Traffic Report Value-Appeals and Drivers' Value-Choices Rokeach's Belief System Theory guides our examination of the value appeals contained in traffic reports. Most traffic reporters and production companies are surprised to learn that they unintentionally make appeals to certain human values, appeals that may affect the driving behavior of their listeners. Value appeals are made in a number of ways, including sound effects, wording of incident reports, and the tone and speed of voice. The practical problems of traffic reporting, such as including as many incidents as possible in the least time, and in a clear and attention-getting way, leave reporters and editors with little time to consider that their reports may be sending value-messages.

We studied the value-appeals made in drive-time traffic reports on four Los Angeles radio stations with formats that vary from all-news to urban contemporary music. We used the Rokeach Value Survey ,a highly reliable and valid way to measure values. In this copyrighted test (Consulting Psychologist Press, Palo Alto, California), there are two types of values:

  Should I let someone in (be helpful or polite) or beat them out (go for pleasure or excitement)?

 Should I show my irritation at jerks that cut in by riding their bumper (gain pleasure and the excitement of danger) orshould I cool it and keep a safe distance (be self-controlled for the sake of my family and health)?

 Should I speed and lane change to get past all the traffic (break free) or go with the flow (be polite and protect my pocketbook)?

In a MIPP conference workshop (April, 1993), Los Angeles traffic reporters tried out our proposals to incorporate different value-appeals, appeals to Family Security, Health, A Comfortable Economic Life, and being Self-Controlled or Polite. Research tells us that these values are highly ranked by many Americans, so they should connect with listeners and not turn them off. Drivers making decisions guided by these values should drive more safely, and less aggressively. We are doing follow-up work to see how effective our "appeal" has been, and to see if the same value-appeal problem exists in other areas.

Our general intervention goal is to convince all the players in the production process that radio traffic reports can serve both commercial and injury prevention goals. We know from past research that traffic reports communicate largely aggressive messages to the radio audience, messages that are likely to reinforce the kind of aggressive driving behavior that gets people into traffic crashes. We also have reason to believe that there is a less aggressive and more personalized way of reporting that not only serves injury prevention goals, but also serve commercial goals even better than the current reporting mode. Because organizations understandably resist change unless they can be confident that it will pay off, it is our job to demonstrate that the changes we seek are worth their effort to make them.

Like most media, the dominant goal of radio is to make a profit in a highly competitive market. Central to profit-making is the ability to get and hold a large audience that advertisers will pay to reach. For many stations, traffic reports are important because market research indicates that audiences consider which stations have the "best" traffic reporting in their decisions to tune-in/out The goal of airing competitive traffic reports, however, requires radio stations to access resources controlled by many other players. In the last decade or so, radio stations have established contractual relations with production companies (e.g., Metro, Shadow, Air Traffic, and the CHP report service) for all or most of their traffic reporting. Thus, you cannot bring about change in traffic reporting policies and practices by only working with radio stations and their advertisers; you have to unfold the production process to identify all of the players and their goal-resource dependency relations. It is a complicate set of relations with many players, including: the broadcast producers (radio stations and traffic report production companies), their clients (advertisers) and their consumers (audiences), and other critical information providers (the CHP, Caltrans, and cellular callers).

Through this web of relations, we are working with information providers to make modest changes in the information they gather (e.g., sex and age of crash victims), and with traffic report production companies to make practical -- no more air time required -- production changes (e.g., less aggressive value appeals in report text and sound effects, and more personalization to remind listener/drivers that people, not just cars and trucks get into crashes). However, none of these changes can occur until radio station management and their advertisers endorse them. To secure their endorsement, we must demonstrate that our changes will not lead listeners to change the channel or to tune-out the advertising message. In short, our proposed changes in traffic reporting must come to be seen as resources that assist all of the players in the achievement of their commercial and civic goals. Our dependency relationships with funding organizations that share our injury prevention goals (The California Office of Traffic Safety, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and The Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center) have given us the resources to test this MSD intervention strategy.