Responses to messages about mammography: Advancing an O-S-O-R model of health communication for Hispanic women

Date
2013-05
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract

Using the O-S-O-R model of media effects, this dissertation examines the combined social and media factors that influence decision making about mammography among Hispanic women in West Texas. Although scholars have argued that cultural norms and their proxies play a key role in obtaining health-related knowledge and forming attitudes about health behaviors, very few studies have endeavored to explain how these learned and internal orientations influence attention to and processing of health-related messages, and how this process links to behavioral intention. The Orientation-Stimulus-Orientation-Response approach represents four elements of the communication process: pre-orientations, exposure to stimuli, post-orientations, and responses to stimuli, and describes two parts of the message reception process: first, how people’s preexisting orientation determines their receptivity or attention to message stimuli; and second, how the post-orientation formed by the message leads to the intended outcome – in this case, intention to engage in a mammogram. Results indicate that attitude toward mammography, level of acculturation, and interpersonal discussion about mammography influence intention to have a mammogram. Also, interpersonal discussion about mammography, descriptive norms, and injunctive norms for mammography mediate the relationship between exposure to mediated messages about mammography and intention to have a mammogram.

Description
Keywords
O-S-O-R, Breast cancer, Mammography, Hispanic, Acculturation, Rural health, Interpersonal communication, Communication effects
Citation