All of the talk (and action) about audience-generated content (AGC; or user-, consumer-, whatever) has real implications for the practice of social marketing and health communication (in case you hadn't noticed). By AGC I don't mean that the audience is involved in the development and implementation of the program through our traditional devices such as focus groups, teen forums, advisory boards and even lay health delivery systems, but efforts where the audience is literally sitting in the director's chair.
Imagine your audience creating their own behavior change programs for their peers and communities without your input. Without adhering to the sacrosanct (or so we believe) principles of evidence-based practices, pretesting and randomized clinical outcome studies. Just doing it for themselves, drawing on whatever resources they think are relevant and important and posting them on their personal health blogs, creating podcasts, leaving notes in chat rooms or social network sites, uploading content to video sharing sites and tipping off their friends on their latest 'find' while searching the web.
Wait no longer. In 2006, the most popular weight loss diets are self-made ones. Welcome to the world of audience-created behavior change.
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