Abstract

The push strategy of anti-alcohol campaigns targeting young people, both in traditional media and on social media, has shown a limited capacity to contribute to the development of healthy behaviors. Even when young people know about the harmful effects of alcohol, they develop reactance attitudes, self-affirmation reactions, defensive responses, and neutralization of the persuasive attempts of institutional messages. It is necessary to seek new educational communication strategies that are effective in modifying behaviors favorable to alcohol consumption among young people. The aim of this research is to implement an educational method that favors this change toward healthy behaviors. On the basis of the Instagram campaign “Like my addiction,” 124 young people (age: M = 23.6 years, SD = 2.8 years) participated for 3 weeks in three phases to test whether the presence of alcohol on Instagram had an impact on their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, as well as the effectiveness of the educational method tested. Half of the subjects followed a process of becoming aware of the presence of alcohol in this Instagram campaign and then participated in an interactive process of discussion according to the critical–dialogical educational method. The results show that this educational method is effective. Subjects in the control group who did not follow the method did not modify their behavior on Instagram. In contrast, the experimental group became aware of the masked presence of alcohol on Instagram. These subjects exhibit self-persuasion that makes them modify their activity favorably between the pre-test and post-test phase as they change their attitudes and behaviors toward alcohol. The results show that the critical–dialogical formative method can be favorably applied to implement campaigns and educational actions to fight alcohol addiction among young people.

Abstract

Radio art is understood as radio made by artists. The term is typically applied to sound-based artifacts produced and broadcast by means of the creative use of radio media affordances, infrastructure, and technologies. Radio art is known as any sound work conceived to expand the creative and aesthetic possibilities of the medium through the use of the elements of radiophonic language (voice, words, music, sound effects, and silence) with the intention to produce aesthetic messages and to move radio listeners. This study introduces radio art reception as a subject of scientific scrutiny. It proposes a model of radio art processing that includes involvement, art reception, and positive emotions as predictors of the willingness to listen to such works. After listening to each of two pieces of radio art, 126 Singaporean undergraduate communication students (MAge = 22.7, SD = 1.7) completed a questionnaire measuring involvement, art reception, perceived emotions, and willingness to listen to another radio art feature. The main results confirm our model of radio art reception: involvement predicts the audience’s cognitive stimulation generated by radio art, their artistic evaluation, and the positive attraction experienced by audiences towards them. The positive emotions experienced during consumption have a direct effect on the attraction towards radio art. Moreover, the specific radio art content affects the audiences’ responses. These results allow us to understand psychological responses to sound art. The hope is to attract the attention of communication and art researchers and invite them to deepen the existing knowledge about artistic sound through empirical studies, since debates about radio art and sound works are almost lacking from scientific literature.

Abstract

This study addresses the factors that increase the persuasive impact of testimonial narrative messages on artificial intelligence (AI). In particular, the effect on two variables that, to date, have not been explored in this field is analyzed: the attitudes toward AI (positive versus ambivalent) expressed by the protagonist of the narrative message (a testimonial in audiovisual format) and the role of participants’ prior beliefs about AI. An online experiment (N = 652) was carried out to contrast the effect of attitudinal similarity on identification with the protagonist of the narrative message and the indirect effect on attitudes and intention to use AI. The results showed that the message whose protagonist expressed positive attitudes toward AI induced greater identification only in those participants with previous positive beliefs. In contrast, the message whose protagonist expressed ambivalent attitudes toward AI induced greater identification only among participants with previous negative beliefs. In addition, identification and cognitive elaboration were found to mediate the effect of attitudinal similarity on the attitude toward and intention to use AI. These findings are discussed in the context of narrative persuasion research and the development of campaigns for improving social perceptions of data science.