In a randomized experiment using moment-to-moment audience analysis methods, we compared women's emotional responses with a narrative versus informational breast cancer video. Both videos communicated three key messages about breast cancer: (i) understand your breast cancer risk, (ii) talk openly about breast cancer and (iii) get regular mammograms. A community-based convenience sample of African American women (n = 59) used a hand-held audience response device to report the intensity of their emotional reaction while watching one of the two videos. Strong emotions were more likely to correspond to contextual information about characters in the video and less likely to correspond to health content among women who watched the narrative video compared with those who watched the informational video (P less than 0.05). Women who watched the narrative video were more likely to report feeling attentive (41 versus 28%, respectively), inspired (54 versus 34%) and proud (30 versus 18%) and less likely to feel upset (8 versus 16%) (all P less than 0.05). Women in the narrative group were more likely to mention women's personal stories than health information in open-ended recall questions, but this did not detract from obtaining health information. Findings suggest that stories can be used to communicate health information without distracting from core health content.