Do Communication Curbs Work? Effects of Children’s Advertising Guidelines on Food Attitudes and Preferences in Singapore

Date:

Wednesday, 18 December 2019

Time:

2.00pm – 3.00pm

Venue:

Seminar Room 2, Level 8
Tahir Foundation Building (MD1)
Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health
National University of Singapore
12 Science Drive 2, S(117549)

Synopsis:

This talk will share findings from a recently completed research programme to assess the effects of the food advertising guidelines which were introduced to Singapore in January 2015. These guidelines, developed in public-private collaboration with various stakeholders, governed the amount and content of children’s exposure to food and beverage advertising during the past four years. An overall perspective of findings from our multi-method approach to examine the effects, as well as insights and recommendations regarding food advertising policies for future will be discussed.

About the speaker:

May O Lwin is a Professor at Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information and a Professor (Joint) with the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. May is an Associate Dean for the College of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences and the Director of NTU’s University Scholars Programme. She also holds the honorary appointment of Asia Scholar Professor at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

May’s research involves the development and assessment of health communication based on psycho-social theoretical frameworks to improve behavioral outcomes of target audiences. She has conducted research on children’s wellness and safety in the evolving new media environments, as well as family health behaviours, investigating parental mediation and media messaging influences on nudging individual health attitudes and choices. May and colleagues have developed and validated a number of instruments on mobile platforms enabling public health and disease communication. May’s projects on digital technology use in promoting physical activity and nutrition education amongst children and families have been piloted in primary and secondary schools in Singapore.

May has published extensively and received a number of awards, including the Ogilvy Foundation Award, the Fulbright ASEAN Scholar Award, and most recently, the 2019 Outstanding Applied Researcher Award from the prestigious International Communication Association (ICA). Her latest publication Screen Obsessed: Parenting in the Digital Age has just been launched.