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CHAPTER 3
Media Influence as Persuasion
R. Lance Holbert and John M. Tchernev
For almost a century, mass communication researchers have wrestled with questions of how, why, when, and where media produce effects. These issues, which span a broad range of areas including health communication, political communication, and commercial advertising, can all be viewed as questions of persuasion. Lasswell’s (1927) own early studies of media focused on “the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols” (p. 627). This description coincides with Dillard’s (2010) more recent definition of persuasion as the following: “the use of symbols (sometimes accompanied by images) by one social actor for the purpose of changing or maintaining another social actor’s opinion or behavior” (p. 203). The two traditions of research, one on media and one on persuasion, focus on many of the same questions and underlying processes.
The purpose of this chapter is to illuminate those similarities as well as highlight points of potential synergy between the two. Our argument for the study of media influence as persuasion unfolds in two stages. First, we offer a systematic overview of a series of empirical studies that focus on (1) media and (2) the generation of persuasion-based outcomes. To structure this review, we juxtapose two classic persuasion typologies, then locate instances of media research in each resulting cell. Second, we provide an overview of how a handful of mass communication’s most frequently utilized theories can be viewed as frameworks for the study of persuasion processes and outcomes. The various elements of this chapter stem from a single overarching argument that the study of media effects has always been linked to assessments of persuasion. This realization can provide tangible benefits for how the field approaches future studies of media influence, and these benefits are outlined in the closing portions of this chapter. The study of media influence is multifaceted and difficult to grasp as a single entity (see Nabi & Oliver, 2009). However, linking the study of media influence with persuasion allows for connections to be made between seemingly disparate lines of research in a manner that allows for the field’s empirical work to be “interpretable, cumulative, and socially significant” (Bennett & Iyengar, 2008, p. 709).
A Typology of Persuasion and Media Influence
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There are several different ways to approach developing more formal linkages between media effects and persuasion. One possibility would be to utilize a single persuasion theory (e.g., cognitive dissonance theory, social judgment theory, elaboration likelihood model) and describe any one study of media influence through this particular theoretical lens. However, the use of a lone theory would be far too limiting when attempting to explain all that comprises the study of media effects research. No one theory of persuasion can serve as a grand theory of media influence. Instead, it is essential to step back from a theory-specific approach and focus on two broader aims: properly bounding persuasion and acknowledging the inherent complexity of producing a media effect. We turn to the work of Miller (1980/2002) to address the bounds of persuasion and to McGuire (1989) for how best to approach media influence.
Miller (1980/2002) stresses that persuasion encompasses three different processes: Response shaping, response reinforcement, and response change. Response shaping focuses on the initial formation of how someone reacts to an object, while response reinforcement speaks to a strengthening of a preexisting reaction toward an object (this type of response is not purely evaluative and can include generating resistance to influence as well; Szabo & Pfau, 2002). Response change in its purest form is identified as a shift in the valence (positive/negative) of someone’s reaction to an object. Discussions of media effects in relation to persuasion often form around an artificial boundary constraint of defining persuasion as being about response change only (Chaffee & Hochheimer, 1985; Holbert, Garrett, & Gleason, 2010). Defining persuasion as being about response change only represents a disservice to the concept. Any discussion of media effects that focuses solely on response change implicitly adopts a limited effects paradigm (see Bennett & Iyengar, 2008). But, when persuasion is seen also to include response shaping and response reinforcement, it becomes clear that media influence and all its complexities can be understood as persuasion.
In addition, any discussion of mass communication influence must take into account the full range of factors that are at work in the production of a media effect. McGuire (1989) argues that five factors play a role in the production of a media effect: Message, source, recipient, channel, and context. It is easy to fall prey to focusing only on message influence in relation to persuasion, but media effects scholarship examines much more than just this single communication input. Any one media message functions alongside the source of that message, a broad range of recipient characteristics (e.g., demographics, needs, traits), the context within which the message is provided, and the channel through which it is offered (e.g., television, radio, newspaper) in the production of an effect. All five communication inputs are necessary for a thorough account.
We developed a 15-part typology to show that all varieties of persuasion in relation to the communication input variables of message, source, recipient, channel, and context are evident in the mass communication literature. The 3 × 5 typology focuses on (1) Miller’s original conceptualization of persuasion as being about the shaping, reinforcing and/or changing of responses to attitude objects and (2) McGuire’s (1989) five communication inputs. In offering this organizational structure, we strive to present a systematic assessment of the state of existing media research in relation to persuasion so that readers can better envision how seemingly distinct pieces of media effects scholarship form a more coherent whole.
Peer-reviewed journal articles were selected to represent each of the 15 areas of the typology (see Table 3.1). The study of media can be thought of as a broad tent, one that is large enough to cover both media and persuasion. Subsequent chapters of this handbook deal with political campaigns (see chapter 16 in this volume), health campaigns (see see chapter 17 in this volume), advertising (see see chapter 19 in this volume), and entertainment-oriented messages (i.e., narrative; see chapter 13 in this volume). It is appropriate to discuss these areas of study in persuasion terms, and so too is it proper to state that these areas are resolutely focused on the study of media influence. As a result, we have sought to represent of all of these media research areas within our typology, extracting works from outlets that typically publish pieces in the areas of commercial strategic communication, health communication, and political communication, as well as more general works in mass communication.
The presentation of the typology will focus on the five communication inputs in the following order: source, message, channel, recipient, and context. The presentation of Miller’s three categories of persuasion is nested within each communication input and offered in the following order: formation, reinforcement, and change. We focus on only those works published since 2000 in order to show that the mix of Miller’s and McGuire’s works remains a vibrant part of current mass communication research. But, it is important to note that there are numerous examples of works from earlier decades that could be slotted into any area of the typology.
Source
Formation
Karmarkar and Tormala (2010) examined attitude formation by asking participants to read a review of a fictional Italian restaurant, which was attributed to an expert source versus a source with markedly lower expertise. The source either expressed certainty or uncertainty in the review. The researchers demonstrated that bo
th source expertise and source certainty significantly and directly impacted participants’ attitudes and behavioral intentions toward the fictional restaurant. Additionally, readers formed the most favorable attitudes when the low-expertise source expressed a great deal of certainty, and when the high-expertise source expressed uncertainty. Subjects had no prior attitudes toward the attitude object (i.e., the restaurant). As a result, this media effect derived from a source manipulation reflects response formation.
Table 3.1 Miller-by-McGuire Typology
Reinforcement
The hostile media phenomenon is a tendency for strong partisans on either side of an issue to view relatively balanced news coverage as biased against their point of view (Vallone, Ross, & Lepper, 1985). In studying this type of media effect, Gunther and Liebhart (2006) presented the same message to all participants, but manipulated the attribution of the message to either a professional journalist or a college student. When the article was attributed to a journalist, partisans on both sides perceived the article as strongly biased toward the other side. This divergent outcome derived from this source manipulation is an example of how a specific act of media engagement can produce a reinforcement of one’s responses toward specific attitude objects. Partisans reinforced their own positions by distancing themselves from a news piece written by the journalist as source in particular.
Change
Bailenson, Garland, Iyengar, and Yee (2006) focused their attention on digital transformations of facial similarity between politicians and potential voters. The ratio of candidate-to-voter facial image meshing was varied between conditions (low similarity, 100% candidate facial image; high similarity, 60% candidate/40% voter). This study focused on only a male candidate, but a mix of male and female respondents. The increased morphing of the male political candidate with male voter facial images resulted in male subjects responding more favorably to the political candidate, as measured by a feeling thermometer, attractiveness, and voting intention. However, females went from ranking the political candidate relatively high on all three of these categories when similarity was low (i.e., male candidate’s image was not morphed) to responding to the candidate much more unfavorably in the high candidate-voter morphing condition. Males shifted upward in their response toward the political candidate as a result of enhanced candidate-voter facial morphing, while females moved in the opposite direction. This study reveals how the manipulation of a single source element (i.e., facial similarity) can generate opposing response change reactions in audience members.
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