About

Holly Overton is a faculty member associated with the Media Effects Research Lab at Penn State. The provided page text does not include specific details about her research focus, background, or key contributions. Therefore, a detailed biography cannot be generated from the available information.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Social psychology
• Psychology
• Advertising
• Sociology
• Business
• Law
• Marketing
• Public relations
• Management
• Economics

Selected publications

• Responsibility, Advocacy, and Activism

  2026-01-15

  book-chapter

  This first chapter lays the groundwork for those that follow. Most critically, the authors explicate the concepts of social responsibility and sociopolitical advocacy in relation to one another, as well as a host of similar constructs and subconstructs across the prosocial communication landscape. This chapter aims to define and delimit crucial terms and practices while exploring how they have generally been studied in previous scholarship, particularly within the public relations literature. They close by highlighting the major themes discussed by this book’s contributors and the important implications of their work.

  PublisherDOI

• Sociopolitical Advocacy and the Role of Public Relations

  2026-01-15

  book1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Examining the impact of corporate social advocacy (CSA) issue ownership and message content on authenticity perceptions and behavioral intentions

  Corporate Communications An International Journal · 2025-02-04 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Purpose As companies continue to engage in CSA, they continue to struggle with determining what issues they should speak out about and how they can create compelling messages that inspire action. Guided by arguments from issue ownership theory, this study examines CSA message content effects related to two different social-political issues on advocacy behavioral intentions, megaphoning, brand preference and purchase intention. Specifically, the level of advocacy in a CSA message is examined, as well as the manner in which the message is written (narrative vs informational). Furthermore, this study examines the role of perceived authenticity and its impact on an individual’s supportive intentions. Design/methodology/approach This study conducts a 2 (issue: abortion rights vs gun violence) × 2 (level of advocacy: call-to-action (CTA) vs no call-to-action) × 2 (message type: narrative vs informational) between-subjects online experiment using a Qualtrics panel (N = 529) to examine the impact of CSA message features on individuals’ supportive intentions toward the brand. Findings Results indicate a significant interaction effect of issue by advocacy level on advocating behavioral intentions, megaphoning, brand preference and purchase intention, highlighting that companies should advocate more explicitly about some issues than others. The interaction effects of issue type × level of advocacy were completely and significantly mediated by perceived authenticity. Mediation paths revealed that a CTA with the gun violence issue had a significant positive effect on perceived authenticity, whereas a CTA with the abortion rights issue produced a significant negative effect on perceived authenticity. Originality/value This study makes a contribution to a growing body of CSA literature through its examination of CSA message content, which has been understudied in this context. The study findings reveal new insights regarding the interplay between issue type and level of advocacy, highlighting the importance of companies selecting issues carefully and tailoring message content appropriately to have the most impact on message receivers.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• When Employers Speak Out: Examining Effects of Corporate Social Advocacy Through Belief Match, Organizational Identification, and Authenticity

  Management Communication Quarterly · 2025-02-24 · 5 citations

  articleSenior author

  Stakeholders expect companies to speak out on contentious issues, but such advocacy risks backlash. While much prior research on corporate social advocacy (CSA) has focused on external stakeholders, companies must also consider how advocacy affects employees. Drawing on organizational identification theory, this study uses an experiment ( N = 256) to examine effects of an organization’s decision to engage in advocacy on employees’ attitudes and behavior intentions. We found that when employees agree with an employer decision to tackle a controversial social issue in the form of belief match and view it as authentic, this strengthens their relationship, ultimately resulting in positive outcomes for employers (e.g., loyalty) as well as for social movements (e.g., activism intentions).

  PublisherDOI

• Enhancing corporate social advocacy support: self-efficacy, response efficacy, and collective efficacy as drivers of CSA behavioral intentions

  Journal of Applied Communication Research · 2025-09-07

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Between Innovation and Caution: How Consumers’ Risk Perception Shapes AI Product Decisions

  Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising · 2025-03-31 · 7 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• “In this day and age, you have to stand for something”: examining organizational advocacy issue choice and spokespeople in sport

  Journal of Communication Management · 2025-10-06

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Purpose This study aims to examine organizational advocacy or the more collective stance-taking efforts in a sports league – the National Basketball Association (NBA) – to see whether an organization can more effectively communicate about its advocacy efforts with different message spokespeople. The study aims to determine whether each respective message source – an athlete, a league commissioner, and the organization itself – could be effective for the NBA to consider using as a spokesperson for advocacy messaging. Design/methodology/approach This study conducts a 3 [message spokesperson: commissioner (Adam Silver) vs. athlete (LeBron James) vs. organization (NBA)] × 2 (advocated issue: abortion vs. gun violence) factorial online experiment between-subjects online experiment using a panel (N = 265) of self-identified sports fans in the USA recruited through the Lucid platform. Findings Liberals with high fan identification perceived the message from LeBron James as less authentic compared to the NBA’s message, leading to lower supportive intentions. Liberals with low or moderate fan identification perceived a message about gun violence as less authentic, which led to lower supportive intentions. Authenticity mediates the relationship between issue and supportive intentions depending on political leaning and fan identification level. Originality/value This paper empirically tests advocacy-related concepts in a sports context, adding new insights to measurement in extant literature and its potential prosocial effects. This study also examines how attitudes toward organizational advocacy can impact the cause itself – extending the understanding of advocacy further by seeing if it impacts society at large.

  PublisherDOI

• Saying the Right Things to the Right Audience: The Influence of Message Strategy and Consumer Demographics on Reactions to Corporate Social Advocacy (CSA) Communications

  International Journal of Business Communication · 2025-05-13 · 1 citations

  article

  Despite a growing number of studies in corporate social advocacy (CSA), little is known about the role of demographic and message factors in shaping consumer reactions toward corporate initiatives. Through a 2 ( gender : male vs. female) × 3 ( age group : 18–34, 35–54, 55+) × 2 ( message strategy : informational vs. narrative) online, between-subjects experiment ( N = 528), we demonstrated that individual factors and message format can influence CSA outcomes. Findings suggested that, after reading a CSA message, males and younger consumers reported higher advocating, megaphoning, purchasing, and brand preference intentions than females and older consumers. Subsequent analyses also revealed that transportation and identification mediated the relationship between message strategy and the outcome variables. Further, the mediation found that male participants and older consumers showed distinct patterns in how transportation and identification influenced their reactions. The implications of these results provide strategic insights to corporate management to design effective CSA messages.

  PublisherDOI

• Optimizing Brand Perceptions by Aligning Corporate Communication Strategy with Message Framing Strategy in CSR Messages

  Journal of Promotion Management · 2025-04-01 · 4 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• AI Disclosure in Strategic CSR Communication: Examining the Impact of Narratives, Source Labels, Message Transparency, and Organizational Perceptions on Behavioral Intentions

  International Journal of Strategic Communication · 2025-07-06 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kathy Brittain Richardson

  25 shared

• Clifford G. Christians

  24 shared

• Mark Fackler

  24 shared

• William J. Brown

  24 shared

• Yayu Feng

  24 shared

• Peggy J. Kreshel

  24 shared

• Joon Kyoung Kim

  University of Rhode Island

  7 shared

• Nandini Bhalla

  6 shared

Labs

• Media Effects Research LabPI

  Investigates social and psychological effects of technological elements unique to web-based mass-communication.

Education

• Ph.D., Mass Communications

  Penn State University

  2000

• M.A., Advertising

  University of Florida

  1996

• B.A., Advertising

  University of Florida

  1994

Awards & honors

• Page Center Legacy Scholar (2014, 2015, 2018)
• Senior Research Fellow (2020)
• Educator of the Year by the South Carolina Chapter of the Pu…
• Deans' Excellence Award for Integrated Scholarship at Bellis…
• Top Paper Awards from the Association for Education in Journ…