More Recycling Messages

Fear Message:

Fear-inducing messages are used to influence an audience’s behavior. An effective fear message has four main components: it has to illustrate a real risk for negative events; it is likely that this negative event would happen if a behavior isn’t adopted, it’s likely that the event won’t occur if the behavior is adopted, and there are specific steps to adopt the behavior.

This image is an example of a fear-inducing message meant to influence people to recycle paper. The image shows a lot of trees that have been cut down, illustrating a possible negative event. It is likely that more trees will get cut down if people don’t recycle because of our need for paper. It is also likely that recycling paper will reduce the number of trees being cut down because paper can be made from recycled paper. The image also tells you what behavior to adopt to help prevent deforestation, which is to recycle.

Peripheral route processing:

This message is an example of a message designed to create peripheral route processing. The image is brightly colored and has a lot of distracing elements. The dragon tells the viewer to recycle newspapers, plastics, glass, and aluminum. This creater of this message has designed it in hopes that it would cause the audience to want to recycle without having to really think about the message.

Two-sided message:

This message is two-sided because it tells the audience what to recycle and what not to recycle. It allows people to really think about recycling and how they can fit it into their life. It is a neutral message because it tells people that there are somethings that can be recycled and somethings that cannot.