Persuasive communication

Persuasive communication Communication and information studies Anne Geerdes Chapter 1; convincing documents §1.1.1 designing tailored documents Business documents are written to achieve goals: to inform, to convince or to instruct.Many writers of a persuasive document do not achieve their goals. This because understanding, appreciation and persuasiveness are the product of both document and reader properties. A good document exactly fits the properties of its readers (it can be compared to tailoring a costume). A good document has been ‘tailored’ to match the knowledge, preferences and values of its readers. The underlying principle is that the document should simulate the processes required to achieve the document’s goal. What these processes are depends on the goal which the document is supposed to achieve (Hoeken 1992).

Informative documents: intended to provide information (newspaper)

Instructive documents: intended to provide information (manual)

Persuasive documents: intended to convince readers of a particular point of view (advertisement) By making specific choices concerning content, structure and style, writers can control the effectiveness of their documents. To design effective documents a writer needs knowledge about the way in which readers process documents and knowledge about the way in which

document properties can influence this processing:

Inventio: gathering and selecting information

Disposition: structuring the selected information

Elocutio: putting the information into words

§1.1.2 what are persuasive documents?Persuasive documents are everywhere in modern society.Persuasion is a successful intentional effort at influencing another’s mental state through communication in a circumstance in which the persuadee has some measure of freedom (O’Keefe 2002) 1 / 4

According to O’Keefe persuasion only occurs if the mental state of the persuadee is indeed changed.The mental state in O’Keefe’s usually equated with attitude.The definition of attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor. An entity can be an individual, an agency (political candidate), a behavior (drunk driving), a policy (environmental regulations) or a product (car). (Eagly and Chaiken)  the favor or disfavor may amount to supporting the candidate, disapproving drunk driving, doubting your counties policy or having no specific opinions about the car.The evaluative judgement (the attitude) is stored in memory along with any other information about the entity (Fazio and Pratkanis). The link between attitude and information is not very strong.O’Keefe does not mention influencing behavior in his definition of persuasion because persuasion proceeds by means of communication; the transfer of information. Information transfer affects people’s mental state before it influences their behavior. Communication may lead to a new or different attitude which in turn may change behavior. Communication cannot have a direct impact on behavior.persuasion can only be said to have occurred if the persuadee had an alternative.O’Keefe’s definition of persuasive documents: persuasive documents are designed with the aim of influencing readers’ through the transfer of information, with the readers having a certain degree of freedom.§1.1.3 the difference between persuasive and informative documents The author’s intention determines the nature of the text. If someone wanted to inform people, the text is informative. If you want to convince people, the text is persuasive. It really makes a difference whether the writer is trying to convince you or simply wants to inform you.The writer intention does not guarantee that the indented effect will be achieved.Forewarning or persuasive intent: a text written to influence the reader makes people aware that an attempt is being made to change their attitudes, which will encourage them to defend their present position. (Quinn and wood) Informative documents seem to be read more from the perspective of the communication principle, than persuasive documents (van Eemeren en Grootendorst). 2 / 4

Communication principle: this criteria states that four criteria must be met: clarity, honesty, efficiency and relevance.  readers of informative documents expect the writher to present all relevant information honestly and as clearly and efficiently as possible. Readers of persuasive documents appear unconvinced that this has been done since the writer has an interest in suppressing negative arguments and embellishing the positive ones. readers have a distrust of persuasive documents Directive communication: information intended to make the target group draw a particular conclusion  persuasive Non-directive communication: does not have the intention to steer people towards a particular conclusion, the target group is left to make up their own minds.  informative. It is doubtful if whether non-directive communication is non-directive. Sometimes a non- directive document consists of consequences which might influence the reader.

§1.2 communication and behavior change: alternatives and limitations

Persuasive communication is aimed at influencing people’s attitudes, with an underlying goal of changing people’s behavior The government can impose obligations to citizens. Legislation enables the government to stipulate that certain behaviors are mandatory, and others prohibited.An important difference between the government and commercial organizations is that the government has another behavior changing tool in addition to communication: legislation.§1.2.1 choosing between legislation and communication

Direct regulation: via legislation

Social regulation: via public information

Enforcement burden: is the government decides to adopt laws or regulations, these will come with a certain enforcement burden since the government must be prepared to enforce them. This sometimes takes considerable effort.Personal responsibility: focusing documents on the personal responsibility of people.Personal responsibility and enforcement burden are ‘communicating vessels’. The more the instrument appeals to citizens’ personal responsibility, the lighter the government’s enforcement burden. If the instrument allows less personal responsibility the enforcement burden increases 3 / 4

The four instruments that are available to the government: financial, private law, legalization and social regulation The choice to go for either direct or social regulation depends on the nature of the situation.In this case there is a distinguishment between ‘very urgent situations’ and ‘less urgent situations’.Very urgent situations: the risks are so high that immediate and effective action is imperative.  using direct regulation Less urgent situations: the government chooses between several instruments, based on the

nature of the situation, with the following three dimensions playing a role:

1.Measurability of behavior: the measurability or knowability of the behavior is the ease, or difficulty, with which the government can monitor whether people abide by the rules. The easier it is to ascertain that people do so, the lower the enforcement burden.

2.Structure of the target group: the size and heterogeneity of the group of people who are supposed to change their behavior. Is this group is small and easy to identify or large and heterogeneous? Is the group is small and easily the enforcement burder will be light and vice versa.

3.Costs for the target group: the costs of behavior change. Does the new behavior lead to higher costs for the target group, to less comfort or physical or mental problems?The higher the costs, the less the taget group will be inclined to adopt the disered behavior.According to the WWR (1992) these dimensions must be taken into account when choosing between direct and social regulation.Communication can be a useful instrument, especially if it can be expected that people will let themselves be convinced of the benefits of the promoted behavior in comparison to their current behavior. Communication can then be a role, if people cannot be convincing of the advantages of the promoted behavior communication is useless. Communication can be used to explain the rationale behind the measure, which will increase the likelihood that the measure will be perceived as reasonable. Even if the government opts for direct regulation, communication can still play an important role in making it easier to implement and enforce the rule.

Legislation: to ban smoking in public places

Financial incentives: road pricing to discourage unnecessary driving

§1.2.2 communication’s potential for changing behavior

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