Average customer rating:
- Great book on the basics of persuasion.
- A Wonderful Textbook
- It is an investment for life. Go for it.
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The Dynamics of Persuasion: Communication and Attitudes in the 21st Century (Lea's Communication)
Richard M. Perloff
Manufacturer: Lawrence Erlbaum
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Influence: Science and Practice (4th Edition)
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Persuasion: Theory and Research (Current Communication: An Advanced Text)
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Thinking From A to Z
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The Psychology of Attitude Change and Social Influence
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Psychology of Attitudes
ASIN: 0805840885 |
Book Description
This completely revised second edition of the best-selling text presents an up-to-date, comprehensive introduction to persuasive communication and attitude change. Employing the same organizational strategy he used in the first edition but offering more applications and fresh examples, Richard Perloff systematically explores the impact of persuasive communications on attitudes toward a host of topics spanning health, politics, and racial prejudice.
This text will:
*enhance students' understanding of persuasion theories and research;
*introduce readers to the social science perspective on persuasion;
*expose students to major issues discussed in the field of persuasion research;
*help students appreciate complexities and subtleties in the dynamics of everyday persuasion; and
*raise consciousness about the ethics of contemporary persuasion.
Part I introduces students to the ubiquity of persuasion, how it is defined and differentiated from related terms, and the meaning of core concepts like attitude, belief, and value. Perloff combines a discussion of major concepts, such as balance theory, accessibility, and the theory of reasoned action with application of these concepts to numerous situations in everyday life, including the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, body art, religion, abortion, and AIDS prevention.
Part II of the book explores communication and attitude change. Contemporary theories, such as the Elaboration Likelihood Model, the Extended Parallel Process Model, and Cognitive Dissonance Theory are discussed in detail. Students and professors will find an up-to-date discussion of research generated by these theories, coupled with criticisms of theoretical perspectives.
Part III of the book examines advertising and communication campaigns. After introducing students to advertising--using well-known advertising slogans and motifs--Perloff debunks subliminal advertising and describes major theories of advertising effects.
Written for the upper-undergraduate level, The Dynamics of Persuasion is appropriate for courses in the social sciences, notably communication, speech, journalism, psychology, marketing, and sociology.
Customer Reviews:
Great book on the basics of persuasion........2002-08-14
This book is easy to read and understand. The concepts are backed up with studies and real-world examples, not too much speculation and theorizing. There is so much thought-provoking material, it really stands out for a textbook. In fact, this is one of the best textbooks I have ever seen.
Want to persuade people in everyday life? This isn't a bad place to start learning about it. You'll get an overview of dozens and dozens of ways to become more persuasive, why they work, and examples of how to use them.
A Wonderful Textbook.......2000-01-09
I teach a course in social influence at a local university, and this is the textbook that I like to use. Some of my students think it is overly dense, but a textbook isn't supposed to read like a novel. It has a great range of information, and is written from a communications, rather than a psychological, perspective. I find it highly readable and accurate, and love the section on propaganda. I hope a second edition will be available soon.
It is an investment for life. Go for it........1999-12-05
I have read this book several times each time found it interesting and challenging. Written in an extravagant manner the book touches upon the main techniques of Persuasion. The book helped me a lot while writing me thesis on Persuasion in Advertising. Hope you'll like it too. It a visa for new territories, vague and yet real. Lilly George Bulgaria
Average customer rating:
- A useful introduction to media psychology
- A must for any mass communication scholar
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A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication (Lea's Communication Series)
Richard Jackson Harris
Manufacturer: Lawrence Erlbaum
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Binding: Hardcover
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Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research (Lea's Communication Series)
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Media Psychology
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Children's Responses to the Screen: A Media Psychological Approach (Lea's Communication Series)
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Milestones in Mass Communication Research (3rd Edition)
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Fundamentals of Media Effects
ASIN: 0805846603 |
Book Description
With this fourth edition of A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication, author Richard Jackson Harris continues his examination of how our experiences with media affect the way we acquire knowledge about the world, and how this knowledge creates consequences for attitudes and behavior. Presenting theories from psychology and communication along with reviews of the corresponding research, this text covers a wide variety of media and media issues, ranging from the commonly discussed topics--sex, violence, advertising--to less-studied topics, such as values, sports, and entertainment education.
New chapters for the fourth edition cover:
*children and media, examining children's prosocial television, advertising to children, and media literacy;
*values and prosocial media, including family values, religion, social marketing, and entertainment-education programming; and
*emotional media, including the effects of sports and music.
New and updated material includes:
*today's popular television shows;
*the widespread use of the Internet;
*changes brought about by telecommunications technology;
*advertising on the Internet, in classrooms, and other unconventional places;
*press coverage of the 2000 U.S. Presidential election and its aftermath;
*stereotyping of mental illness and therapists;
*male body-image media issues;
*music, reflecting its increasing popularity and influence; and
*effects of playing violent video games.
An engaging, readable, and highly successful text, this classroom resource serves as an invaluable guide to the influences of media for courses on media and psychology, and media effects and processes.
Customer Reviews:
A useful introduction to media psychology.......2006-02-23
This is the 4th edition of this volume. Harris provides a nice overview to media psychology. I think the book is mistitled because it does not really deal with cognitive psychology (as a cognitive psychologist would define it). For example, there is limited discussion of factors influencing attention to TV or the cognitive representation of media stories or even how media stories are comprehended. Rather, the book really looks at social psychological approaches to the media (e.g., models of advertising effectiveness, motivations for watching TV, effects of TV violence etc). The volume is an excellent introduction to what is often referred to as media psychology, but I do think it is mistitled. Also, there are topics that are missing from the volume. For example, there is a growing research literature on factors influencing the entertainment value of a TV show or movie and that literature is not discussed in this book. I do use it as a textbook in a undergraduate seminar I teach and the students generally enjoy the book, but it is a textbook, but it does an excellent job at introducing readers to the psychological study of the media.
A must for any mass communication scholar.......1998-07-11
This is one of the best texts on the effects, either real or imagined, of mass communication on its consumers. Texts on research can be hard to get through. However, Richard Jackson Harris takes years of scholarly writings from the classic "Bobo Doll Study" to the latest in mass communication research and provides the reader with one of the most objective, comprehensive, witty and easy-to-read texts this subject.
For any mass communication scholar or practitioner, this is an absolute must read. I have written several research papers throughout college and graduate school, and this book was an indespensible tool. If communication is your thing, get it now!
Average customer rating:
- Standard on Media Effects
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Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research (Lea's Communication Series)
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Milestones in Mass Communication Research (3rd Edition)
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How to Build Social Science Theories
ASIN: 0805838643 |
Book Description
This classic volume on media effects theory and research has been updated and expanded to reflect new and current directions in research and theory. New topics, chapters, and contributors give a fresh take on this perennially popular subject. Reflecting recent developments in this rapidly evolving area, editors Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann have expanded this second edition to 22 chapters from the original 16. All the chapters from the previous edition are included here, extensively revised and updated. Newly added chapters reflect areas of current or renewed interests in media effects study: media consumption and its underlying reception processes; intermedia processes; educational and prosocial effects; individual differences in media effects; new effects on issue perception; and third person effects.
With contributions from some of the finest scholars in the discipline, Media Effects serves not only as a comprehensive reference volume for media effects study but also as an exceptional textbook for advanced courses in media effects. As this area of study continues to evolve, Media Effects will serve as a benchmark of theory and research for current and future generations of scholars.
Customer Reviews:
Standard on Media Effects.......2007-03-20
If you want to know about media effects and media effects research, this is the book. The authors of the chapters are the experts on the topics.
A fantastic research for media effects.
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Emotion and the Structure of Narrative Film: Film As An Emotion Machine (Les's Communication Series)
Ed S. Tan
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ASIN: 0805814094 |
Book Description
Extending the visionary early work of the late Marshall McLuhan, The Global Village, one of his last collaborative efforts, applies that vision to today's worldwide, integrated electronic network. When McLuhan's groundbreaking Understanding Media was published in 1964, the media as we know it today did not exist. But McLuhan's argument, that the technological extensions of human consciousness were racing ahead of our ability to understand their consequences, has never been more compelling. And if the medium is the message, as McLuhan maintained, then the message is becoming almost impossible to decipher. In The Global Village, McLuhan and co-author Bruce R. Powers propose a detailed conceptual framework in terms of which the technological advances of the past two decades may be understood. At the heart of their theory is the argument that today's users of technology are caught between two very different ways of perceiving the world. On the one hand there is what they refer to as Visual Space--the linear, quantitative mode of perception that is characteristic of the Western world; on the other hand there is Acoustic Space--the holistic, qualitative reasoning of the East. The medium of print, the authors argue, fosters and preserves the perception of Visual Space; but, like television, the technologies of the data base, the communications satellite, and the global media network are pushing their users towards the more dynamic, "many-centered" orientation of Acoustic Space. The authors warn, however, that this movement towards Acoustic Space may not go smoothly. Indeed, McLuhan and Powers argue that with the advent of the global village--the result of worldwide communications--these two worldviews "are slamming into each other at the speed of light," asserting that "the key to peace is to understand both these systems simultaneously." Employing McLuhan's concept of the Tetrad--a device for predicting the changes wrought by new technologies--the authors analyze this collision of viewpoints. Taking no sides, they seek to do today what McLuhan did so successfully twenty-five years ago--to look around the corner of the coming world, and to help us all be prepared for what we will find there.
Customer Reviews:
A Laudable Extension of McLuhan: Cool, Seminal & Involving!.......2000-12-09
Powers says that this book is not about "final answers." By God he's right! And he proceeds to effloresce a wondrous garden wrought of the print medium brimming over with fresh probes, "osmic space," brains "astonied," the secret lives of "sense ratios," and other electrific, outsized insights and invitations into the futurepresent. One could readily argue and effectively so that "The Global Village..." is indeed a worthy extension of the medium of Professor McLuhan himself, ringing true and resonating orchestrally with the spirit and vivacity of that bright, iridescent, warm and radiant bulb which, tragically, went out suddenly and left us in darkness on New Year's Eve, 1980.
Feed forward 9 years. Powers'/McLuhan's "tetrad" is a mesmerizingly rich metaphor lending clarity and intensity to McLuhan's seminal 1964 probicon, "Understanding Media--The Extensions of Man." This "new" 1989 book is a MUST-read, a reverent continuance of McLuhan's oeuvre, a virtual channeling of his spirit, and in various ways easier to grasp perhaps, more accessible even, than the monumentally revolutionary/visionary UMTEOM.
The beauty of McLuhan and by protraction Dr. Bruce Powers here is that these men are not pedants but facilitators. Their goal, much like that of Carl Rogers or George B. Leonard or Joseph Campbell, is not to pound stuff into brainpans, but to gently yet insistently open up minds to possibilities, perils, challenges, potentialities and joys imperative in the present reality/"reelity?" or whatever one wishes to term the agardish within which each of us swims, breathes, eats, creates, dances, defecates, procreates and seethes.
If McLuhan is the sorcerer, Bruce Powers is his worthy apprentice, now successor. In fact he veritably invites all of us to be successors (McLuhanatics?), to become involved (the essential definition of "cool"). This book is exciting, invigorating, pulsating, intensely involving and above all, highly rewarding. We need more extensions of McLuhan like this one. This is a superb nonbook, a hybrid medium, and a seamless read. TGV will get your probing juices flowing. It's as revitalizing as pure MDMA (as far as "the mdma is the message" goes). Buy this deceptively modest paperback, and step into it like a hot bath.
a shameful posthumous misrepresentation of McL.'s thought........2000-06-09
I'm surprised this travesty is still in print. "Not in McLuhan's style" is a kind understatement; Powers demonstrates flagrant misunderstanding and confusion of basic McLuhanesque ideas. Try 'Laws of Media' or 'Understanding Electric Language' instead.
FIGURING OUT THE GROUND.......1998-09-14
This book is for the McLuhan enthusiast who would like to figure out the ground on which McLuhan stands. It is chock full of McLuhan's ideas, but not presented in McLuhan's typical style. Published 9 years after McLuhan's death, it seems likely that co-author Bruce Powers assembled the material for publication.
If you are not already very familiar with McLuhan's thoughts and earlier writings, this book is not for you. If you are already very familiar with McLuhan's words, you won't find anything new, but you will find some of McLuhan's basic ideas amplified and extrapolated.
Essentially an essential book for the McLuhanite.
Amazon.com
In 1994's Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace, Douglas Rushkoff extolled the democratic promise of the then-emergent Internet, but the once optimistic author has grown a bit disillusioned with what the Net--and the rest of the world--has become. His exuberantly written, disturbing Coercion may induce paranoia in readers as it illuminates the countless ways marketing has insinuated itself not just into every aspect of Western culture but into our individual lives. Rushkoff opens with a series of pronouncements: "They say human beings use only ten percent of their brains.... They say Prozac alleviates depression." But "who, exactly, are 'they,'" he asks, and "why do we listen to them?"
Marketing continues to grow more aggressive, and Rushkoff tracks the increasingly coercive techniques it employs to ingrain its message in the minds of consumers, as well as the results: toddlers can recognize the golden arches of McDonald's, young rebels get tattooed with the Nike swoosh, and news stories are increasingly taken verbatim from company press releases. "Corporations and consumers are in a coercive arms race," argues Rushkoff. "Every effort we make to regain authority over our actions is met by an even greater effort to usurp it." As he surveys the visual, aural, and scented shopping environment and interviews salesmen, public relations men, telemarketers, admen, and consumers, Rushkoff--who admits to being one of "them" in his occasional capacity as paid corporate consultant--concludes that "they" are just "us" and that the only way the process of coercion can be reversed is to refuse to comply. "Without us," he assures, "they don't exist." --Kera Bolonik
Book Description
An investigation into the influence techniques of the hidden persuaders--in the media, in politics, and in business--who are every day making more and more of our decisions for us, from a writer hailed as the "brilliant heir to Marshall McLuhan" by New Perspectives Quarterly.
They say that human beings use only ten percent of their brains. They say the corner office is a position of power. They say you haven't met your deductible.
Who, exactly, are "they"? More important, why do we listen to them?
In Coercion Douglas Rushkoff argues that we each have our own "theys"--bosses, experts, and authorities (both real and imaginary) who have taken over much of the decision-making power in our lives. Unfortunately, not everyone to whom we surrender this control has our best interests at heart. What's most troubling is that the more we try to resist their efforts at persuasion, the more effort they in turn put into finding increasingly sophisticated--and invisible--methods of coercion. Indeed, the last fifty years have been marked by a kind of arms race between these authorities and our selves.
Douglas Rushkoff is in a unique position to guide us through these hazardous societal influences. Having for years been the champion of the new media, the Internet, and the liberating forces of interactive technology, he now examines the process through which such innovations are being co-opted by the powers that be. Rushkoff's message is a wake-up call for anyone who has the uncomfortable sense that our actions are being shaped by forces beyond our control.
Customer Reviews:
as enjoyable and scary as a thriller.......2007-02-11
This is the most enjoyable and frightening book I've read about various forms of thought control in everyday life. Rushkoff explores and compares phenomena like cults, MLM schemes like Amway, neuro-linguistic programming, shopping mall design, and used car salesman training -- which features a script almost identical to the one in a CIA interrogation manual obtained through the freedom of information act. I recommend this book to everyone, as it treats things that we all face, but I think it's an essential read for anyone interested in cults and mind control.
Good, but not solid enough .......2006-10-29
I've bought the book after reading on Key23 that it is "The best book on black magic written by someone who does not practice it." Meaning that the usage of language, icons, and space to influnce people by bypassing their rational, subjective mind is almost like magic and should be known to anyone living in the modern world where we are always exposed to various forms of influence. As Jello Biafra once said: "It's odd how many people I knew while growing up don't remember anything important that happened politicaly or socially, BUT if I hum a radio commercial no one heared for 10 years - BAM! They remember THAT!"
While the book is a great deal of fun to read (The saleman's character is wonderful, as well as the parts about how music is used to effect shopping behaviour, "the bum-brush effect", and the usage of scent in the air vents to effect Japanese workers.) I felt it does not follow through on many of it's promising leads. To say that office designers use ancient Chinese space-arranging techniques to influnce others is well and good. But DOES it? If so, HOW? Where the writer might have brought in a second opinion on the social fads around "Spirituall Things" or even on why the brain is wired this way the reader is gently lead on to see THIS wonderful bit of info and hear THIS person who watches the tapes that record our shopping behaviour and writes ideas on how we can be influnced to buy more or faster. That person IS interesting (Haven't you ever wondered what they do with these tapes?:) But there is little scholarship in it. In 2006, to say that big companies mind-bend their clients is not much of a novelty.
HOWEVER, for curious people with an intrest in the world around them, this book is one of the nicest bargains out there.
Sam Green
PS
For all wondering, the "Bum-Brush" effect is this. When women bend over to look at a product they will STOP and GET UP if they feel someone or something is brushing their bum. Even if it's a hand bag or a person walking next to them. Once they are up they may NOT BUY the product. To prevent this from happening store owners are making bigger passages to prevent the bum brush. This took many hours of tape watching to formalize:)
Is persuasion coercive?.......2006-09-14
If you have been a Chomsky fan ever since you read "Manufacturing Consent" then you may like this book- if you ignore the sloppy reasoning, and unsupported conclusions.
The author's thesis seems to be that persuasive techniques (political and commercial, but mostly commercial) are so effective that the targets of these persuasions essentially lose the ability to resist.
As others have pointed out, definitions of "coercion" almost always include the phrase "force, or credible threat of force." Yet, even the slimiest car dealership is not going to beat you up if you refuse to buy the car. Indeed, this would be a far better book if the author at least considered the possibility that the dealership needs customers far more than any customer could possibly need any particular car dealer: after all, a dealer who can't sell enough cars will suffer large losses and go out of business, but a customer who walks to another car seller will lose- perhaps an hour or two.
In short, unless you can accept the book's thesis- that people lose their ability to resist in the face of these powerful persuasions- the book makes no sense. Which would be acceptable if only the author would provide evidence to support his thesis- but, he doesn't. As the old saying has it, "evidence" is not the plural of "anecdote."
Are Promise Keepers rallies truly Hitlerian (as the author implies), or (at most) just mildly annoying? Is it truly coercion when a chain-store salesperson tries to sell you additional stuff that you really didn't want and probably don't need, or is it just mildly aggravating? Is Rushkoff's attempt to convince you that ordinary, everyday politics and commercialism are coercive itself coercive and cult-like (by its own definitions)- or is it, too, just mildly annoying?
Scary. .......2004-09-11
This is one of those books that is at once fascinating, horrifying, thought-provoking, and makes me want to have nothing to do with advertising. It covers all kinds of methods people use to coerce others, from car salespeople to marketers and copywriters. An interesting read.
Why we buy?.......2004-05-13
I was wondering why I bought this tape. Well, it was because Walgreen's had a bunch of bargain tapes prominently featured in their store, and the music playing had a subliminal message that said buy me. Seriously, Rushkoff does a good job of detailing how people are influenced to buy a product, subscribe to a belief, or follow a messianic leader.
I think Rushkoff is suspious of all people or companies trying to sell a product. However, in most cases, he details how Western style societies have been influenced by consumerism, and how companies have refined their selling habits to sell their services and products. Rushkoff does not just stop at the selling of products. He talks about why people join and stay in cults, why people follow political leaders, the effects of the worldwide web and internet on people, and pyramid schemes. In modern marketing, as well as these, people are coerced in subscribing to alien beliefs or products. This is why people need to understand these principles in order to avoid the damage of coercion on their person.
The book is relatively interesting. A good book for those interested in the decision making process of the Western consumer.
Book Description
American mass media are the world's most diverse, rich and free. But their dazzling resources, variety, and influence cannot be rated by the envy they arouse in other countries. Their failures are commonly excused on the grounds that they are creatures of the market, that they give people what they want. This book focusses not on the glories of the media, but on what is wrong with them and why, and how they may be made better. This powerful critique of American mass communications highlights four trends that together sound an urgent call for reform: the blurring of distinctions among traditional media and between individual and mass communication; the increasing concentration of media control in a disturbingly small number of powerful organizations; the shift from advertisers to consumers as the source of media revenues; and the growing confusion of information and entertainment, of the real and the imaginary. The future direction of the media, Bogart contends, should not be left to market forces alone. He shows how the public's appetite for media differs from other demands the market is left to satisfy because of how profoundly the media shapes the public's character and values. In conclusion, Bogart asserts that a world of new communications technology requires a coherent national media policy, respectful of the American tradition of free expression and subject to vigorous public scrutiny and debate. Commercial Culture is the most comprehensive analysis of the media as they evolve in a technological age. It will be of great appeal to general readers interested in mass communications, as well as professionals and scholars studying American mass media.
Customer Reviews:
Quite simply the best critique of mass media ever........1997-06-21
If you want to understand the relationship between advertising and mass media, this is the book you need to read. Dr. Bogart's basic thesis is that media is so central to our lives that its future direction should not be left exclusively to the marketplace. This proposition may surprise some considering Dr. Bogart spent most of his working career as a advertising strategist and market researcher. This book will have a permanent - and prominent - place in your library
Average customer rating:
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Readings in Mass Communication
M. Emery , and
T.C. Smythe
Manufacturer: William C. Brown
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Suspense: Conceptualizations, Theoretical Analyses, and Empirical Explorations (Lea's Communication Series)
Manufacturer: Lawrence Erlbaum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0805819657 |
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