EXAMINING UNITY AND SOCIAL COHESION THROUGH PUBLIC SERVICE ADVERTISEMENTS (PSAS) IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Abstract

The advancement of new media technology has changed the flow of communication for many advertising companies and organizations to strategically deliver their messages to the key audiences. The conventional method of communicating advertising messages is quickly coming to a tipping point, although it is still heavily used in print and broadcast media. As such, today’s producers and advertisers seek to find new evolving forms of media, in which shifts their strategy to the online advertising platform. The same applies to public service advertisements (PSAs) that produce pro-social messages. In this present paper, we are interested in examining audience responses towards the pro-social messages of unity and social cohesion through a series of focus group interviews among ethnically-diverse adults. The findings suggest four types of frames – nationalistic frame, political frame, cultural identity frame, and episodic frame. These frames were used by audiences in their interpretation of PSAs promoting unity and social cohesion messages. This study thus not only expands the work of PSAs within the Malaysian multicultural context, but also contributes to framing theory by examining the consumption of meaning in the digital age.