First-Person Versus Third-Person

Abstract

Research on health communication shows that audience involvement with media characters displayed in narratives represents a key mechanism that facilitates persuasive outcomes. This study analyses whether different narrative voices trigger identification with story characters and affect counter-arguments against and attitudes toward proposed recommendations. The online experiment (N = 364) investigates the effects of first- and third-person narrative voice in explainer videos using the example of work-related stress, and similarities between the audience’s situations and that of the character are accounted for. The moderated mediation analysis showed no effect of narrative voice on identification and being personally affected by the health issue addressed in the explainer video did not play a moderating role. Furthermore, the results showed that identification was negatively associated with disagreement and positively related to attitudes toward recommendations. Narrative voice did not have a direct impact on attitudes and there is was no effect mediated via identification and disagreement.