Program Profile: Media Detective

This is a media literacy and substance use prevention program intended for third- through fifth-grade students. The program is rated Promising. Intervention group students demonstrated less intention to use alcohol and tobacco in the future, better deconstruction skills, higher understanding of persuasive intent, and higher self-efficacy, compared with control group students. These differences were statistically significant.

A Promising rating implies that implementing the program may result in the intended outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

Program Goals/Target Population

Media Detective is a media literacy education and substance use prevention program for third through fifth grade students. The goal of the program is to prevent or delay the onset of underage alcohol and tobacco use by increasing students’ critical thinking skills about media messages, particularly those related to alcohol and tobacco products, and to encourage healthy beliefs and attitudes about abstaining from substance use.

Program Theory

On average, youths between the ages of 8 and 18 spend more than 7½ hours a day involved with media activities, such as watching television, listening to music, and playing video games (Rideout, Foehr, and Roberts 2010). Youths often are exposed to many media messages that advertise risky and unhealthy behaviors, including substance use. Media literacy education programs, such as Media Detective, are designed to improve youths’ abilities to deconstruct media messages so they can understand the underlying persuasive elements and develop skepticism about advertisements that attempt to send positive messages about certain behaviors such as alcohol and tobacco use. The program intends for students to apply those critical thinking and deconstruction skills in everyday life and to encourage students to stop and think before accepting media messages.

The program is based on the Message Interpretation Process (MIP) Model, which provides a framework for understanding the cognitive processes associated with the interpretation of media messages. The MIP Model, used in the design of the Media Detective program, draws on social cognitive theory, dual-process theories of attitude change, and the theory of reasoned action to illustrate how individuals use media messages in their decision-making process about certain topics such as substance use. According to the MIP Model, individuals apply both emotion and logic to their processing of media messages. Messages that seem more relatable and realistic to an individual’s life and experiences are more likely to influence decisions in ways that are consistent with the message content. For example, if a message about alcohol or tobacco makes  these substances seem cool—and individuals perceive the message as realistic or similar to them—then the message will be more likely to influence individuals’ substance use.

Program Components

The Media Detective program has 10 lessons lasting about 45 minutes each that build cumulatively on one another. Each lesson is scripted in a teacher manual to facilitate program implementation. The program uses a detective theme to engage students and teach critical thinking skills. Students learn to look for five “clues” when they view an advertisement: 1) the product being sold, 2) the target audience the advertisers are trying to attract, 3) the ad hook used to attract attention, 4) the hidden message, or what the ad is suggesting will happen to a person who uses the product, and 5) the missing information about health consequences from using the product. Students not only learn the clues and how to apply them in their analysis of advertisements, but they also learn to provide a logical rationale for their responses.

Students first learn to apply these skills to deconstructing print advertisements for a wide variety of products and then work on deconstructing specific advertisements for alcohol and tobacco products. Students practice deconstructing ads in whole class discussions, small group activities, and individual writing assignments. The curriculum culminates in a media advocacy activity in which each student creates a counter-ad. The classroom activities concentrate on decreasing students’ perceptions of the realism of alcohol and tobacco advertising messages compared with people and things that they know, with the goal of reducing their interest in the purchase or use of those substances.

Study 1

Kupersmidt, Scull, and Austin (2010) evaluated the program effectiveness of Media Detective using a randomized controlled trial in 12 elementary schools located in five central North Carolina school districts. Schools were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group after agreeing to participate in the study by using a random-number generator. In total, 49 third, fourth, and fifth grade classes participated, with 22 in the intervention group and 27 in the control group. This resulted in a total sample of 344 students in the intervention group and 335 students in the control group. Students were 51 percent female and ranged from 7 to 13 years old. Approximately 17 percent of students had tried alcohol or tobacco. The intervention and control groups did not significantly differ in terms of gender and previous experience with alcohol and tobacco. The intervention group had a larger proportion of fifth graders; the control group had a larger proportion of third graders.

Students in the intervention classes received the 10-day Media Detective program, while students in the control group received normal classroom material. Pretests and posttests were administered to students approximately 2 weeks apart. The primary outcome measure of interest was intention to use alcohol or tobacco, measured by eight items on 4-point scales ranging from 0 (definitely will not) to 3 (definitely will). Four items asked about alcohol use intentions, and four items asked about tobacco use intentions. Other outcome measures included deconstruction skills, understanding of persuasive intent, interest in alcohol-branded merchandise, and self-efficacy. Deconstruction skills were measured by students’ deconstruction of an alcohol print advertisement. Individual students’ scores were taken as an average of each of the three trained coders’ scores for that student. Understanding persuasive intent was measured with three items, with response scales ranging from 0 (never) to 5 (always). Six items measured interest in alcohol-branded merchandise (e.g., a Corona toy plane) compared with similar items with a soda product theme (e.g., a Sprite toy plane). Students indicated which they liked more on a 5-point scale, with higher scores indicating more interest in alcohol-branded merchandise. Finally, self-efficacy was assessed by four items that measured students’ feelings of personal control to refuse substances. Response scales ranged from 0 (never) to 5 (always), with higher scores indicating greater self-efficacy.

Within-classroom heterogeneity was accounted for when assessing each outcome variable. Pretest scores for each outcome variable were included as predictor variables; therefore, outcome variable averages are reported as adjusted posttest scores. Hierarchical linear modeling, using intent-to-treat analyses, were used to investigate differences in students’ outcome measures by using condition (intervention/control), grade (third, fourth, fifth), gender (male/female), grade by condition, gender by condition, and previous use by condition as independent variables.

One limitation to the study is the follow-up period. The results are based on information collected from students two weeks after they received the Media Detective intervention. More research is needed to study the long-term effects of the program.

In addition, the authors conducted subgroup analyses on gender and previous substance use.

innovation Research & Training, Inc. (iRT) offers an interactive, multimedia, Web-based teacher training for the Media Detective program. See the iRT website for further information.

Subgroup Analysis

Kupersmidt, Scull, and Austin (2010) conducted subgroup analyses to determine the possible effects that gender and previous substance use had on the efficacy of the Media Detective intervention. In looking at gender, they found that boys in the intervention group were less interested in alcohol-branded merchandise, compared with boys in the control group and with girls in both the intervention and control groups. This difference was statistically significant. However, they found no statistically significant differences between genders in intention to use alcohol or tobacco, deconstruction skills, understanding of persuasive intent, or self-efficacy.

In looking at previous substance use, the study authors found that students who had never used alcohol or tobacco were less likely to report intention to use substances in the future, compared with students who had previously used alcohol or tobacco. Students who had not used substances previously were also better able to deconstruct advertisements, compared with students who had used substances previously. Students who had no previous substance use reported a lower interest in alcohol-branded merchandise and higher self-efficacy, compared with students who had previously used substances. These differences were statistically significant. However, the study authors found no statistically significant differences in understanding persuasive intent between students who had and students who had not previously used alcohol or tobacco.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile: