Roles of Perceived Message Ethicality and the Persuasion Ethics Schema in Predicting Intended and Unintended Anti-Drug Campaign Consequences

초록

This study examines the roles of ethical perceptions in determining health campaign message effectiveness. Integrating findings from commercial communication studies with emerging health communication ethics research, it investigates how perceived message ethicality and the persuasion ethics schema (PES) lead to both intended and unintended consequences of an antidrug campaign. An online cross-sectional survey was conducted in South Korea among 1,500 adults aged 19 and older. Fitting PROCESS Macro models 4 and 8 yielded the following results. First, perceived message ethicality was found to be negatively related to psychological reactance and positively related to intention to comply with the campaign message (ICC). Second, psychological reactance served as a significantly negative predictor of ICC, and it partially mediated the relationship between perceived ethicality and ICC. Third, PES was positively related to reactance and negatively related to ICC. Fourth, PES significantly moderated the relationship between perceived message ethicality and ICC, but not the relationship between perceived ethicality and reactance. In aggregate, our results provide empirical support for health communication ethicists' recommendations to consider audience ethical perceptions in campaign planning. Copyright © 2026 by the Korean Society for Journalism and Communication Studies

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