Antismoking initiatives: effects of analysis versus production media literacy interventions on smoking-related attitude, norm, and behavioral intention

Abstract

This study developed inoculation-driven antismoking interventions aimed at changing attitudes, norms and intentions about smoking to influence smoking behavior in adolescents. This study explored the efficacy of 2 intervention approaches designed to help adolescents to refrain from smoking initiation. Participants were junior high students (6th, 7th, and 8th grade) from schools in the Northeast. Two kinds of experimental workshops and a control group were designed as stimulus material in a repeated measure nonequivalent group experimental design. The 2 intervention workshops developed included: analysis + analysis (where participants discussed and analyzed cigarette and antismoking ads) and analysis + production (where participants discussed, analyzed, and then created their own antismoking ads). The analysis + production workshop was generally more successful than the analysis + analysis workshop and control group in changing participants' behavioral intention to smoke and attitude toward smoking but not subjective norms over time. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.