JUS Media? Programme
Family Resiliency Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Co-Investigators, Consultants, and PhD Students pictured: Top: Dr. Regina Ahn, Dr.
Rachel Powell, Dr. Steve Tran, Dr. Michelle Nelson, Brenda Koester, M.S. Bottom: Prof.
Meeks (Co-PI), Dr. Gail Ferguson (PI), Dr. Barbara Fiese
The J(amaican and) U(nited) S(tates) Media? Programme — JUS Media? Programme for short — is a new transdisciplinary global health intervention designed to combat the impact of US cable/media on eating habits in Jamaica by teaching youth and parents to question the health messages embedded in food advertising. Listen to this 2017 podcast interview with the principal investigator, Dr. Gail Ferguson, for the story behind the birth of the JUS Media? Programme, and view and download educational infographics and videos here.
Where did JUS Media? come from?
The JUS Media? Programme is a research-based food-focused media literacy intervention and was developed in response to the findings of Dr. Ferguson’s Culture, Health, and Family Life Study (CHFLS) with adolescents and parents in Kingston, Jamaica. That study indicated that adopting a part-American identity in Jamaica through a process called remote acculturation is linked to watching more US cable TV daily, which is then linked to eating more unhealthy foods (Ferguson et al., 2018, Child Development).
Funded by the Food and Family Program of the Christopher Family Foundation, Family Resiliency Center, University of Illinois, Dr. Ferguson convened a team of experts in media and nutrition from the U.S. (Dr. Nelson, University of Illinois) and Jamaica (Prof. Meeks Gardner, University of the West Indies), who together did preliminary research to canvas the food and media landscapes in Kingston (See this 2-min video of ubiquitous food advertising in Jamaica). The team then adapted an empirically validated U.S. food-focused media literacy intervention of Dr. Nelson to create the JUS Media? Programme for families in Jamaica. The development of the JUS Media? Programme is described in this article in the American Psychologist (click here for FREE download/open access).
Empirical findings
Funded by the NIH, Fogarty International Center, we evaluated the JUS Media? Programme in Jamaica in a small-scale randomized controlled study involving students and mothers in Kingston. In this intervention, families:
•Session 1: Received a presentation on national nutrition guidelines, learned that Americanization puts them at higher risk of unhealthy eating, and deconstructed food ads based on media literacy principles.
•Session 2: Created counter-ads to expose the pernicious messages in a fast food ad, a skill called “subvertising”), and voted for the best subvertisements. See this 2-min video compilation of the subvertising contest winners — they gave written permission for their winning advertisements to be posted publicly.
Our efficacy study found that families who received the JUS Media? Programme reported better nutrition knowledge, higher vegetable consumption, and more critical thinking about food advertising than those who did not receive our Programme! Results were presented at multiple professional conferences (e.g., SRA, IACCP, 2018) and 4 journal articles have been published on baseline and overtime data including:
•Ferguson, G. M., Meeks Gardner, J. M., Nelson, M. R., Giray, C., Sundaram, H., Fiese, B. H., Davis, B. K., Tran, S. P., Powell, R., & JUS Media? Programme Study Team (2021). Food-focused media literacy for remotely acculturating adolescents and mothers: A randomized controlled trial of the ‘JUS Media? Programme’. Journal of Adolescent Health, advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2021.06.006. Click here for [PDF]
•Ferguson, G. M., Nelson, M. R., Fiese, B. H., Meeks Gardner, B. H., Koester, B., & The JUS Media? Programme Study Team (2020). U.S. media enjoyment without strong media literacy undermines efforts to reduce adolescents’ and mothers’ reported unhealthy eating in Jamaica. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 30(4), 928 942. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12571. Click here for [PDF]
•Nelson, M. R., Powell, R., Ferguson, G. M., & Tian, K. T. (2020). Using subvertising to build families’ persuasion knowledge in Jamaica. Journal of Advertising, 49(4), 477-494. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2020.1783725. Click here for [PDF]
•Nelson, M. R., Powell, R., Giray, C., & Ferguson, G. M. (2020). Intergenerational food-focused media literacy in Jamaica. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 12(2), 13-27. doi:10.23860/JMLE-2020-12-2-2 Click here for [PDF]
Products created by JUS Media? graduates
See this 2-min video compilation of the JUS Media? Programme subvertising contest winners in Jamaica — they gave written permission for their winning advertisements to be posted publicly.
Testimonials
Families in Jamaica who participated in the JUS Media? Programme had a lot to say about their experience. Listen to this family’s story.
Transdisciplinary global team
The JUS Media? Programme team included a transdisciplinary and global team of investigators having expertise in remote acculturation (Dr. Gail M. Ferguson, Principal Investigator, University of Minnesota, formerly University of Illinois, USA), Caribbean nutrition (Prof. Julie Meeks, University of the West Indies, Jamaica), media/advertising literacy (Dr. Michelle Nelson, University of Illinois, USA), childhood obesity and family mealtimes (Dr. Barbara Fiese, U of I, USA), and in stakeholder partnerships for healthy families (Brenda Koester, University of Illinois, USA).
Consultants on the team included Dr. Rachel Powell from the CDC Foundation, and Dr. Hari Sundaram from the U of I, and the Project Manager (Tashaine Morrison, UWI) and Data Manager (Dr. Steve Tran, U of I) also played key roles. Graduate student research assistants included Cagla Giray, Esra Sahin, and Ananya Shrestha (Human Development and Family Studies, USA); Regina Ahn, Kat Tian, and Mia Wang (Advertising, USA), and Candice Wray (Psychology, Jamaica). Several undergraduate students also served as research assistants on this project and one student completed an undergraduate honors research project mentored by a Ph.D. student researcher under the supervision of Dr. Ferguson.
Healthy families partnership
The JUS Media? Programme Team facilitated a series of three meetings to convene key stakeholders in the Kingston area of Jamaica to explore the possibility of partnership(s) to coordinate actions towards healthier families.
Each local stakeholder brought a unique lens and expertise. JUS Media? brought a food-focused media literacy lens. The first Healthy Families partnership meeting occurred on November 30, 2017 — click here to see the Executive Summary. The second Partnership meeting occurred on March 1, 2018, and the third (and final) on June 26, 2018.