The Effect of Positioning a Message Within Differentially Cognitively Involving Portions of a Television Segment on Recall of the Message

Abstract

The effect on message recall of placing a message within differentially cognitivelyinvolving portions of a complex audiovisual program was examined. In an experimental design that controlled for time of total exposure to stimulus material and for the time interval between exposure to a test message and later recall and interest tests, subjects viewed a program package consisting of a commercial, a pretested segment of an action-adventure program, and an especially created control in one of four conditions of commercial placement: (1) the commercial was placed between two moderately involving portions of the program which occurred a few minutes prior to both the action-climax and the resolution of the suspense, (2) the commercial was placed immediately subsequent to the highly involving climax and immediately prior to the moderately involving resolution, (3) the commercial was placed subsequent to the climax and immediately subsequent to the resolution, or (4) the commercial was placed between two minimally involving portions of the control communication. Assessments of message recall were taken on one-half of the subjects shortly after they had completed viewing the experimental materials. In order to assess for long-term effects, the remainder of the subjects received a similar recall test and a test of interest in the product depicted in the commercial message one month after the experimental viewing session had been completed. The findings supported the proposition that recall of message content is inversely related to the cognitive involvement potential of the program material presented immediately before and after the critical message.The problem of where to most effectively place a particularly important message within a larger body of material has attracted considerable attention from communication scholars (e.g., Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953). The issue has rather obvious practical implications for many: among others, for the professor who wishes to make his or her major points most effectively, for the producer of instructional or educational television programs who frequently must maintain audience attention with secondary entertainment materials, and for the broad-~~~~~~~ -~ Jennings Bryant (Ph.D., Indiana University, 1974) is an assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003. Pad W. Cornisky (M.A., University of Massachusetts, 1977) is a doctoral candidate in the

Context Effects on Recall and Recognition of Magazine Advertisements

“…This research has yielded contradictory findings, with some studies (e.g., Clancy and Kweskin 1971;Krugman 1983;Leach 1981;Menneer 1987;Siebert 1978;Television Audience Assessment 1984) showing a positive relationship between program involvement and advertisement effectiveness and other studies (e.g., Bryant and Comisky 1978;Kennedy 1971;Soldow and Principe 1981;Thorson, Reeves and Schleuder 1985) showing a negative relationship. The results of our study of magazine advertising clearly support the latter group of findings.…”

“…In the case of television advertising, the published findings on program-induced viewer involvement are contradictory, some studies suggesting that highly involving programs result in greater advertisement effectiveness than relatively uninvolving programs (e.g., Clancy and Kweskin 1971;Krugman 1983;Leach 1981;Menneer 1987;Siebert 1978;Television Audience Assessment 1984) and other studies suggesting a negative correlation between viewer involvement and advertising effectiveness (e.g., Bryant and Comisky 1978;Kennedy 1971;Soldow and Principe 1981;Thorson, Reeves and Schleuder 1985). The investigation reported in this article focuses on context effects in magazine rather than television advertising, but the findings may also throw some light on the contradictory findings of television research.…”

“…As an additional manipulation check on the involvement properties of the articles and for later hypothesis testing, subjects responded to the following counterbalanced set of 12 seven-point rating scales which were scored from 0 (corresponding to the low-involvement anchor) to 6 (high) in each case: "I found the article(s) very entertaining-I found the article(s) not at all entertaining"; "I did not feel involved in the article(s)-I felt very involved in the article(s)"; "The article(s) were very suspenseful-the articles were not very suspenseful"; "I could not concentrate when reading the article(s)-I could concentrate when reading the article(s)"; "I was very relaxed when reading the article(s)-I was not relaxed when reading the article(s)"; "I found the article(s) very interesting-I found the article(s) very boring"; "I learnt nothing from the article(s)-I learnt a great deal from the article(s)"; "I did not enjoy the article(s) at all-I enjoyed the article(s) very much"; "I was not absorbed in the article(s)-I was very absorbed in the article(s)"; "I felt very tense when reading the article(s)-I did not feel very tense when reading the article(s)"; "I attended very closely to the article(s)-I did not attend very closely to the article(s)"; "the general quality of the article(s) was very high-the general quality of the article(s) was very low". These rating scales, which were designed to assess subjects' involvement in the articles, were taken from earlier investigations in which recipient involvement was measured (Bryant and Comisky, 1978;Colman and Grimes, 1989;Schwerin, 1958;Soldow and Principe, 1981) and from the appreciation indices used by the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) in the United Kingdom and Television Audience Assessment (TAA) in the United States (Taylor, 1989).…”

“…In the case of television advertising, a start has been made at investigating the effects of surrounding program material on the effectiveness of the embedded advertisements. Among the aspects of program context that have been found to influence advertisement effectiveness are the following: program genre (Schwerin 1958;Schwerin and Newell 1981), program-induced viewer mood (Axelrod 1963;Goldberg and Gorn 1987;Kamins, Marks and Skinner 1991), programadvertisement congruity (Bello, Pitts and Etzel 1983;Hansen, Barry, Reed and McGill 1976;Horn and McEwan 1977;Johnson 1981;Kamins, Marks and Skinner 1991;Lambert 1980;Murphy, Cunningham and Wilcox 1978), program-induced viewer excitement (Singh, Churchill and Hitchon 1987), and program-induced viewer involvement (Bryant and Comisky 1978;Clancy and Kweskin 1971;Kennedy 1971;Krugman 1983;Leach 1981;Menneer 1987;Siebert 1978;Soldow and Principe, 1981;Television Audience Assessment 1984;Thorson, Reeves and Schleuder 1985). The findings that have been reported to date tend to suggest that the most important context variable, as far as advertisement effectiveness is concerned, is programinduced viewer involvement.…”

Effectiveness of Narrative Persuasion on Facebook: Change of Attitude and Intention towards HPV

“…It is also defined as the degree of concern for the story and its characters, the way in which it develops and what it means (Slater and Rouner, 2002). When people are "involved," they focus on the message and react emotionally, pay attention to it, get caught up in the action and identify with the character (Bryant and Comisky, 1978). Other research has examined the involvement of the audience as parasocial interaction (PSI), a perceived friendship between a member of the audience and the character (Horton and Wohl, 1956).…”