The SAGE Handbook of Persuasion

by James Price Dillard

  Imagery

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  In their Transportation-Imagery-Model, Green and Brock (2002) place imagery at the center of narrative persuasion. Narrative texts are considered to be influential if they evoke “measureable images” (Green & Brock, 2002, p. 321). Readers are led by the narrative to generate visual, mental representations of a narrative scene that has qualities similar to a representation elicited by external stimuli. These images are generated during or after exposure and can be “recalled, recognized, and responded to” (p. 321), which explains their potential for effects. Images have to be connected and evoked in a strong transportive experience and be firmly connected to the story plot in order to have effects—otherwise they would be random images that do not contribute to the progress and the experience of the narrative. The belief-changing mechanism, then, is that images take on a specific meaning in the experience of a narrative. Images have specific implications for beliefs, and by leading readers to infer these, images may oppose and change existing beliefs. For example, the image of a violent psychiatric patient stabbing a little girl to death supports the belief that stronger security measures are necessary for those patients to protect society (Green & Brock, 2000).

  Consequently, imagery production is an integral part of the transportation scale. However, the imagery subscale has proven less predictive of effects than the overall transportation scale (Green & Brock, 2000). This may mean that imagery is only effective if it occurs in the context of transportive experiences (this is the interpretation of the authors: Green & Brock, 2005, p. 129). Alternatively, the same results may be explained by considering imagery production as one possible mechanism of narrative impact; other aspects (that react to imagery as a content feature) override the actual amount of imagery production (for example, strong emotional narrative experience). In a different study reported by Green and Brock (2005) the rated quality of imagery did have a mediating effect on beliefs (Livingston, 2003).

  Another explanation for why imagery may be influential is that it is difficult to counterargue against images (Mazzocco & Brock, 2006). This is similar to the way a narrative may be to some extent immune from counterarguing in a narrow sense. In contrast to rhetorical argumentation, the criterion of an image is not whether it is logically correct or not. A strong emotional image persists in the reader’s mind regardless of reality status—it is the idea that a little girl may be stabbed to death that changes attitudes rather than the fact that it did or did not happen.

  Mazzocco and Brock (2006) argue that imagery may be effective due to three processes: First, images can be encoded dually (analogically and symbolically) and thus be better remembered; second, they may award reality status to fictional or unbelievable events; third, they provide experiences that are close to sensations. The authors also offer explanations that show how images may impact or alter the processing mode following the ELM. Images may be used as peripheral cues for attitude formation. We do not need an argument when we have an image. Mazzocco and Brock (2006) also suggest that images are highly accessible and may act as peripheral cues that create enduring effects even in peripheral processing. But central processing may also be strengthened with images when they are heavily related to the theme of the message, they may entail a more thorough processing of the message and increase central persuasive effects. Both paths are equally plausible and probably depend on the specific characteristics of the image and the message.

  Rather than relying on peripheral processing, one may also argue that imagery is an argument in and of itself, which may be used to form a judgment and save the reader or viewer from having to consider the full range of rhetoric arguments (Mazzocco & Brock, 2006). This is plausible in the example of Murder in the Mall (Green & Brock, 2000), where the image of the mental patient stabbing the girl is closely connected to or even stands for the more restrictive attitudes about criminal mental patients.

  Further, audiovisual material should support imagery construction in a way that is different from textual content. Mazzocco and Brock (2006) distinguish between image representations that automatically result in mental images, which is the case in pictorial stimuli (television, photos, etc.). The other case entails a more effortful construction of mental images from nonpictorial stimuli that require “imaginal elaboration.” Image elaboration competes for resources with the process of elaborating of a text’s arguments. Only if sufficient cognitive resources are available are images processed properly and influence on persuasive outcomes possible. This would support Green and Brock’s (2002) assertion that imagery can only have influence when related to the plot and combined with a transportive experience: If the plot is closely related to the images used, we can expect synergies in processing the plot and in processing the images. This is in parallel to Fisch’s (2009) contention that the distance between story and educational content matters. Then, we may regard transportation as greater investment in processing the story, which should result in increased resource availability.

  Summing up, imagery is an important characteristic of all audiovisual stories and, to varying degrees, of written or audio stories. There are good theoretical arguments suggesting images influence persuasion outcomes. It stands to reason that not all imagery has this potential. For example, descriptions of a landscape or a room will create images, but are likely to be irrelevant to persuasion. On the other hand, strong transportive experiences are possible without any imagery, for example, a detailed portrayal of a character’s feeling and thoughts; their inner world. It seems that imagery is neither a necessary nor a sufficient direct condition for narrative engagement; in many cases, however, it may provide the basis for readers and viewers to react emotionally, to engage with the narrative and care for the characters, and subsequently for narrative effects.

  Vicarious Experience

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  Media narratives provide rich depictions of social experience, containing behaviors, motivations, emotions, situational, and socials contexts to which audiences usually do not have access. By understanding narratives, following the fates, successes, and failures of characters, by emoting for and identifying with the characters—essentially, by reliving the story in their minds—audiences may experience social life vicariously. Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986) provides a good theoretical background for this. By observing models in the media, audience members learn how successful a particular behavior is for achieving one’s goals, and whether it is easy or hard to perform (Bandura, 2004, 2009). Processes of identification support vicarious learning: First, similarity to the model is important for viewers to accept a behavior as manageable within one’s own capabilities. If the model’s capabilities are perceived to be different from one’s own, vicarious experience is less influential (Pajares, Prestin, Chen, & Nabi, 2009). Second, if people process narratives in a transportive mode, they typically are able to take on the perspective of a character and see the narrative through this character’s eyes (identification as perspective taking, Cohen, 2001).

  A consequence of this perspective taking is that people are able to deeply understand the emotions and the motivations of a character, and understand the joys of succeeding or the sadness of failing as if it was happening to themselves (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2008). Thus, perspective taking should increase a message’s effectiveness as people care for the characters and internalize outcome expectancies. Also, perspective taking should help with acquiring self-efficacy: The story is perceived with reduced distance as the narrative experience resembles direct personal experience and the audience perceives the events as if they were part of the action themselves (Green & Brock, 2000). In Entertainment-Education approaches, positive and negative models are strategically constructed for this purpose; transitional characters offer an opportunity for the audience to experience the change from an undesirable behavior to a desirable one, as well as the motivations and intricacies of that change (Singhal & Rogers, 1999). Indeed, narrative engagement has been integrated in Entertainment-Education app
roaches to capture the specific potential for persuasion (e.g., Moyer-Gusé, 2008).

  Mar and Oatley (2008) decrease the distance between the model and the audience by stating that stories (they focus literary on stories) are “simulations of selves in the social world” (p. 173). While reading a story, people experience thoughts and emotions implied by the story, and in doing so, simulate the story in their minds. The stories themselves, Mar and Oatley argue, offer complex models of the human social world and allow readers to understand other people’s motivations, thoughts, and feelings. In contrast to Social Cognitive Theory, the focus is not on behaviors, but on sympathetic and empathetic growth (i.e., learning to understand and anticipate other people’s states of mind and feel compassion with their fates) and on the acquisition of social knowledge (i.e., norms and values in a given society).

  This final mechanism of narrative persuasion may be the one that moves away most from rhetoric persuasion and comes closest to narrative persuasion as an independent field. Only narratives can provide grounds to simulate a self in a possible world; and only narratives carry a dense array of social information. At the same time, these subtle experiences and effects are somewhat difficult to capture in empirical research. Especially since social knowledge is omnipresent, it may be difficult to trace the effects of single exposures or, in the long term, to single out the specific influence of media.

  Conclusions and Suggestions for the Future

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  People have probably always used narratives when attempting to persuade, and narratives have always had the potential to be persuasive. Thus, it is somewhat surprising that over the past century, with the exception of propaganda, narrative persuasion has received relatively little research attention. On the other hand, the separation of narratives from overt argumentation is understandable, because, as we have articulated in this chapter, narratives are fundamentally different from their non-narrative counterparts. When comprehending a narrative, audience members must focus on characters and events, rather than arguments and evidence, in order to construct a coherent story. This process is different from that involved in comprehending arguments and evidence, requiring its own cognitive resources and involving separate psychological mechanisms. Fortunately, over the past decade this trend has reversed and scholarship focused on narrative persuasion has progressed quickly. In that time the focus has shifted from comparing the effectiveness of narrative and non-narrative formats to exploring mechanisms that allow narratives to persuade, processes that mediate effects, and individual differences that may render audience members more or less susceptible.

  We can conclude that the form a persuasive narrative may take varies in three important ways. First is the level of integration between the story and the persuasive message. High integration is evident when the story itself is the persuasive message, for example, when a story conveys a lesson or morale or when PSAs or advertisements take a narrative form. Low integration is evident when a piece of information or a product appears in a narrative but is only tangentially linked to the narrative’s main plot or theme. Second is the extent to which awareness of persuasive intent is available to the audience. At one end of this continuum may be cases in which neither the content nor the setting suggest persuasive intent, such as when one sits down to watch a medical drama program for entertainment purposes (as opposed to in a research setting). On the other hand, the persuasive purpose of a 30-second commercial or PSA likely is obvious to most audiences, excepting children. A third way that a potentially persuasive narrative may vary is in the extent to which the persuasive point is made explicitly in the story or is left to the audience to infer. Of course these three variations in form are interrelated and related to both engagement in the narrative and involvement with the narrative’s persuasive message. Research is needed to better understand how integration, explicitness and awareness of persuasive intent interact with each other and with other phenomena such as involvement, reactance, and counterarguing.

  As we have argued, engagement in a narrative should serve a function that is oppositional to involvement in a persuasive argument. Individuals who are highly involved in a persuasive argument likely focus on critical evaluation of claims and evidence. Conversely, individuals highly engaged in a narrative should be unmotivated and, to some extent, incapable of critical scrutiny, especially scrutiny targeted toward a persuasive argument that is implied and peripheral to the narrative’s main storyline. Research is needed to further investigate how all of these factors interact with each other and intervene in a narrative’s persuasive influence. For example, extant theorizing suggests that reactance and counterarguing are incompatible with persuasive messages presented in a narrative form. While some empirical evidence of this exists, it is not clear exactly how to conceive of the relationship between narrative form and counterarguing. We might think of narratives as inhibiting resistance in the sense that counterarguing may be initiated but narrative comprehension interferes with development and elaboration of counterarguments. Alternatively, narratives may prevent counterarguing in the sense that the presence of a narrative interferes with the initiation of critical evaluation.

  Finally, one may not even suspect persuasive intent because of narrative form, but may find aspects of the narrative that are unrelated to the persuasive point objectionable in some way and counterargue with those targets (for example, an unrealistic plot or an inconsistent character). At this point it is not safe to assume that all forms of counterarguing necessarily decrease persuasive effects. It is possible that, for example, counterarguments focused away from a narrative’s persuasive purpose may inhibit resistance to the intended persuasive message or increase the likelihood that the persuasive message will be processed heuristically, in turn facilitating persuasive effects. This is consistent with the basic assumption of the Transportation-Imagery-Model (Green & Brock, 2000) that intense engagement in a narrative reduces capacity and ability for critical scrutiny, which essentially means that the persuasive message is processed heuristically when audiences are primarily engaged with the narrative. Indeed, to the extent that becoming highly engaged in a narrative is similar to a real-life experience, it is possible that that real-life experience includes heuristically processed information about people, behaviors, and products, again facilitating persuasive influence. Further research into both the processes and the conditions under which the processes occur is warranted.

  Narrative engagement appears to be an important mediator in persuasive effects. More research is needed to better understand the precise nature of transportation, such as whether it originates from identification or imagery, and whether it is the same phenomenon when engaging with a 30-second advertisement or PSA, situation comedy, or a longer dramatic television program or motion picture. Similarly, research is needed to better understand the role of imagery in stories with strong visual descriptions versus those focused on the inner world of characters, as well as in different media, such as written short stories versus 3-D movies.

  Thus far, the effects of narrative persuasive are discussed in terms of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. However, the insight gained through identification with characters and experienced events may be a fundamentally different kind of effect, one specific to narratives. Research investigating insight as an outcome of narrative experience is warranted.

  Ultimately, research in the merged domains of persuasion and narrative have important implications for theoretical understanding and practical application in health communication, entertainment-education, and marketing, as well as areas in which narrative effects traditionally have not been conceived as a form of persuasion.

  References

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  Abbott, H. P. (2002). The Cambridge introduction to narrative. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

  Allen, M., & Preiss, R. W. (1997). Comparing the persuasiveness of narrative and statistical evidence using meta-analysis. Communication Research Reports, 14, 125–131.

  Appe
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  Baesler, E., & Burgoon, J. (1994). The temporal effects of story and statistical evidence on belief change. Communication Research, 21, 582–602.

  Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundation of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

  Bandura, A. (2004). Social cognitive theory for personal and social change by enabling media. In A. Singhal, M. J. Cody, E. M. Rogers, & M. Sabido (Eds.), Entertainment-education and social change: History, research, and practice (pp. 75–96). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

  Bandura, A. (2009). Social cognitive theory of mass communication. In J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 94–124). Los Angeles, CA: Erlbaum.

  Bilandzic, H. (2006). The perception of distance in the cultivation process: A theoretical consideration of the relationship between television content, processing experience, and perceived distance. Communication Theory, 16, 333–355.

  Bohner, G., Ruder, M., & Erb, H. (2002). When expertise backfires: Contrast and assimilation effects in persuasion. British Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 495–519.