Are interactive PSA formats always effective? The interaction between empathy-inducing message content, carousel formats, and connectedness with nature in pro-environmental campaigns

Ja Kyung Seo (Ph.D. Candidate), Hanyoung Kim (Ph.D. Alum), Hye Jin Yoon, Youngjee Ko (Ph.D. Alum), Jeong-Yeob Han & Youngji Seo (Ph.D. Alum). (Accepted). “Are interactive PSA formats always effective? The interaction between empathy-inducing message content, carousel formats, and connectedness with nature in pro-environmental campaigns.” International Journal of Advertising.

Abstract: Today’s advanced media landscape offers opportunities to utilize more interactive formats to deliver pro-environmental public service announcements (PSAs) to the public. A PSA format with more interactivity—such as a carousel format—can engagingly deliver message content, but has a risk of distracting people from fully processing essential information in it (Oh and Sundar 2015). Across two studies, the present study examined the effective combination of empathy-inducing message content (non-identifiable statistical victims vs. a single identified victim in Study1; complete vs. moderate verbal anchoring in Study 2) and its delivery format (a single page vs. a carousel format) in conjunction with an individual’s connectedness with nature (Study 2) to increase individuals’ pro-environmental behavior intention through empathy. The results of this study suggest that there may not be an inherent superiority of one PSA format (i.e., less interactive vs. more interactive format) over the other, but the comparative advantage of a more (less) interactive format becomes apparent when the characteristics of PSA content and one’s environmental background factor are considered together. The current investigation provides theoretical and practical implications for the use of interactivity on social media.