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There is impressively consistent empirical support for the hypotheses that distraction and sensory deprivation increase responsiveness to persuasive inputs. The primary purpose of the two experiments reported here was to investigate whether distraction and sensory deprivation also increase the persuasive impact of attacks on cultural truisms, and the manner in which prior provision of counterarguments in the form of a refutational inoculation message interacts with these treatments. The effects of the independent variables were assessed by dependent measures of four theoretically distinct but related aspects of the attitude change process: comprehension, message belief acceptance, attitude change and cognitive reactions r— to the persuasive message. A total of one hundred subjects served in the two experiments. In the first experiment, the effects of three levels of distraction (no distraction, low effort distraction, high effort distraction) and of the presence or absence of refutational inoculation were examined. Contrary to previous research, distraction had no effect on any of the dependent measures; refutational inoculation, consistent with previous research, reduced message belief acceptance, increased pro-truism attitudes and increased counterarguments against the message. In the second experiment, the effects of three levels of sensory deprivation (0, 1 hour, 23 hours) and of the presence or absence of refutational inoculation were examined. Again contrary to previous research, sensory deprivation had no effect on any of the dependent measures; consistent with previous research, refutational inoculation reduced message belief acceptance, increased pro-truism attitudes and increased counterargument production. The implications of these results for competing explanations of distraction and sensory deprivation effects were discussed. The cognitive dissonance interpretation of the effects of distraction and the information need interpretation of the effects of sensory deprivation appear unable to account for the failure of these manipulations to increase persuasion. These findings are more in accord with the counterargument disruption interpretation. In addition, the counterarguing process appears to represent an important aspect of the general effects of the refutational inoculation message. Further research, using the same procedures of the present study, but a non-cultural truism as the attitude topic, is required to test the counterargument disruption interpretation more rigorously. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The environmental goal “God bebyggd miljö” states that 50 percent of the food waste should be collected, and 40 percent of it should go through biological treatment. This goal together with the prohibition on organic waste to landfill is a mean of control to get municipalities toimplement waste treatment systems for food waste. This study focused on what the localwaste treatment company in Halmstad municipality is doing to tackle the environmentalgoals and the system they’ve implemented, which is an optical sorting system. By talking to the local waste treatment company HEM (Halmstad Energi och Miljö AB) to get an idea of the current situation regarding what can be improved, the idea of communication aspects were brought up by the company as an area which could be developed and improved upon to increase the collection of food waste in the municipality. The study was conducted in mainly two ways. First a literature study and secondly interviews were conducted. The following questions were asked: Which communication factors areimportant and affect the result for a successful degree of sorting for the optical sorting system? What’s important to communicate to get customers to sort their waste correctly? How can the communication between the municipal waste treatment company and theinhabitants change over time to ensure a successful collection of food waste? The study resulted in an identification of different central components which are importantand affect the result for a successful waste collection - these are (1) audience targeting, (2) simplicity, (3) incentive, (4) continued communication (after the implementation of thesystem) and lastly (5) positive morale. To get customers to sort their waste correctly thestudy suggests that several of the central factors are included in the communication betweenthe municipality and the inhabitants. To also ensure a successful waste collection over timethe study also concluded that a continued communication is also needed. The conclusions drawn from the study is that the central factors gave good results for the interviewed municipalities and therefore would probably work for other municipalities.

The growing evidence of harm caused by pornography calls for interventions to counteract the influence of explicit sexual media. Fireproof Ministries conducts a major Christian anti-pornography campaign called XXXchurch. This case analysis of the campaign evaluated if the messages were appropriately designed in light of what persuasion research has discovered about motivating attitudinal and behavioral change. Theories about agenda setting, attitude accessibility, exemplars, evidence, cognitive dissonance, guilt, reactance, fear appeals, and self-efficacy were the basis of identifying the themes of the campaign, evaluating the credibility of XXXchurch, and assessing the theoretical foundation of the campaign. The study found three dominant objectives of the campaign: awareness, prevention, and recovery. XXXchurch has set the pornography agenda in many Christian churches, and also brings the issue to a wider public through news media; they have been featured in thousands of media publications and broadcasts. XXXchurch measures their own success by the stories and feedback they hear from their audience, the media attention they receive, and their increased acceptance by churches. The three main groups of themes in the messages of the campaign are prevention and recovery, the harm of pornography, and how God's purposes for life are impacted by pornography. These themes are essentially persuasive messages encouraging people to consider the negative consequence of using pornography and the benefits of resisting it. The attitudes influenced through these messages are the precursors to taking action to overcome pornography. The XXXchurch campaign establishes credibility with their audience through six elements: (a) prior experience or perceptions, (b) credentials, competence, and expertise (c) honesty and lack of bias, (d) similarity to the audience, (e) bold, confident delivery, and (f) plausible messages. Examples of self-efficacy, exemplars, and fear appeals were the most frequently found theories in the campaign messages. Persuasion theories functioned as useful tools for analyzing and understanding the campaign. Although the XXXchurch team did not design the campaign with these theories in mind, the theories strongly explain the foundation of the campaign. Taken as a whole, the campaign clearly demonstrates research-based principles, which suggest a prediction of successfully influencing attitudes and behavior.

With an increased number aesthetic surgeries performed in Sweden combined with social media used as a marketing tool, potential clients are exposed for persuasive marketing messages. The harder competition has led to a pressure on prices and the requirements of marketers’ creativity have increased. We predicted that this industry faces ethical challenges which makes it worth investigating.  The purpose of the study was to explore how young women view and respond to marketing by aesthetic surgery clinics in social media. In order to fulfill the purpose a qualitative approach was conducted through the use of two different focus group interviews. Twenty screenshots were discussed by eight young Swedish women where two of them have undertaken aesthetic procedures.   The conclusions of the study shows how different marketing messages can be viewed and how clients respond to them. The respondents perceived a normalization of aesthetic procedures due to social media marketing. Furthermore, the findings also suggest that there is a difference in how young women who undertook aesthetic procedures view and respond to the marketing compared to the unexperienced women. Marketing that communicates professionalism is likely to be more positively viewed by clients. This study further confirms our predictions regarding an ethical tension between the marketing messages and the recipients.  The implications of the study are an increased awareness of how this type of marketing is viewed from young women’s perspective. Furthermore, future research could focus on if surgeons are persuasive during consolations and how this is revealed.

The primary objective of this study was to apply the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasive communication to consumers' perceptions of food additive labelling. The model was used to explain how consumer information processing influences consumers' decision-making and consequent purchasing behaviour with regard to food products that contain food additives. To date, few studies have explained consumers' perceptions, viewpoints and understanding of additive labelling, or of their related purchasing behaviour. However, the increased marketing of processed foods containing additives and the concern expressed by consumers regarding the risks of additives call for the development of a theoretical basis for research into these issues. There is currently a lack of such data in South Africa. This study was conducted from a phenomenological qualitative approach with a descriptive exploratory nature. Eight focus group sessions with 39 food additive label readers were held in the Vanderbijlpark-Vereeniging area. A content analysis of the focus group discussions resulted in the categorising of concepts, and 33 subtle underlying themes were identified. The main findings of the study were that the participants' general perceptions suggested that food additives can be defined as unnatural chemical substances that are added to food and that hold some benefits and/or risks to the consumer. The participants' use of food additive information was influenced by the situational factors associated with each individual participant. Moreover, the participants were more aware of tartrazine, MSG and aspartame than of any other food additive. Participants were also confronted with various blocking mechanisms when searching for and selecting food products containing additives. These included a lack of standardisation of terminology, illegible ingredient listing, a lack of food control and regulation, information overload, incomprehensible information, manufacturers' dishonesty, time constraints and incorrect, untrustworthy, insufficient information. On the other hand, participants used various coping or risk-reducing strategies to reduce their concerns. In order to interpret the results, the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasive communication was adapted and applied to food additive labels. The adapted model illustrates how the consumers' perceptions of additive labels and their search for additional information influence their purchasing behaviour to varying extents. It is recommended that more attention be given to consumer education with regard to additive-related terminology used on food labels and that the results be put to use in the current revision of labelling regulations. Marketers and retailers could use the information to better understand the behaviour of consumers who read food additive labels. The value of this study was to show that consumers' prior perceptions of food additives are an important determinant of their purchasing behaviour, / Thesis (Ph.D. (Consumer Science))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Twitter, a microblogging platform, has been increasingly used as a tool for political election campaigns. In an attempt to persuade people to vote for them, candidates and political parties worldwide have begun to incorporate Twitter in their campaigns to disseminate campaign information, promote themselves, and mobilize voters. In the 2016 U.S presidential election, Donald Trump had actively utilized Twitter to promote his campaign and convince voters to support him, which helped him earn a strong presence and huge popularity on Twitter. Eventually Trump even successfully got elected as the 45th US president. Although the rise of Twitter in political campaigns has been studied by researches from different disciplines, there have been very few studies focusing on Donald Trump or his communication performance on social media in the 2016 US presidential campaign. Besides, it is found that there is a lack of studying candidates’ social media use from the perspective of persuasive communication. In order to reveal how Donald Trump was making use of Twitter to influence audiences’ attitudes, this paper will present a content analysis of Donald Trump’s Twitter use from the perspective of persuasive communication. Specifically, the study will investigate the characteristics of messages demonstrated from Donald Trump’s tweets, and examine whether his messages placed an emphasis on certain aspects. The aim of this study is to offer insights into Donald Trump’s Twitter use, particularly about his persuasive communication on Twitter during the political election campaign.

(EN) Diploma thesis "Constraints of Public Relations on Czech Media after 1989"deals with one crucial aspect of journalism which is the influence of various interest groups on the content of the media by public relations. It concerns with the topic from the point of view of professional journalists as media content producers and attempts to find out what mechanisms are driving the Czech media system in regards to public relations. The thesis examines shortly the history of public relations, both in the Anglo-saxon world and the Czech lands before and after 1989. Definitions of public relations are later applied on selected critical media theories, such as those of Scottish PR theoreticians Dinan and Miller, Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda model or Boorstin's idea of pseudo-events. Sociology of news and one of its most important protagonists, Brian McNair, also speaks critically on the influence of public relations, therefore his contribution to the topic is also an essential theoretical frame. The fourth chapter deals with selected methods of public relations such as spin doctoring, third-party endorsement or crisis communication. A particular analysis is dedicated to the Stockholm Charter and the IPRA Charter, the most important ethical frameworks that all public relations departments should abide...

À partir de l'interrogation sur le potentiel du Web en tant que nouveau média électronique dans la promotion des comportements éco-responsables, et sur les stratégies de sensibilisation les plus efficaces possibles susceptibles d'être mises en œuvre dans le contexte du Web, ce travail propose de comparer l'efficacité des dispositifs Web persuasif et engageant grâce à la mesure des comportements effectifs des internautes exposés à ce type de dispositifs. Une expérimentation conduite dans une grande surface de mobilier et de décoration a consisté à soumettre les sujets à un des deux sites Web conçus pour inciter les internautes à réaliser un geste éco-citoyen (installation au domicile de la personne d'au moins une nouvelle ampoule à économie d'énergie). Les données, collectées par le biais d'un outil de Web analytics enregistrant les statistiques de navigation, et d'un mini-questionnaire téléphonique réalisé 14 jours après l'intervention, ont permis de corroborer l'hypothèse selon laquelle un dispositif Web exploitant les stratégies engageantes est plus efficace en termes d'effets sur les comportements attendus qu'un dispositif Web basé uniquement sur l'argumentation. L'ensemble de nos résultats empiriques ont permis de proposer un modèle pour un dispositif de sensibilisation sur le Web, modèle que l'on pourrait inscrire dans le champ de la communication engageante sur le Web et qui pourrait être exploité afin d'accroître l'impact comportemental des campagnes de sensibilisation sur le Web relatives à la promotion des comportements éco-responsables.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Consumer Science))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.