Conclusion

As we head into the end of the semester, I cannot help but reflect on my experience in this class. As a DAAP major, I rarely get outside of that building and when I do, it may not be for a class I want to be in. Communicating about health, science and the environment was a class I enjoyed coming to and looked forward to hearing about. The topics that we covered were practical and realistic and were applicable to  my life–which I appreciated.

Taking this class from a non-communications major standpoint, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The structure, the content, the assignments were all enjoyable to me. With that, I have to say that communicating about Health was my favorite topic. I’ve always been interested in health sciences as that was my second choice for a major, but health communication opened a whole new door of though for me. I realized how important it is to (firstly) communicate about our health and (secondly) how important it is to examine the ways in which we are doing so. In order to form good means for health communication, we have to understand ourselves, and the very first week we examined how health communication effects our every day life and what questions it answers. It was helpful to know that health communication answers the question “who am I.” That was a really nice start for me because instantly, I knew that this class was going to be a bit personable.

My greatest fear for this class, when I registered, was that it was going to be way over my head and not relatable for me, but that fear was abolished and I quickly realized that what I learn in this class, I can take to heart and use in my everyday life. This class was really enjoyable and while I learned a lot about health comm, I also developed a stance on climate change which overall, was the greatest victory for me.

 

Mikayla Hounchell

Personal thoughts: Climate Change

Growing up in a conservative house hold, climate change wasn’t an issue that was discussed because “the earth was just going through a phase,” and while this may be scientifically true, it’s also true that Climate Change is a real thing that is happening now at an incredibly fast pace. It’s not just “the Earth’s cycle” anymore. Watching DiCaprio’s documentary helped me sort out my views and where I stand on this issue which was important for me because I’d never been forced to do so before. Seeing images and footage from various places across the world and their paths to destruction made me understand that this issue is happening in the here and now and is not something that can be pushed aside until it presents itself clearly–its presenting itself very clearly right now. Rachel Brathen,a yoga instructor that I follow faithfully, posted just two days ago of a massive flood in Aruba. She references Dicaprio’s documentary and states that “climate change is REAL.” Just because we don’t have massive flooding here in Cinci that forces us to take action doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t. Coupled with pollution and over-population, we’re experiencing change here as well. The floods in Aruba recently are a prime example of how climate change is truly an issue and how our little changes (energy efficient appliances, recycling, composting etc.) are failing and we have to take real action with greater impact on our planet. The recent election puts climate change in a whole new light and jeopardizes the world’s past efforts to reduce the planet’s temperature increase, and thats nerve-racking. Over all, these past few classes and the documentary have been essential for me in the way that i’ve developed a stance on climate change that I hadn’t previously had, and I have a greater understanding of how prevalent it is in the every day life that I live.

 

Mikayla Hounchell

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McDonalds.

Among many products that are found criminal to greenwashing, business as a whole are often guilty of changing something about the way they operate to fit the bill of “greener products.” Companies think that because their product is greener or more environmental friendly that business will boom and sales will skyrocket. While this may be true, it is only true for the less-informed consumer. It is important as a consumer to be aware and informed of the seven sins of greenwashing so that we are not disillusioned into believing that a company is more green or more innocent than they truly are.

McDonalds changed some of their logos in 2014 claiming that they were “going green”. McDonalds has over 800 locations In Ohio, being out New York and coming in close behind Florida and California. Customers are attracted there not because of the food, per se, but rather the convenience and speed in which the food can be produced. McDonald’s saw this opportunity and stepped up their game launching the going green campaign. In this campaign they claimed to source more sustainable beef by 2016. They also claimed to use biofuel from leftover grease and use it in their fleet trucks. This company also took a “leap” in using recycled paper in their bags. McDonalds is not sustainable in any way shape or form: ” yet the company still uses beef grazed on deforested land in South America.”

Mcdonalds is sinful through vagueness, hidden trade-off and and no proof. Vagueness is accomplished through the label itself. a Green background with the golden arches does not accomplish anything tangible. McDonald’s is making a claim here that they cannot support with their product. The new label cannot back up their service or their claims through what they are serving or the means through which they are doing it. There is no real proof of sustainable beef in their products and the “recycle” label on their bags does very little for their green image. Paper bags are a hidden trade-off. They are not actually sustainable compared to other options or products.

 

Misleading Marketing: What Is Greenwashing ?

https://www.menuism.com/restaurant-locations/mcdonalds-21019

http://sinsofgreenwashing.com/findings/the-seven-sins/

 

Mikayla Hounchell

 

advertising: emotions & aesthetics

When considering nature as a backdrop, we can emotionally relate in both positive and negative ways; it kind of like the way that psychologists analyze the positive and negative effects of nature on children, and then their associations with nature in adulthood. If there is a negative experience with nature and a company uses nature as a backdrop, you may be less inclined to buy that product because of the emotional triggers that it holds in your mind. Speaking negatively, you would not care to spend your money on a product (or even to a company) that uses nature and green advertising if you had a traumatic experience as a young person.

 

Positively, green advertisements are mostly aesthetically pleasing and well done. WWF has some of the best green advertising (mostly about endangerment and global warming) but it’s imagery, appeal to emotion, and overall composition definitely leave you impacted. When I researched the best green advertising, WWF had many impactful pieces that left me thinking, “these are incredible, very well done.” I happen to be a person that looks closely at aesthetics along with message and World Wildlife Fund encompasses all of one issue into their advertisements. They really capture what they want to get across the minds of consumers and do it artfully and impactful. The simplicity and minimal use of imagery and distraction is what really makes these adds pop and make you think twice when seeing them.

 

Product wise, companies like P&G (manufacturers of Tide), launch campaigns rather than billboards. The Tide Coldwater Challenge (2014) challenges consumers to “Give your clothes a brilliant clean while reducing energy consumption.” They basically say that by switching to Coldwater and washing with their product you can save money on energy while giving your clothes a lifetime boost. This switch will essentially reduce CO2 emissions. This pledge was launched and only centered around Earth day; while the pledge would certainly benefit by being extended into the following days, months and years, customers that were entering themselves into this pledge only had to pledge to use Coldwater on the week of Earth Day. What if you don’t need to do laundry on Earth Day? Is committing to cold water as an everyday use such a tough commitment that P&G knew of its inconvenience and only made the pledge a one week thing for that reason?

 

http://news.pg.com/press-release/pg-corporate-announcements/tide-challenges-americans-switch-cold-water-during-earth-we

http://www.oddee.com/item_96818.aspx

planned obsolescence as a designer

As an industrial designer, functionality plays a great deal into what and why we design a product, car, electronic, softgood, etc. However, I never actually took into account the actual planning of planned obsolescence. I never accounted for the planning of a product dying. But it makes sense. Designers walk a fine line between functionality and complete and total disaster. If the product is designed to be functional forever, the company for which you are designing is not going to thrive or make a sustainable profit because consumers aren’t coming back for more (as often). Yet, if the product is designed to break fairly easily, or die after a couple of months (or whatever specific time frame the company sees fit) the consumer will find another company to buy from because they are no longer satisfied with the quality of the current product. So, if a product is designed to last too long, the company suffers but if the product is designed to fail too quickly the company suffers. If the designer isn’t purposeful about material, form, functionality and even the consumer market, the company is going to fail.

There are many examples of planned obsolescence with cars and consumer electronics being at the forefront of those examples. There are always new cars and a new iPhone and a new game system for the sole reason of accessorizing. Society today tells us that we must accessorize and these accessories are very much going to fade and die sooner than later and the industry has to keep up with their planned depletion. Cars, for example, are always being redesigned and re-modeled and remade. Every year, Ford comes out with a new Focus or Fusion. Why? “instead of sticking with hits and standardizing them over time (which would be better for the repair market) car companies retire popular models and bring out something new every few years, making it harder to repair older models.” So, not only are companies coming out with new models every couple of years but they’re also retiring old parts making it nearly impossible to be efficient (consuming wise) and own an older vehicle.

Planned Obsolescence from a design standpoint is a very complex issue that isn’t often thought about, yet is very present in the everyday lives of product designers. Walking the fine line for a company with the effects of consumer response is crucial in order to maintain a successful market and overall economy.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/g202/planned-obsolescence-460210/?slide=7&thumbnails=

Mikayla Hounchell

modern adventures

I feel like its common sense: if you have a bad experience with nature as a child, you’re probably not going to be an environmentalist, or even have a strong ideology with nature. It’s like if you have bad sushi one night, it’s unlikely that you’re going to revisit that restaurant and order the same thing. The book talks about how psychologists know that children’s experiences with nature have great and crucial effects on their physical and emotional development, but how can this effect be positive when the growing society is becoming less and less environmentally centered?

Richard Louv calls the limited connections to the environment in present society “nature-deficit disorder”.  Childhood today is much more structured with school, sports and activities and this leaves little time for children to simply go explore—no matter how big or small the adventure, it’s not a normal thing in society to just go roam and explore. Not only has the environmental norm for children changes in the past few decades but childhood experiences with nature are becoming indirect and felt through pixels rather than cells. Children 2-5 spend an average of 32 hours a week, that’s nearly 4.7 hours a day watching tv when they could be exploring or making positive connections with the environment that they live in.

Connections are now vicarious rather than direct. Children are learning about animals and such through zoos and aquariums, and personally I think that’s better than nothing. The exposure to wild animals through zoos is better than nothing. While the issue of humane treatment of animals, etc. comes into play, as a child it’s not something that you’re concerned about.  When I was a child I rarely had vicarious experiences with nature, they were mostly direct. My father would take me fishing, my grandpa had a horse, my mom enjoyed hiking, I was a Girl Scout and I thoroughly enjoyed getting my hands dirty and working in the garden. My younger sister, age 9, has had a very different experience with nature. While she enjoys playing outside, that consists of riding hoverboards down the street and catching pokemon. These things get kids outside, but the connection with nature is lacking and its incredible to see how fast society is progressing and how nature is taking a back-burner to technology and media.

My sister and I are only 9 years apart but it may as well be a different era because she does not connect with nature the way that I do, and it’s not her fault—its no one’s fault. It’s just the way society continues to shape our lives and warp what is and isn’t important.

 

Click to access Benefits%20of%20Connecting%20Children%20with%20Nature_InfoSheet.pdf

http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/tv.htm

 

Who is to blame for illiteracy?

It’s amazing how the media shapes everyday life.

Pluto literally did not matter until something absurd happened and society went nuts and science was harassed for what it normally does:discover. Scientific discoveries happen everyday and normally, we are not emotionally connected to these discoveries and therefore have no reaction to these things. For some reason, americans had a deep connection to pluto and the media blew up with reactions from fellow citizens’s reaction to Pluto’s elimination as a planet. This connects to the issue that is very relevant: scientific illiteracy. Scientific Illiteracy in today’s world effects many things—the basic knowledge of scientific facts is rarely ever present in everyday society. In class when we took the small quiz on basic scientific facts, I found it extremely challenging to conjure up answers to many of these questions that were absolutely basic! And i’m right out of High School, much fresher than a good majority of the people in society that are taking this test and shaping the statistic that 80% of Americans cannot read the scientific section of the New York Times
the way that scientific illiteracy is portrayed in the media is often through surveys, and Q&A’s. I think that it’s super easy to blame the problem of scientific illiteracy on the school system but I think that’s where the blame should be put because that’s their job. We are legally required to go to school as kids until a certain age, during that time science should be more apparent in that segment of our education if we expect to see better survey results. If a citizen chooses to drop out of high school or not attend a higher education program, the blame cannot be placed on education but on the citizen’s interest, or lack thereof, in science and its application in daily life. So, why can I solve an extensive chemistry problem, but cannot tell you why the earth has seasons or time changes right off the top of my head? Perhaps it’s my lack of memory, but in reality, what normal human brain can pick through the layers and years of scientific knowledge and peel its way back to the third or fourth grade? I tend to only remember what i’ve been taught in within a two-year span and then its like everything else just falls into a black abyss. Survey results are alarming not because american society is dumb or not capable of understanding science and and applying current knowledge to surveys, but its that the knowledge need for current surveys is not current, its buried under years and years of physics, complex equations, calculus and so on. Basic information that the media uses in the surveys to develop stats on scientific illiteracy has been covered year by year with more complex information until the american taking the survey cannot dig through all of the knowledge in their head and pull out whats needed to take a basic survey.
Who’s fault is this? I don’t think that anyone’s at fault because complex knowledge shouldn’t be an issue, and its not ever been an issue, that is until complex scientific information cannot aid to the statistic of scientific illiteracy.

 

Photo: Math scene in “The Little Prince”–Netflix Original

Violence in healthcare

Healthcare is supposed to be like a nurturing figure. It is supposed to heap and heal and make us feel better. As Americans, we have the privilege to great healthcare and also the right to health as well. American’s receive some of the best healthcare in the world but our system is also laced with injustice and violence. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. says, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare  is the most shocking and inhumane.”

The injustice in healthcare is incredibly vivid as stated in the facts. For many cultural minorities, quality of life is greatly impacted by chronic health conditions and lack of care. And while minorities are affected by this structural violence it is sometimes hard to notice because it is so deeply imbedded into our society. There are 50 million people in america living without health insurance and its due to a multitude of reasons. The economic reality of the current times make it hard to promote universal healthcare without flipping the system around greatly, and that causes a lot of fear in the political system.

We are guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson outlined that in the constitution–we’ve all heard it before. But what about healthcare? In a country that stresses independence and free will, it is very hard to pursue the basic things in life without simply being healthy. Of course this leads to the political realm of health care that is mostly too complex for me too follow at times. We have basic needs as human beings and in the case of Acephie, the interplay of structure and agency along with the interjection of structural violence ultimately led to her death.

Structural violence is prevalent today, and was very explicit in Acephie’s story as well. The interdependence of structure and agency made it hard for Acephie to get the care that she needed. It was almost a cause and effect situation. Although she knew some of the things she was getting herself into, it was the structural violence which was so deeply imbedded into society, that seemingly bound her to her decisions as an impoverished woman. And as an impoverished woman working for the basic needs of life, she was physically unable to get healthcare for herself because healthcare doesn’t necessarily  fall under “things I need to buy for myself to stay alive.” Healthcare isn’t a thing that is actively thought of until it’s absolutely needed, and minorities and victims of structural violence shouldn’t have to travel near and far to get the care that they deserve as an American citizen.

 

sources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2013/08/28/americas-forgotten-civil-right-healthcare/#260775db6ea0

http://www.rwjf.org/en/culture-of-health/2013/01/_of_all_the_formsof.html

Mikayla Hounchell

Influencing our communication: Religion

Basing our decisions towards health usually come from somewhere. They could come from our personal research, our moral beliefs, or even our spiritual stance; just to name a few. We typically don’t have the knowledge or confidence to make large decision, or communicate about something extremely personal without reliance from an outside source–be it a God, mentor or a textbook. Whatever it is, it’s natural for the human mind to rely on something more than just ourselves.

Having a concept of faith, in a way, evokes a sense of responsibility and loyalty and may influence our morals and ethics, which also relate to health communication in the sense of seeking treatment. Parrott talks about how religion effects the way we view research and whether it should be conducted, and on which grounds. Our concepts of faith may also be used to justify efforts or lack thereof. Some religions physically influence health. Islamic teachings prohibit the use of tobacco and alcohol and obviously this would positively effect the health of those practicing the religion. Other religions and churches offer tangible outreach houses like clothing centers and food banks. These programs allow for basic human survival and influence physical health in a positive way as well as a mental way. Both of these examples successfully employ the use of spiritual beliefs and practices to increase physical longevity as well as psychological comfort. Back in my hometown (Fairfield, OH) I vividly remember volunteering at various clothing centers. One of which was based at my home church at the time. Here, we would organize thousands of garments and sort them into their respective rooms. Following the organization, we would then monitor the rooms as people would flood in and gather the garments that would suffice for the upcoming season. These people in my community were in need and the church recognized that physical need by creating this clothing center. In return, the number of people in attendance on Sunday mornings rose. By recognizing the physical need to provide for the community so that it would remain healthy in the months to come, the health of the church also flourished because attendance rose.

Moving onto health communication and treatment, there are and always have been two distinct sides: religion and science. What if they were meant to coexist? Religion as a belief denies the belief in science and scientific explanations. Parrott addresses this with the final statement in this section being, “The science of religion often asserts that subscribers should view the two as complementary rather than mutually exclusive.” I personally agree with this statement as I identify with both religion and science and think that they are meant to coexist. Sometimes, and Parrott recognizes that this may be unintentional, science gets pitted against religion. I would add to that and state that sometimes religion gets pitted against science as well. So, can they really coexist? John Horgan says, ‘yes’: they converge on proving our existence as both miraculous and mysterious and neither science or religion have a definite answer. So, each religion has different sets of values, guidelines and actions associated with healthcare and treatment; sometimes these beliefs conflict with science’s recommendation. When considering the ways that our faith defines rewards and punishments can lead us to make successful health decisions and ultimately prove that we don’t always have to have the answers or make the perfect decisions.

Sources, etc.:

Joe Horgan on “Can Faith and Science coexist?”

Islamic Beliefs Relating to healthcare

Roman Catholic Beliefs on Healthcare

(Mikayla Hounchell)

Normal, in what context?

The first thing that has struck me in this class is the way that Parrott defines, explains, and defends her definition of normalcy. Being normal and “fitting in”, per se, is something that most human beings strive for; to blend in and to be, well, normal. But what if being normal is not good? Or what is it’s not everything we thought it would be? In relation to our health, what if being normal is bad? Parrott addresses each of these questions under the scrutiny of stories, numbers and poor health and describes the way that, as a society normalcy is described through the numbers and stories. Speaking about normalcy through numbers requires more than just a mere surface understanding of the numbers, but a deep and thorough understanding of how numbers effect our health and in turn, how we communicate about our health. Understanding the percentages, comparisons and ratios allows us to understand our risks, treatment options and ultimately, our outcomes; and lack of understanding can lead to  less informed decision. Turning to stories is comforting, they sprinkle emotion into a situation where numbers can really only create a neutral voice an point of view. Numbers do not carry the weight of others’ situations, and stories go way beyond the surface, “numbers can’t convey how it feels to feel that way, or what to do in response.” Stories evoke an emotional component that numbers cannot provide. Stories equip us with affirmation and reassurance when faced with a medical decision and they give us an idea of what’s normal based on feeling. The personal relation  of stories is comforting, and when we understand something on a personal and emotional level we begin to gain the confidence needed to make a large decision. It is helpful that we often think in stories, and therefore respond to stories as well. This understanding and response to stories also allows us to form what we can acknowledge as “normal”. Parrott’s vision of how the common society views poor health is surprisingly interesting to me in they way that she takes small truths and explicitly explains them in detail. Most of what she describes is common sense information but, we often take this common sense info and put it in the back of our minds as normal; especially when it comes to poor health. So, Parrott takes one word, “normal”,and puts it under the spotlights of stories, numbers and poor health. Under these spotlights she dissects the word and how we use normalcy to make decisions, cope emotionally, and cut corners when it comes to health. Parrott’s style of writing has me intrigued and her content is so simplified yet mind-stretching. I look forward to what she has to say about communication and how she will continue to take simple ideas and analyze them into big ideas that shape the way we think, rationalize and communicate about health.

 

(Mikayla Hounchell)