Media and health: A continuing concern for health psychology

Abstract

Take a moment and consider the last 24 hours, reflecting on your interactions with any form of media. Very few of us would not have interacted with a variety of media within that timeframe. Our daily lives are punctuated with mediated experiences, communications via telephone, email or chat rooms and engagements with television, radio, magazines, newspapers, websites, digital games, billboards, packaging and advertising. Our engagements with media are not simple; we use the media for such things as communicating with others, maintaining social networks, accessing information, staying informed, sustaining a sense of self and place and gaining pleasure and entertainment. Much of the content of these media forms and experiences involve health, broadly defined. An obvious example is provided by public health campaigns, but there are many more general examples including encounters with advertisements promoting healthy food, news reports on the wonders of modern medicine, websites offering information on healthy lifestyles and Internet forums providing dialogue around healthy communities.