Applying the extended parallel process model to examine posters in the 2008 Chinese Annual Anti-Drug Campaign

The present study sought to examine the content structure of the contemporary anti-drug campaign posters in China through the lens of the Extended Parallel Process Model. Four major factors of the EPPM (severity, susceptibility, response efficacy, and self-efficacy) served as the main coding categories of the content analysis to assess anti-drug posters’ potential persuasiveness. The findings revealed that the severity of drug abuse (n = 130, 87.2%) was communicated significantly more frequently than the other three factors, and response efficacy (n = 10, 6.7%) was significantly less prominent than the other three factors. “Legal punishment” is the most popular severity theme for both verbal (n = 71, 47.7%) and visual (n = 55, 36.9%) threats.