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Working Papers & Handbooks


Provoking Thought, Changing Talk: Discussing Inequality
The Social Equity and Opportunity Forum at Portland State University , begun by BMSG founding director Larry Wallack, has launched an occasional paper series, “You Can Get There From Here.” In the inaugural issue, Joe Grady and Axel Aubrun of Cultural Logic discuss the difficulties inherent in talking about inequality. BMSG director Lori Dorfman and Larry Wallack offer a commentary, “Provoking Thought, Changing Talk: Putting it into Practice.” [download pdf]




Interactive Food & Beverage Marketing: Targeting Children and Youth in the Digital Age
The Proliferation of the media in children's lives has created a new "marketing ecosystem" that encompasses cell phones, mobile music devices, instant messaging, videogames, and virtual three-dimensional worlds. This report by Jeff Chester from the Center for Digital Democracy and Kathryn Montgomery from American University describes new marketing practices that are fundamentally transforming how food and beverage companies do business with young people in the twenty-first century.[download 8 page brief pdf] [download 98 page full report pdf] [see examples, news coverage, and statements from Marion Nestle, Kelly Brownell, the Strategic Alliance, Senator Tom Harkin, and Congressman Edward J. Markey at [digitalads.org]




Fighting Junk Food Marketing to Kids
by Berkeley Media Studies Group
 With support from the The California Endowment, BMSG developed a toolkit and accompanying DVD so neighborhood residents, parents, teachers and young people themselves can confront food and beverage marketing that interferes with creating healthy eating environments in their neighborhoods. Watch streaming video in English or Spanish that accompanies the toolkit and vividly illustrates the problem and what local groups can do about it. [download English toolkit pdf][download Spanish toolkit pdf] . Paquete de herramientas "Luchemos Contra la Promoción de Alimentos Chatarra entre los Niños" está disponible en Español [transferir paquete de herramientas en Español pdf]




Accelerating Policy on
NutritionAccelerating Policy on Nutrition: Lessons from Tobacco, Alcohol, Firearms, and Traffic Safety
by Berkeley Media Studies Group
With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The California Endowment, BMSG convened researchers and advocates with years of experience in various public health issues and asked: what can we learn from your field that would apply to nutrition? In Accelerating Policy on Nutrition you'll see that they had a lot to tell us. [download pdf]




A Message
Development Guide for AdvocatesMaking the Case for Early Care and Education: A Message Development Guide for Advocates
by Berkeley Media Studies Group
With support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, BMSG convened advocates around the country and hired EDK Associates to help us develop fresh language for making the case for local, state, and federal child care policy. The book reveals a hierarchy of messages in support of early care and education, shows how to use them in different contexts, and explains why some of the messages work better than others. [download pdf]




A Taxonomy of Public
Communications Campaigns and Their Evaluation ChallengesVoices for Change: A Taxonomy of Public Communications Campaigns and Their Evaluation Challenges
by Berkeley Media Studies Group
The Communications Consortium Media Center in Washington DC commissioned this paper as part of a collaborative project designed to research, develop, test, and disseminate principles for evaluating nonprofit communications. The paper profiles various strategic communication campaigns that differ in purpose, scope, and maturity to identify the evaluation challenges each presents in its messy real-world context. [download pdf]




Bucking Tobacco Sponsorship at
Rodeos - Strategies for Media AdvocacyBucking Tobacco Sponsorship at Rodeos: Strategies for Media Advocacy and Public Engagement
by Berkeley Media Studies Group & Public Media Center
We developed a media advocacy plan to counter the aggressive marketing by the tobacco industry at family sporting events, and to shift the focus from current arguments that frame tobacco marketing as a children's issue back to an issue of irresponsible industry marketing. [download pdf]




A Handbook for
Journalists - onlineReporting on Violence: A Handbook for Journalists
by Jane Ellen Stevens
This reporter's tool offers data, resources and suggestions on how to develop data-driven crime and violence stories. We have distributed nearly 1,000 copies to reporters and others in more than 131 news media outlets, journalism programs or affiliated organizations in California and across the country. [view an online version]



Reporting on Violence: 2nd
Edition Reporting on Violence: New Ideas for Television, Print, and Web
by Jane Ellen Stevens
This second edition of the handbook applies the same concepts to local TV news and multimedia reporting. It includes case studies on youth violence and intimate partner violence, with examples from innovative reporting at the San Jose Mercury News. [download pdf]



Reporting on Violence Instructor's Guide
by Jane Ellen Stevens, Esther Thorson and Lori Dorfman
This book provides an eight-week course for journalism students on how to include a public health perspective in crime and violence reporting, including lesson plans, lectures, class exercises and homework assignments. [download pdf]



Health & Safety Prototype Web Site
This prototype provides a model for how news organizations can use a Web "shell" to incorporate breaking news about violence with context and continuity into their own site focused on local health and safety. [learn about Web shells] [view the Health & Safety Prototype Site]




The following three papers were prepared for "Strengthening the Public Health Debate on Handguns, Crime, and Safety," a meeting convened by BMSG in Chicago, Illinois, with support from The Joyce Foundation:



EDK Gun Paper The Gun Control Movement has Found Its Voice: But Still Needs to Find Its Way
by Ethel Klein, EDK Associates, New York
The majority of Americans that favors stricter gun laws is silent no more. They are telling newscasters, pollsters, and politicians that they want something done to end the ease with which people can get guns. In October 1999, BMSG commissioned a paper from public opinion researcher Ethel Klein that tells the story of U.S. opinion on guns. Dr. Klein traces the trajectory of public opinion on guns and makes recommendations for violence prevention advocates who want to amplify the public's voice on this issue. [download pdf]



Gun Myths - pdf file Myths about Defensive Gun Use and Permissive Gun Carry Laws
by Daniel Webster, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD & Jens Ludwig, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
Some researchers have argued that communities are safer when more residents carry guns. But are they? Daniel Webster and Jens Ludwig examine the evidence put forth in various studies by John Lott and Gary Kleck to assess the question. Until proven otherwise, they write, the best science indicates that more guns will lead to more deaths. [download pdf]



Gun Policy - pdf fileGun Policy in Seven Midwestern States: A Brief Analysis
by Eric Gorovitz & Vincent Ferri, The Bell Campaign, San Francisco, CA
Gorovitz and Ferri explore gun laws in seven states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. These states, whose laws vary from unusually restrictive to remarkably permissive, present a host of challenges and opportunities for gun violence prevention advocates. [download pdf]




An Analysis of Three Strikes in California Newspapers: September 1993-March 1994

by Liana Winett and Lawrence Wallack, August 1994.
Late in 1993, a debate raged in California on how to quell the rising crime rate. "Three Strikes and You're Out" legislation was the solution championed by Governor Pete Wilson, who capitalized on high-visibility violence such as the Polly Klaas murder to muster support for his law. This framing memo analyzes the debate over "Three Strikes" in more than 100 articles from 38 newspapers across the state. [contact us for a copy]



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