"Are You In or Are You Out?!" Moral Appeals to the Public in Organ Donation Poster Campaigns: A Multimodal and Ethical Analysis

Organ transplantation is a well-established practice in modern medicine. However, many countries, especially those with an opt-in regulation, face the problem of low donation numbers. Respective public campaigns attempt to increase the number of donors by swaying public opinion with the use of caref...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health communication 2018-08, Vol.33 (8), p.1020-1034
Main Authors: Hansen, Solveig L, Eisner, Marthe I, Pfaller, Larissa, Schicktanz, Silke
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Altruism
Ambiguity
Awareness
Biological organs
Blood & organ donations
Campaigns
Conformity
Donors
Ethics
Germany
Health Communication - methods
Health education
Health information
Humans
Inappropriateness
Medical ethics
Messages
Moral Obligations
Morality
Multimodality
Personal Autonomy
Public Opinion
Public spaces
Reciprocity
Social Responsibility
Suffering
Tissue and Organ Procurement - organization & administration
Tissue Donors
Transplantation
Transplants
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Summary:Organ transplantation is a well-established practice in modern medicine. However, many countries, especially those with an opt-in regulation, face the problem of low donation numbers. Respective public campaigns attempt to increase the number of donors by swaying public opinion with the use of carefully selected bits of information. Germany serves as a case study for an opt-in country investing approximately €7.5 million/year in the distribution of respective campaigns. To address diverse populations, large-scale posters in various public spaces still display a multitude of moral messages for organ donation. We developed a detailed multimodal approach for the analysis of health communication by focusing exemplarily on such organ donation poster campaigns as a common mean since the 1990s. In all, we identified 13 campaigns with 83 posters from 1996 to 2016. Here, we focus on both the textual and visual elements of such material to analyze how morally relevant principles and virtues are interwoven. Six categories of moral appeals were identified in the complete sample: altruism, being a decisive person, family responsibility, minimizing suffering, social conformity, and complete reciprocity. Overall, visual items were used to create a variety of social, moral, and epistemic claims with respect to organ donation. Our analysis reveals critical aspects highlighting the potential conflicts that arise from the ambiguity and wrong information of some messages as well as the risk of inappropriate blaming driven by these campaigns.
ISSN:1041-0236
1532-7027
DOI:10.1080/10410236.2017.1331187