Communicating with the Elderly: Reach of Television and Magazines

Abstract

Governmental agencies, social service programs, and advocacy groups for the elderly often have messages which they would like to communicate to the largest proportion of the elderly population possible. Faced with severely limited public information budgets, they are forced to make choices about which communication mechanisms will reach the largest audience at the least cost per person receiving the message. The purpose of this study is to suggest public information strategies which might be used to communicate a message to a nationwide audience of elderly persons based on patterns of exposure to magazines and television. For this study a sample of 6,056 subjects of which 864 were elderly persons was selected on the basis of a national probability sample. Results indicate that in communicating to the elderly one must look at specific programs or magazines as opposed simply to selecting a vehicle (magazines vs television).