Context and Identification in Persuasive Mass Communication

In this experiment, participants were presented with a prosocial message modeled from modern public health campaigns. Although the message was kept identical, the context of the message was experimentally manipulated to represent either a viral user-generated video or a government-sponsored public service announcement. The data provided evidence of an indirect relationship between media context and persuasive efficacy mediated through subjective evaluations of the message and social identification with the message producers. Results are discussed in terms of social identity theory and entertainment processing models.