Abstract
This paper argues for the use of mobile media technology and youth engagement in creating health promotion messages aimed at young people. It also provides an account of researchers and Indigenous people and organisations working together to build skills beyond the specific research. It does this by drawing on an evaluation of an alcohol awareness campaign carried out by Goolarri Media via television and radio. The author and her collaborator carried out this evaluation with assistance from organisations and individuals in Broome, Western Australia, during the period May to August 2010. The three core objectives were to assess audience awareness of the campaign, to assess audience opinion of the campaign, and to gauge any change in audience behaviours and attitudes towards alcohol consumption. The target audience for the media campaign, and hence the main target population for data collection and analysis, was Indigenous youth in Broome and the wider Kimberley region (the broadcast area of Goolarri TV and Radio). This paper discusses the effectiveness of the television and radio advertisements and reports general findings, including that inclusion of local youth in the advertisements and in the design and production of the campaign was a positive factor, and that both Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth use telephones and other aspects of mobile media for social networking and entertainment, displacing television viewing and radio listening to a significant extent. The findings indicated that future advertising campaigns aimed at Indigenous youth in cities or regional centres should concentrate on mobile software technology and social media opportunities. The paper explores in detail two of the most interesting findings: disengagement of youth and the rise of mobile media use. Analysis of the synergistic qualitative and quantitative data from the study also leads to the conclusion that youth involvement in creating, accessing and sharing knowledge facilitates health promotion.