Are Interactive PSA Formats Always Effective? The Role of Connectedness with Nature in the Interplay between Message Content and PSA Formats for Pro-Environmental Campaigns

Ja Kyung Seo (Ph.D. candidate), Hanyoung Kim (Ph.D. alumni), Youngjee Ko (Ph.D. alumni), Jeong-Yeob Han, and Jongmin Lee (Ph.D. student), "Are Interactive PSA Formats Always Effective? The Role of Connectedness with Nature in the Interplay between Message Content and PSA Formats for Pro-Environmental Campaigns." Paper to be presented at the American Academy of Advertising (AAA) Annual Conference, Portland, OR, March 2024. 

Abstract: Today’s advanced media landscape offers opportunities to utilize more interactive formats to deliver pro-environmental public service announcements (PSAs) to the public. However, a format with more interactivity—such as a carousel format—may not always yield positive persuasion outcomes since it can deliver messages in an engaging manner but has a risk of distracting people from fully processing essential information in message content (Oh and Sundar 2015). The present research investigates the effective combination of message content and its delivery format in conjunction with an individual’s connectedness with nature. An online experiment with a 2 (complete vs. moderate verbal anchoring) x 2 (a single-page vs. a carousel format) between-subjects design with message-induced empathy as a mediator and one’s connectedness with nature as a moderator was conducted. This study found that an individual’s personal relevance to nature needs to be considered to find the best match between message content and PSA format in promoting pro-environmental behavior intention. The results of this study shed light on the important role an individual’s background factor plays in utilizing interactive PSAs and provide theoretical and practical implications for modality interactivity research.