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The Influence of Liking for a Public Service Announcement on Issue Attitude

University of Wisconsin-Madison

This research investigates the influence of an individual's general liking for a public service announcement (PSA) on his or her attitude toward the advocated issue. Drawing up the attitude toward the ad theory, this research argues that one's liking for a PSA or, in other words, one's attitude toward a PSA (A_PSA), exerts a significant positive impact on issue attitude and that the strength of this positive effect varies as a function of a variety of individual and situational factors. Through two studies involving a total of 230 participants, the effect of attitude toward a PSA on issue attitude is shown to be strong and positive. As expected, the effect tends to be stronger when a message recipient's perceived issue relevance is low versus high, when his or her issue knowledge is low versus high, and when the tone of the message is positive versus negative. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Key Words: attitude • persuasive effects • public service announcements • peripheral processing • communication campaigns

This version was published on August 1, 2008

Communication Research, Vol. 35, No. 4, 503-528 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0093650208316053


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