Master of Arts / Department of Communications / William Schenck-Hamlin / Public Service Announcements are a fixture of both our media and cultural landscape. Their images and messages have inspired and defined movements and generations. The impact of PSAs is explored in this work to highlight the need to examine the impact of an emerging phenomenon of public service messaging: The Hybrid PSA. The Hybrid PSA is a message that blends and blurs the line between commercial and social causes. To explore the intricacies and impact of the Hybrid PSA, this work first works to define the “classical” PSA. Then, by observation and critique, the variance between the “classic” and the Hybrid is established. To contrast, the genre of Propaganda is explored and the possibility that the Hybrid PSA could be defined as propaganda is examined. Finally, the ethical implications of such a generic classification being established are discussed.

This multi methods research, which is combined both of quantitative and qualitative methods, is about Public Service Announcement (PSA). This study is aimed to find out if something changes in behavior of people and their attitude to social problem in Russia by an impact of PSA and to understand whereby PSA impacts on changes in behavior of people and rise of attention to social problem in Russia. In order to achieve thesis aims, various types of data presented in this research: a survey of   50 people from different age and sex groups and interviews with a workers of two social organizations. To analyze a data, it were used a univariate and bivariate analysis for quantitative data. Analysis of qualitative data is done in a phenomenological way. According to the results, PSA performs its tasks, something it’s changed in people by impact of PSA, people of all ages noted an  influence of PSA on them, they get to know about social problem, begin to think about or changed their behavior, begun to work as volunteers, made a donation. By all this aspects as emotion, feeling, sensation, design, PSA impact on changes in behavior of people and rise of attention to social problem in Russia.  PSA impacts across effective psychological mechanism such as an emotional sphere of personality. Psychological aspects can be divided into cognitive and emotional. Emotion is one of the key factors of the PSAs. It is established that emotional memory is much stronger than other types of memory, affects human behavior. Cognitive component is related to how advertising information is perceived by people. All elements like an illustration, title, text, logo, layout and general features of the image determine the overall effect of advertising. PSA is a display of goodwill of society, its principled position on socially significant values. Social advertising can and should be considered as a mode of operation of social services.

Dissertation (MA (Drama and Film Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2002. / Drama / unrestricted

The purpose of this study was to examine whether or not Public Service Announcements (PSAs) were an effective tool at modifying young adults’ perception of the r-word (the word “retard” or “retarded”). The PSAs included in this study were part of the Special Olympics’ “Spread the Word to End the Word” campaign. This study examined the efficacy of these PSAs by comparing three groups’ perception of the r-word: experimental group 1 who watched a PSA titled “It’s Not Acceptable” (PSA 1 group), experimental group 2 who watched a PSA titled “We Need a New R-word” (PSA 2 group), and a third control group who watched no PSA. The purpose of the control group was to gain a baseline of how today’s young adults perceived the r-word with no influence from PSAs. Six hundred and seventy-five participants were randomly assigned to one of the three groups. The two experimental groups watched their respective PSAs and completed the survey materials comprised of a consent form, their affective and cognitive responses to the PSA, their ratings of the r-word and their demographic information. The control group watched no PSA but completed the survey materials comprised of a consent form, their ratings of the r-word and their demographic information. This study then examined what the differences were between the three groups’ perception of the r-word. It was hypothesized that PSA 1 group would have a more negative perception of the r-word than PSA 2 group and the control group, due to PSA 1’s framing the r-word as similar to other minority slurs, and using affect to facilitate message acceptance. The PSA 1 group participants thought more about the argument within their PSA, and rated higher affective responses to their PSA, when compared to the PSA 2 group; however, PSA 1 group did not have a more negative perception of the r-word than the other two groups. Results found that the PSA 2 group perceived the r-word as significantly less respectful than the participants in the control group. These findings are discussed in terms of message design for future PSAs regarding the r-word

The United States has a long-standing history of appropriating Indigenous representations for the use of mascots in athletics. Despite protest by Indigenous groups against this practice, professional athletics teams continue to appropriate Indigenous representations as mascots. The National Congress of American Indians produced a public service announcement (PSA), Proud to Be (PTB), to elicit support from the general public for changing the name/mascot Redskins. The purpose of the proposed research is to experimentally examine the effects that PTB has on support among Non-Indigenous participants, as function of political alignment. We considered two competing outcomes: The Counterproductive Hypothesis predicts the more conservative participants are, the less supportive they will be of changing the Redskin name/mascot, especially after watching the PTB rather than two control PSAs (directed at ending the word retard or reducing texting and driving). We also expect that the more conservative participants are, the less supportive they will be of either “name change” campaign, especially the one that corresponds with the PSA they view. Alternately, The Effective Hypothesis predicts if the PSA induces empathy among viewers, it could elicit support independent of political perspective. That is, participants will be supportive of changing the Redskin name/mascot after watching PTB rather than either control PSA. This effect will occur through the effects of PTB on increased empathy (specific to the target group). Preliminary analyses provide support for the Effective Hypothesis: Regardless of political perspective, participants experienced increased empathy for Indigenous People after viewing PTB, which led to increased support for the message promoted by Proud to Be.

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This study establishes a link between research on organizational source credibility and the effects of public information campaigns. Research has established that source credibility is one factor audiences evaluate when responding to messages and that credible information sources enhance message acceptance, while untrustworthy sources can interfere with desired message effects. Although source credibility studies have typically focused on the person delivering a message, recent studies indicate that audience perceptions of the organization sponsoring a message has a direct effect on message acceptance as well. Additionally, a few studies indicate that non-profit sources of health information are viewed as more credible, while such messages presented by for-profit organizations are less effective. This study uses an experimental procedure to investigate the relationship between organizational status, source credibility, and two possible effects of public service messages, information seeking and behavioral intent. Based on previous findings, the study hypothesized that the non-profit source would berated as more credible and that as the audiences' perception of source credibility increases so would their willingness to seek additional information or perform the advocated behaviors. Findings indicate, however, that organizational status does not have a significant effect on perceptions of source credibility. Nor does it significantly influence message evaluation, information seeking, or behavioral intent. As predicted, there was a positive correlation between source credibility, message credibility, problem recognition, personal relevance, information seeking, and behavioral intent. The results also indicate that information seeking positively predicts behavioral intent.

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This essay is a study which is intended to explore how public service announcements in broadcast media use humour as a method of conveying their core messages in a manner which is both memorable and persuasive; to consider why humour is chosen as a strategy; and to identify the similarities and differences in the use of humour in PSAs and commercial broadcast advertising. Six video commercials were analysed in total: three PSAs and three advertisements. The analysis identified semantic and stylistic features including metaphors, puns, idioms, vagueness, polysemes, homonyms, homographs and homophones, as well as visual metaphors. It continued on to investigate how PSAs contextualise their messages, applying Grice's co-operative principle, as well as the principles of relevance, as proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1986). The results revealed that the PSAs examined appear to show the application of a range of linguistic devices that contribute to making their content humorous. Ambiguity, mostly generated by verbal and visual metaphors, vagueness and polysemy, appears to be the most common strategy for stimulating interest and engaging the viewer. It was observed that viewers must possess the ability to recover meaning through non-linguistic signifiers, such as body language, and through contextual cues. It was also established that similar linguistic devices tend to be used in the production of PSAs and advertisements to create humorous content, but to a different extent.

Denna studie ämnar undersöka hur Systembolaget väljer att konstruera målgruppen i reklamfilmer för deras antilangningskampanj. Systembolaget har inte en uttalad begränsad målgrupp, utan deras målgrupp är den svenska befolkningen. Syftet med denna studie är att genom att studera de semiotiska resurserna ta reda på om Systembolaget, som de beskriver själva ”finns till för alla”, i reklamfilmerna för deras antilangningskampanj eller om det går att finna en begränsad målgrupp. För att besvara syftet med denna studie lyder forskningsfrågorna följande: vilken målgrupp konstruerar Systembolagets i deras reklamfilmer genom sina val av semiotiska resurser? Och stämmer denna målgrupp överens med deras samhällsansvar? Materialet för studien består av tio av Systembolagets reklamfilmer för deras antilangningskampanj mellan åren 2009 och 2020. För att analysera detta material har en visuell analys med en grund inom det sociosemiotiska fältet tillämpats. Iden visuella analysen studeras de semiotiska resurserna genre, scener och kameravinklar; karaktärer och miljö samt språk och värderingar. Resultatet av studien visar att det går att finna en begränsad målgrupp i reklamfilmerna. En tydlig avsaknad av mångfald gällande klass och kön hittas i Systembolagets reklamfilmer med antilangningsfokus. Nästintill alla karaktärer i samtliga filmer består av vita personer samtidigt som nästan alla miljöer visar ett medelklasshem. I de fall där icke-vita karaktärer förekommer är det de vita karaktärerna som innehar de framträdande rollerna.