of Channel One depending on whether early-adolescent viewers received a media-literacy lesson in conjunction with viewing the program.