Food media have become a formidable part of adolescents’ food environments. This study sought to explore how and why adolescents use food media by focusing on selectivity and motives for consumption. We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 31 Flemish adolescents aged 12 to 16. Food media were both incidentally consumed and selectively sought for education, social utility, and entertainment. The levels of selectivity and motives for consumption varied among the different food media platforms. Incidental consumption was more prevalent with TV (...) cooking shows compared to online food media. The dominant motives for TV cooking show consumption were companionship and entertainment, while online food media were used for a more diverse range of motives dominated by information/inspiration and social interaction. Some participants consumed food media to get motivation and inspiration to improve health and fitness while others consumed food media to watch appetizing and aesthetically pleasing food content. The social environment in the form of friends and family as well as existing food preferences were dominant psychosocial factors for both traditional and online food media use. Future research is warranted to explore how incidental exposure and the identified motives for use relate to food media effects. (shrink)

Indoor radon is a natural radioactive gas that enters homes through cracks in the foundations. It is one of the leading causes of lung cancer. Although radon can be detected with an indoor radon test and can be mitigated by means of either ventilation or professional measures, testing and mitigating rates of the at-risk population remain insufficient. The objective of this study is to systematically review the current level of evidence regarding the design and effectiveness of mass media campaigns to (...) address the health risks of indoor radon to homeowners. The results show that informative tone of voices prevailed, other components, such as emotional or social components, were often not included. Furthermore, the focus was mostly on intention and less on behavior itself, and on testing instead of mitigation. Further research is needed to test effective and innovative communication strategies to increase protective behavior concerning indoor radon. (shrink)

Western societies are confronted with a growing number of overweight and obese children. Past studies have pointed to excessive television viewing as one of the causes of this phenomenon. The aim of the current study was to examine the influence of parental mediation and modeling on TV use and obesity among pre-school children. A survey conducted among 608 parents of two-and-a-half to six year olds shows that obese children watch significantly more television, show more affinity towards television and more often (...) have a TV set in their bedroom than normal weight and overweight children. For girls, parental restrictions on television viewing are negatively associated with their BMI. For boys, no similar relationship can be found. This study suggests that taking into account possible differences in television viewing behavior between pre-school boys and girls and paying attention to a wide range of television viewing variables can be fruitful for further research. (shrink)

This study dealt with the interaction between two important trends in future Western societies, i.e. the greying of society and the technology-induced transformation of everyday life. It aimed at formulating a framework of policy recommendations with regard to the elderly and ICT in 2030. To meet this objective a three-phased methodology was developed, relying on methods of participatory technology assessment and technology foresighting. In the first phase of the project, a literature study, semi-structured expert discussions and focus groups with (future) (...) elderly provided the necessary information for the development of scenarios about the future. In the second phase, these scenarios were transformed into a theatre play, which was performed for elderly audiences. Group discussions with senior participants led to the formulation of the “desired” future with regard to the elderly and ICT. During the last phase of the project—a backcasting exercise—experts and stakeholders from different fields formulated policy recommendations, necessary to achieve this future. (shrink)

Young adolescents’ online bullying behavior has raised a significant amount of academic attention. Nevertheless, little is known about the social context in which such negative actions occur. The present paper addresses this issue and examines how the patterns of traditional bullying and cyberbullying are related, and how electronic forms of bullying can be linked to the social context at school. To address these questions, social network analysis was applied to examine the networks of social interactions and bullying among an entire (...) grade of 1,458 thirteen- to fourteen-year-old pupils. The results show that cyberbullying is an extension of traditional bullying as victims often face the same perpetrators offline and online, there is evidence of mutual cyberbullying among youngsters, and cyberbullying is more likely to occur in same-gender and same-class students. The implications for future research and prevention of cyberbullying are discussed. (shrink)

This study aims to understand how and why emerging adults come into contact with food media messages, and what they perceive as positive and negative outcomes related to food literacy. Seven focus groups, stratified by gender and socio-economic status, with 37 emerging adults aged between 18 and 25 were conducted. Photovoice was used to reflect on participants’ real-life food media experiences. Findings reveal that food media consumption is a combination of actively searching and incidentally encountering. The results suggest that food (...) media messages attract emerging adults’ attention by bringing content in an entertaining, engaging, and appealing way, and featuring popular food personalities. Finally, food media messages were perceived to both enhance and distort food literacy. The results show how food media messages for food literacy interventions can be designed in order to attract emerging adults’ attention and fulfill their specific needs. (shrink)

This paper tests the comparative effectiveness of spokes-characters, both ‘celebrity’ and ‘non-celebrity’, in promoting healthy versus non-healthy foods. An experimental study among 6- to 7-year-old children in Belgium demonstrates that adding a spokes-character to a food product increases the appetite, the wished-for frequency of consumption and the expected number of purchase requests for that product. This finding holds true for healthy foods as well as for unhealthy foods. The effect of the celebrity spokes-character exceeds that of a similar gnome. Nevertheless, (...) the latter is also capable of promoting the healthy and unhealthy products. These findings suggest that using ‘celebrity’ spokes-characters to promote healthy foods to children might indeed be an effective strategy to change children’s diets. Even the use of similar, non-celebrity spokes-characters could be quite fruitful. (shrink)

One of the challenges Public Service Media institutions face today is how to translate normative values such as universality and diversity into measurable and tangible content in an attempt to realize their “public value”. This contribution shows how the communicative functions of humor can help create public value by introducing audiences to minorities. As a case in point, we analyzed Taboe, a humorous human-interest program about minorities including, amongst others, the visually impaired and the obese, broadcast by Flemish public broadcaster (...) VRT in 2018. Based on in-depth interviews with program makers and participants and a qualitative content analysis of the program, the study found that humor provided the program with a positive, funny yet emotional tone of voice that attracted and kept the audience’s attention. By giving various minorities an active voice, Taboe introduced mainstream audiences to the their perspective, encouraging increased knowledge and understanding and, in turn, tolerance of, and acceptance towards, the minority groups represented. (shrink)

Media companies as well as governments launch initiatives to reverse the decline in news consumption by adolescents. Since 2007, the Flemish government has been funding newscasts for adolescents on two commercial channels, Zoom on VTM and Jam on VT4. In 2008, these programs were evaluated using in-depth interviews with producers, content analysis of 30 episodes of each program, an analysis of the ratings for the first season, and an online survey among 663 adolescents aged 10 to 18. Results indicate that (...) there is a lot of variation within this group, making it hard to please them with a single program. Zoom addresses slightly older adolescents with a program closely following the “adult” news, while Jam provides younger adolescents with more digestible and entertaining news. Most respondents in the survey liked both programs, among other things because of the strong presence of adolescents on screen. Yet adolescent viewing figures are extremely low, mainly due to the inappropriate place in the schedule. (shrink)