Time spent on separating waste is never wasted:Fostering people's recycling behavior through the use of a mobile application

The current study investigates 1) whether using a recycling app can stimulate recycling behavior and 2) which behavioral model best explains whether people use a recycling app (comparing the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Technology Acceptance Model). A within-subjects experiment was conducted (N = 118) in which a baseline week of recycling was compared with an intervention week (in which participants used a recycling app). Experience sampling methodology (ESM) was used to assess daily recycling behavior. The results showed that using a recycling app increased recycling behavior. Furthermore, the results showed that both TPB and TAM were suitable to explain recycling app use intentions, but not actual app use. This research provides practical implications by adding insights on how to stimulate app use, and ultimately, recycling behavior. Furthermore, the findings have important theoretical implications because they enhance our understanding of app use for environmental behavior change

Beyond climate change? Environmental discourse on the planetary boundaries in Twitter networks

Social media are increasingly used to obtain and disseminate information about environmental issues. Yet, environmental communication research has focused mainly on social media discussions pertaining to climate change, while overlooking public awareness and discourse regarding the other planetary boundaries (i.e., important and interlinked environmental issues other than climate change). Moreover, while discussions about climate change are often found to be polarising, it remains to be seen if this extends to other environmental issues. We used network analysis and topic modelling to analyse two million environment-related tweets and identified nine ‘green communities’ of users. Climate change was the most popular issue across all communities and other issues like biodiversity loss were discussed infrequently. The discourse was less polarised than previously assumed, was largely pro-environmental, and originated more from the Global North than the Global South. The relevance of our findings for policymakers and researchers in environmental communication is discussed

When the Medium is the Message:A Meta-Analysis of Creative Media Advertising Effects

Creative media advertising is a specific type of unconventional advertising in which a regular physical object serves as a medium to carry an advertising message. To better understand the workings of this type of advertising, we conducted a meta-analysis. In this study, we explore the direct effects of creative media advertising, several moderators, and the possible underlying mechanisms. The results show that exposure to creative (versus traditional) media advertising has an overall positive effect on brand association strength and persuasion (i.e., ad attitude, brand attitude, purchase intentions, and electronic word of mouth [eWOM]). Both these effects are moderated by metaphor use, meaning that the effects are stronger when the physical object is a good metaphor for the message it carries. Furthermore, indirect (e.g., social media, printed picture) exposure to the message positively moderates the effect of creative media advertising on brand association strength but not on persuasion. Brand familiarity does not play a moderating role. Finally, a meta-analytic structural equation modeling (SEM) procedure was used to show that the main underlying mechanism of creative media advertising persuasiveness is surprise—and not perceived persuasive intent. For practitioners, this study shows that creative media ads are more effective when leveraging surprise and metaphors