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Firearms, brass knuckles… and Instagram: Intended and unintended influence of social media advertising
Journal of Brand Strategy,
9
(2),
171-189
(2020)
Abstract
Understanding the influence of social media advertising is critical to brands today. This study explores how Instagram advertising from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), largely featuring confiscated weapons, influences attitudes towards the brand and, unintentionally, towards gun control. A between-groups online experiment found that brand attitudes were not influenced, but light crime show viewers and video game players exposed to TSA’s Instagram content showed higher support for gun control than heavy violent crime show viewers and video game players. This research provides practical insight into how a government agency brand communicates with the public subject to its services. It also has theoretical implications, extending priming and desensitisation literature in exploring the relationship between violent social media images, prior exposure to violent media and gun control attitudes and, ultimately, suggesting that brand social media content can unintentionally influence attitudes towards social issues.
Keywords: social media; Instagram; branding; social issues; gun control; priming; desensitisation
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Valerie K. Jones holds a PhD from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and is Associate Professor of Advertising and Public Relations at the UNL. Her curiosity about what is next fuelled an award-winning career at agencies from San Francisco to Chicago, the creation of her own digital marketing consultancy and finally a move to academia. She brings 20 years of expertise in integrated marketing communications, branding, digital media strategy and analytics from Starcom, Fox Interactive, IBM and her consultancy into her research and teaching. A co-editor of a two-volume book set from Praeger Publishing titled The New Advertising, her research is focused around the intersection of digital media, innovation and culture.
Ming (Bryan) Wang holds a Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and researches the impact of new communication technologies – such as social media, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence – on advertising, public relations, health communication and political communication. His research has been published in leading communication journals such as Journal of Communication, Communication Research and Social Marketing Quarterly.
