Additional evidence in a different setting is provided by Kennedy et al. (2004).In
their work, media impact is measured by the total number of calls received by the
CDC National STD and AIDS Hotline after the introduction of a subplot regarding
AIDS in the soap opera The Bold and The Beautiful in the United States. Calling this hot-
line is employed as a proxy for health information-seeking behavior. After two of the
episodes—when a character was diagnosed with HIV and when he told his partner—
the toll-free number of the hotline was displayed on screen. The study reports a large
increase in the number of attempted calls on the days of the two episodes, in the time
slot during and immediately after the soap opera broadcast. This suggests that the ...