propaganda&persuasion/theories

Key Effects Research Theories

  • Diffusion of Innovations
  • Elaboration Likelihood Model
  • Cultivation Studies
    • Proposed by Gerber in 1976
    • CT suggests that TV has a long term effect on the the viewer and will gradually affect the audience’s views and behaviors
    • Children will carry beliefs that they acquire from TV through life and will affect beliefs that they have as adults
  • Prosocial Behaviors
  • Agenda Setting
  • Framing
  • Spiral of Silence
  • Uses and Gratification

Critical/Rhetorical/Cultural Approaches to Propaganda & Persuasion

  • Aristotle (Ethos/Logos/Pathos)
    • Ethos
      • depends on personal character of the speaker
      • intent is to appear credible
      • ex) clothing, social aspects, celebrity endorsments
    • Pathos
      • putting audience into certain frame of mind
      • emotional influence
    • Logos
      • the proof provided by the words of the speech itself
      • appeals towards logical reason
  • Cicero ( 5 Canons of Rhetoric: Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, & Delivery)
  • Kenneth Burke:
    • Dramatism
      • Direct route to human motives and emotions
      • 5 elements – Act, Scene, Agency, Agent, Purpose
      • Guilt Redemption – Plot of all human drama, root of all rhetoric
    • Identification
      • As humans we are born/exist as separate beings and we inherently seek to identify with others
      • When someone attempts to persuade someone else, identification occurs because, for persuasion to occur, one party must “identify” with another
    • Scapegoating
      • blaming a group of people for an event or something that they may not have done. Recently we have had problems with ISIS and started putting blame on the entire Muslim community.
    • Frames of Acceptance (Tragic & Comic)/Frames of Rejection
  • Collective Memory
  • How the memory of the past shapes our present actions and emotions
  • Ex) monuments remind us of past events in history and help us remember what happened and how we felt in that time (9/11)
  • Polysemy- very similar to homophones
    • “Bank”
      • 1. financial institution
      • 2. the building where a financial institution offers services
      • 3. to rely upon “You can bank on me.”
        • derived from the theme of security
      • “river bank” would be a homophone because it is not related