Centrum Media & Gezondheid (Center for Media & Health - CMH)

The CMH has various foci:

• Media Production: The CMH creates and implements tailor-made media and communication projects for social change. To do so, it works with a network of entertainment media professionals, scriptwriters, producers, web designers, and social media specialists.
• Research: The CMH designs research methodologies and conducts scientific research throughout all stages of their projects. It implements qualitative as well as quantitative research and guides media projects through formative, process, and summative (effect) research.
• Consultancy: The CMH acts as an intermediary for social change for non-governmental organisations (NGOs), health organisations, and social entrepreneurs. It advises them on new communication methods and innovative media use and facilitates collaboration between media professionals and content specialists.
• Capacity Building: The CMH designs teaching modules in media for social change (based on the entertainment-education strategy, "users as designers approach", and the "show talk act methodology") and gives lectures at colleges and universities.

The CMH has developed initiatives such as:

• UP2U: supports young people to deal with sexual boundaries and uses an interactive entertainment-education approach. UP2U is a digital learning package for secondary schools that is specifically designed for youth aged 15-19 who have a lower socioeconomic status and/or have a migration background. UP2U consists of 3 interactive drama lines in which the characters face various situations dealing with the topic of overstepping sexual boundaries. Young viewers are invited to make choices as they watch the drama lines and thus influence the story. Click here to watch a video of the making of UP2U (with English subtitles).
• Sound Effects: is designed to prevent hearing loss in music venues amongst frequent clubbers (16 to 30 years old) and encompasses 3 different trajectories, which reinforce each other. Based on target group analysis and formative research, the cross-media campaign sought to create attention and involvement through storytelling, the entertainment-education strategy, and the use of the central and peripheral routes of persuasion (see also this related website). A central element and highlight of this project is the drama series SOUND, an entertainment-education mini soap on the internet. The series (9 episodes of 3 minutes each) deals with love, ambitions, and decibels. Click here to view the SOUND trailer (English subtitles); click here to view a video about the making of Sound Effects.
• SndBites: is an interactive film series based on a storyline around 4 main characters. It is designed by the CMH in collaboration with various partners as a digital entertainment platform to promote a healthy lifestyle amongst Dutch teens and young adults, ages 15-18, from middle and lower socio-economic groups. SndBites inspires this group to wear earplugs to prevent hearing loss, to practice safe sex, and to moderate alcohol consumption. These health behaviours are all related to common leisure activities such as clubbing. Thus, the setting for SndBites is a (music) nightclub. SndBites places a strong emphasis on interactivity, transmedia, gamification (the use of game thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context to engage users and solve problems), and interconnectivity (click here to learn more). The VUP (viewer, user player) can follow the storyline from the perspectives of the 4 different main characters. Click here to view a video about the making of SndBites; a trailer of it may be viewed here.
• Tips for Scripts: is an online service platform which CMH developed in collaboration with various issue-related partner organisations. On the Tips for Scripts platform, social change organisations provide content information (tip sheets) to inspire scriptwriters and producers of Dutch drama and soap series to incorporate health and social issues in their storylines. A tip sheet contains data - e.g., about a specific medical or lifestyle issues such as dementia, infectious diseases, and hearing loss (see Related Summaries below).

Youth, Health.

In 2010, CMH received the "Gouden Reiger" award for the Sound Effects campaign in the category best cross media productions. In addition, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment certified the Sound Effects campaign as "theoretically well-founded".