Family communication: A catalyst for socially desired behaviours

This study examines how mass-communicated messages from two pro-environmental public information communication campaigns, the Big Clean Up and Clean Up New Zealand, affect interpersonal communication in families. It also considers how interpersonal communication flows on to affect family behaviour. The findings from these two campaigns indicate that while parents tended not to pass on information they obtained from campaign messages, children were more enthusiastic about sharing messages with other family members. Parents, it was found, had their current beliefs and behaviour patterns endorsed as a result of the messages. There were no notable behaviour changes in families where the parent was the initial message receiver. However, where children provided initial intervention behaviour, changes ranged from minor to remarkable. These findings have implications for public information campaign designers, where behaviour change is a campaign objective, and indicate an area where further research is required.