Media advocacy plan

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Media Impact on Public Health
ASSIGNMENT REQUIREMENTS
You are required to work to develop an advocacy plan for a local
advocacy group.
Assignments that score well: ensure that both students are involved at all stages and in all
parts of the assignments. Assignments that do not do well: immediately divide the work
amongst students with little communication while the assignment sections are being
developed – which results in a disjointed plan. You need to agree on an overall plan and to
work out how it all fits together before tasks can be assigned to each student. Allow time to
come together and refine your plan at the end.
The local group that you and your assignment group choose to assist can already exist – or
you can invent it for the purpose of this assignment. The group is composed of ‘average
citizens’ who are passionate about a particular health issue and wish to create change that
will positively impact on the current or future physical and/or mental health of a specific group
of people. They have asked for your help to develop an action plan for them.
TAKE CARE NOT TO WRITE A HEALTH PROMOTION PROGRAM PLAN – this is not what
this assignment requires.
The health issue you choose must be one of clear public health concern.
You will be ADVOCATING TO particular audiences which have some control over and
can influence change with regard to the issue you choose e.g. local politician,
government department, large corporation.
Your aim is to make the healthy choice the easy choice for your community by advocating for
changes in the social and physical environment that surround them. You will be seeking a
change which will stop or limit something that is adversely impacting on health and/or to
increase something that will improve health.
The ONE local community that the advocacy group is advocating for needs to be clearly
defined. You may do so by variables including, but not limited to, suburb, electorate, school,
university, workplace, life-stage or proximity to a particular health risk).
You may choose ONE of the following three options:
• Advocate for changes to programming or content in ONE particular mass media
channel which is accessed by the population of the city or town that you live in (e.g.
TV station, radio station, newspaper, website); OR
• Advocate for changes to policy, service provision or equitable access to ONE
organisation that impacts on the health of the population of the city or town that you
live in (e.g. government organisation, non-government organisation or commercial
business); OR
• Advocate for a local action to reduce human impact on climate change (e.g. reduction
of air pollution, improved land management) or contribute to a more sustainable
community (e.g. recycling, reduced energy consumption or reduced water use).
DO NOT take on a national or state-wide issue and then plan for national or state-wide
advocacy action – this is beyond the scope of this assignment. You may (of course!) consider
public health issues of national or state-wide concern, but you must relate them to a local
community and seek action at a local level.
Your textbook (PHAIWA, 2013) – the PHAIWA Advocacy Toolkit – will describe how to
develop your advocacy plan.
You need to submit a 3,000-3,500 word report with your proposed strategy. This report will
provide background to the health issue and provide details of the strategies you recommend
and why you have selected these strategies. We want you to demonstrate that you can
produce a ‘working’ document that could be used in a professional situation, not a university
research paper. Your audience will be a group of passionate ‘average citizens’ who need an
action plan – not your tutor/lecturer! This means that you will need to write in a different way
to your usual university assignments. It is understood that you will be discussing your
proposed action plan and that every idea you mention will not have an academic source cited
next to it. You do not have to cite the PHAIWA Advocacy Toolkit every time you follow one of
its recommendations.
Your completed assignment must include the following:
1. Standard cover page with plagiarism statement
2. Contents page
3. Background information
Outline the health issue and describe why the issue is worthy of advocacy action.
Provide a rationale for the strategy. You should support your discussion and rationale
with references from appropriate peer reviewed and/or reputable sources. Use the most
recent and relevant information and statistics available. It is expected that you will source
your information from at least 5 appropriate sources. Evidence that you find in the
published literature that supports your rationale and your planned activities, will need to
be cited correctly – but remember your ‘lay’ audience and do not give them pages full of
citations written in academic language to cope with! Also use local government reports or
organizational websites that help you to paint a clear picture of the local community, the
major stakeholders and issue of concern.
4. Outline of Advocacy Plan
Provide an overview the following information:
• Target group: Background data on the target group and how they will be identified.
• Objectives: Ensure they are SMART (Simple, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic
and Time-bound).
• Strategies: Outline the strategies you plan to use such as: media campaigns, working
with journalists, champions, lobbying politicians, community meetings, public rallies,
partnerships, petitions, opinion polling, increasing community awareness of the issue,
mobilizing groups, branding your issues, influencing policy, creating debate, Eadvocacy
and letter writing. Discuss why you plan to use these strategies and
why they are appropriate for your target group. Consider how you will disseminate
information and what materials and promotional resources you will produce.
• Timing: Include information relating to the timing of your strategies (e.g. prior to an
upcoming election or to coincide with the launch of a statewide/national campaign).
• Budget: Set yourself a budget and try to design strategies that are realistic within that
budget. Your organisation has a limited budget so give us an idea of how much you
think the strategies you are using will cost. You can also give consideration here to
funding bodies that may be able to assist you if you recommend that the advocacy
group takes on more expensive strategies.
• Evaluation: Briefly outline how you will evaluate the success of your actions and at
what stages you will evaluate.
(The ‘Background information’ and ‘Outline of Advocacy Plan’ sections should total
approximately 3,000-3,500 words. Include a word count at the end of this section.)
Add these Appendixes (which DO NOT contribute to the 3,000-3,500 word count):
a. Media release
Write a 1 page media release that could be sent to media organisations. Ensure your media
release is presented correctly (in accordance with the information provided in the PHAIWA
Advocacy Toolkit and information provided in the lectures/tutorials). Your media release can
be either a media alert; outcome of event; announcing a report; or, in response to an event or
announcement.
b. Social/digital media communication
• A 50 word Facebook post OR
• A 160 character Twitter tweet OR
• A ‘pitch’ for people to sign a change.com petition.
Think carefully about what you are aiming to achieve with this communication. Be mindful of
the people who would likely access this media, their agenda, their understanding of the issue
and the ‘call to action’ you are communicating. Consult the recommendations from the CDC
social media manuals in the Module 5 ‘Additional Resources for Interested Students’ links.
c. Letter to the Editor
Write a Letter to the Editor of a major metropolitan/regional newspaper or community
newspaper that you would like to see published. This letter needs to work with your advocacy
plan – either advocating your point of view or publicising some aspect of your planned
advocacy actions. Think of the people who read newspapers and who you are targeting with
your call to action. You can use this kind of communication to directly address politicians,
asking for their support on behalf of the people impacted by the health issue in question.
Refer to the PHAIWA Advocacy Toolkit for tips on letter writing.
d. Reference list
When referencing, use APA style to cite and reference your sources.
Your tutor will use the Feedback Guide in ‘Assessments’ in Blackboard to provide
feedback on your submission and calculate your mark. Familiarise yourself with both the
required criteria and the weighting given to each criteria before submitting your assignment. If
you have any questions about this assignment, please ask your lecturer/tutor.