NR 506 Week 6: Using the Media
NR 506 Week 6: Using the Media
NR 506 Week 6: Using the Media
The use of media has grown significantly over the last few years (Rudden, 2016). Not only are people using this source for entertainment, but they are also utilizing it as a resource for medical information. Over seventy percent of people in the United States have a social media profile (Rudden, 2016). Healthcare workers should take notice and understand that they are able to implement the use of this type of media for communicating healthcare information (Rudden, 2016). Word of mouth, be that through social media or print publication, is a very effective and quick way to get information out to a target demographic (Rudden, 2016).
With respect to my public policy of childhood obesity, the use of social media could be a great of pathway of sending out my information to the public. I would want to target children and their parents. It is important when presenting information in this context to make it visually appealing to entice the audience (Rudden, 2016). Using pictures and videos would help interest the children while direct content would be more interesting to the adult population. The information being presented, no matter the age bracket, should be easy to understand and direct. When presenting the information, it is necessary to do more than just state the facts about the issue. Students and families might already understand that obesity is a problem for children as well as adults, but they might not be able to devise solutions to help with the problem. Formulating solutions on their own could be daunting. On the other hand, if they are given specific plans to implement, they could be proactively working on this issue in their personal lives. As medical professionals, and especially in the nursing field, we are charged with being trusted educators that will both inform our patients about the issues and develop ways to solve these problems. Patients are trusting that we are giving accurate and helpful information that they in turn can pass on to someone else. We should direct our patients toward information that is appropriate and correct. The human word can be a very powerful motivator; we should use this concept to our advantage when advocating for a change.
References
Rudden, D. (2016). How to Effectively Harness the Power of Social Media. Audiology Today, 28(4), 22-32.
In all honesty, it is one of my biggest pet peeves when people use their social media as a platform to voice their political or religious views. I use social media as a way to keep in touch with family and friends and to stay up to date with new pictures of our children, etc. I think my main frustration with voicing political or religious views on social media is that people will often comment on these and say things that they would never say to the person’s face. I like to say that when it comes to social media people get “keyboard courage” and say things that they would never say in real life. This is quite frustrating, as it allows people to fight and disagree in an often times uncivilized way that results in name calling and judging. In fact, with the recent gun protests marches going on across the country I have seen many of my “friends” fight over social media in the last few weeks. It’s sad, but almost comical to see grown adults fighting over texts simply because they have different views. I have even had to “un-follow” my husband step mother on social media because her constant controversial posts were irritating. As I mentioned, my only agenda with social media is to see pictures of friends and family and look at funny memes and pictures. So much of the information that I read, I have to go look it up to see if it is valid information, and a large majority is not. It is frustrating that people post so much information on social media without fact checking their information. The main problem with this is that people then continue to share this information and many people go on believing the information without ever checking into the facts. I am all for sharing articles that are from reputable sources and once I have done my research on an issue.
With that being said, social media is one way to get information out to many people almost instantaneously. I would personally use an opinion editorial where people were expecting someone to voice their opinion, create a blog where people could view, or be a part of a personal interview rather than using a site such as Facebook or Twitter. I think when people attempt to communicate via text the message can often become misinterpreted, so a personal interview would leave the smallest possibility for people to take what was said and turn it around .
The biggest thing I would want to consider would be my audience. I would want to make sure I was directing my information to people who wanted to read this type of information. Flooding your personal social media pages can be a frustrating topic for many, so having this information in an area where people could choose to read it would probably be best. This gives the readers the option to read your information rather than posting it where it constantly shows up on their news feeds.
The most important thing to me about sharing this type of information is to provide facts and a way for someone to quickly check the facts by citing the source. As I mentioned, I am always willing to learn, but I also am not a person who believes information simply because I have read it. I want to see statistics and facts from a credible source. I have seen a few posts on Facebook within the last few weeks that have actually made me laugh. When one person called another out on where they got their information they copied and pasted their sources. One of their sources was Wikipedia. Maybe it’s because I have been a student for so long, but I guess I just took for granted that everyone knew those were not credible sources.
Taking away my personal pet peeve of using Facebook for someone’s platform, because 80% of adult internet users use Facebook (University of Southern California, 2018), it would be a very quick way to get your opinions published to many people very quickly.
I also think that giving pros/cons on both sides of the argument is helpful. It helps to keep the reader’s attention as they will not feel that it is a completely one-sided article. I frequently play devil’s advocate and try to get people to see things from both perspectives. I have found that if I attempt to play devil’s advocate with certain people, they do not like that and like to begin to make personal attacks.
As mentioned, the main issues with using social media are that the information can be shared amount thousands of people within minutes and your name will be attached to it. Also, the author of the content can then be contacted by anyone who has read their information, and are often times attacked by people they’ve never met simply over their beliefs. People gain “keyboard courage” and say things on social media that they would never say to another person’s face. People often attack others on social media based on their beliefs.
Reference:
University of Southern California. (2018). Social media and public policy. Retrieved from https://publicadmin.usc.edu/blog/social-media-and-public-policy/