Media Analysis One: Applying the Rank's Model of Persuasion & The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion (ELM)

While in my first COMM 340 class on persuasion and advocacy, I was introduced to two concepts that are present in several of the advertisements used within the media to persuade and advise the public. The first concept covered was Rank's Model of Persuasion, while the second concept was the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion (ELM). By applying these two concepts of persuasion and advocacy I learned I can become more aware of how these two concepts are intertwined into many of the advertisements I view within the media on a daily basis.  The two media examples I chose to do my analysis of these two theories are an advertisement from HIV/AIDS prevention campaign (One Life Canada) and another advertisement from a work place safety campaign (Work Safe Victoria).

image: http://towleroad.typepad.com

     

    In the One "Life Canada" HIV/AIDS prevention campaign advertisement Rank's Model of Persuasion is depicted. For example, the "Rank's Persuasion Model" word document given out in class states, “persuaders use two major strategies to achieve their goals.  These strategies are nicely set into two main schemas known as (1) intensify, and (2) downplay.”  The "One Life Canada" advertisement I chose to analyze for this framework uses these two main schemas of intensify and downplay to get the message of getting tested for HIV/AIDS whenever a man plans on having unprotected sex with a new partner. The advertisement intensifies this message by the usage of association.

   In the TIP Sheet for Rank's Model word document from class, it is mentioned that association is "a cause, product or candidate [that] is linked to something already liked or disliked by the audience.” Therefore, with this advertisement, one can assume that the intended targeted audience are Homosexual or Bisexual males who are members of the LBGT community. This is due to the advertisement featuring two males in an intimate embrace in a private shower area. This target audience for the advertisement are men that like to have sex with multiple male partners but they dislike that they are also a group of males at a higher chance of getting HIV/AIDS due to their lifestyle choices. Furthermore, this advertisement uses the image of multiple hands to correlate to the advertisement's message: Each Time You Sleep with Someone You Also Sleep with His Past. 

     This message and multiple hands are known as the "composition, or the graphic layout design" of the advertisement (TIP Sheet for Rank's Model). This message is used to downplay the idea that having sex with multiple male partners without getting tested is bad because you have a higher chance of getting HIV/AIDS than if you get tested between partners. The advertisement can also be an example of diversion due to its distraction of its target audience to be tested. This is because some of the target audience may be in need of seeing statistics of the issue versus a use of imagery to get the point of getting tested across. For example, the multiple hands that connect to that message are a type of "Omission-or half-truths”, (TIP Sheet for Rank's Model). This is because each time a person sleeps with another new person they do not actually sleep with the past person the other person had sex with prior. Instead that person can have the chance of catching HIV/AIDS because it can take months or even years to notice the symptoms of it and by that time a person could have passed it on to other partners they had sex with. 

    
     In “Some Pedagogical Implications of Richard M. Weaver's Views on Rhetoric" (1978), there is more information relating to Rank's Model of Persuasion use of composition. Charles U. Larson states that "Alternating the advertisement's layouts intensifies persuasive outcomes. For example, the upper- right and the lower left corners of a magazine, or a poster, or a video page are seen as "fallow" or less productive for the eyes of the reader to pay attention to." This applies towards the composition of this advertisement because "one life" is located at the upper right while the message of "Each Time You Sleep with Someone You Sleep with His Past" is towards the lower left edge. Thus this makes the viewer of the advertisement focus towards the center where the two men are. 

 

image: http://www.advertolog.com

      

       To connect the second concept of The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion (ELM) to the work place safety advertisement (from Work Safe Victoria), one can draw upon several conclusions on what this advertisement's main message is trying to convey towards the target audience. For example, while applying the ELM to this advertisement there are two ways one can use to make decisions or be persuaded to the advertisement's message. The first way is [to] take a logical, conscious thinking, central route to decision-making [which] can lead to permanent change in our attitude as we adopt and elaborate upon the speaker’s arguments (Petty and Cacioppo,1986). While the second way is to take the peripheral route. [where] we do not pay attention to persuasive arguments but are swayed instead by surface characteristics such as whether we like the speaker (Petty and Cacioppo,1986).

       This advertisement on worker safety tends to go towards the peripheral route more so than the logical central route to get its main message focus across. This is due to the use of the amputee male depicting the loss of his arm from a work injury that could have been avoided. Also the use of the quote "I was new and afraid to ask" implies that a majority of individuals are afraid to ask questions at work especially if they are new. So the use of the amputee man is calling attention towards the advertisement's main campaign message of: "It doesn't hurt to speak up" creating the connection towards the viewer that it is okay to ask questions if they are unsure of how to do something at work.

         Therefore, the lack of the man's hand also creates a sense of fear. This fear is to motivate the target audience to ask questions at work because otherwise their fear of not asking for help could continue to affect their life in the future. So to keep the viewing audience from facing a similar result the use of the man amputee image is implying that it is good to ask questions at work to prevent an accident like this from occurring. By using the peripheral route, it aids the audience to look further into the written words included into the message of the advertisement which are "I was new and afraid to ask" and "It doesn't hurt to speak up". Perhaps this is done so the advertisement's messages can be taken with more urgency and seriousness than if the written messages stood alone. 

        However according to Petty and Krosnick  in "Persuasion in the Market Place”, attitudes formed through the central route tend to be more highly accessible, held with more confidence, more predictive of behavior, more resistant to change, and persist longer over time, compared to attitudes formed through the peripheral route (Petty & Krosnick, 1995). Thus the use of fear by showing an amputated man may work for a moment, the use of the written messages helps the viewer to logically connect to the main message of the advertisement: It is okay to ask questions at work if you are unsure because you could end up hurt for life if you do not. 

      In conclusion, the media utilizes Rank's Model of Persuasion and the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion (ELM), by applying these concepts into their advertisements to persuade and advise the public. By analyzing these two concepts of persuasion and advocacy in these two media advertisements, I also learned I can become more aware of how these two concepts are within many of the advertisements I and others view on a daily basis. 


References: 

Johannesen, R. L. (1978, October 3). Vol. 29, No. 3, Oct., 1978 of College Composition and Communication. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/i215167

One Life TM. (2008). [Digital image]. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://www.areyouatrisk.ca/

 Petty, R. E. and Cacioppo, J. T. (1986) Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change, New York: Springer-Verlag
 

Rank, H. (1976). Teaching about public persuasion. In D. Dietrich (Ed.), Teaching and Doublespeak. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Shrum, L. J., Min Liu, Mark Nespoli, and Tina M. Lowrey (2012), “Persuasion in the Marketplace: How Theories of Persuasion Apply to Marketing and Advertising,” in The Persuasion Handbook, eds. James Dillard & Lijiang Shen, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, forthcoming.

Unknown, (2016). TIP SHEET for Rank’s Model, Unpublished Word Document, COMM 340 Persuasion and Advocacy, Alverno College, USA. 

 Work Safe Victoria. (2006). [Digital image]. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au