Predicting Attitude Toward
Methamphetamine Use: The Role of Antidrug Campaign Exposure and
Conversations About Meth in Montana
Methamphetamine use in the United
States was reported to have declined by fifty percent since 2007. Multiple factors have been attributed
to the decline. The Montana Meth Project (MMP)is a saturation campaign
first launched in 2005 in an attempt to discourage teenagers from
trying meth.
The campaign received nation-wide
attention for its graphic depictions of the consequences of meth and
its perceived success in has since led to its expansion into six additional states. Critics of the MMP contend that the campaign's run
coincides with an unrelated decreasing trend in meth use nationwide,
and that anti-drug campaigns employing 'scare tactics' have been
shown to be ineffective. A study published in the Journal Health
Communication examines how conversations about meth in relation to
the campaign may influence the attitudes of university students, who
are at particular risk for using meth.
403 students at a large university in
Montana were recruited to complete a survey on their attitudes
towards meth and the MMP. The mean age of the students was 19.66
(although the MMP targeted teenagers aged 12-17, the average age for
first-time use at the time was 19). The survey collected data on the
frequency with which the students talked about meth in the past 6
months, how often they had been exposed to MMP advertisements in the
previous week, how close attention they had paid to the
advertisements, the students perception of negative outcomes
associated with meth use, the students' personal attitudes towards
meth, and the attitudes of the person with whom they had most
recently discussed meth.
The results indicated that the
advertisements were successful in generating conversations about
meth, but that engagement with the advertisements had a more
significant effect on students' attitudes than repeated exposure. The
students' attitudes toward meth use were shown to be related with
beliefs about the relational harms of meth use, but not beliefs about
how their personal well-being or appearance would be affected. Given
the data, the researchers propose that generating more engaging
content is more effective than media saturation in affecting
attitudes. Although the campaign was designed based on marketing
research indicating that personal well-being and appearance were a
concern of the target audience, the researchers suggest that this
aspect of the campaign is ineffective at creating beliefs and should
either be improved, or minimized in favor of more messaging related
to the relational harms of meth use.
Adam S. Richards
(2013): Predicting Attitude Toward Methamphetamine Use: The Role of
Antidrug
Campaign Exposure and Conversations
About Meth in Montana, Health Communication,
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