Evaluating the added value of media advocacy in the Smoke Free Columbia campaign

Purpose: To provide an explicit and detailed analysis of the earned print media covering smoke-free efforts in Columbia, South Carolina.

Methods: Articles within local and regional newspapers were retrieved during the time period between July 10, 2006 and January 10, 2007 using two electronic news databases, Lexis Nexis and Newsbank. Supplementary articles were gathered using Bacon's news clipping service.

Analysis: Seventy-nine articles from 13 newspapers were retrieved and analyzed based on content, slant of coverage, type of article, number of media impressions and estimated equivalency advertising value. Only articles mentioning smoke-free efforts in Columbia were included in the analysis.

Results: Findings from the media analysis illustrated the importance of the media's role in public health awareness and education campaigns. Results indicated that 82% of total print media coverage had a positive viewpoint towards smoke-free efforts in Columbia. Positive news coverage on smoke-free efforts in Columbia garnered over 11 million media impressions and an estimated worth of $62,000 in earned print media.

Conclusion: This media analysis and evaluation shows the added value of media advocacy, which tends to be difficult to quantify during the evaluation stage of a health campaign or program. This research addresses several Healthy People 2010 objectives on tobacco control and health communication, including increasing the proportion of health communication activities that include research and evaluation.