KJCKorea
Journal Central

This study explored how factors derived from the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and the Prototype-Willingness Model (PWM) were associated with adolescents’ situational smoking willingness and current smoking status. Secondary survey data from 1,030 adolescents were analyzed, with current smoking status classified into three groups: non-smokers, former smokers, and current smokers. The results revealed significant differences across smoking status groups in favorable attitudes toward smoking, subjective norms, positive and negative smoker prototypes, and smoking willingness. In the hierarchical regression analysis, favorable attitudes toward smoking and positive smoker prototypes were significantly and positively associated with smoking willingness, and the addition of PWM-related factors significantly increased the explained variance. In the multinomial logistic regression analysis, both factors significantly distinguished former smokers and current smokers from non-smokers, while subjective norms distinguished current smokers from non-smokers. By examining the associations of factors derived from both TPB and PWM, this study suggests that adolescent smoking prevention communication should simultaneously address positive expectancies regarding smoking, smoker images, permissive norms, and specific situations that may trigger smoking.

Grounded in Cultivation Theory and the Health Belief Model, this study empirically examines how television use is associated with depression-related health beliefs and help-seeking intention. Specifically, the study analyzes the structural relationships among genre-specific television exposure, perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, perceived benefits and perceived barriers regarding depression treatment, and help-seeking intention. It further investigates whether these relationships differ according to individuals’ levels of depressive symptoms (measured by PHQ-2). An online survey was conducted with a nationwide sample of 1,140 Korean adults in 2025. Structural equation modeling and multi-group analyses were employed to test the proposed model and hypotheses. The results showed that perceived benefits of treatment were consistently and positively associated with help-seeking intention in both groups, whereas perceived barriers were negatively associated with help-seeking intention only in the low-depression group. Perceived severity and perceived susceptibility were not significantly associated with help-seeking intention in either group. Television news viewing was positively associated with perceived severity, perceived susceptibility, and perceived benefits in both groups. In contrast, drama and lifestyle/infotainment program viewing showed significant associations with health beliefs only in the low-depression group. In addition, lifestyle/infotainment program viewing showed a direct positive association with help-seeking intention in both groups. These findings suggest that genre-specific television use may be differently associated with depression-related health beliefs depending on audience vulnerability, highlighting the importance of considering depressive symptom levels in understanding media–belief linkages. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This study investigated the influence of exposure to four major information sources (i.e., news media, entertainment media, family, and friends) on HPV vaccine knowledge and misinformation belief. Based on an online survey of 320 Chinese adults, the results showed that family communication was the only source that exhibited a significant main effect on HPV vaccine knowledge. Furthermore, education moderated the relationship between entertainment media exposure and HPV vaccine knowledge, as well as the relationship between family communication and HPV vaccine misinformation belief. Specifically, individuals with lower levels of education exhibited lower HPV vaccine knowledge when exposed to more HPV-related content through entertainment media. Similarly, those with lower levels of education who engaged in family discussions about HPV were more likely to acquire misinformation. In contrast, these associations were not significant among individuals with higher levels of education.