Exploring the views of cultural competence of strategic communication practitioners on the example of public service advertisements against domestic violence through in-depth interviews
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Cultural competence is one of the cornerstones of effective strategic health communication in public service advertising: the cultural competence of strategic communication practitioners influences the outcomes of interventions developed by them -- public service advertisements (PSAs). Specifically, cultural competence contributes to developing more persuasive PSAs since culture influences behaviors and how people perceive messages, meaning that culture should be considered when designing PSAs. The importance to consider culture in public service advertising especially increases for countries that have significant cultural diversity (e.g., the United States) and for addressing issues that are much rooted in culture, such as domestic violence -- a crucial issue in public health worldwide and relevant public service advertising. However, there is not much known about whether strategic communication practitioners are aware of the concept of cultural competence. In this light, the dissertation aimed to explore the awareness, understanding, and views of cultural competence as well as the experiences with cultural competence of strategic communication practitioners who have been involved in developing domestic violence PSAs in the United States through the method of in-depth interviews. For the reason that, to the author's knowledge, there existed no conceptual definition of cultural competence in mediated strategic health communication obtained through a systematic process of concept explication as a method, the dissertation, applying a concept explication method by McLeod and Pan, provides a tentative conceptual definition of cultural competence, including its dimensions (i.e., cultural knowledge, cultural sensitivity, and cultural awareness). Next, nine strategic communication practitioners were interviewed for the study, where the interview guide was based on the conceptual definition of cultural competence. Thematic data analysis has brought the following key findings. First, the practitioners in the sample showed their awareness of cultural competence, positive attitude toward cultural competence, and ranked its importance for the effectiveness of PSAs against domestic violence highly. Second, cultural competence may relate to cultural diversity in the person's environment (e.g., in the workplace or community). Last, external factors at the different levels of the socio-ecological model (i.e., the relationship, community, and societal levels) may much facilitate developing cultural competence. Through both the concept explication and empirical study, the dissertation establishes the foundation for the further theorizing of cultural competence and empirical research and promotes consistency in the concept's use. Future research should continue examining the concept of cultural competence and its role in effective mediated strategic health communication.
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Ph. D.