Persuasive Messages

Designed to help students become more successful persuaders, Persuasive Messages offers practical advice on refining purpose, understanding audience, and designing a persuasive message. This textbook combines theory and practice, adopting a cognitive approach to understanding the persuasion process.

• A guide to successful persuasion, using student-friendly examples to provide a much-needed balance between theory and application
• Offers a new approach using the Cognitive Response Model, which places a special emphasis on audiences, and how they react to, or process, persuasive messages
• Covers a broad range of issues including: the relationship between attitudes and behaviour; the nature of ethics in persuasion; dealing with hostile and multiple audiences; and theories of persuasion, including consistency, social judgment, and reasoned action
• Teaches readers to be critical consumers of persuasive messages by discussing persuasion in advertising and in politics
• Lecturer resources available at www.blackwellpublishing.com/benoit

List of Figures.

List of Boxes.

List of Tables.

Preface.

Part I: Attitudes and Persuasion:.

1. The Importance of Persuasion.

2. The Cognitive Approach to Persuasion.

3. The Source of Persuasive Messages: Credibility.

4. Ethical Concerns.

Part II: Preparing Persuasive Communication:.

5. Purpose and Audience.

6. Organization: Structuring the Message.

7. Substance: Support for Your Ideas.

8. Symbols and Style.

9. Hostile, Apathetic, Motivated, and Multiple Audiences.

Part III: Theories of Persuasion:.

10. Consistency Theories of Attitude Change.

11. Social Judgment/Involvement Theory.

12. Theory of Reasoned Action.

Part IV: Critical Consumers of Persuasive Messages:.

13. Persuasion in Advertising.

14. Persuasion in Political Campaigns.

References.

Index

“Persuasive Messages displays a mature judgment about how to teach and learn persuasion. The product of two very experienced scholar/instructors, the book commits to a base theory – the Elaboration Likelihood Model – and shows how it informs both practice and reflection on other leading theories. This book is very well adapted to an introductory course with a practical component.”
Dale Hample, Western Illinois University

“The blending of classical rhetoric and contemporary persuasion theory and meta-analysis results as applied to everyday practice represents an exciting and remarkable achievement. Understandable and comprehensive, the Benoits begin the next generation of textbooks.”
Mike Allen, UW-Milwaukee“This clearly written book [does] a particularly good job of combining theory and application. References [are] comprehensive, … and the material well presented and accessible. Recommended.” Choice

William L. Benoit is Professor of Communication at the University of Missouri-Columbia and editor of the journal Communication Studies. He and his co-author Pamela J. Benoit were jointly awarded the Daniel Rohrer Award for research in argumentation by the American Forensic Association.

Pamela J. Benoit is Vice Provost for Advanced Studies, Dean of the Graduate School, and Professor of Communication at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She has been awarded the William T. Kemper Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching as well as several other recognitions for contributions to research, teaching, and service.

Persuasive Messages is a guide to successful persuasion, providing a balance between theory and application. Firmly grounded in decades of research in the field, it offers a new approach using the Elaboration Likelihood Model to help readers understand how to construct effective persuasive messages. This model, so often neglected in other texts on persuasion, places a special emphasis on audiences, and how they react to, or process, persuasive messages.

The book is split into four accessible parts: Key concepts, sources, and the relationship between attitudes and behavior; the Elaboration Likelihood Model; and the nature of ethics in persuasion

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• Designing effective persuasive messages, including refining purpose and message, and understanding and dealing with hostile and multiple audiences
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• Theories of persuasion, including consistency, social judgment, and reasoned action
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• Critical consumers of persuasive messages, discussing persuasion in advertising and in politics.

With its balance between theory and practice, the book works diligently to relate these concepts to the reader through diverse examples. Persuasive Messages makes it clear how students, as persuaders, can use the ideas from this book in the messages they create to achieve their goals.