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Using ambient communication to reduce drink-driving: Public health andshocking images in public spaces a
b
Guendalina Graffigna , Rossella C. Gambetti & A. Claudio Bosio a a
Faculty of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy b
Faculty of Economics, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy Version of record first published: 16 Dec 2011.
To cite this article: Guendalina Graffigna, Rossella C. Gambetti & A. Claudio Bosio (2011): Using ambient communication to reduce drink-driving: Public health andshocking images in public spaces, Health, Risk & Society, 13:7-8, 669-690 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698575.2011.625005
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Health, Risk & Society Vol. 13, Nos. 7–8, October–December 2011, 669–690
Using ambient communication to reduce drink-driving: Public health and shocking images in public spaces
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Guendalina Graffignaa*, Rossella C. Gambettib and A. Claudio Bosioa a Faculty of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy; bFaculty of Economics, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy
(Received 23 February 2011; final version received 15 September 2011) Brand communication specialists are paying increasing attention to new unconventional methods of communicating messages. One such method is ambient communication; a complex form of communication that uses elements of public spaces to convey messages designed to increase customer engagement in corporate objectives. Health communication experts agree that these methods are potentially capable of increasing both an individual’s engagement with health communication and the chances that preventive information become part of peers’ discourses. However little research has been done to assess the condition under which these new, alternative methods can effectively communicate health promotion messages. This article is based on the preliminary results of a qualitative study aimed at assessing the effectiveness conditions of ambient communication to prevent unsafe practices. The study considers an ambient initiative recently promoted in Brescia (Italy) by the public institutions to reduce drink-driving by young people. It is important to study the influence of the actual risk context on the effectiveness of a health preventive message. Although the findings of the study indicate the potential ability of ambient communication to sensitise young people towards safe conducts. However, the communication actually had little impact on perceptions of the dangers of drink-driving. To be more effective preventive ambient communication needs to be both part of a more complex and articulated communication mix and designed according to a deep and ecological understanding of real social contexts especially the ways in which young people use public spaces. Keywords: risk; risk communication; health promotion; drink-driving; ambient communication; non-conventional communication; qualitative research
Introduction Drink-driving is one of the main causes of car accidents in western societies. This puts into questions the ability of classical preventive campaigns to change citizens’ unsafe conducts. In this regard new unconventional forms of communication (such as ambient campaigns) which are particularly able to involve audiences and to enact them in the elaboration of the message, appear suitable to sensitise young people. However, the use of unconventional forms of communication, although receiving increasing attention in the field of advertising, has been limited so far in preventive
*Corresponding author. Email: guendalina.graffi
[email protected] ISSN 1369-8575 print/ISSN 1469-8331 online Ó 2011 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13698575.2011.625005 http://www.tandfonline.com
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communication and there is a need for further studies in order to assess their potential and their suitability. Based on this premise, our paper provides an analysis of an ambient communication campaign devoted to drink-drive risk prevention carried out by a public institution in Italy. The purpose of our study is threefold: . to explore the adequacy and suitability of the ambient communication initiative aimed at spreading preventive information; . to collect insights for enhancing ambient communications’ ability to activate word-of-mouth and interpersonal exchanges among peers (namely, the passage from message reception to message reproduction and social use); and . to explore the potential of qualitative research to orient the planning and development of ambient communication ultimately to prevent unsafe practices in actual contexts of risk. The paper starts by introducing the importance of studying how a preventive campaign ‘works’ in the actual context of risk, by analysing its ability to engage an audience and to activate interpersonal exchanges focused on its message. The paper then introduces the concept of ambient communication, by underlining the features of this communication format. There follows the introduction of the exploratory qualitative study conducted and the discussion of its results aimed at underlining potentialities and risks of using such a format of communication to spread preventive messages. Background Traditionally, communication campaigns to prevent unsafe conduct in a wide range of risks have been oriented by fear appeal theories (Hastings et al. 2004) and adopted traditional media (such as television, newspapers, or wall posters) to spread their message. However, scholars agree that classical media communication for health risk prevention often is ineffective in modifying unsafe conducts; for example, see Wood and Foster (1995) and Hoosen and Collins (2005) on unsafe sexual behaviours, Crawford and Jeffery (2005) about obesity risk, Payne et al. (2010) regarding conduct causing cardiovascular diseases, and Flynn et al. (2010), Gilbert (2005) and Moffat and Johnson (2001) on smoking behaviours. In the case of risk related to drinking-driving, this fact is particularly evident, and the problem urgently requires a solution (e.g. Descombe 2001, Perkins 2002, Hingson et al. 2005, Russell et al. 2005, Lin and Carlson 2009, Fairlie et al. 2010). This evidence makes a claim for a deeper analysis of conditions that can enhance preventive communication effectiveness in the naturalistic context in which a message is delivered (Witte and Allen 2000). In this regard, there is growing consensus that it is important to understand the interaction of communication messages with the socio-cultural context in which a message is delivered (Hastings et al. 2004, McComas 2006, Bernhardt et al. 2009, Graffigna and Bosio 2009). Today citizens are better informed about health risk, at least in western societies. However, this knowledge often is not translated into safe practices. Other influences, including peer-to-peer interactions which take place in the risk environment, have an important (but often neglected) influence on individuals’ everyday practices (Ackerson and Viswanath 2009, Graffigna 2009).
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Individuals are not rational decision makers that behave in an abstract context of risk; on the contrary, they are actors immersed in socio-cultural groups that influence their decisions and conducts related to health risks (Zinn 2009). Thus, to understand the efficacy condition of health preventive messages, it is important to further study the characteristics of the risk environment in which individuals behave and to understand ‘how cultural and social structures determine practices, individual and group actions, in unconscious and implicit ways, normalising certain responses to situations and events, condoning some and precluding others’ (Crawshaw and Bunton 2009, p. 270). For these reasons, the traditional assessment of media communication effectiveness so far appears partial. It has mainly focused on the communication initiative itself; namely, the message reception context, including the features of the advertiser and of the message (for reviews see Harris 2004, Noar 2006, Mazzara 2008, Evans et al. 2009, Graffigna and Bosio 2009). Little research has been done on the quality/quantity of interpersonal exchanges activated by a message as well as on its capacity to encourage a concrete redefinition of the practices related to health behaviours in real risk environments (e.g. Airhihenbuwa and Obregon 2000, Valente and Saba 2001, Horner et al. 2008). Furthermore, in the case of fear appeal messages, widely diffused in the theory and practice of preventive campaigns, the focus of effectiveness assessment has been mainly concentrated on the characteristics and the content of the fear message, while less attention has been paid both to the channel/medium of message delivery and to the interplay between the reception context and the preventive message itself (for a review of dominant approaches to fear appeals, see Witte and Allen 2000, Ruiter et al. 2001). From our perspective, limiting the assessment of media communication to the mere message reception context appears reductive, whereas it seems more appropriate to focus attention on the passage from the reception of preventive information (to know what risk is and what to do to avoid it) to its use in the real social contexts (to put in practice safe behaviours in risk contexts) that are influenced by cultural and social structures. Furthermore, it is important to explore the media influence on the individuals’ elaboration of preventive messages that take place in the real social context of risk. New forms of media communication, taking advantage of the lesson learnt by the unconventional turn of advertising communication, are challenging the classical paradigm of mass media communication and of its assessment in order to achieve a better engagement of target audiences in their real context of potential risk (Hackley and Kitchen 1999). This is the case, for example, in edutainment,1 (e.g., Dutta 2006), network communication (e.g. Neuhauser and Kreps 2003), Web 2.0 communication (e.g. Ancker et al. 2009, Uhrig et al. 2010), participatory communication (Hillier 2006) and ambient communication (Gambetti 2010). Such approaches consider the preventive communication process as a relationship in which the communicator and the audience build together and share aims and content in a specific socio-cultural context of intervention. Conceived in this way, the communication process appears complex and participatory, not referable to a linear message transfer to a target group but, rather, aimed at eliciting audience engagement (Carter 2008, Bowden 2009, Wefald and Downey 2009) to activate safe practices. The individual, instead of being considered a mere ‘audience’ for health information, is seen as more proactive and involved in the process of communication itself in a truly participative effort (Bernhardt et al. 2009, Kreps and Snyder 2009). In these communication approaches
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the medium itself becomes the dialogical space in which audiences interact with health information, metabolise them and give them sense. Ambient communication designed to prevent unsafe practices Ambient advertising, originally narrowly defined as the placement of advertising messages in unusual and unexpected locations often with non-traditional methods (Luxton and Drummond 2000), has evolved into the broader concept of ambient communication. That is a complex, articulated form of corporate communication using nearly every element of the urban environment as well as every available physical surface to convey messages that elicit public engagement in the pursuit of organisational or marketing objectives (Gambetti 2010). Ambient communication currently represents an interesting new frontier for preventive health communication campaigns, as can be seen from the recent growing use of such a medium supporting social causes.2 Conceptually speaking, ambient communication dates back to the earliest forms of outdoor advertising (promotional handbills, advertising posters, etc.). Ambient communication currently represents the latest conceptual, formal and content evolution of traditional outdoor advertising. In particular, the concept of outdoor advertising, which survives to this day, stresses the en plein air aspect of advertising – the public, architecturally open spaces it occupies and its essentially urban nature. In recent years, however, there has been a growing preference for the broader concept of out-of-home advertising that underplays the public dimension of advertising in favour of the non-domestic, non-family aspect of communication: the fact that a range of other places and non-places can be used for advertising purposes. These can also be indoor places (e.g. airports, train and subway stations, shopping malls, stores) well suited to brand advertising that differs from the classic forms people encounter in their own homes. So out-of-home advertising is not only distinctive (it includes all forms of advertising in out-of-home spaces) but also contrastive, in the sense that it is the antithesis of advertising in the home, where television provides the main medium. However, the outdoor and out-of-home concepts imply that citizens are merely passers-by, essentially passive individuals whose curiosity has to be aroused by ‘spectacular’ messages which should be eye-catching. As the concept of ‘spectacle’ itself suggests, individuals relate to corporate or brand messages in a detached and fundamentally non-participatory way: the roles of spectator and performer are rigidly adhered to. The company plans and manages the advertising spectacle while the audience looks passively on, curious and amused. More recently, the outdoor/out-of-home concept has evolved into ambient communication, which now seems the broadest and most inclusive term for all forms of communication that use all types of indoor or outdoor space to transmit corporate and brand messages. This is an attempt to do away with external/internal, outdoor/indoor, in-home/out-of-home dichotomies when identifying and distinguishing between different forms of communication. The focus is now the unique features of ambient communication itself. Basically, ambient communication uses context clues, environmental features which help create the atmosphere that determines people’s individual and collective experience of their daily lives, to involve citizens emotionally and give meaning and symbolic value to their experiences (Gambetti 2010).
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In the current ambient communication environment, three media types can be identified in terms of the spatial dimension they involve: . 2D traditional and innovative print and pictorial media. They include a wide variety of media, such as: – classic billboards (small- and large-format, banners, easels); – new high-tech billboards (audiovisual panels and screens creating the so called ‘media buildings’, digital billboards and displays, luminous panels, showcases); – classic street furniture (bus shelters, bus-stop sign poles, phone booths, columns); – new street furniture (station and airport domination, ad cards, stickering, multisensory bus shelters, decoration on unusual surfaces such as stairs, escalators, travelators, shopping carts, petrol pumps, flower vases, road signs, building fac¸ades, scaffolding, etc.); – classic transit advertising (sides, backs and interiors of buses, trams, trains, subway trains, taxis and other vehicles, boats, etc.); – new transit advertising (de´cor dynamics, brand vehicles); and – promotional street art (unconventional graphic-pictorial advertising such as graffiti, chalk stencils, etc.). . 3D artefact-based media. This term refers to objects positioned in unusual, out-of-place contexts, used as advertising tools, such as shopping bags, plastic cups, shoulder and hand bags, furnishings, footwear, bottles, baby prams, pens, magnets, key rings, bicycles, cars, balloons, drinking straws, cans, animal reproductions, garments, tailors’ dummies, cars, etc. Many different kinds of artefacts may be used: everyday or occasional, normal- or over-sized. They are positioned in a single location or in a limited number of squares and/or busy thoroughfares and/or near shopping malls and stores where the product/brand can be found; . 4D motion-based/interactive media. These are all motion-based interactive promotional initiatives stimulating consumers’ active participation in the message that typically end up in cyberspace as social sharing viral content (videos, photos, news) on web social networks such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or Flickr. They involve people in a single location or in a limited number of squares and busy thoroughfares. They include eventproducts, that can be unique, spectacular, maxi-format interactive posters (e.g. Bluetooth posters, touchscreen panels, or take-away posters) or peopleanimated panels (e.g. the Ikea panel recently located in a central square in Stockholm, representing a slice of daily life of a real family inside an Ikeafurnished apartment) as well as event-actions, that are unconventional promotional initiatives that involve people and employ urban guerrilla techniques (happenings, flash mob events, etc.). Ambient communication in its many shapes and forms is currently turning the urban environment into a communication tool that is generally less expensive and more cost-efficient than traditional advertising media (Shankar and Horton 1999). This has made it an increasingly important marketing-support medium even in this period of worldwide economic crisis. In this regard, significant recent data from the US alternative out-of-home advertising market supports the emphasis on this evolutionary, comprehensive
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concept of ambient communication. In particular, as innovative media research shows, alternative out-of-home advertising (including ambient communication tools such as unconventional out-of-home products/initiatives, video advertising networks and screens, and digital billboards and displays) has been one of the fastest-growing segments of the US media industry over the past decade, expanding at double-digit rates every year from 2001 to 2007 and posting compound annual growth of 22.6%. The growth of alternative out-of-home media far outpaced that of the overall advertising industry as well as the total out-of-home media sector, which was one of the fastest-growing advertising sectors in the 2001–2007 period (PQ Media 2007, 2009). Among the key trends driving the rapid expansion of alternative out-of-home media are (PQ Media 2009, 2010, 2011): (a) the perception among advertisers that these media provide high engagement, targeting options, contextual fit and embeddedness, measurable impact, and cost-effectiveness; (b) data indicating that exposure to and recall of these media is growing as individuals spend more time commuting to work, walking in urban areas, waiting in transit hubs and shopping at retail outlets; (c) research suggesting that the vast majority of consumers view alternative out-of-home media as favourable and educational; and (d) new technology enabling companies to launch digital advertising platforms that generate higher revenues than the conventional formats they replace (Dahle´n 2005, Levinson and Hanley 2005, Cova et al. 2007, Brioschi and Uslenghi 2009) . To summarise, ambient communication stresses the experiential component of advertising and seems the best equipped to convey experiential advertising’s unique expressiveness and potential ability to relate to citizens (Sasser at al. 2007, Borghini et al. 2010). For this reason, ambient communication seems also particularly adequate to deal with social and sensitive topics that rely both on people’s complicity and on their collective engagement (Graffigna et al. 2010). In particular, in delivering preventive messages aimed at sensitising young audiences towards unsafe health practices such as driving after drinking alcohol, the experiential atmosphere of the real-life environmental context where young people gather together and consume alcohol and where car accidents occur might increase young people’s self-awareness and social awareness of the danger. How effective is ambient communication in conveying preventive messages? Although use of ambient communication in the field of brand management has met with increasing success (Gambetti 2008), experiences in health communication need further reflection.3 Furthermore, it appears urgent to explore the conditions that can make this communication format more effective in conveying health information (see Turk et al. 2006). However, the innovative character of this approach and its focus on situated and horizontal processes of communication require different strategies to assess its effectiveness. In particular, in an ambient communication initiative located in the most visible citizen touch-points, the reception context of a preventive message and its usage context (that is, the real potentially at-risk situation in which an individual acts and interpersonal exchanges occur) can coincide. This offers an important opportunity to explore what happens between the reception and the use of preventive information; on the other hand, it also claims for more flexible and interpretative approaches able
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to explore ecologically those phenomena (that have a socio-psychological nature). From this perspective, qualitative research methods, particularly ethnographic approaches (Gobo 2008, Kreps 2008), because of their socially embedded nature, seem suitable for a more ecological planning and development of public health initiatives, aimed at enhancing interpersonal exchanges able to spread and metabolise preventive messages.
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The research case The present research is the first exploratory step of a broader study aimed at assessing the effectiveness of ambient communication in conveying preventive information. In particular, this study focused on the ambient communication initiative ‘Wake up, Luca’ promoted by public institutions in Brescia (a city in northern Italy) in 2009 with the aim of lowering the risk of drink-driving among young people. The initiative was based on an itinerant ambient installation taking the form of a 3D artefact-based media formed by a crashed car enclosed in a glass cube located in Arnaldo Square. The square represents the heart of young people’s entertainment in Brescia. The ambient installation offers a good example of an out-of-place artefact used to convey a fear appeal message. Specifically, the installation was based on a familiar and life-sized object (a car) positioned inside an oversized cube, both of them located in an unusual place for a car: a small green space in one of the busiest squares in Brescia for social and entertainment life (Figure 1). The wrecked car evoked the risk of car accidents caused by drinkingdriving, whereas the cube symbolically evoked the message that driving after drinking means risking your own as well as others’ lives. This case was worth researching as, not only would it provide insight into a novel way of communicating public health messages based on a fear appeal but also because it allowed us to analyse what happens when the reception context and the usage/risk context coincide; in other words, this case focuses on the ‘during/in the course of’ moment of a communication initiative, emphasising the social exchanges and the interpersonal relation dynamics elicited in real group interactions where individuals interact in a risk context and are at the same time exposed to a preventive ambient communication campaign.
Figure 1.
The ambient communication installation and its location in the square.
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Methods
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Research design Our research was qualitative and used a focused ethnography design (Knoblauch 2005, Gobo 2008, Mayan 2009). Focused ethnography is a well-established qualitative research strategy aimed at catching cultural meanings and social norms shared by a specific group of people. Furthermore, there is a growing recognition that this research approach is well suited to study issues related to health communication (Kreps 2008). Focused ethnography is a complementary approach to conventional ethnography, from which it derivates its epistemological roots and its methodological characteristics (Richards and Morse 2007). In continuity with conventional ethnography, focused ethnography mainly focuses on the situational context in which shared knowledge grows and on the influence that this embedded repertoire of assumptions has on individuals’ attitudes and behaviours (Hammersley and Atkinson 1995). As with conventional ethnography, focused ethnography implies the conjoint use of several strategies of data collection (such as semistructured interviews, participant and nonparticipant observation, analysis of cultural artefacts, and visual methods) to triangulate the analysis of the phenomenon under investigation. Furthermore, this research approach pays particular attention to how language is used by social actors embedded in a specific situational context (Spradley 1979). However, the main methodological specificities of focused ethnography, that differentiate it from conventional ethnography, are short-term field visits, data intensity and time intensity. Furthermore, focused ethnography usually seeks to answer narrow research questions which arise in a specific and circumscribed era and social context (Knoblauch 2005, Mayan 2009). From this perspective, among the other methods focused ethnography appeared to us the research lens best suited to explore interpersonal regulation of risk management ecologically and to study the way the ambient communication worked in the specific socio-cultural context of Brescia. Based on these premises, our study was articulated into three phases of data collection and analysis (Figure 2). Study of the case context This phase constitutes the foundation of our study and was aimed at in-depth understanding of the inner reasons, the basic objectives and the communication approach of the ambient campaign ‘Wake up, Luca’. It was based on: . the collection and analysis of all documents and artefacts related to the campaign project (e.g. the book Graffiti dell’Anima, Gio` Ferrari and Re 2004), from which the project developed; the initial project; the program of all the educational initiatives promoted; the project website; all the informative materials distributed over times; and the informative video developed as a support to the project); and . two in-depth interviews lasting two hours each with key stakeholders involved in the project (the project promoter and the architect who created the ambient installation). The interviews were unstructured in nature and were aimed at collecting rich narratives about the story of the project, the phases of its developments, the problems faced and the way they were resolved. The two interviews were audio recorded and fully transcribed.
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Figure 2.
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The research design.
Field research A second data collection phase was aimed at exploring drinking practices and routines among young people in Piazza Arnaldo and at studying the impact of the ambient initiative as well as its capacity to engage the audience and activate spontaneous word-of-mouth and interpersonal exchange on the information conveyed by the preventive communication message. We structured this phase in the following way: . six sessions of participant observations in Arnaldo Square, each lasting about six hours, were carried out during three weekends in May 2009 (on Friday, Saturday and Sunday) after 7 p.m., which is the busiest time of the week for social and entertainment life in Italy. Observations were conducted according to an ad hoc observational grid (Gobo 2008) articulated in descriptive notes (finalised to the detailed descriptions of the ethnographic scene, the actions taking place, the actors involved, the natural conversations occurring; e.g. ‘The inside of the bar is quite dark, it is divided into two rooms 50 square meters wide, with modern furniture . . .’), methodological notes (in which the observer reported occasional methodological problems related to the observational process itself; e.g. ‘From here I cannot hear properly what the girl is ordering; I probably should change my location’), theoretical notes (where the observer reported first interpretative insights about the observed scene; e.g. ‘People seem to avoid the problem of risk’) and emotion-related notes (where the observer reported memos about her emotional status during the observation; e.g. ‘This bar is kind of amazing!’). All observational sessions were focused on how young people behaved in the context of Piazza Arnaldo, on how they managed their
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alcohol consumption and on their entertainment routines at the scene. Furthermore, the observer tried to catch cues of young people’s consideration of the ambient installation. . Immediate transcription of field notes supplemented by observer’s memory of the scene. In ethnography the researcher is considered the real instrument of the study process; thus, his or her memory and emotional reactions to the phenomenon under investigation are considered important sources of information (Fetterman 1998). During the sessions, the observer also collected visual materials (photos and videos) to support her ethnographic notes. . After the observations, the researcher conducted 13 semistructured on-site ethnographic interviews with young people aged 16 to 28 years old (six male and seven female; the average age for males was 24 and for females 23 years). All interviews were carried out late at night in Piazzale Arnaldo, where the ambient installation was located, during three weekends in May 2009. The participants were recruited at the ethnographic scene,4 where the researcher also collected their consent to participate in the interviews. Participants were purposively selected as key responders based on their ability to reflect on their entertainment experience in Arnaldo Square and to provide a deep overview about cultural norms and habits shared by their social group in that specific context (Frey et al. 2000). The interviews were aimed at better understanding young people’s alcohol consumption habits, attitude toward drink-driving, and strategies to avoid the risk (e.g., What do you do for entertainment here in Arnaldo Square? What and how do you drink? How do you manage to move to another place? Who drives the car?). A final part of the interview was dedicated to the ambient installation to probe evaluations on its impact on young people’s attitudes and beliefs and on its ability to reinforce safe practices (see Appendix 1 for an overview of the interview guide). Thirteen interviews allowed us to reach a good saturation of data. ‘Fine-tuning’ phase This final research step was aimed at deepening the analysis of the perception of risk surrounding drink-driving among young people in Piazza Arnaldo and at collecting feedback and insights to improve the installation’s effectiveness. This research phase consisted in the conduct of one out-of-setting focus group with a selection of eight young people previously interviewed. The focus group was held at a location specifically set for research purposes. It lasted 2.5 hours and was moderated by the same researcher involved in the participant observations and in the first round of interviews. The moderation was nondirective and followed a semistructured interview guide aimed at reaching more details regarding the phenomena under investigation (see Appendix 2 for the focus group interviewing guide). The focus group was also the occasion of discussing and validating with the key informants the first insights achieved in the former phases of the research (e.g., What do you think about the risk of drinking and driving here in Brescia? How do you think people face this risk? What do you think of the crashed car installed in Arnaldo Square?). The focus group was audio and video recorded and then transcribed.
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Data analysis The full transcription of the interviews, the focus group, the ethnographic notes, the visual materials collected in the fieldwork and the researchers memos were processed through a descriptive and interpretative content analysis, following the principles of the ethnographic approach (Knoblauch 2005, Gobo 2008). In particular, all data transcripts were read through several times in order to enucleate pivotal categories and themes. The analysis also paid attention to specific language constructions used by informants in the field. Specific slang expressions were enucleated from the entire transcripts and treated as significant carriers of cultural meanings. Two analysts were involved in the analysis, and their work was supervised by a senior researcher to guarantee the appropriateness of the analysis procedure and the agreement between coders. Ethical concerns and access to the field The Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Psychology of the Catholic University of Milan provided prior approval for the study. Access to the field was negotiated with Arnaldo Square Bars and coffee shops managers. Study participants signed an informant’s consent before taking part in interviews and focus groups. Findings The context: ‘the drinking trip’ During the weekend entertainment in Arnaldo Square is a ‘must’.5 This is the trendiest meeting area in town, and young people define it as a ‘shop window’: You have to be there, it is like a shop window, you go there to become visible and to exist. (23-year-old female)
Alcohol consumption is a fundamental ingredient of young people’s entertainment in Arnaldo Square. People start their evening in a first bar with a group of friends and then move from one bar to another located in the area in a sort of ‘trip’ (as they call it). Furthermore, each ‘trip’ calls for an extra ‘refill glass’: You need a beer to move; we call it a refill glass for the trip. (21-year-old male)
Thus, alcohol consumption is a fundamental element of the entertainment routine in Arnaldo Square, but it also constitutes an ‘antidote to routine’. People do not drink only because ‘this is the way people get amused here’ and to feel ‘part of the group’ but also, in a sort of paradox, to escape routine and the boredom linked to it: We drink to escape from daily life. If you don’t drink, you get bored of doing always the same things, meeting the same people, hearing always the same things. (26-year-old male)
Furthermore, young people in Arnaldo Square developed an implicit cultural regulation of alcohol assumption. In fact, their alcohol consumption is sequential and planned, and each step is ‘celebrated’ by a very specific mix of drinks, to which young people refer with an ad hoc lexicon. The ways in which young people in Brescia is similar to that described by Harrison et al. (2011) in Australia, ‘controlled drunkenness’.
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The evening of drinking starts with low-alcohol-level drinks, such as beer, cocktails made with alcohol mixed with fruit juice (‘Campari con aranciata amara’ [Campari with bitter orange], ‘Specialino’) or soft drinks (‘Champagnone’), or even with sparkling water (‘Pirlo’). This is usually the period of pre-dinner drinks (‘Aperitivo’). At a second stage, which usually corresponds with dinnertime, young people drink wine (preferably red because the white is usually consumed before dinner). After dinner there is a third phase of alcohol consumption in which strong alcoholic cocktails are chosen. The drinking night in Arnaldo Square ends (before moving to a disco or to other entertainment location) with the consumption of spirits (such as vodka, whisky or grappa). Thus, young people in Brescia seem to share the implicit assumption that alcohol consumption should be gradual (to ‘train’ the body) and that starting the night with strong alcoholic drinks is dangerous. This routine is interesting because it shows an implicit perception of alcohol risk and a culturally based approach to managing it. Furthermore, this alcohol consumption style appears to be strictly linked to the notion of a ‘trip’ used by young people to describe their entertainment experience in Arnaldo Square. The crescendo of alcohol consumption during the night appears like a ‘ritual’, and Arnaldo Square appears to be the symbolic interaction of different actors, different places and different drinks, all linked in a sort of routine that makes the experience quasi-sacred. In the scene of this shared entertainment routine, alcohol consumption appears to be a fundamental ingredient that makes social relationships and amusement possible. Drink-driving and the negation of risk Young people frequenting Arnaldo Square are generally quite affluent, and they like to show their economic potential by wearing brand-name clothes or driving expensive cars. Arnaldo Square has a large parking lot, and young people are used to getting there by their personal (luxury) car; after the ‘drinking trip’ people usually take their car to drive outside the city to new places. In other words, driving one’s own car before and after drinking with friends is a common practice for young people frequenting Arnaldo Square during the weekend but not one that is subject of discussion or conversation. Thus these young people do not articulate the risk of drink-driving. During the interviews, participants did not talk about alcohol consumptionrelated risks and tended to avoid the topic. The only ‘annoyance’ spontaneously evoked when talking about driving after drinking is the risk that one’s licence confiscation would be by police:6 The real problem is that there are many controls and that they take your licence. (22-year-old male)
When probed for, the only other risks related to drink-driving reported were health problems related to alcohol consumption (such as nausea and headache after getting drunk or even liver problems for alcohol abuse). There was little spontaneous discussion of alcohol-related car accidents. Young people reported being self-confident and apparently do not consider such risk as significant. The interpersonal exchange among peers, furthermore, seems to reinforce this safety perception reflecting an invulnerability bias (see Descombe and Drucquer 1999):
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I can speak for everyone here: nobody is afraid of not being able to drive after drinking. (24-year-old female) When you see preventive communication about drink-driving, you always think that it cannot happen to you. (18-year-old male)
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In other words, there is a silence about the risks related to alcohol consumption in peer exchange; in contrast, the pleasures associated with alcohol consumption are emphasised. Such peer group interpersonal exchanges work create a barrier to health promotion messages. Sensitising young people to the risks of drinking: How did the ambient installation work? The ‘Wake up, Luca’ ambient communication installation had a powerful impact on the audience but also presented some important limits. Effectiveness dimensions At the attention level the installation worked well. The innovative character of this communication was successful in attracting attention and in activating interpersonal exchanges and word of mouth (at least in the first period of its permanence in Arnaldo Square, as we will discuss later). As a result of the realistic size of the installation and its central location in the square, it was very visible. At the referential level the message was correctly decoded. Although no graphic elements of the communication explicitly referred to alcohol consumption, the message carried by the installation was effectively decoded by young people. All participants in our study agreed (and took for granted) that the communication was aimed at stopping young people from drink-driving. The damaged car was interpreted as a crashed car involved in an accident due to alcohol abuse: The aim of this initiative is clear: They want to tell us that if you drive after drinking too much you can risk your life! (17-year-old female)
At the emotional level the installation was effective. It proved able to arouse tension and negative emotions. The installation made young people think about the possibility of risking car accidents, and it evoked fear and discomfort: Truly, this installation is very sad and frightening . . . it catches your attention. (24-yearold female)
Effectiveness limits However the ambient installation did not change young people’s attitude to alcohol consumption and car driving as: The communication was too focused on the problem (the car accident). It did not communicate any solutions to avoid the problem. In other words, the ambient installation emphasised the risk and made it more salient to young people’s attention but did not support the audience in finding a potential solution for the problem. To make it clearer, the ambient initiative worked as an ‘accusation’ of a social fact but did not support people’s empowerment toward safer practices:
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Yes, sure: car accident . . . and then? Nothing new to avoid it. (19-year-old female)
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This is the typical advice, we already know, you don’t have to drive after drinking. (24-year-old female)
It is well established in the literature on fear appeal campaigns that the perception of usability and effectiveness of copying strategies communicated by a preventive campaign have more impact than the level of fear produced (Rogers and Mewborn 1976). Furthermore, the audience should perceive themselves as able to enact safe conducts advised by the preventive communication; in fact, higher audience self-efficacy (Bandura 1977) is linked with a higher probability of campaign effectiveness in changing unsafe behaviours (Maddux and Rogers 1983). In other words, the installation was unable to promote a real call to action. Its message was simply perceived as a ‘warning’ but not as an empowering preventive message. This limited focus of the installation message, beyond not helping young people in developing safe practices to avoid the risk, in some cases became even object of ideological critiques and misinterpretations: This means that if you come to Piazza Arnaldo on foot you can get drunk, without minding your health? I feel this message is very limited! (26-year-old male)
The ambient installation was too fear-arousing. As we mentioned above, at the beginning the installation’s powerful emotive impact attracted young people’s attention, but then it was rejected because it was perceived as too negative and too emotional, by confirming previous evidence that an excessive level of fear aroused by a preventive message might interfere with the process of elaboration of the message content, and thus with the adoption of the advised conducts, by producing reactive behaviour and psychological defences (Keller and Block 1996, Tanner et al. 1991): It is horrible, I prefer not to look at that. (18-year-old female) It reminds me of death and suffering; it is terrible! (22-year-old male) It is very ugly; it spoils the place’s atmosphere. (24-year-old female)
Feelings expressed by young people in their evaluation of the campaign were basically of two types. Some expressed an explicit ‘annoyance’ towards the installation, considering it ‘ugly’, too ‘intrusive’ and too ‘arrogant’. The others considered it ‘scary’ because it was too focused on the accident. In other words, the realistic style chosen for this campaign ritualised in a too direct way the issue of death, an aspect that is not easy to face and to discuss in peer exchanges, especially for young people, in a sort of social taboo. The ambient installation was perceived as too isolated and circumscribed. Furthermore, it saturated young people’s attention after a first exposure period.7 Only younger interviewees fully understood the initiative’s meanings and showed a deeper consideration of its key message because they participated in extra communication events linked to the project. Middle high school and high school students were involved in a longer and more complex sensitising process, including events such as the appearances of celebrities at schools, the making of videos, the organisation of lecturers about safe practices, and so on. This seems to provide interesting evidence that, when perceived as a significant tool of a broader and integrated communication plan (Schultz and Schultz 2003, Brioschi 2006, Gambetti 2010), the ambient communication initiative ‘Wake up, Luca’ proved more engaging
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and more capable of making young people aware of the risk. On the other hand, for people only experiencing the ambient installation in Arnaldo Square without participating in the other events, the communication initiative was too isolated to really affect and produce a change in people’s attitudes:
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I like this communication installation, they came at school showing a video and explaining the meaning of this initiative . . . I think it is a good idea. (16-year-old male)
The ambient communication was too ‘static’. It appeared evident that this ambient communication was not really attuned to the socio-cultural context in which it was installed. The research uncovered specific rituals and meaning-making processes that characterise the entertainment experience in Arnaldo Square. The ambient communication was well located in the square, but its static feature made it poorly attuned to the dynamic of the ‘drinking trip’ experience described by young people. As a result, the message conveyed by the installation was unable to symbolically becoming part of the interaction between actors, places and drinks that are fundamental elements of young people’s night at Arnaldo Square. A more dynamic, flexible and changing installation might have been better suited to this specific experiential context and would have been more capable of provoking wordof-mouth and social exchanges about its message. In fact, this lack of dynamic features of the ambient installation was not only poorly coherent with the postmodern nature of such a medium, that would imply recourse to relativism, irony, surrealism, hedonism and surprise (Hackley and Kitchen 1999), but also led to habituation in the long term (Hastings et al. 2004). Discussion This research was aimed at helping private enterprises as well as public institutions to make good use of unconventional initiatives in the frame of an overall integrated communication strategy. Although this study is exploratory in nature and represents the first phase of a more complex ongoing research project, it suggests interesting evidence about the following phenomena: The potential ability of ambient communication to support effective public health communication. Ambient communication represents a socially embedded approach to communication able to engage people and to inform them in the direct context of potential risk. However the study showed that the ambient communication’s effectiveness depends on its inclusion in a complex and wider sensitising process aimed not only at stigmatising unsafe conducts but also at passing coping strategies and at empowering the audience’s self efficacy perception (Rogers 1975, Rogers and Mewborn 1976); namely, the interviewees that participated in lectures, video shootings and testimonial visits related to the project ‘Wake up, Luca’ understood better the communication aims of the ambient initiative, resulting in more sensitivity about the risk. To maximise its communication effectiveness, it seems important that the ambient installation be designed on the basis of a deep and ecological understanding of the real social context in which it is exposed. In particular, a preliminary context exploration could lead to better strategic planning and an optimal creative conceptualisation and execution of the ambient communication tool. The role played by real social context in mediating the meaning of a preventive message. The study showed that the preventive message embedded in the ambient
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installation was not relevant to young people using the space and did not become part of their exchanges. On the contrary, the peer exchanges activated by the campaign seemed contribute to their sense of invulnerability (Ruiter et al. 2001). There were features that reduced the effectiveness of the this high fear appeal message (Keller and Block 1996). The physical environment in which the installation is located should not be considered the sole medium of an ambient communication. The experiential context – namely, the way this environment is experienced, understood and lived by social actors – is also an important carrier of messages in an ambient communication campaign and deserves more attention. In other words, the meanings of preventive messages carried by an ambient communication initiative are framed by the experiential context in which they are conveyed, and they assume meanings in their encounters with situated social actors and their social discourses, in a sort of meaning-making circle. This evidence support the claim for further assessment of fear appeals messages effectiveness in the naturalistic context in which the audience not only receives them but also is faced by risk situations that require the translation of preventive information into safe practices (Witte and Allen 2000, Hastings et al. 2004). The suitability of qualitative approaches to support the planning of ambient communication campaigns. This study showed that, although the ambient installation was well decoded by audiences at the referential level (in other words, the preventive message carried by the installation was clear to all participants), in concrete terms it did not result successful in sensitising young people in the real context of potential risk. This suggests the importance of deeply understanding experiences and sensitivity of a selected target group as well as its norms and habits in the specific social context in which the ambient communication should be located. As stated above, a preventive message conveyed by an ambient communication should become part of not only the physical context but also the experiential and symbolic one. The way in which this process takes place, and the meaning assumed by the preventive message in the real social context, need to be ecologically explored. From this perspective, qualitative research methods, and in particularly focused ethnography, are suitable for ecologically exploring the developing of the interplay between health information and interpersonal communication in a specific experiential context. Conclusions and implications This study, although exploratory, constitutes a first attempt to assess the potential of ambient communication to convey preventive messages, and it proposes a different, more ecological and flexible approach to the assessment of postmodern forms of media communication. The study results are preliminary but offer interesting insights regarding the interaction of a preventive campaign message and the sociocultural context in which a target message occurs. Furthermore, the study underlined interesting evidence to support communicators in designing ambient communication able to become part of the experiential and symbolic context of potential risk behaviours. In particular, the study suggests that an ambient communication campaign, in order to be able to convey its preventive message, should be attuned to the dynamicity of consumers/audience practices of the context in with the ambient installation is located. This, thus, employs the careful and deep understanding of one
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specific exposure context’s socio-cultural and symbolic characteristics; characteristics that go beyond the simple architectonic, humanistic or geographical structure of the location, but that are referred to the representational world of people leaving and ‘using’ that location. To achieve an ecological and sensitive detection of these soft (and often implicit) context characteristics, qualitative research – in particular, focused ethnography – can be a suitable strategy. In fact, qualitative research, thanks to its flexible and ductile nature, can be useful to deeply understand people’s symbolic and socio-cultural representation of the context and support the development of operative insights for planning and realising successful ambient initiatives. Furthermore, our study underlines that preventive ambient communication, according to its post-modern nature, should be able to ‘converse’ with its audience and to engage it in a dynamic process, aimed not only at producing awareness about the health risk but also at supporting the empowerment of safe conduct for risk management. In this regard, as our study suggested, an ambient installation alone, although well designed, cannot be enough to improve an audience’s ability to avoid drink-driving risk. Complementary educational initiatives (alcoholometry measurement offered in the entertainment venue, buses to reach the entertainment venue, etc.) can be important additions to enhance the preventive value of ambient communication. However the study had some limits, and the evidence obtained is partial because it was not possible to conduct a preliminary exploration of young people’s attitudes and behaviours before the installation. Thus, we cannot have a complete overview of the effects produced by the communication on the target group. Furthermore, the study was conducted at the end of the ambient communication exposition period, when the audience had become accustomed to its presence, and thus its message had decreased in impact. As we mentioned before, the study represents the first phase of a more complex project aimed at assessing the potential ability of ambient communication to engage and sensitise people about safe conducts. We are currently studying the effectiveness of the installation ‘Wake up, Luca’ in other locations and are analysing the way it works as both part and not part of a more complex communication plan. In our future research it will be also advisable to widen the scope of our study to include ambient communication campaigns in the health prevention field carried out in other countries to make comparisons and analyse the impact of a country’s culture on ambient message reception and use by citizens. Acknowledgments We thank Miss Monica Quadrio for her precious collaboration in data collection and coding and Dr. Pierpaolo Borelli for facilitating the access to the research field. Notes 1. 2.
Edutainment is a form of entertainment designed to educate as well as to amuse. Several edutainment initiatives have been developed across the world to prevent health risks (see for instance among the most recent: Hong et al. 2010, Rispel et al. 2010). See recent international events related to innovation in social communication held in Florence, such as ‘Ad Spot Award’, the International Festival of Social, Institutional and Business Communication, held in October 2009, or the event ‘Guerrilla and Unconventional
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G. Graffigna et al. Advertising: New Tools for Social Communication’, hosted during an international exhibition of social communication campaigns in Tuscany in November 2009. For a review of recent ambient communication campaigns in the social, environmental and health care sectors, see http://campagnesociali.wordpress.com/category/guerrillamarketing/, http://weburbanist.com/2008/06/17/guerrilla-marketing-for-social-causes/, http://disruption.splinder.com. A random walk technique is allowed in Italy for qualitative research purposes, as discussed in Graffigna et al. 2009. Words in italics are direct citations of words used by the interviewees at the scene. The Italian regulation regarding viability and road security provides various sanctions for driving after drinking over the allowed limits, included the withdrawal of the driver’s licence (see law Aug 1 2002, n.168). http://www.patente.it/normativa/legge-01-08-2002-n168-sicurezza-circolazione-stradale The itinerant ambient installation was moved to another city at the end of its exposure period in Arnaldo Square.
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Appendix 1. The semistructured interview guide This guide was conceived as a ‘compass’ to orient the interviewer during data collection, but it did not consist of a fixed series of pre-formulated questions: the interviewer was able to re-formulate wording and sequences of questions according to the natural flux of the interview.
Introduction I’m XX, from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan. I’m conducting a research on young peoples’ ways of entertaining in Brescia. Can I ask you a couple of questions? Section 1 – Entertainment habits . What do people do in Brescia to have fun? . When do young people come to Arnaldo Square? With whom? Why? To do what? . And you, how often do you come to Arnaldo Square? With whom? To do what? Section 2 – Alcohol consumption . Do people usually drink in Arnaldo Square? . What and how do people drink in Arnaldo Square? Are there different habits according to the day of the week (Friday, Saturday and Sunday night?) . Do people consume alcohol? When and how? . How much do people drink alcohol in Arnaldo Square? . How do people manage their alcohol consumption? Are there rules/shared practices? Section 3 – Drink-drive risk . And after drinking, what do people do? Do people stay over in Arnaldo Square all night long, or do they move to other places? . How do people move? . Do people use their own car? And you, do you use your own car after spending the night entertaining/drinking in Arnaldo Square? Section 4 – Preventive communication impact . Have you ever heard about drink-drive risk? From whom/from what? . Is this risk present/real in your experience? Do you feel at risk? . Are you worried about this risk? And what about your friends in Brescia?
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Appendix 2. The focus group guide
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This guide was conceived as a ‘compass’ to orient the interviewer during data collection, but it did not consist of a rigid series of pre-formulated questions: the interviewer was able to reformulate wording and sequences of questions according to the natural flow of the discussion.
Introduction As you already know, I’m XX, from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan. I’m conducting a research on young peoples’ ways of entertaining in Brescia. Today I would like to discuss with you some of my research preliminary evidences in order to understand them better. Section 1 – Alcohol consumption habits . What is young people’s attitude towards alcohol consumption in Brescia? . How do people regulate their alcohol consumption?
Section 2 – Drink-drive risk . . . .
How often do people in Brescia drive after drinking? Do you think that people in Brescia feel at risk driving after drinking? What do people say about drink-drive risk in Brescia? What practices are used by young people in Brescia to reduce their risk exposure?
Section 3 – Preventive campaigns . Have education/preventive campaigns been recently conducted in Brescia in order to reduce drink-drive risk? . What do you recall/remember of these campaigns? . How successful were they in sensitising young people? . How did young people in Brescia receive these initiatives? . What would be useful in order to prevent young people in Brescia from drinking & driving? . What, on the contrary, shouldn’t be done? Section 4 – ‘Luca Svegliati’ installation . . . . . . .
What do you think about the ambient installation in Arnaldo Square? What caught your attention the most? What your friends think about this installation? How was it received at the beginning of its exposure? What do you think are the pros of this communication? And what are the limits? How would you change the installation? How do you consider the installation successful in changing young people’s attitude towards drink-drive risk in Brescia?
