A01=Terence E. McDonnell
AIDS
Author_Terence E. McDonnell
best practices
Category=JBFN
cultural entropy
cultural objects
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
failure
Ghana
HIV
media campaigns
persuasion
rationalization
Product details
- ISBN 9780226382012
- Weight: 482g
- Dimensions: 15 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 18 Aug 2016
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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We see it all the time: organizations strive to persuade the public to change beliefs or behavior through expensive, expansive media campaigns. Designers painstakingly craft clear, resonant, and culturally sensitive messaging that will motivate people to buy a product, support a cause, vote for a candidate, or take active steps to improve their health. But once these campaigns leave the controlled environments of focus groups, advertising agencies, and stakeholder meetings to circulate, the public interprets and distorts the campaigns in ways their designers never intended or dreamed. In Best Laid Plans, Terence E. McDonnell explains why these attempts at mass persuasion often fail so badly. McDonnell argues that these well-designed campaigns are undergoing "cultural entropy": the process through which the intended meanings and uses of cultural objects fracture into alternative meanings, new practices, failed interactions, and blatant disregard. Using AIDS media campaigns in Accra, Ghana, as its central case study, the book walks readers through best-practice, evidence-based media campaigns that fall totally flat.
Female condoms are turned into bracelets, AIDS posters become home decorations, red ribbons fade into pink under the sun to name a few failures. These damaging cultural misfires are not random. Rather, McDonnell makes the case that these disruptions are patterned, widespread, and inevitable indicative of a broader process of cultural entropy.
Terence E. McDonnell is the Kellogg Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame.
