摘要:
   
广告是一种有组织的经济传播活动，同时广告作品也是一种文化产物；而公益广告作为一种宣传社会价值观和提供公共服务的有效的广告形式，是我们社会所倡导的风尚，也是社会精神文明建设的重要组成部分。由于中美的公益广告在宣传内容、价值诉求等方面存在着明显的文化差异性，因此本文结合中美公益广告的典型案例进行对比研究。文章以公益广告与文化交流的概念为基础，研究和分析中美公益广告中主题选择、表演主体、表达方式等方面的不同，从而进一步分析两国文化价值领域的差异。通过本研究，可以发现中美文化及价值取向的不同导致了公益广告存在明显的差异性。同时，文章也强调了公益广告对中美跨文化交流的重要性。本文旨在使受众和广告设计者加深对中美公益广告文化差异的认识与理解，使人们能更好地欣赏来自不同文化的广告，同时广告设计者也能设计出更好的公益广告，以促成中美两国公益广告事业的发展和跨文化交际的成功。

关键词：中国公益广告；美国公益广告；跨文化研究；文化差异

ABSTRACT:
   
Advertising is firstly a type of structured communication of economy, but at the same time, advertisement is also a cultural product. As an effective type of advertisements which helps to promote the social values and to serve the public, public service advertisements (PSAs) have become an advocating trend in society and the important part of the construction of spiritual civilization. PSAs both in China and the U.S. show the obvious cultural differences on the aspects of content and the value appeal. In this paper, typical cases are used to compare the PSAs in China and the U.S. It takes the concept of public service advertisements and cultural communication as the theoretical basis. Then it discusses the differences of PSAs under different cultural backgrounds, which include topic selection, performers and ways of expression. Finally, this paper analyzes the differences between the two countries in the field of cultural values. The study suggests that the different cultures and values between China and the U.S. result in the differences in PSAs. Meanwhile, the paper gives emphasis to the importance of the PSAs in communication. This study aims to help the audience and the designers of advertising to deepen the understanding of cultural differences on PSAs, in order that the audience can appreciate advertising from different cultures and designers can create better PSAs, thus to achieve the successful cross-cultural communication.

Key words: Chinese public service advertisements; American public service advertisements; cross-cultural study; cultural differences