COM 318: Exam 2 Review Message Characteristics

Exam Format:
The exam will be composed of approximately 40 multiple choice and true/false questions. Question will assess basic knowledge of key concepts, the application of those concepts to situations, and the demonstration of key techniques taught in class. It will cover all of the required reading chapters and lecture material through since the first exam. You will have the scheduled class period to take the exam. At the start of class, you will be given an exam booklet with the questions and a bubble sheet for providing your responses. You must bring a pencil for filling in the bubble sheet. Pencils will not be provided. If you need officially recognized accommodations, you must notify the professor the week prior to the exam so we can address those needs. No make-up exams will be provided outside of documented legitimate excuses. Make-up exams may be provided in an alternative format from the original exam, though they will be based on the same range of material.

Exam Content:
In addition to all class lectures, the exam will cover the following chapters in the Perloff textbook: 7, 10, 11, and 12. The following information is designed to supplement your study. It is not intended to be completely comprehensive. Nothing substitutes for careful reading and review of the assigned texts and careful attention to, and study of, course lectures material. Major Theories, Models and Concepts Extended Parallel Process Model Toulmin s Model of Argument Diffusion of Innovations Strategic Health Communication Campaign Model and the Stages of Health Campaign Development 5. French and Raven s Power Dimensions 6. Marwell and Schmidt s Compliance Gaining Typology (Major Themes) 7. Politeness Theory 8. Message Design Logics (Expressive, Conventional, and Rhetorical) 9. Sequential Message/Request Strategies (Pregiving, FITD, DITF in particular) and proposed explanatory factors 10. Transtheoretical Model 11. Inoculation Theory 1. 2. 3. 4.

12. Primacy and Recency Effects 13. Reasoning Strategies and criteria for support (e.g., causal, sign, etc.) Terminology from Perloff:
CHAPTER 7 Conclusion-drawing: message structure factor that examines the effects of drawing a conclusion implicitly or explicitly. Evidence: factual assertions spanning statistics, eyewitness accounts, testimonials, and narratives that are used to support a communicator's claims. Extended Parallel Process Model: integrative theory of fear appeals that articulates processes mediating fear message effects and conditions under which fear appeals are likely to fail or succeed. Fear appeal: a persuasive communication that tries to scare individuals into changing their attitudes by conjuring up negative consequences that will occur if they do not comply with message recommendations. Frame: central organizing idea for making sense of relevant events and suggesting what is at issue; the dominant framework a message adopts toward an issue. Illusion of invulnerability: perception that the self is invulnerable to negative life events, or that one is less likely than others to experience bad outcomes. Intense language: a collection of linguistic elements, such as metaphors, vivid language, emotionally-charged words, and profanity, that richly convey the extremity of a communicator's position. Meta-analysis: a study of other studies that uses statistical methods to determine the strength of findings in an area. Powerless speech: a constellation of characteristics, including hesitations, tag questions, and disclaimers, that can suggest to a message receiver that the communicator lacks power. Sleeper effect: in its simplest form, the notion that the effects of a persuasive communication increase with the passage of time; a message initially discounted by message receivers, such as one delivered by a low-credible source, comes to be accepted over time for various cognitive reasons. Transportation: process by which fiction persuades; absorption in a work of art that takes people to different mental realms and in this way influences attitudes Vivid case history: a personalized, emotionally engaging, in-depth story of one person's experiences; sometimes referred to as narrative evidence.

CHAPTER 10 Compliance-gaining: communicative behavior in which an agent engages in an effort to elicit from a target an agent-selected behavior; one-on-one interpersonal communication encounter in which a communicator requests compliance from another individual. Closed-ended compliance-gaining survey method: questionnaire that provides respondents with hypothetical situations, and asks them to choose from among various strategies for compliance on a quantitative scale. Disrupt-then-reframe technique: persuader disrupts the script of a communicative request and then reframes the request, encouraging the receiver to process the issue in a new way. Door-in-the-face technique: a persuader makes a large request that is almost certain to be denied, and, following rejection, returns with a smaller request, the target request the persuader had in mind at the outset. Fear-then-relief: the persuader deliberately places the recipient in a state of fear, only to quickly eliminate the threat, and replace it with a mild request for compliance. Foot-in-the-door technique: the classic persuasion strategy in which persuaders begin with a small request and then follow it up with a second, larger -- and target -- request. Low balling: the persuader induces an individual to comply with a request and then "ups the ante" by increasing the cost of compliance. Pique technique: a communicator makes a request in an unusual manner, thereby piquing the target's interest. Open-ended compliance-gaining survey method: respondents describe in their own words how they would gain compliance from others. Responses are subsequently categorized by trained researchers. Sequential influence techniques: interpersonal influence strategies in which influence proceeds in stages, each of which provides the foundation for subsequent changes in behavior. Social exchange: an interpersonal persuasion strategy in which Person A provides Person B with a tangible or psychological reward; in exchange, when Person A approaches B with a request for compliance, B feels pressure to comply. "That's-not-all" technique: a communicator presents a request, and then tells the receiver "that's not all" - an additional small product accompanies the larger item, supposedly in this situation only. The approach is theoretically more effective than one in which both products are presented at the same time.

CHAPTER 11 Classical conditioning: the time-honored theory of association that says pairing an unconditioned stimulus with a conditioned stimulus leads to the conditioned stimulus's eliciting the same response originally evoked by the unconditioned stimulus. Mere exposure: psychological theory stipulating that repeated exposure to a neutral stimulus leads to liking. Product placement: a paid communication about a product that is designed to influence audience attitudes about the brand through the deliberate and subtle insertion of a product into media entertainment programming. Self-fulfilling prophecy: the notion that if you expect something to occur, sometimes it will -- but not because of an objective incident, but because you altered your thoughts in anticipation, and the cognitive changes influenced behavior. Semiotics: the study of signs and symbols; a qualitative approach that sheds light on how symbols acquire meaning. Subliminal advertisement: informal term that refers to an ad that includes a brief, specific message that cannot be perceived at a normal level of conscious awareness. (Strictly speaking, the ad is not subliminal, but perception is; however, for purposes of shedding light on the subliminal myth, the term is used in the book.) Subliminal perception: perception without awareness of the object being perceived. It is "sub-limen" or below the limen or hypothetical threshold of conscious awareness. Third-person effect: perceptual distortion in which people exaggerate media effects on others, while minimizing influences on themselves. It is also associated with the perception that mass media have strong influences, which can lead to indirect effects of media on attitudes. CHAPTER 12 Diffusion Theory: macro-level theoretical approach to campaigns; it explains and predicts processes by which innovations diffuse through society. Evaluation: empirical assessment of campaign effects that determines whether campaign objectives have been met; evaluations can occur at the end of a campaign, or as the campaign ensues to provide campaigners with feedback. Knowledge gap: negative campaign effect that occurs when campaigns widen the disparity in knowledge between rich and poor citizens. Social marketing: application of marketing principles to public health campaigns; a process of designing and implementing programs to enhance the acceptability of prosocial ideas among consumers. Social norms marketing: campaign perspective that targets audience members' perceptions of others' behavior; applied to anti-drinking interventions, it attempts to modify

student drinking practices by convincing students that they overestimate how much alcohol their peers consume.