Katz and Lazarsfeld Revisited: Using Intermedia Theory to Enhance Health Campaigns

The decade following World War II saw the rapid rise of research on the effects of mass communication. Most of this research focused on the persuasive influence of mediated messages – first in print form, and later through radio and television broadcasts. Many, in fact, feared the assumed power of the media to shape and control the ideas, attitudes, and behaviors of societal members (Berelson, 1950). By the mid-1950s, however, mass communication scholars were becoming aware that the assumed ability of the media to control people's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors was not being supported by media effect research. In his oft-cited book summarizing the findings of mass communication studies to date, Klapper (1960) concluded that " mass communication ordinarily does not serve as a necessary and sufficient cause of audience effects, but rather functions among and through a nexus of mediating factors and influences. .. [and] when mass communication does affect people, these effects tend to be minor and short-lived " (p. 8). Like their mass communication predecessors, health campaign scholars initially assumed that the media were powerful social tools for shaping and altering the health-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of people. However, that assumption quickly came into question as many mediated health campaigns produced either minimal or no