Drinking, and driving PSAs: A content analysis of behavioral influence strategies

Health educators and communicators have pointed out that public service ann ouncements (PSAs) often do not utilize theory-driven persuasion and behavio r change approaches. In this study, 66 drinking and driving television PSAs were randomly sampled from a collection of 189 such PSAs, and were coded b y two independent coders using both a categorical and dimensional (i.e., a message could be scored on multiple categories simultaneously) scheme. The full PSA set was then coded by a single coder. The Jive categories or dimen sions included fear, modeling, positive, informational/testimonial appeal, and empathy strategies. The categorical scheme proved highly reliable, and the dimensional scheme only marginally reliable, suggesting that the catego rical approach was appropriate. In the entire data set, informational/testi monial messages made up almost half of the coral; positive appeals were the next most common, followed by empathy, fear, and modeling appeals, in that order. Celebrity versions elf each appeal type were found, but were most c ommon in the informational/testimonial appeals. Empathy strategies, in part icular, have not been examined in the empirical literature and deserve furt her study and perhaps greater use by health communicators and educators.