COMM375 CHAPTER 8 READING NOTES Chapter 8 Persuasive Effects of the Media What is Persuasion o When you are persuaded there is a change in your attitude You feel different about something as a result of being exposed to a message BUT a change in attitude is only part of what is involved in persuasion o Significant persuasion also results in changes of behavior You have to alter your behavior before you can be persuaded because otherwise you ll never know what it is you are trying to understand o Truly Significant Persuasion results in behavior that persists over time o Together these three features Attitude Change Behavior Change Persistent Change help to define what we mean by PERSUASION HOW MEDIA MESSAGES PERSUADE WITHOUT EVEN TRYING o A high proportion of media messages are designed to entertain Over the years scholars have learned that these entertainment messages can exert a powerful influence on attitude and behavior EXAMPLE When The Fonz off of the popular sitcom Happy Days applied for a library card in an episode Weeks later following this episode libraries around the country reported a 500 increase in library card applications o As psychologists have studied the persuasion process they have discovered that ordinarily people approach a persuasive situation with their defenses up Richard Petty and John Cacioppo describe this situation in their ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL ELM of Persuasion According to them there are two main routes by which people might be persuaded 1 Central Route to Persuasion which is a highly rational or cognitive route to persuasion it s when people scrutinize the message carefully and tend to think up many counter arguments that the persuader must defeat to be successful 2 Peripheral Route to Persuasion certain cues in the message lead people to accept the persuasive proposition with little cognitive thought or scrutiny PRODUCT PLACEMENTS IN ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMMING o Product Placements Appear within movies or TV shows as more or less incidental to the plot EX the movie ET recalling the extra terrestrial character enjoying the candy Reeses Pieces THE THEORY OF MEDIA CULTIVATION CULTIVATING ATTITUDES IS ATTITUDE CHANGE o George Gerber s THEORY OF MEDIA CULTIVATION doesn t use the term persuade to describe the impact of media and his theory is often treated in the context of discussions of media violence or media stereotypes The theory is all about the cultivation of attitudes which is after all another way of talking about attitude change According to Gerber the cultivation process is gradual and cumulative Also according to Gerber the world of media entertainment presents a particular view of social reality For example content analyses of prime time television programs reveal that about 12 of the male characters hold jobs work in law enforcement this proportion is a gross exaggeration in reality only about 1 of employed males work in the area of law enforcement o What happens to people who make watching prime time television a steady habit According to Gerber the person becomes cultivated into the television view of social reality The viewer will begin to believe that the real world resembles the world presented in the media The TV viewer begins to believe that the world is a more violent place than it actually is o Mainstreaming refers to what happens when people of different groups are exposed to the same media o Resonance refers to what happens when a persons real life environment strongly resembles the environment depicted in the media IF CULTIVATION WORKS HOW DOES IT WORK o L J Shrum a scholar tried to answer this question by saying The answer revolves around the ACCESSIBILITY PRINCIPLE in order to understand this principle imagine that you were asked to estimate the percentage of the workforce who held the job of an attorney When you are asked a question like this you tend to reply upon information that is most accessible or the information that tends to pop into your mind first o DRENCH HYPOTHESIS where media cultivation tends to emphasize the effects of repeated exposure to the same sorts of images over a long period the drench hypothesis emphasizes the power of critical images to overwhelm the stereotypical ones that appear regularly SUMMARY Significant persuasion involves attitude and behavior changes that persist over time Most of media messages that persuade viewers isn t intended to persuade 03 20 2014 03 20 2014
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