A Study On The Social Functions Of American Environmental Public Service Advertisements Since 1990s

Environmental problem is one of the most important social problems in the United States. After entering the 1990 s, America’s environmental pollution continues to aggravate, and along with the enhancement of environmental awareness of government and the public, all kinds of environmental communication have been gradually expanding. As an effective form of environmental communication, environmental public service advertisement(EPSA) plays an important role of promoting environmental knowledge and popularizing environmental consciousness, which is gaining more and more public attention.The United States is the birthplace of modern PSA, and it has its own characteristics in whether the media usage or communication strategies. Combining with American national condition and feature, the author makes a detailed analysis of the communication strategies of EPSA, and explores the way American EPSA turns public environmental awareness into practical action from the angles of theme, creativity, emotion and media based on the analysis of the current status of environmental communication in America, and focuses on the social functions of EPSA in this thesis.EPSA is an important part of environmental communication, and there is a great potential in its social functions, which mainly manifests from two aspects. The first is embodied in the influence on the social public. By making use of people’s unconscious mind, it creates a common emotional experience to strengthen public environmental awareness silently, and promotes an effective transformation from awareness to actual behavior. EPSA, integrating with mass media, regulates people’s social behavior by making fundamental transformations on people’s mind through its communication strategies. The second acts on the promotion of the harmonious development of the society. The improvement of public environmental awareness also directly promotes the participation of enterprises to realize the harmonious, stable and green development of society and economy, which is the ultimate goal of EPSA. Environmental career is connected with the interests of the government, enterprises and the public. As the largest developed country, American EPSA should play its due role in the green trend of the world.