ABSTRACT
Despite a long history of mass media health promotion campaigns, success in persuading recipients into healthy behaviour is far from guaranteed. Campaigns may fail to reach target groups and may be hindered by unforeseen events attracting adverse attention from the media. Campaign messages may also be rejected as being too di€cult to understand, irrelevant, boring, irritating, or just unconvincing. Theoretical and experimental research, however, has contributed to our knowledge of the determinants of success in mass media campaigns, and has also made us aware of the limited persuasive power of health promotion messages, especially if they are based on the assumption that recipients will consciously contemplate the advantages and disadvantages of maintaining or changing their health behaviour. As Maio et al. (2007, 129) contend, unhealthy behaviours are oen driven by habit, automatic attitudes, and situational limitations that may compete with volitional control.
