Analysis of fear appeals influencing persuasive communication in public service announcements reveals their effectiveness and impact on health messaging.
This study investigates the use of fear appeals as a persuasive communication method in public service announcements supported by the Ministry of Health from 2006 to 2016. A sample of public service announcements was analyzed through content analysis based on topics, types of fear elements, persuasive techniques, and whether solutions were provided. The results indicate that both rational and emotional appeals were used, with fear appeals mainly appearing in emotionally driven messages, especially in situations involving direct health threats. Conversely, rational appeals were more common in informational or promotional PSAs.
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Yaman et al. (2025) studied this question.
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