Drawing a Line | Mike Linnell | 20 Years of Harm Reduction
Andrew Bennett
Mike on Andrew
Andy Bennett was at MDTIC and then developed HIT into what it is now. It is a measure of how much things have changed, that HIT are now doing campaigns for the government. This would have been unthinkable twenty years ago.
Mike - only following government guidance?
It's a fact that Mike's publications are informative. Open to interpretation is their potential to offend. Do they cross the 'fine-line' between educating and ofeending? However, the 'fine-line' is impossible to define due to the fact that there is no 'one size fits all' approach to the business of communication. The meanings people attach to communications of any kind vary with the type of message, the media employed, the audience targeted and the channels of distribution used. Specifically designed drugs communications are no different.
Government guidance on drugs communications state that they
should:
- Target a single well researched group
- Be accurate, credible, and non-didactic
- Use language, values and styles which appeal to their target groups
- Conduct developmental or pre-testing research
- Use distribution channels that are easily accessed and appropriate to the
- target groups
- Use a range of advertising channels, both conventional and less conventional
This is what Lifeline's publications do. Keep following government orders and long may you continue to take the flack! Congratulations Mike.
As for my favourite? It has to be 'Locker Room Lenny is
Reconstructed Man: Doctor Flap opens her files' taken from 'Smack in
the Eye', issue 9. Next favorites include the E' By Gum leaflet; the High
in the E-Stand poster and the various comic strips featuring Grandpa
Smackhead Jones.