title: Assessing prosocial message effectiveness: effects of message quality, production quality, and persuasiveness.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the effectiveness of prosocial messages is compromised by poor design. A receiver-oriented content analysis (N = 246) was used to assess college students' perceptions of the message quality, production quality, and persuasiveness of advertisements and prosocial advertisements regarding alcohol. After providing background information, respondents rated a series of video clips on a variety of criteria guided by the Message Interpretation Process (MIP) model. Results indicated that prosocial advertisements were rated as higher in quality than were commercial advertisements overall and on logic-based criteria, but prosocial advertisements nevertheless had weaker relationships to viewers' beliefs and reported behaviors relevant to drinking alcohol. Heavier drinkers rated commercial advertisements more positively than did lighter/nondrinkers. They were less skeptical of persuasive messages and rated prosocial advertisements lower in effectiveness and commercial advertisements higher in effectiveness.
authors.affiliation: Edward R. Murrow School of Communication, Washington State University, Pullman 99164-2520, USA. eaustin@wsu.edu
authors.forename: E W
authors.initials: EW
authors.lastname: Austin
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pinkleton
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fujioka
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000329:Advertising / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000517:prevention & control; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010565:Persuasive Communication; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012925:Social Conformity