Persuasion: Contexts, People, and Messages

This text is based on the central theme that persuasion cannot be understood apart from the setting in which it occurs - both the immediate context of a persuasion event and the cultural milieu in which it occurs. Drawing many examples directly from student experiences - roommate problems, classroom demands, part-time jobs, and mass media events - it examines how culture and context help create, shape, and perfect the means people use to influence one another. Comprehensive in perspective, it examines the various micro/macroscopic contexts of persuasion - intrapersonal, interpersonal, groups, organizations, social movements, campaigns, propaganda, and the mass media.