Learning Objectives: Explain how press coverage can contribute to the evaluation of program effectiveness. Compare different methodological approaches being adopted in incorporating newspaper data into evaluations. Incorporate elements of textual analysis to their own evaluations and recognize the potential limitations of this approach.
Abstract: Audience: This session will inform both those currently engaged in media advocacy efforts and program evaluations, and also those contemplating such work in the future.
Key points: Analyzing newspaper coverage of tobacco issues can be valuable for program evaluations. Adopting such an approach, however, raises both methodological and theoretical challenges.
This session will provide a forum for five independent, ongoing projects that incorporate newspaper tracking into tobacco control evaluations. Presenters will discuss issues associated with incorporating newspaper data into evaluations, focusing on the strengths and challenges presented by this evaluative approach. These presentations represent evaluations in both tobacco growing and non-tobacco growing states (North Carolina, Kentucky Colorado and Indiana), as well as a nationwide evaluation of the SmokeLess States program. The programs range from those focused on a particular intervention or target group to comprehensive statewide programs, and the researchers have adopted distinct search terms, coding strategies and analytic plans.
As demonstrated by the media component of the ASSIST evaluation (Stillman et al; 2001), analyzing press coverage can provide systematic measures of media advocacy efforts. Furthermore, even in the absence of formal media advocacy initiatives, such efforts yield an understanding of information conveyed to the readership that may influence the degree of support for tobacco control efforts.
Education Experience: The audience will learn how media data are being integrated into evaluation of tobacco control, and how similar data may be used in other settings.
Benefit: Attendees will learn about a valuable and readily available data source and evaluation methodology.
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