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ROLES OF PRINT MEDIA IN CREATING AWARENESS AGAINST DRUG ABUSE.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0    Introduction

1.1    Background to the Study

Mass media have been a major agent of socialization and tools for social changes especially now that people depend on message from mass media. The potential power of the mass media to help solve social problems. Television, radio and print advertising can entice people to buy a wide range of products and services, and television entertainment programs and movies exert enormous influence over our ideas, values and behavior.

Therefore, according to conventional wisdom, it should be possible to use mass communications to get people to act on behalf of their own health and well-being or to “do right” by important social causes. Based on this assumption, since World War II, federal, state and local governments, private foundations and other nongovernmental organizations have sponsored hundreds of public service campaigns to promote social rather than commercial “goods” (DeJong and Winsten, 2000).

It is not surprising then that prevention advocates would look to the mass media as an important aid in addressing the problem of high-risk drinking in society. Some advocates have pushed for reform or other restrictions on alcohol advertising. Others have sought to influence entertainment producers to end the glorification of high-risk drinking in newspaper, magazine, television and in the movies (Montgomery, 2009). More recently, prevention advocates have produced a small number of media campaigns designed to change students and youth knowledge attitude and behaviour.

Most media campaign focused on college students drinking which have been campus based, using a mix of posters, flyers, electronic mail messages and college newspaper advertisement. More recently a few regional, state and national media campaigns have begin to address this issue as well.

However, the history of the human race has also been the history of drug abuse. In itself, the use of drugs does not constitute an evil. Drugs, properly administered, have been a medical blessing for example, herbs, roots, bark leaves and plants have been used to relieve pain and help control diseases. However, over the past few decades, the use of illegal drugs has spread at an unprecedented rate and has reached every part of the world. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report (2005), some 200 millions people, or 5 percent of the total worlds population aged 15-64 have used drugs at least once in the last 12 months this implied 15 million people more than the 2004 estimated. The report goes on to say that, no nation has been immune to the devastating effects of drug abuse. According to the World Drugs Report (2005), the use of illicit drugs has increased throughout the world in recent years.

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