The Use of Fear Appeals to Communicate Public Health Messages

TL;DRAbstract

This paper provides an insight into the use of fear appeals to communicate a public health message. A fear appeal is a means of persuasion that threatens the audience with a negative, physical, psychological, and/or social consequence that is likely to occur if they engage in a particular behaviour. This paper explores: the effectiveness of fear appeals; the impact gender and age have on the effectiveness of a fear appeals; and ethical concerns relating to fear appeal advertising. This study comprises a two stage data collection process: focus groups and depth interviews. Firstly, two focus groups were conducted. The participants were higher education students. The focus groups explored attitudes and opinions regarding the effectiveness of different styles of fear appeal advertisements. Secondly, four in-depth interviews were conducted with road safety experts to assess the effectiveness of fear appeal advertisements and to assess the feedback from the focus groups. The findings from t

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