Family Health International (Geary & Burke), Valley Research Group (Neupane), IBOPE (Castelnau), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Brown)

This 17-page article evaluates the reach and impact of MTV (Music TV)'s youth-focused global HIV prevention campaign. As explained here, MTV was launched in 1981 in the United States and has since become the leading youth-brand television network in the world, with 42 channels reaching over 412 million households in 166 territories in 19 languages.

Recognising the potential for communicating social change messages associated with this reach, and in tune with its strategy for communicating with youth, specifically, in 1999 MTV took the lead among global media networks by attempting to combat AIDS through its "Staying Alive" campaign. As the authors of this paper explain, in addition to airing a documentary every World AIDS Day (December 1), the campaign expanded in 2002 to include other programming and public service announcements (PSAs) that were broadcast on all 37 MTV channels around the world. Reducing stigma toward those living with HIV/AIDS, reducing stigma related to condom use, and increasing personal responsibility in the fight against AIDS have been themes in this multi-component campaign.

As detailed here, questions have been raised, however, about whether MTV is an appropriate channel for these types of messages, given its provocative content ("sex has always been at the edge of the MTV envelope", as the authors put it) and its appeal to those at the upper end of the socioeconomic scale. For example, viewing music videos has been linked with more permissive sexual attitudes among young people. MTV producers have apparently responded to these concerns by stressing that the strength of their strategy lies in their honesty with young audiences (i.e. the audience is realistically interested and involved in sex). Rather than preaching to youth or judging them, they attempt to communicate reality as it is for their viewers, thereby earning their trust - a strategy which can be particularly effective when it comes to passing along HIV prevention messages, MTV contends.

In this context, to address questions about how MTV shapes young people's sexual attitudes and behaviours, viewership data were analysed from baseline surveys conducted as part of an evaluation of the MTV's 2002 "Staying Alive" campaign. The two sites included in this analysis were Kathmandu, Nepal, and Sao Paulo, Brazil - each with very different cultures and media environments. In both countries, 1,000 females and males aged 16 to 25 years old participated in a baseline survey. Then, an interviewer-administrated questionnaire was carried out to assess media use, with a focus on MTV's 2002 campaign.

The authors found that, in general, MTV viewers in the 2 cities studied are appropriate audiences for the HIV prevention messages being delivered through the campaign. Here is a selection of the many key findings (detailed within the text of this article as well as in various tables):

• Viewers who are categorised here as "heavy" (daily viewers of MTV) are younger, better educated, and more dependent on their parents, and they have more access to satellite television and the internet.
• Cross-platform messaging (using more than one medium at a time - television and the MTV website simultaneously, for example) - "not only makes sense, but as our data show, can be used to reinforce the primary messages..."
• A large proportion of the MTV viewing audience is watching for social norms - to find out what other young people are doing and to learn about sex and romance through television and music (i.e. entertainment-education). This may, according to the authors, help to explain why those with greater resources are watching most (they perhaps consider themselves to be the trendsetters in their culture).
• More discussion of MTV content is associated with heavy viewing, as is having discussed HIV with at least one person in the month prior to the survey.
• No association between MTV viewership and HIV knowledge was found in either site.
• The study found that MTV viewing was associated with positive attitudes toward HIV prevention behaviours, except for abstinence until marriage (MTV does not seem to be reaching girls in either site with messages about abstinence, which is not surprising, the authors say, given that MTV expects a sexually active audience and is responding to a demand for sexier content). There was no association found between MTV viewing and premarital sexual activity.

In conclusion, the authors note that focusing on how to reach the MTV audience, globally, with social change messages can be an important strategy, since "these are the young people who are on the cutting edge of social diffusion". So, for instance, sharing HIV prevention messages with this audience in an attempt to influence knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours "could have a beneficial ripple effect throughout their age cohort".

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