William Benoit

Designed to help students become more successful persuaders, Persuasive Messages offers practical advice on refining purpose, understanding audience, and designing a persuasive message. This textbook combines theory and practice, adopting a cognitive approach to understanding the persuasion process. A guide to successful persuasion, using student-friendly examples to provide a much-needed balance between theory and applicationOffers a new approach using the Cognitive Response Model, which places a special emphasis on audiences, and how they react to, or process, persuasive messagesCovers a broad range of issues including: the relationship between attitudes and behaviour; the nature of ethics in persuasion; dealing with hostile and multiple audiences; and theories of persuasion, including consistency, social judgment, and reasoned actionTeaches readers to be critical consumers of persuasive messages by discussing persuasion in advertising and in politicsLecturer resources available at www.blackwellpublishing.com/benoit

Designed to help students become more successful persuaders, Persuasive Messages offers practical advice on refining purpose, understanding audience, and designing a persuasive message. This textbook combines theory and practice, adopting a cognitive approach to understanding the persuasion process. A guide to successful persuasion, using student-friendly examples to provide a much-needed balance between theory and applicationOffers a new approach using the Cognitive Response Model, which places a special emphasis on audiences, and how they react to, or process, persuasive messagesCovers a broad range of issues including: the relationship between attitudes and behaviour; the nature of ethics in persuasion; dealing with hostile and multiple audiences; and theories of persuasion, including consistency, social judgment, and reasoned actionTeaches readers to be critical consumers of persuasive messages by discussing persuasion in advertising and in politicsLecturer resources available at www.blackwellpublishing.com/benoit

This text provides a perspective for understanding presidential debates by analyzing the debates in 1992 among candidates Bill Clinton, George Bush and Ross Perot. It argues that candidates are able either to undermine or to preserve the vital issues of personal credibility and policy matters.