Mass Media Persuasion and Campaigns: Techniques, Theories, and Failures - Prof. Ronald Tam, Study notes of Communication

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Material since last exam—borderline grade questions (7)
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Persuasion  Influential researchers o Hovland :identified moderating variables o Hyman and Sheatsly persuasive messages can overcome psychological barriers o Lazarsfeld media primarily reinforce existing attitudes rather than change them
Contemporary Approaches To Mass Media Persuasion  Cognitive dissona theory  Mcguires o Attitude change occurs in steps  Model outlines inputs and outputs  Influence decrease foreach step  Cognitve response theory o Learning a new message isn’t enough to make us yield to it o Attitude change or yielding depends on what we think about the message  Elb. Likelihood model o Explains persuasion by likelihood of a person to elaborate o Two distinct routes  Central- careful thinking  Peripheral- without careful thinking  Theory of Reasoned action and theory of planned behavior o Intention to behave and subsequent behaviors are predicted by  Attitudes toward behavior  Understanding of normative beliefs about the behavior- or perception of how influential others will view the behavior  Exten. Par o When threat is low  There is NO response to the message—(not even processed, efficacy is not considered) o High  If efficacy is high people control the danger and protect themselves  If efficacy is low, people control their fear and ignore the message
Campaign:  Purposive attempt  to inform, persuade or motivate behavior changes  in a relatively well defined and
Other mediated health campaigns  two new educational strategies o Edutainment  Health messages embedded in entertainment  Programs and effects have not been studied extensively  Plain Folks o A speaker, idea, or product is good because they are “of the people”  Ex: Lady next door  Card Stacking (most common) o The selection and use of faces or falsehoods in order to give just one side of an issue  Ex:  negative political ads  Ads that note positive feature of their product without noting the negative attributes  Bandwagon o A claim that “Everyone is doing it” (or at least all of ‘us’) and so should you  Fear o Warning members of an audience that disaster will result if they do not follow a particular course of action
Lecture: Advertising
Effects of Ads on Health  Focus on 3 types of advertisements used: o Cigarettes  Some evidence of effects o Alcoholic beverages  Correlation exists between exposure to ads, increased consumption, and drunk driving o Foods  Food commercials may have positive or negative effects, but most likely negative
Recent Research  Interactive media effects on marketing: o Allows for:  Word of mouth communication  Creation of consumer profiling  Ability to track online behavior  Transactional Model o Focuses on how individual differences combine with media characteristics
-Skip media context studies
Media Content  Two types: o Political advertising o News stories
News Flaws That Influence Political Communication  Personalization: tendency for news stories to concentrate on individuals  Fragmentation: delivering news in brief capsule summaries  Dramatization: selecting news based on entertainment rather than how important the information is  Normalization: showing how problems can be solved within existing system
Lecture: Entertainment
Brief History Entertainment  Entertainment o Old view (e.g. Pascal)  Merriment is considered sinful o Modern view (Montaigne and Freud)  Entertainment is an effective and acceptable means of relief
Entertainment Theory  Selective Exposure (Mood Management Theory) o People select programs to relieve their discomfort or extend pleasure  Disposition Theory o We enjoy seeing liked characters rewarded, and disliked characters punished
Suspense  Narrative where we are unsure of final outcome  Two rationales explaining appeal o Arousal jag- arousal from suspense is liked o Excitation transfer- great distress intensifies enjoyment from the happy end (disposition)
McLuhan  “global village”: communication technologies have, in effect, shorted the distances between people in different parts of the world, all over the globe
Lecture: New Media
80/20 rule  20 percent of the movies, music, etc, make 80 percent of the profits for the industry