Fish Tales: How Narrative Modality, Emotion, and Transportation Influence Support for Sustainable Aquaculture

Abstract

Considerable research suggests narrative persuasion’s attitudinal and behavioral effects in health and environmental contexts. Whether the format of narrative presentation influences these effects, however, remains unclear. We use an online experiment ( N = 2,225), comparing text and video conditions, to evaluate how exposure to narrative influences transportation, emotions, and risk-benefit perceptions and, in turn, how such perceptions affect attitudes and behavioral intentions toward sustainable aquaculture. Consistent with prior research, the text condition was more transporting than the video. Further, a serial mediation model shows transportation as leading to lower risk perception, higher benefit perception, and higher aquaculture support.

Trust, confidence, familiarity, and support for land‐based recirculating aquaculture facilities

“…Thus, messages may need to grapple with these granularities about trust and benefit‐risk at the local level, rather than emphasize generic (e.g., RAS‐generic) values, benefits, and risks. Message format (e.g., narrative versus didactic content; print versus audiovisual) may also influence perceived benefits and support for aquaculture broadly (Rickard et al., 2021; Yang et al., 2021).…”

Narrative persuasion and psychological distance: Analyzing the effectiveness of distance‐framed narratives in communicating ocean plastic pollution

“…Therefore, they may be more receptive to the educational content embedded in the narrative with reduced counterarguing (Moyer‐Gusé, 2008). Narrative persuasion has been widely utilized in health communication research (Kreuter et al., 2007; Shen et al., 2015), and it has begun to gain traction in other risk contexts, such as environmental communication (Cooper & Nisbet, 2016; Moyer‐Gusé et al., 2019; Rickard et al., 2021).…”

Do Conservation Films Generate Support for Conservation? A Case Study Using Transportation Theory and Hidden Rivers

“…Research on the impact of conservation films on topics other than climate change is limited. Viewers of films about water conservation (Kantola et al, 1983), eco-friendly home renovations (Rhodes et al, 2016), and aquaculture (Rickard et al, 2021) generally were shown to display greater interest in environmental issues and behaviors compared with people who had not viewed these films. Environmental films about potential human risks associated with hydrofracturing and genetically modified organisms increased support for regulatory policies among viewers (Cooper & Nisbet, 2016) and contributed to greater online discourse about the environment and increased political activism (Vasi et al, 2015).…”

“…Transportation into film has been shown to predict shifts in knowledge, attitudes, and behavior toward public health initiatives (Moyer-Gusé & Nabi, 2010; Williams et al, 2010), regulatory environmental policy (Cooper & Nisbet, 2016), aquaculture (Rickard et al, 2021), and avian conservation (Chen & Lin, 2014). Transportation usually is assessed with Green and Brock’s (2000) original scale, which measures transportation as a function of emotional involvement, cognitive attention, feelings of suspense, lack of awareness of surroundings, and mental imagery.…”