Persuasion and campaigns

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Persuasion and campaigns
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Administrative research

• Lazarsfeld distinguished between critical and
  administrative research by noting that
  administrative research
• Is carried out in the interest of powerful
  organizations or government
• Takes the existing media system for granted
• Aims to adjust the behavior of the audience to
  the interests of the study

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Persuasion

• Persuasion studies are really propaganda research
  that tends to take an effects approach
• Persuasion really could be considered propaganda
• Varies from single exposure individual effects
  studies to time-based campaign studies of
  population change

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Development of persuasion studies

• Classic work of Hovland
• Experiments on Mass Communication (1949)
• Communication and Persuasion (1953)
• Yale School of communication research
• Search for the magic keys

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WWII American Soldier studies

• Part of a large-scale social science
  investigation of American soldiers recruited or
  drafted for service in WWII
• This part especially interested in the effects of
  films developed to prepare soldiers for military
  duty
• Why We Fight
• Directed by Frank Capra
• Documentary explanation of the buildup to, and
  early years of the war

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Goals of Why We Fight

• Series Prelude to War, The Nazis Strike, Divide
  and Conquer, The Battle of Britain

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Films were intended to foster

• A firm belief in the right of the cause for which
  we fight
• A realization that we are up against a tough job
• A determined confidence in our own ability and
  the abilities of our comrades and leaders to do
  the job that must be done
• A feeling of confidence, insofar as possible
  under the circumstance, in the integrity and
  fighting ability of our Allies
• A resentment, based on knowledge of the facts,
  against our enemies who have made it necessary to
  fight
• A belief that through military victory, the
  political achievement of a better world order is
  possible

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Battle of Britain

• Men in two camps--some exposed to film, some not
• 2100 in one camp (before/after control group)
• 900 in another camp (before/after control group)
• 1200 (after-only control group)
• Sampling by company units
• Units matched on several demographic variables

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Battle of Britain

• Before and after questionnaires slightly
  different
• Tried to distract men from wondering why
  answering twice by writing revised on
  questionnaire
• One week between exposure and after measure
• Anonymity assured

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Results

• Significant impact on factual knowledge
• Ex. Why werent the Germans successful at
  bombing British planes on the ground?
• Ans. because the British kept their planes
  scattered at the edge of the field
• Experimental group 78 correct
• Control group 21 correct

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Results

• Opinions and interpretations
• Effects not as great
• the heavy bombing attacks on Britain were an
  attempt by the Nazis to . . .
• Answer invade and conquer England
• Experimental group 58
• Control group 43

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Results

• Effect on general attitudes was slight
• Do you feel that the British are doing all they
  can to help win the war?
• Experimental group 7 greater than control
• In many such cases, 2-3 positive difference was
  found
• Not much evidence of positive effect

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Results

• Strengthening the overall morale and motivation
  of viewers
• Ineffective
• Question concerning whether trainees would prefer
  military duty in the U.S. or overseas
• Experimental 41
• Control 38

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Results

• Unconditional surrender by Nazis is important war
  aim
• Experimental group 62
• Control group 60

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Results

• 9 weeks after exposure
• Factual material forgotten
• Retained only about 50 of factual items that
  1-week groups remembered
• On 1/3 of opinion issues, long-term group showed
  less change
• However, on more than half of the fifteen issues
  under study, the long term group showed greater
  change than the short-term group
• Sleeper effect

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One-sided v. two-sided argument

• Radio presentation saying war would be lengthy
• Presented either as one-sided argument or with
  additional 4 minutes discussing view that it
  would be short
• Before/after with control group

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Results

• One-sided argument more effective with soldiers
  who
• Initially supportive of the idea that it would be
  a lengthy war
• Had not completed high school
• Two-sided arguments more effective with those who
  initially felt the war would be short and/or had
  a high school degree or greater education

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Results Learning from films
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Hovland et al.

• Set up Yale school research on persuasion
• Study the effect of
• Source characteristics
• Message characteristics
• Order of presentation
• Psychological characteristics of audience

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Source characteristics

• Credibility
• Topic Atomic submarines
• Sources J. Robert Oppenheimer/Pravda
• Topic Future of Movie Theaters
• Sources Fortune magazine/A woman movie gossip
  columnist
• Greater persuasion with more credible source
• However, after 4 weeks difference had disappeared

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Content

• Fear appeals
• Greater fear, greater effect on interest, tension
• Lesser fear, greater effect on intension to
  change behavior
• Thought to invoke some sort of interference
• Drawing an explicit conclusion
• Significantly greater effect if communicator drew
  an explicit conclusion

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Message presentation

• One-sided and two-sided presentations that USSR
  would not soon be able to develop a nuclear bomb
  were equally effective
• However, when exposed to opposing view, those
  that had earlier been presented with two-sided
  version retained new opinion more than one-sided
  audience

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Audience factors

• Scouts who valued group membership highly were
  least influenced by speaker who criticized wood
  craft learning