Part 1 cont.

the annual check-up (see Rich & Bar-on, 2001 for a discussion of how media education can be done with pediatricians)? What is the best balance between "top-down" and "bottom-up" grassroots strategies for media literacy and health initiatives? A number of participants questioned the dominance of "individual" level emphasis and discussed strategies designed to promote institutional change, especially the use of media advocacy techniques as applied to a range of public health prevention and media regulation issues.

Economic Contexts

Because the predominant model for mass media in the U.S. and many other nations is a commercial one, and since concentration of ownership is more and more the norm, participants discussed questions about the economic relationship between people who create messages and those who consume them. How to study the economic layers in society, looking especially for the roles of wealth and education with regard to the types of messages received and the ability of citizens to respond to those messages?

For example, commercial branding permeates much contemporary media in many parts of the world. Who is the branding for? Does it create an image, for example, for both prescription and over-the-counter brands of medication? How does branding pharmaceuticals affect health care quality and health care choices? Several participants identified the need for new research that would compare and contrast the commercialized models of health communication now in place in the U.S. with non-commercial health