Vol 30, No 1 (2011)

Generation Y consumers have become an important consumer group and, as a result, their
perceptions of media credibility has become an important issue for many organisations and
media planners. This study explores the credibility of traditional media advertising versus new
media advertising, the credibility of broadcast-media advertising versus print-media advertising,
the credibility of cellphone advertising versus Internet advertising, and the relationship between
the credibility of Internet advertising and likelihood of Generation Y consumers shopping online.
The target audience comprises students between the ages of 18 and 30 years at one of the
largest residential universities in South Africa. Convenience sampling was used and a total of
1 345 questionnaires were completed. Some of the results indicate that Generation Y consumers
rate the credibility of traditional media higher than new media and that print media has higher
credibility ratings compared with broadcast media.

Targeted audiences do not always comprehend HIV/AIDS visual campaigns that are meant to
educate and inform, and thus such campaigns do not result in a positive change in behaviour
and attitude. This is possibly ascribable to the inappropriate use of graphic imagery and other
visual elements in many such campaigns. Even though the cost of the ineffective use of graphic
images in information and awareness might be difficult to calculate – especially with regard to
health-related problems in which lives are involved, – the effectiveness of any visual healthcommunication
material in terms of meaningful learning, comprehension or retention can
nevertheless be determined by means of post-testing. In this study, the comprehension of the loveLife outdoor campaign material was thus post-tested amongst 301 subjects from five high schools in both urban and rural areas. The study set out
to determine the subjects’ comprehension of both the messages and the graphic imagery and
evaluated the material for self-efficacy. The results indicate that suitable graphic imagery fosters
message comprehension, that inappropriate imagery inhibits comprehension, and that realistic
and appropriate imagery is preferred to abstract and representational imagery. In addition, it was
found that familiar images are a vehicle towards improved comprehension of HIV/AIDS messages.

In South Africa, advergaming currently does not reach a mass audience because of the low
number of Internet users and the high cost of Internet access. However, as a brand communication
tool, advergaming has the potential to be used as a viral marketing tactic. The article analyses
the potential of the mobile environment as a catalyst for enabling the use of advergaming as a
viral marketing tool in South Africa and proposes a theoretical model derived from an analysis of
existing literature and observation, for operationalising mobile advergaming.

This paper is a communication-oriented, ecological interpretation of James Cameron’s recent
film, Avatar, and of John Hillcoat’s The Road – two films that address the current global ecological
crisis very differently. By ‘ecological’ is meant that – in the case of Avatar – the film is ecologically
significant in its stressing of the vital interconnectedness of all living beings both with one another
and with their inorganic environment. The question of how this ecological stance is cinematically
articulated in Avatar, in science-fictional terms, is all important, because a communicational failure
in this regard would fall short of imparting to audiences the potential outcome of the continuing
destruction of ecosystems, comparatively speaking, on Earth. In The Road the ecological
dimension is encountered very differently, because the cinematic-communicational means
employed function in a register at odds with that utilised in Avatar. The point of this paper is to
explore the communicational differences, including the one regarding cinematic-communicational
register, between the two films, regardless of the fact that, arguably, they promote the same
ecological insights.