“Nightwatch”: Effects of a Nuclear Risk Storyline on the Popular Show Madam Secretary on Viewers’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors

Background: Prevention of the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons is of urgent importance to public health. However, persisting trends demonstrate a lack of both public engagement and consistent public discourse regarding issues related to nuclear policy and nuclear weapons. These factors suggest nuclear risk, once a dominant source of public concern, has faded from view and may not be well understood by the general public. This study contemplates how we can make a nuclear risk issue that is abstract into something that is more concrete and accessible for the general public, ultimately mobilizing individuals to take action. This dissertation examines how a storyline in a popular television show can be used to educate and persuade viewers about nuclear risk. Although entertainment narratives have historically been used to depict traditional public health issues, such as cancer prevention and reproductive health, a growing base of research evidence on narrative persuasion suggests fictional narratives can provide an effective approach for promoting awareness and communication about individual, community and collective health risks, in this case nuclear weapons. However, most research examining the impact of entertainment narratives has largely overlooked the complex role of viewer characteristics, such as political ideologies and core beliefs, in narrative persuasion mechanisms, despite their theoretical importance. Methods: This study explores the impact of a nuclear risk storyline on the comprehension and acceptance of information conveyed via the popular television show Madam Secretary. This study implements a unique mixed-methods approach using a viewer pre/post survey (N=295) and social media data (N=3629). First, regular viewers of the show were surveyed before and after the finale episode with the nuclear risk storyline, with a total of 295 participants completing both surveys. Multivariate regression was used to analyze effects of narrative exposure on viewers’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Latent profile analysis and moderation were used to examine differential impact among subgroups of viewers defined by their political ideologies and beliefs. Among viewers of the episode, mechanisms of narrative persuasion were subsequently examined to determine whether narrative engagement, perceived realism, or emotion mediated the relationship between viewers’ political ideologies and beliefs (represented by latent viewer subgroups) and their nuclear knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Tweets from the social media platform Twitter were also collected to analyze tweets related to the show to expand on quantitative findings. Media content analysis of tweets aimed to examine viewer engagement through social media as a mechanism to explain audience impact. Results: Findings suggest that fictional television narratives can help educate viewers about nuclear risk, but did not affect all viewers equally. Latent profile analysis identified two distinctive latent viewer subgroups: one group that is more conservative, hawkish, less anti-nuclear and another group that is more liberal, dovish, and more anti-nuclear. Latent class moderation revealed that only those who were more liberal, dovish, and more anti-nuclear experienced an increase in nuclear knowledge. However, mediation analysis surprisingly found that viewers who were more conservative, hawkish, and less anti-nuclear experienced a more positive emotional response to the storyline, but learned less than the more liberal, dovish, and more anti-nuclear viewers. Thematic analysis of tweets revealed that most tweets expressed enjoyment of the show and its characters, followed by narrative presence and perceived realism. Viewers were not always reacting to the nuclear risk storyline, but content experts and organizations played an important role in clarifying and reinforcing the intended message of the storyline. Conclusion: Results suggested the potential for selectivity, where viewer subgroups engage or dismiss parts of the narrative that do not align with their beliefs. Tweets also revealed additional barriers to viewers’ narrative engagement, such as competing storylines. These findings shed light on unique challenges in communicating health messages that are potentially political controversial and provide a more nuanced understanding of narrative engagement that have implications that can advance the field of narrative persuasion