Punishment of Love: Media Impact Survey

In May 2003, Population Services International (PSI)/Cambodia launched a 12-week integrated, multimedia HIV/AIDS prevention campaign featuring a television soap opera called Punishment of Love (hereafter, PoL). In December 2003, PSI published an evaluation of the series, with the following research objectives:

• to measure exposure to the PoL television series and other aspects of the campaign among the intended audience
• to evaluate retention and understanding of PoL's messages
• to evaluate the impact of the campaign on attitudes toward discussion of HIV/AIDS and condoms, risk perception for HIV, and stigma toward people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA).

An initial pilot survey was conducted to determine exposure, followed by questionnaire for those who fulfilled quota requirements. In total, 5 groups were surveyed:

1. general population 15-49
2. youth in school 15-24
3. youth out of school 15-24
4. potential male clients of sex workers
5. female hospitality/garment workers

An excerpt from the Evaluation follows:

"The PoL television drama had broad popular appeal, attracting viewers from a variety of backgrounds (gender, educational level, location, marital status, [socioeconomic status, or] SES) who found the series to be very enjoyable...however more men than women watched the talk show and said that they enjoyed it. This may indicate that men appreciate the talk show format more than women, or it could be a reflection of less leisure time available to women – women may not have time to watch the series and talk show in a back-to-back format. Time constraints combined with a back-to-back format may also be the reason for only 19.2% of those who watched the television series going on to watch the talk show. Another explanation may be that some audience members find the talk show format or content undesirable or that promotion for the show was insufficient. Alternately, poor television reception or the fact that the most popular channels did not broadcast the talk show directly after the drama series may have contributed to lower numbers of viewers.

Behavior change communication (BCC) messages broadcast on television benefit from the widest coverage of any media in Cambodia. A large proportion of the population can also be reached by radio but BCC messages in newspapers reach only a tiny fraction of the population. The newspaper ads were included in the campaign as a potential way of reaching opinion leaders in the community (i.e. high-status males), however...the limited reach of newspapers should be considered when selecting media for future campaigns.

While the finding that many respondents were motivated to watch a PoL episode more than once in order to better understand BCC messages is positive, it suggests that the presentation or content of messages may have been too complicated. Another conclusion from this finding is the importance of repeating broadcasts to allow for multiple viewings...Program planners should also consider repeating messages across episodes to ensure that more viewers are exposed to them. Finally, missed messages from PoL could be incorporated into future campaigns to increase the likelihood of audience retention.

There was good retention of the key educational message of PoL (condom use for STI/HIV prevention). However, several of the more complex or controversial messages which received less coverage during the campaign or have received less publicity through other sources were hardly mentioned by respondents (alcohol/drug use, illegal abortions, sexual violence). These briefly presented 'secondary' messages may have been overshadowed by the frequent repetition of the main condom use message. It is also possible that people's concern with HIV/AIDS or the association of PSI and condoms may have distracted attention from the more briefly and/or subtly presented messages....

The series was successful in generating discussion about the key message, although 'norms' from other television programs are unavailable for comparison. While the majority of respondents said that they had learned something from each of the campaign elements, in most cases they repeated the educational messages they had identified, so it is difficult to assess whether they had truly learned something new or were simply providing the socially desirable answer.

...Although controlling for socio-demographic variables still left significant differences between viewers and non-viewers for many KAP variables, it is clear that some of the key target demographics are under-represented amongst viewers of PoL. This has implications for future targeting of campaigns, as the socio-demographic groups who were less well reached by the campaign are also those who have less positive scores on the KAP variables included in the survey."

Click here for the Executive Summary in PDF format. (To request a copy of the full report, please see below).