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Mass Communication Strategy for Generating Citizen Action Against Crime

NCJ Number
86573
Date Published
Unknown
Length
328 pages
Annotation
A series of papers presents evaluation material bearing upon the effectiveness of the use of the mass media in crime prevention campaigns of public education, notably the 'Take a Bite out of Crime' campaign, and characteristics of citizens relating to responses to the campaigns are reported.
Abstract
The first report analyzes five media crime prevention campaigns, deemed to range in effectiveness from superior to average to poor, and derives principles for the structure and content of successful media crime prevention campaigns, followed by a paper that presents findings from interviews with 53 crime prevention experts which solicited views on bibliographic materials and effective aspects of media crime prevention campaigns. The third study describes overall characteristics of citizens most likely to attend to public service advertisements, including descriptions of their demographic, psycho-sociographic, media-related, and crime prevention-related attributes, and the fourth report identifies the psychological factors that affect the public's receptivity (or lack of it) regarding mass-mediated messages about crime prevention. An interim report presents the principal findings of a national sample survey that evaluated the impact of the first phase of the Advertising Council's 'Take a Bite Out of Crime' crime prevention information campaign, followed by a preliminary overview of several of the major findings of a three-community panel survey aimed at evaluating the impact of the first phase of the 'Take a Bite out of Crime' crime prevention campaign. The last study provides questionnaire responses from 67 crime prevention groups regarding their use of and the effectiveness of the 'Take a Bite out of Crime' crime prevention campaign approach. For individual entries, see NCJ 86574-80.