Each Medium Tells a Different Story: The Effect of Message Channel on Narrative Persuasion

Abstract

Limited attention has been given to the medium of story presentation in this process of narrative persuasion. The present study (N = 243) fills this gap by directly comparing narrative involvement across print and audiovisual versions of the same cervical cancer-related story. The mediation analysis revealed that exposure to an audiovisual narrative was associated with higher levels of cognitive and emotional involvement than exposure to the exact same narrative in its printed form. Yet the higher levels of transportation in the audiovisual condition came at a price of enhancing psychological reactance, eliminating the relative advantage of the film narrative.

Keywords:

• Audiovisual
• Cervical Cancer
• Experiment
• Narrative Persuasion
• Print

Notes

[1] Given the low alpha, we conducted an Exploratory Factor Analysis (Varimax rotation) for attitudes. Individual items were considered to load on the same factor if their primary loading was > .60. The analysis yielded a single factor with 57.98% total explained variance (lowest loading = .61).