Theoretical Foundations of Appeals Used in Alcohol-Abuse and Drunk-Driving Public Service Announcements in the United States, 1995-2010.

Purpose: The study identifies the extent to which theoretical constructs drawn from well-established message effect communication theories are reflected in the content of alcohol-related public service announcements (PSAs) airing in the United States over a 16-year period.

Design: Content analysis of 18 530 141 alcohol-abuse (AA) and drunk-driving (DD) PSAs appearing on national network and local cable television stations in the 210 largest designated marketing areas (DMAs) from January 1995 through December 2010.

Measures: The authors developed a detailed content analytic codebook and trained undergraduate coders to reliably identify the extent to which theoretical constructs and other creative ad elements are reflected in the PSAs.