ABSTRACT

The message-what you say and how you say it-influences people. Uh-huh, an intelligent person impatient with intellectual theories might think; now can we move on? Persuasion scholars would like to move on too-they have books to write, students to teach, and families to feed. But they-and you too no doubt-recognize that the message construct is so big and unwieldy that it needs to be broken down, decomposed, and analyzed in terms of content and process. Contemporary scholars, taking note of this issue, have seized on a concept that fascinated ancient philosophers and deconstructed it. Their research offers us a wealth of insights about communication effects.