Using an inoculation message approach to promote public confidence in protective agencies

ABSTRACT

This investigation tested the effectiveness of inoculation as a pre-crisis strategy in combating the effects of politically motivated violent acts. A four-phase experiment was conducted involving 355 national consumer panel participants. The findings indicate that inoculation can be an effective pre-crisis message strategy as it was successful in enhancing public beliefs in the ability of government agencies to prevent, and minimize the effects of, violent acts. This strategy also created a ‘blanket of protection’ that extended beyond the focal politically motivated attack event as it enhanced the confidence in government agencies to manage national crises in general. Inoculation was also effective in lowering the intensity of experienced fear evoked by the threat of violent attacks and it enhanced the ability of individuals to cope with the aftermath of a crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Inoculation
• terrorism
• public confidence
• risk and crisis
• message strategy

Acknowledgments

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect views of the United States Department of Homeland Security, or the University of Southern California, or CREATE.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at the University of Southern California (USC) under award number 2010-ST-061-RE0001.