Now showing 1 - 10 of 25
No Thumbnail Available
Publication

The persuasive effects of verbal anchoring and visual complexity

2022 , Bünzli, Fabienne , Dillard, James Price

No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Strategizing for social change in nonprofit contexts: A typology of communication approaches in public communication campaigns

2018 , Bünzli, Fabienne , Eppler, Martin J.

Public communication campaigns aim to create social change by influencing audiences’ behaviors and thus help nonprofit organizations fulfill their mission. These campaigns, however, often fail to deliver their anticipated impact. Using public relations research as a theoretical lens, this paper’s contribution is twofold: first, we develop a typology that classifies the different communication approaches used in public communication campaigns. Based on one of the most prominent public relations theories, the Four Models of Public Relations, we differentiate communication approaches along the dimensions of communication purpose and communication style. Combining these two dimensions in a typology, we identify the following communication approaches: directing, platforming, mobilizing, and involving. We provide numerous real-life examples of public campaigns for each one. Second, we formulate propositions about these communication approaches’ effectiveness relying on a key concept of public relations research: namely, audience segmentation. Using the transtheoretical model, we show that audiences can be segmented along five “stages of readiness to adopt a promoted behavior.” Conceptualizing behavior change as an iterative, dynamic process that entails stage progresses as well as backdrops, we derive how audiences’ “stage of readiness” relates to the effectiveness of the identified communication approaches.

No Thumbnail Available
Publication

The persuasive effects of verbal anchoring and visual complexity

2021 , Bünzli, Fabienne , Dillard, James P.

No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Overcoming the Image-Text Divide: A Framework to Research Advocacy in Multimodal Persuasive Messages

2020 , Bünzli, Fabienne

No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Expressing Demands or Offers: How to Promote Volunteering Using Visual and Verbal Appeals

2022 , Bünzli, Fabienne , Eppler, Martin , Stanoevska-Slabeva, Katarina , Hofer, Alena

No Thumbnail Available
Publication

News about newspaper advertisers: To what extent can corporate advertising budgets predict editorial uptake and coverage of corporate press releases?

2017 , Lischka, Juliane A. , Stressig, Julian , Bünzli, Fabienne

News value theory aims to predict a story’s chance of being selected for publication based on news factors and ascribed news values. News values can also predict the coverage of corporate press releases. For news decisions, a newspaper’s revenue model may force editors to consider whether the source of a press release is an advertising client, despite the ‘separation of church and state’. In addition, for business journalism, corporate press releases have become an increasingly important news source. This study combines news values and advertiser weight to predict news coverage of press releases of banks in the news of partly and fully advertising-funded newspapers in Switzerland. Results show that advertiser importance can explain press release coverage concerning article length and tone in few cases, but has no universal news value. Public relations material is also not used as editorial subsidy for news. Larger companies are more successful in terms of press release uptake. However, their articles consist of a greater share of non-public relations material. Thus, our findings confirm editorial independence instead of copy-paste or obsequious journalism.

No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Expressing demands or offers: How to promote volunteering using visual and verbal appeals

2021 , Bünzli, Fabienne , Stanoevska, Katarina , Eppler, Martin , Hofer, Alena

No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Improving the effectiveness of prosocial advertising campaigns: Message strategies to increase support from less empathic individuals

2021 , Bünzli, Fabienne

No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Visual Relationship Building on Facebook: Nonprofit Organizations’ Use of Photos to Cultivate Relationships and Stimulate User Engagement

2023 , Fabienne Bünzli , Omid Alizadeh Afrouzi

Facebook has become an important strategic tool for nonprofit organizations to cultivate relationships with their stakeholders. But although Facebook is a predominantly visual medium, it is largely unknown how photographs contribute to relationship building. Using politeness theory as a theoretical framework, we argue that photographs facilitate relationship building to the extent to which they include politeness cues that support people's desire for autonomy (negative face wants) and their desire for approval (positive face wants). We then offer a systematic overview of visual politeness cues employing Kress and van Leeuwen's (2006) theory of visual grammar. A content analysis of 1,370 Facebook posts of U.S. health charities was conducted to examine the effects of these visual politeness cues on relationship building success, measured by the extent to which people engage with a post by liking and sharing it as well as commenting on it. The findings provide consistent support for our hypotheses suggesting that engagement is significantly greater when photos include visual politeness cues (vertical angle: high angle and eye level angle; horizontal angle: frontal angle; contact: direct gaze; physical distance: medium and long shots).

No Thumbnail Available
Publication

Empathic Concern and Its Influence on the Persuasive Effects of Message Framing and Evidence Type

2020 , Bünzli, Fabienne