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Abstract

This study examined the effects of image-based assignment of agency (IAA) on COVID-19 and flu fear-appeals by employing eye-tracking technology. Volunteers participated in a 2x2x2 between-groups experiment. Fixation-count and fixation-duration were collected by a Tobii Pro X3-120 Screen-Based Eye-Tracker. After reviewing a fact sheet, participants answered a 29-item survey that included items aligning with the extended parallel process model. The flu/agentic-image/virus-agentic-language message produced significantly higher fixation-frequency to the image and a higher perception of severity than the COVID-19/real-image/human-agentic-language message. Fixation-frequency on the image produced significantly higher fear perceptions, but significantly lower message-quality and message-credibility perceptions. Flu messages led to significantly higher perceptions of response-efficacy than COVID-19 messages.

Journal Title

Iowa Journal of Communication

Volume

57

Issue

1

First Page

53

Last Page

81

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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