Press Releases

Research conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center has found that the presence of tobacco-related content in 855 top-30 grossing box-office films, 15 movies per year from 1950-2006, has dramatically declined in parallel with actual cigarette consumption in the United States from the 1960s to 2006. In this study tobacco portrayal was defined as "The

Research conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center has found that the Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA’s) rating system increasingly has assigned violent content to the PG-13 rating category. The PG-13 category was established in 1984 to warn parents about content in PG films that might not be appropriate for a child under 13.

An op-ed written by Amy Jordan, Ph.D., director of APPC’s Media and the Developing Child area, and APPC Health Communication scholars Amy Bleakley, Ph.D., and Michael Hennessy, Ph.D., appears in the April 7 edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer. In the piece, titled “Media have a role in sex ed,” the authors argue that media should

“Experts debunk suicide myth” (Washington Times) “Why the holiday suicide myth persists” (USA Today) Download the ACI press release

On November 30, APPC hosted a focus group of 11 voters from the Philadelphia area moderated by veteran pollster Peter Hart. During the two-hour discussion the group members – a mix of Republican, Democratic and independent voters – expressed concerns over the economy and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other issues facing the

Despite the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s nine-year effort to debunk the connection, newspapers continue to perpetuate the myth that suicides rise during the end-of-year holiday period. According to an analysis of news reporting during last year’s (2008-09) holiday period, the proportion of stories that supported the myth remained at approximately the same level as during

Martin Fishbein, the Harry C. Coles, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication and founding director of the Health Communication division of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, died in London of a heart attack, Friday, November 27. The founder of the theory of reasoned action, Fishbein worked at the Centers for

Photographer Richard Mosse, a 2008 Leonore Annenberg Performing and Visual Arts Fellowship recipient who has traveled the globe to pursue his craft, is featured in the current issue of Time magazine. Mosse’s 16-page photo essay is part of a feature on the tunnel economy in the Gaza Strip.

In a study just released in the American Journal of Public Health, researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Adolescent Communication Institute (ACI) and five other universities along with a Philadelphia media development firm report that a mass media program directed to African American youth ages 14 to 18 reduced sexual risk behavior, especially among

The National Institute of Mental Health’s Division on AIDS has awarded a supplement to an ongoing research trial coordinated by APPC’s Adolescent Communication Institute (ACI). The funds, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will help to fund follow-up assessments of a trial testing the efficacy of preventive mass media messages delivered