Efficiency of Safety Belt Campaigns Analysis

Efficiency of Safety Belt Campaigns Analysis The numbers of deaths have increased immensely in previous years; therefore road safety is a major concern. The RSA constantly try to amplify awareness of road safety as many drivers ignore new rules of the road. Persuasive communication is used throughout for all types of advertising and lately is becoming a main method in highlighting the dangers of the road. Persuasive communication is considered to be a ‘‘communication such as a speech or television advertisement that advocates a particular side of an issue’’ (Aronson, Wilson and Akert, 2014) and persuasive advertisements aspire to persuade individuals to change their outlook on certain issues, such as road safety. Social media websites play a huge role in society today and many of these websites such as Facebook are displaying persuasive advertisements to spread word about issues more rapidly. The focus of this study is about the impact persuasive communication has on road safety and whether putting roa d safety advertisements on social media websites is a worthwhile cause. In this report four experiments on persuasive communication are discussed followed by why the RSA should use social media websites to portray road safety messages. Brijs, Daniels, Brijs and Wets (2011) conducted three sets of studies in order to assess the efficiency of safety belt campaigns by inspecting whether being exposed to the campaign would/would not affect variables identified by the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as key elements of behaviour, and to find out â€Å"whether the way in which participants would be exposed to the campaign stimulus would affect the campaign stimulus’ effectiveness† (Brijs et al., 2011). It was also done to confirm which of the dissimilar hypothetical concepts on the use of safety belts would receive most support, i.e., automaticity approach (out of habit or as past/repeated behaviour) or planned behaviour approach. Three studies where made up of different groups of students, aged 18-25, whom were recruited at Hasselt University, two being experimental groups and one a control group. The two experimental groups were exposed to the seat belt advertisement in which â€Å"two exposure conditio ns were distinguished from each other, i.e., explicit and subliminal exposure† (Brijs et al., 2011). Explicit exposure signifies that participants are completely aware of being exposed to a campaign stimulus, i.e., information is processed consciously. For this, the group were asked to view the billboard which was projected in the lecture room. Subliminal exposure entails participants being unaware of exposure to the stimulus with information being processed pre-attentively (subconscious mode). This group were exposed to the campaign by billboards in their main hall of university. The control group, however, had no viewing of the campaign. All three groups then asked filled out a two part survey; one part representing respondent-related background information and the other TPB variables. â€Å"The results signified that the campaign stimulus used influenced participants’ evaluation of a series of important determinants of behaviour as well as self-reported behaviour it self† (Brijs, et al., 2011). â€Å"The results also showed the recorded campaign effect was in the expected direction with higher mean values for the different variables questioned for participants being exposed to the campaign verses members of the control group† (Birjs et al., 2011). A similar study in regards to seat belt wearing was conducted by Tay (2011) in which a sample of drivers supplied their views and awareness of two seatbelt wearing advertisements with dissimilar emotional appeals. This study consisted of 212 drivers, recruited from two separate locations: one being a university to represent the younger population and the second a taxi rink as a large percentage of taxi drivers would not wear seatbelts regularly. In the study a questionnaire was first conducted and then two advertisements were shown to the participants and their opinions were recorded and evaluated. â€Å"The two videos were shown in random order to different participants to reduce any potential order effects; one advertisement had a more negative emotional appeal (fear) while the other had more a positive emotional appeal (humour)† (Tay, 2011). The first advertisement showed a young female driving in the evening on a deserted road; the driver sneezed, a ghost in the backseat g ave her a tissue; causing the driver to brake and the ghost go through the front window. This advertisement utilised mostly humour as an emotional appeal although there might be some fear incorporated as well. More importantly, this video was selected as a humour-based advertisement. The second video showed four young adults in a vehicle that was involved in a collision. In this the unbelted passenger hurled around in the vehicle, killing all occupants and seriously injuring themselves. â€Å"This advertisement focused on fear as an appeal and the advertisement continued with an emergency worker saying, ‘the one without the seatbelt did the damage’ and then ended with ‘No Seatbelt, No Excuse’† (Tay, 2011). To confirm the hypothesis on the dissimilar emotional appeals, participants were asked if they agreed/disagreed that the advertisements they seen were frightening and/or humorous with the use of a 5-point Likert scale. A ten part questionnaire was then done by the participants and several t-tests were then conducted to check this hypothesis. â€Å"These measured the perceived severity and likelihood of threat, the perceived message efficacy, self-efficacy, the perceived cost of threat and benefits of adopting the coping strategy, realism and credibility of the message and adaptive intentions† (Tay, 2011). Results exposed that both advertisements were triumphant in increasing participant’s intent to wear a safety belt and comply with the safety belt law. â€Å"In addition results attested to the importance of using established theoretical models when developing a road safety message† (Tay, 2011). Carey and Sarma (2001) conducted a study that â€Å"explored the effects of viewing death-related facts and graphic, static images of road traffic accidents on participants’ self-reported intentions to take driving risks† (Carey and Sarma, 2001). It also observed the degree to which personality variables may additionally clarify variations in intentional risk taking. â€Å"The dependent variable was the self-reported intention to take driving risks† (Carey and Sarma, 2001). Within this study participants were exposed to mortality salient or neutral facts. The aim of this was to examine threat based advertisements or ‘fear appeals’ to stimulate prevention of dangerous driving on young male drivers. This study consisted of eighty males, between 17 and 24 whom all possessed full licences. Forty of whom were randomly allocated to mortality salient condition and the other forty to the control. Participants were asked to complete two self-report scales, an experiment, two word based activities and an IVE questionnaire. After the first self-report scale participants in the experimental condition (mortality salient) were asked to â€Å"read five facts about driving which were accompanied by three images of road traffic accidents supplied by the RSA, relating to mortality-related risks of driving, which were followed by the warning ‘dangerous driving kills’ and participants in the control condition were asked to read five neutral facts about driving unrelated to risks, crashes or deaths† (Carey and Sarma, 2001). Then participants took part in the word-based activities; one of which was a word search which had neutral words unrelated to death and the other consisted of twenty-two words, eight of which could either be related/unrelated to death and was done to assess death-thought accessibility. An IVE questionnaire was then filled out by participants; this was used to measure certain variables. A second self-report sc ale was carried out to measure â€Å"participant’s risky driving interventions; in which they were asked to read ten scenarios, each had a situation where one may take a particular driving risk† (Carey and Sarma, 2001). Participants were asked to give a percentage answer on how likely they would be to take the risk in each scenario. Results of this study publicized that â€Å"participants in the mortality salient condition completed more word fragments to make death-related words than those in the control condition and also revealed that impulsiveness correlated significantly with intention to take driving risks† (Carey and Sarma, 2001). A Sibley and Harrà © (2009) experiment investigated the impact that various road safety adverts had on young drivers’ explicit and implicit self-enhancement biases in driving ability and caution. Self-enhancement is the belief by drivers themselves that they are superior to other drivers in relation to ability and caution. ‘‘Self-enhancement biases in both of these domains predict crash risk optimism’’ (Harrà ©, Foster, O’Neill, 2005; Harrà © Sibley, 2007). This study consisted of three conditions; one with negatively framed advertisements, another with positively framed advertisements and the last being a control, each involving fifty randomly assigned participants (one hundred and fifty in total). These groups â€Å"were unaware there were different conditions and were told they would be participating in two tasks, which were presented to them as unrelated studies† (Sibley Harrà ©, 2009). Firstly the groups were shown a series o f advertisements and were then told to rate them according to certain variables. This was â€Å"primarily to convince participants that viewing the advertisements was unrelated to the self-enhancement task that followed† (Sibley Harrà ©, 2009). Participants viewed three adverts that showed people that were seriously injured/killed during drink driving accidents in the negative framing condition. In the positive framing condition, participants watched three adverts that showed people choosing to take precautions when it came to drink driving, such as assigning a designated drink driver; who wouldn’t drink and drive home or opt to getting a taxi. The controlled group watched advertisements that were entirely unrelated to drink driving; which involved advertisements on mental illnesses. â€Å"All groups then took part in what they believed was an unrelated task, in which they completed a series of computerized reaction-time based tasks known as IATs in order to assess implicit driving self-concept; with each IAT consisted of seven blocks† (Sibley Harrà ©, 2009). Results indicated that those who took part in the positive framed condition displayed a weaker explicit self-enhancement in comparison to those in the negative framed and controlled groups. â€Å"Although exposure to positively framed advertisements significantly reduced self-enhancement biases in driving ability, it is important to note that participants in this condition still considered themselves better-than-average drivers, just notas far aboveaverage as drivers exposed to the control and negative framing condition† (Sibley Harrà ©, 2009). However, this study does not indicate if a change in self-enhancement biases would result in a change in behaviour. In experiments it is vital to recognize strengths, weaknesses or limitations. Having a control, for instance, would be a major strength to have as it keeps balance and gives the experimenter something to compare results against thus leading to a more wide variety of methods. In the experiments above there have also been limitations, such as in the first experiment, in terms of â€Å"effect size, values obtained suggested that differences between exposed and unexposed participants were small and in several cases not even statistically significant† (Brijs et al., 2011). Also in the last experiment by Sibley and Harrà © (2009) it was found that men and women were both equally influenced by exposure to different types of driving advertisement. It is clear from the experiments above that persuasive communication plays a vital role in road safety advertisements and is very effective. However, in order to increase this effectiveness the RSA should consider displaying advertisements on social media sites. â€Å"Social media has emerged from the internet’s development which allows for sharing, linking, collaborating, and inclusion of production and distribution of particular content† (Banks, Tay Mason, 2011). Social media has the possibility to control the power of viral marketing and is also more cost effective than traditional media in attaining audiences. Rajagopalan and Subramani (2003) found that â€Å"viral marketing is a powerful means for both marketers and recipients to benefit from the innate helpfulness of individuals in social networks and such technologies are being harnessed by social marketers using the internet for promotional activities and engaging users in creative processes† (Rajagopala n Subramani, 2003). According to Nielson (2012) â€Å"there is a digital community of 20.4 million users; 93% of them accessing the internet daily† (Nielsen, 2012), â€Å"thus it is no wonder that social marketers have addressed the need for social media in their marketing campaigns† (Banks, Tay and Mason, 2011). Murray and Lewis (2011) showed how social media helped public health and injury prevention increase dramatically due to the use of social media sites and therefore suggest that social media could play an important role in road safety advertising and may be an important mode of delivering road safety communications to high risk road users, especially that of a younger age (Murray Lewis, 2011). Thus the use of social media sites could be an effective tool in the next generation of road safety advertisements campaigns.

Apush Notes

1. The Shaping of North America 1. Recorded history began 6,000 years ago. It was 500 years ago that Europeans set foot on the Americas to begin the era of accurately recorded history on the continent. 2. The theory of â€Å"Pangaea† exists suggesting that the continents were once nestled together into one mega-continent. The continents then spread out as drifting islands. 3. Geologic forces of continental plates created the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains. 4. The Great Ice Age thrust down over North America and scoured the present day American Midwest. 2. Peopling the Americas 1.The â€Å"Land Bridge† theory†¦ 1. As the Great Ice Age diminished, so did the glaciers over North America. 2. The theory holds that a â€Å"Land Bridge† emerged linking Asia & North America across what’s today the Bering Sea. People were said to have walked across the â€Å"bridge† before the sea level rose and sealed it off and thus populated the Americas. 2. The Lan d Bridge is suggested as occurring an estimated 35,000 years ago. 3. Many peoples emerged†¦ 1. Those groups that traversed the land bridge spread across North, Central, and South America. 2. Countless tribes emerged with an estimated 2,000 languages.Notably†¦ 1. Incas – Peru, with elaborate network of roads and bridges linking their empire. 2. Mayas – Yucatan Peninsula, with their step pyramids. 3. Aztecs – Mexico, with step pyramids and huge sacrifices of conquered peoples. 3. The Earliest Americans 1. Development of corn or â€Å"maize† around 5,000 B. C. in Mexico was revolutionary in that†¦ 1. Then, people didn’t have to be hunter-gatherers, they could settle down and be farmers. 2. This fact gave rise to towns and then cities. 3. Corn arrived in the present day U. S. around 1,200 B. C. 2. Pueblo Indians 1.The Pueblos were the 1st American corn growers. 2. They lived in adobe houses (dried mud) and pueblos (â€Å"villages† in Spanish). Pueblos are villages of cubicle shaped adobe houses, stacked one on top the other and often beneath cliffs. 3. They had elaborate irrigation systems to draw water away from rivers to grown corn. 3. Mound Builders 1. These people built huge ceremonial and burial mounds and were located in the Ohio Valley. 2. Cahokia, near East St. Louis today, held 40,000 people. 4. Eastern Indians 1. Eastern Indians grew corn, beans, and squash in â€Å"three sister† farming†¦ 1.Corn grew in a stalk providing a trellis for beans, beans grew up the stalk, squash’s broad leaves kept the sun off the ground and thus kept the moisture in the soil. 2. This group likely had the best (most diverse) diet of all North American Indians and is typified by the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw (South) and Iroquois (North). 5. Iroquois Confederation 1. Hiawatha was the legendary leader of the group. 2. The Iroquois Confederation was a group of 5 tribes in New York state. 3. They were matri lineal as authority and possessions passed down through the female line. 4.Each tribe kept their independence, but met occasionally to discuss matters of common interest, like war/defense. 5. This was not the norm. Usually, Indians were scattered and separated (and thus weak). 6. Native Americans had a very different view of things as compared to Europeans. 1. Native Americans felt no man owned the land, the tribe died. (Europeans liked private property) 2. Indians felt nature was mixed with many spirits. (Europeans were Christian and monotheistic) 3. Indians felt nature was sacred. (Europeans believed nature and land was given to man by God in Genesis to be subdued and put to use). . Indians had little or no concept or interest in money. (Europeans loved money or gold) 4. Indirect Discoverers of the New World1. The 1st Europeans to come to America were the Norse (Vikings from Norway). 1. Around 1,000 A. D. , the Vikings landed, led by Erik the Red and Leif Erikson. 2. They landed i n â€Å"Newfoundland† or â€Å"Vinland† (due to all of the vines). 3. However, these men left America and left no written record and therefore didn’t get the credit. 4. The only record is found in Viking sagas or songs. 2. The Christian Crusaders of Middle Ages fought in Palestine to regain the Holy Land from Muslims.This mixing of East and West created a sweet-tooth where Europeans wanted the spices of the exotic East. 5. Europeans Enter Africa This content copyright  © 2010 by WikiNotes. wikidot. com 1. Marco Polo traveled to China and stirred up a storm of European interest. 2. Mixed with desire for spices, an East to West (Asia to Europe) trade flourished but had to be overland, at least in part. This initiated new exploration down around Africa in hopes of an easier (all water) route.3. Portugal literally started a sailing school to find better ways to get to the â€Å"Spice Islands,† eventually rounding Africa’s southern Cape of Good Hope. . New developments emerged†¦ 1. caravel – a ship with triangular sail that could better tack (zig-zag) ahead into the wind and thus return to Europe from the Africa coast. 2. compass – to determine direction. 3. astrolabe – a sextant gizmo that could tell a ship’s latitude. 5. Slave trade begins 1. Slavery was initially race-independent. A slave was whoever lost in battle. Usually, slaves came from the Slavic regions of Europe, hence the name. 2. The first African slave trade was across the Sahara Desert. 3. Later, it was along the West African coast.Slave traders purposely busted up tribes and families in order to squelch any possible uprising. 4. Slaves wound up on sugar plantations the Portuguese had set up on the tropical islands off of Africa’s coast. 5. Spain watched Portugal’s success with exploration and slaving with envy and wanted a piece of the pie. 6. Columbus Comes upon a New World 1. Columbus convinced Isabella and Ferdina nd to fund his expedition. 2. His goal was to reach the East (East Indies) by sailing west, thus bypassing the around-Africa route that Portugal monopolized. 3.He misjudged the size of the Earth though, thinking it 1/3 the size of what it was. 4. So, after 30 days or so at sea, when he struck land, he assumed he’d made it to the East Indies and therefore mistook the people as â€Å"Indians. † 5. This spawned the following system†¦ 1. Europe would provide the market, capital, technology. 2. Africa would provide the labor. 3. The New World would provide the raw materials of gold, soil, and lumber.7. When Worlds Collide 1. Of huge importance was the biological flip-flop of Old and New Worlds. Simply put, it was a trade of life such as plants, foods, animals, germs. . From the New World (America) to the Old 1. corn, potatoes, tobacco, beans, peppers, manioc, pumpkin, squash, tomato, wild rice, etc. 2. also, syphilis 3. From Old World to the New 1. cows, pigs, horses, wheat, sugar cane, apples, cabbage, citrus, carrots, Kentucky bluegrass, etc. 2. devastating diseases – smallpox, yellow fever, malaria as Indians had no immunities. 1. The Indians had no immunities in their systems built up over generations. 2. An estimated 90% of all pre-Columbus Indians died, mostly due to disease. 8. The Spanish Conquistadores 1.Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494 – Portugal and Spain feuded over who got what land. The Pope drew this line as he was respected by both. 1. The line ran North-South, and chopped off the Brazilian coast of South America 2. Portugal got everything east of the line (Brazil and land around/under Africa) 3. Spain got everything west of the line (which turned out to be much more, though they didn’t know it at the time) 2. Conquistadores is Spanish â€Å"conquerors†. 1. Vasco Balboa – â€Å"discovered† the Pacific Ocean across the isthmus of Panama.2. Ferdinand Magellan – circumnavigated the globe (h e was the first to do so). . Ponce de Leon – touches and names Florida looking for legendary â€Å"Fountain of Youth†. 4. Hernando Cortes – enters Florida, travels up into present day Southeastern U. S. , dies and is â€Å"buried† in Mississippi River, 5. Francisco Pizarro – conquers Incan Empire of Peru and begins shipping tons of gold/silver back to Spain. This huge influx of precious metals made European prices skyrocket (inflation). 6. Francisco Coronado – ventured into current Southwest U. S. looking for legendary Cibola, city of gold. He found the Pueblo Indians. 3. Encomienda system established 1.Indians were â€Å"commended† or given to Spanish landlords 2. The idealistic theory of the encomienda was that Indians would work on the farm and be converted to Christianity. But it was basically just slavery on a sugar plantation guised as missionary work. 9. The Conquest of Mexico 1. Hernando Cortez conquered the Aztecs at Tenochti tlan. 2. Cortez went from Cuba to present day Vera Cruz, then marched over mountains to the Aztec capital. 3. Montezuma, the Aztec king, thought Cortez might be the god Quetzalcoatl who was due to re-appear that very year. Montezuma welcomed Cortez into Tenochtitlan. . The Spanish lust for gold led Montezuma to attack on the noche triste, sad night. Cortez and men fought their way out, but it was smallpox that eventually beat the Indians. 5. The Spanish then destroyed Tenochtitlan, building the Spanish capital (Mexico City) exactly on top of the Aztec city. 6. A new race of people emerged, mestizos, a mix of Spanish and Indian blood. 10. The Spread of Spanish America 1. Spanish society quickly spread through Peru and Mexico 2. A threat came from neighbors†¦ 1. English – John Cabot (an Italian who sailed for England) touched the coast of the current U.S. 2. Italy – Giovanni de Verrazano also touched on the North American seaboard. 3. France – Jacques Cartier went into mouth of St. Lawrence River (Canada). 3. To oppose this, Spain set up forts (presidios) all over the California coast. Also cities, like St. Augustine in Florid # 4. Don Juan de Onate followed Coronado’s old path into present day New Mexico. He conquered the Indians ruthlessly, maiming them by cutting off one foot of survivors just so they’d remember. 5. Despite mission efforts, the Pueblo Indians revolted in Pope’s Rebellion. 6.Robert de LaSalle sailed down the Mississippi River for France claiming the whole region for their King Louis and naming the area â€Å"Louisiana† after his king. This started a slew of place-names for that area, from LaSalle, Illinois to â€Å"Louisville† and then on down to New Orleans (the American counter of Joan of Arc’s famous victory at Orleans). 7. â€Å"Black Legend† – The Black Legend was the notion that Spaniards only brought bad things (murder, disease, slavery); though true, they also brought good things such as law systems, architecture, Christianity, language, and civilization, so that the Black Legend is partly, but not entirely, accurate.

Discuss the themes of Virtu and Fortuna in The Prince. Essay

Discuss the themes of Virtu and Fortuna in The Prince. Niccolo Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy on the 3rd May 1469. In 1498, Florence became a republic and Machiavelli gained a position within the Florentine government. After this he was soon confirmed by the great council as the second chancellor of the republic, making him the head of internal affairs. Less than a month later he was elected as secretary to the ten of war, which focussed on foreign and defensive affairs. In November 1498 Machiavelli was sent on his first diplomatic mission and over the years he continued with many more. On his first mission to France to see King Louis XII, which lasted six months, Machiavelli was able to observe the effects of†¦show more content†¦Machiavelli then retires to a small farm a few miles outside of Florence and begins writing The Prince. Machiavelli wanted the prince to act as a guide to show how to create a principality and hold onto it because he had remembered how the French were succeeding as they were one principality under one prince and Machiavelli wanted this for Italy. Machiavelli also wrote the book to again try and ingratiate himself with the Medici family by making the preface a flattering letter to Lorenzo Medici. The book firstly starts by dividing all governments into two different types, republics- those which are ruled by many, and principalities – those which are ruled by a prince or a single ruler. Machiavelli then quickly dismisses republican governments and goes onto divide Principalities into two types, ones which have been ruled by the same family for centuries (the old prince) and ones, which have been newly conquered (the new prince). Again, Machiavelli tends to dismiss the old prince believing him to be of not much use and will have not much success where as he talks greatly of the new prince and how he can and will acquire and maintain the greatest amount of power. Throughout Machiavelli’s book he regards the association between luck and skill in the gaining and keeping of the power the prince has received. He presents two key terms: Fortuna, meaning by luck or chance and virtu, meaning the person’s skill and ability etc. MachiavelliShow MoreRelatedMachiavelli, Hobbes, And Locke1791 Words   |  8 Pagesbe. There are many topics both modern and ancient thinkers discuss in their writings, such as the purpose of politics, the science of politics, human nature, as well as the ideal regime. By doing so, these thinkers’ views on political topics such as these illuminate how they thought politics should work and who should be able to participate in the activity of politics. Purpose of Politics To begin with, an important theme to discuss is what the modern thinkers believe is the purpose of politics