Culture & Persuasion: Role of Material & Nonmaterial Culture in Shaping Beliefs & Values -, Exams of Communication

Download Culture & Persuasion: Role of Material & Nonmaterial Culture in Shaping Beliefs & Values - and more Exams Communication in PDF only on Docsity! 1 EXAM 2 STUDY GUIDE Culture: “the totality of human products [which includes] knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habitats acquired by a human being.” - The essence of culture is the creation and sharing of meanings in a society of people. - Culture often creates meaning, changes can be trivial, meaning is shared, helps a society define and identify itself, helps us function and respond to society - IMPORTANT TO PERSUASION BECAUSE: o Helps persuaders figure out how to identify with and relate to their audience o Persuaders have an interest in shaping and transforming culture (they need a lot of power to do so) - KEY CHARACTERISTICS o Material culture: “cultural products” or artifacts produced by people in a society. Technologies, TV shows, songs, dances, etc o Nonmaterial culture: beliefs, values, behaviors that sustain a particular people.  Beliefs: cognitive information ; criterion or standards of preference based on cultural beliefs  Behaviors: practices or actions taken based on cultural beliefs and values (i.e. weddings)  Institutions: bundles of beliefs, values and behaviors in a specific area of life; patterns in behavior and thinking oriented around a certain area of life o Manifest functions of persuasion: the explicit or intentional objectives, goals, effects of a persuasive act o Latent functions of persuasion: the implicit or unintentional social and cultural consequences and effects of a persuasive act CULTURE AND POWER: an important relationship Mainstream culture model - believes that there is a mainstream, dominant culture - starts with a very small group of people: the referent class o the referent class sets standards; includes men who are of European decent and protestant; better educated; professional Cultural Conflict Model - people outside of the mainstream model - suggests that there is no mainstream culture - EX: the institution of the family causes lots of cultural conflict 2 EXAM 2 STUDY GUIDE - People have differences and conflicts with those outside that community David Brooks (conservative columnist) and “red & blue America” o Red America: heartland and rural settings o Blue America: coastal America (big cities) Hegemonic Model - People see oppression and a lack of conflict when there should be conflict - 2 groups: the powerful and oppressed - Powerful retains power through ideas and cultural influence - Involves the maintenance of beliefs - The powerful convince the oppressed that they need to be oppressed and the powerful should be in control - The people being dominated don’t even realize they are being dominated - Patriarchy – the system of beliefs that defines women in ways that men can continue to be dominant o Victoria’s Secret contributes to the idea that women are sex objects and are inferior to men o There are in inequalities in power that exist Persuasion not only involves knowing what the cultural belief is, but understanding individual responses people have to messages Motivational Appeals - Feelings-based (or affective) approach to persuasion - Aristotle’s term: pathos (emotion) o Persuaders want to understand pathos but also want to create it Emotions: beliefs systems that guide how we understand out feelings and how we organize our responses to those feelings - Emotions are socially constructed; feelings are physiologically constructed - Socialization theory: individuals acquire personality and learn ways of life through processes of social interaction - Interaction and identification involves naming things and experiences 5 EXAM 2 STUDY GUIDE o Continuum of central beliefs (core beliefs that ground you completely) and peripheral beliefs (not as important) o Most persuasion is directed at peripheral beliefs because they are easier to change II. Affective/emotional information III. Past behaviors and experience THEORY OF ATTITUDE CHANGE - Theories formed by cognitive information are more easily change by affective information than by new cognitive information - Likewise, affectively-formed attitudes are more easily changed by cognitive information than by new affective information Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) Persuasion may occur through one of two routes: - Central-route processing uses logical, information-based messages o Requires audience motivation and ability o Results in long-term attitude change - Peripheral-route processing uses sensory or symbolic cues (music, celebrity images) o Results in short-term attitude change; kicks in when we’re looking at pictures, music, some sort of sensory response The Nature of Language - Language: the symbolic instrument and vehicle for human action and expression o the language choice we use can help or hurt our cause - Signs: anything that designates something other than itself o Images, gestures, words - Semiotics: Ferdinand de Saussure divided signs into two components” – how meaning is given to a word o The signifier: a sign’s physical form perceived by our sense (EXAMPLE: STOP SIGN) o The signified: the mental concept or idea to which the sign refers (EXAMPLE: YOU MUST STOP!) o Meaning exists in people, not in the signs themselves o Signs are flexible, arbitrary and culturally learned  flexible flowers: can have different meanings to different people; abbreviations also have different meanings to different people.  arbitrary the physical form of a sign doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with its meaning 6 EXAM 2 STUDY GUIDE  Culturally learned bride wears white in USA (purity)  in Chinese sulture you wear white to funerals (to signify death)  meanings are relative and can change  meaning somes from context and certain experiences o Denotative meaning vs. connotative meaning  Denotative: dictionary definition= the formal, generally agreed upon meaning of a word o Connotative: deals with positive or negative overtone that’s connected with that word o Ex: HOLLYWOOD  Denotative: a section of LA, famous for movies, television and music production  Connotative: glamour, celebrity, fame, fortune, greed, corruption, and crazy people like Lindsay Lohan  Persuaders would be interested in positive connotated ideas Language in Persuasion A. Language as a carrier of meaning/culture - Language strategy of identification - Use language to create ***? between persuader and audience - B. Language as a Framework for cultural belief - Shapes and influences how we perceive reality - Can be seen through the way we refer to a race or gender - Moving from physical difference to cultural differences - The words have difference connotative meaning - Powerful nature of the language we use o Political correctness movement o Language is linked to morals (language reflects certain beliefs) - Language is linked to power (it influences our actions) - Language is used to shape cultural beliefs Language as a strategy of naming: when you take certain labels that will suggest certain responses - Naming can be used to cover up realities (double speak) - Doublespeak: Language that uses cloudiness to hide actual reality of what is being expressed o Euphemisms- saying “restructuring of the company” aka “you’re fired” o Circular reasoning is a type of double speak  Use conclusion of argument and restate it to support your agument 7 EXAM 2 STUDY GUIDE  Ex: a tax increase is bad b/c it means paying more money - Rhetorical hyperbole: overstates reality, appeals to emotions o Ad hominen argument- exaggerating little facts to damage one’s credibility  Personal confrontations; attacking someone o Emotional language  Used to overinflate actual attitudes  Terms that are used as a way to get people to think a certain way - Effects: creates distinctions and dichotomies o Often moral distinctions - Creates hierarchy o These distinctions can create a hierarchy o One things that not only are we not those people, but we are better than them Language and Power - Language is used to secure the power to o 1. Identify what is important o 2. Control how issues are defined o 3. Prescribe what ought to be done - Language is a naming strategy - Persuasion is often a struggle over contested meanings of words - Language strategy of framing a way of talking about a situation that suffests audience perspective o Agenda-setting: language helps us know what to think about and focus on. EX: Jindal and ethics reform o Interpretation: help provide legitimate reasoning for issues (ex: heightened security at airports)  can link things that aren’t so appealing to values we all have  spin control  anyone can spin  struggle over spin control o Language creates drama: there are heroes, victims, saviors, villains, etc.  language tries to simplify complex issues; sometimes too much (oversimplifying)  ex. Abortion: pro-life frames the issue around the baby; pro-choice frames the issue around freedom Electronic Eloquence: refers to persuasion mediated through TV (it creates a kind of intimacy) - language strategies can/need to adapt to different media - characteristics: