Untoward effects of anti-stigma campaigns and interventions
Special issue guest editors
Jason T. Siegel
Marco Yzer
Background
Anti-stigma media campaigns and interventions can empower the stigmatized and change perspectives of those who would otherwise stigmatize. There are myriad examples of mass media anti-stigma campaigns and interventions that have successfully changed how people from various occupations and ethnic groups, people experiencing different disorders and ailments, and people of varying physical appearances are accepted and embraced. Such efforts deserve to be celebrated; however, the unanticipated effects of anti-stigma campaigns and their possible adverse effects also need consideration.
Too often, it is assumed that the worst-case scenario for anti-stigma campaigns and interventions is that it does not reduce a specific stigma. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and there are numerous instances of anti-stigma campaigns harming the very groups they sought to assist. Even though individuals implementing anti-stigma campaigns and interventions have pro-social intentions, that does not eliminate the possibility of anti-stigma campaigns unintentionally introducing new stigmas, increasing self-stigma, or causing harm through other means.
Prior publications have pointed out how anti-stigma efforts can have untoward outcomes (e.g., Corrigan, 2018). However, mass media anti-stigma campaigns and interventions across various domains are often implemented without considering unintended consequences. The creed of first doing no harm must be as accepted among anti-stigma professionals as it is among medical doctors.
Details
To highlight the problem of, and hopefully begin to derive solutions for, unintended effects of anti-stigma campaigns, Stigma and Health is hosting a special issue highlighting the existence, prevention, and measurement of untoward effects of anti-stigma campaigns and interventions. We hope that submissions will focus on a variety of stigmatized populations. We are also willing to consider manuscripts illustrating how health campaigns not focused on stigma can inadvertently increase it.
We seek high-quality manuscripts that:
- Provide quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method evidence of unintended effects of existing anti-stigma campaigns, including harm caused to stigmatized populations directly (e.g., increasing self-stigma) and indirectly (e.g., increasing public stigma).
- Empirically assess how specific elements of anti-stigma campaigns and interventions can cause unintentional harm (e.g., investigating the interaction of campaign design elements with audience characteristics).
- Empirically assess health communication efforts that do not target stigma but unintentionally negatively influence it.
- Provide theoretically guided frameworks for minimizing the possibility of unintended consequences of anti-stigma campaigns and interventions.
- Conduct theory-guided studies investigating means for minimizing the possibility of unintended consequences of anti-stigma campaigns and interventions.
- Illustrate unique methodological approaches that can be implemented in pre-launch phases to minimize the possibility of untoward effects.
- Illustrate unique methodological approaches that can be implemented to measure unintentional outcomes post-launch.
- The guest editors are Jason T. Siegel, Ph.D. of the Division of Social Science, Policy, and Evaluation, Claremont Graduate University, and Marco Yzer, Ph.D. of the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota.
Please contact the guest editors with any questions. Manuscripts should be submitted through the journal’s online submission portal and identified in the submission letter as a manuscript for this special issue (Untoward effects of anti-stigma campaigns and interventions).
Submissions are due December 1, 2023.
Papers considered appropriate for the special issue will be peer-reviewed, and authors should note that submission to this special issue does not guarantee acceptance.