Hovland, Janis & Kelley's persuasion findings
Background
"Magic Bullet Theory"
mass media have strong effects
these effects are "universal"
previous findings (1940s)
media effects are limited,
they happen to some people,
and depend on importance of issue
the "Magic Bullet Theory" may be dead, but let's search for
the "Magic Keys"!
Yale "Communication and Persuasion" studies
Return to Yale
got $370.000 Rockefeller grant,
studied Persuasion -- "any attempt to change a person's mind"
source variables (credibility)
message variables (one or two sides)
channel variables (face-to-face, media)
receiver variables (intelligence, gender)
fear appeals (low, medium, high)
Two-sided provided better "inoculation"
Explicit conclusions for "low motivation"
Group norms can affect public attitudes
"Counter-attitudinal advocacy" is effective
in the "sleeper effect" people remember the message, but forget the
source
[film advertising]
Overall:
short-term opinion change
on not-very-important topics
is easy to achieve
long-term opinion change
on important topics,
or behavioral change
is hard to achieve
The end
1960 -- Hovland diagnosed with cancer
1961 -- age 60: worked with students, went home to his bathtub and drowned
himself
Evaluation of Hovland's contributions
"the largest single contribution to the field" (Schramm)
lots about "single, conrolled exposure"
[Lazarsfeld - maybe no exposure]
His followers
William J. McGuire
Examined "stages of change"
exposure, attention, comprehension, yielding, memory, behavior
Return to Mass Media effects syllabus
On to lecture #9