Glossary

agenda-setting theory	The observation that the media may not be able to tell the public what to think but that they are effective at telling the public what to think about.
agitator	An individual outside the decision-making establishment who desires significant social change but meets resistance from the establishment.
alliteration	A linguistic technique that involves repeating the same consonant sound at the beginning of two or more adjacent words.
attitude	A learned response to some person, object, or idea. An attitude has a positive or negative dimension. Also, a way of seeing the world that is reflected in our language.
audience analysis	The process by which persuaders break down their audience into small, observable units.
belief	An idea we have about what is true or false.
brand	A particular product and the meanings associated with it because of the symbols and meanings embodied in it.
branding	The process through which objects obtain value.
broadcasting	A strategy used by network executives to attract a large and demographically diverse audience.
buzz	Establishment of a person, product, or idea as something members of a culture must know about-that is, as a cultural phenomenon.
central-route processing	Attending to persuasive messages on the basis of the logical information they contain. Audience members must be both motivated to attend to the message in this way and able to do so.
claim	A statement that communicates a persuader's message to an audience.
clutter	The amount of time devoted to nonprogram content (advertising, promotions, public service announcements) on a particular medium.
code	A set of rules that enables us to understand the meaning of signs and symbols.
code of ethics	A organization's formal statement of its ethical standards.
coercion	The use of force to compel someone to do something.
commoditization	A strategy used by persuaders to create value for their products or ideas.
compliance gaining	The use of persuasive strategies to induce behavior in another.
conflict	The situation that results when two interdependent individuals or groups have incompatible goals.
consumer culture	A culture in which "self-realization" through the purchase of consumer goods is a dominant cultural belief.
convergence	The networking of various media sources through the integration of voice, video, and data technologies.
cookie	A line of software code that is placed in a file on your computer when you visit a site that uses cookie technology. It identifies you to the site host when you revisit the site.
coproduction of meaning	The process by which persuaders and audience members arrive at mutually agreed upon meanings for words and visual images.
credibility	The degree of character, competence, and trustworthiness audience members perceive a persuader to have.
cross-promotion	A joint persuasive campaign in which two or more companies seeking to reach the same audience pool their resources to make a stronger appeal than each could alone. The primary aim of such a campaign is repetition. Also called synergy.
cultural values	Sets of rules for making choices and reducing conflicts in a society.
culture	A set of beliefs, values, and practices that sustains a particular people; also, the products those people produce.
culture scanning	The surveying of culture to understand current trends, beliefs, values, and practices.
data	The "facts" from which persuaders make claims.
deductive reasoning	The analytic process used to move from generalizations to structurally certain conclusions.
deliberative speech	A speech designed to prove that some future action should be taken.
demographics	An audience analysis technique that divides the audience into groups based on such identifiable traits as age, sex, race, income level, political party affiliation, and religious affiliation.
descriptive statistics	A type of statistics that organizes and summarizes information about multiple observations. Includes frequency distributions, measures of central tendency, and correlations.
digital divide	Inequality of access to communication resources, such as telephones, computers, and the Internet.
dissonance	The result of the relationship between two inconsistent ideas.
door-in-the-face technique	A persuasive strategy in which a persuader first asks for a large request that the receiver turns down. Then, the persuader makes a smaller request that the receiver is more likely to accept.
doublespeak	Language that pretends to communicate but really doesn't; language that uses ambiguity to hide its true message.
dramatism	A theory of human motivation that contends that language motivates individuals to act in certain ways.
electronic eloquence	A theory of symbol use that contends that effective speakers today use an intimate style of language that is conversational, personified, self-disclosive, synoptic, and laden with images.
emotions	Belief systems, or schemas, that guide how we understand our feelings and how we organize our responses to those feelings.
entertainment media	Organizations primarily concerned with non-news programming, such as motion picture studios or the entertainment divisions of the major networks.
entertainment programming	Non-news programming; includes motion pictures; radio and television talk shows; television dramas, sitcoms, "reality" TV, and game shows.
enthymeme	A syllogism that is missing one of its premises.
epideictic speech	A speech praising or blaming a person or event in order to comment on the community's values.
episteme	A consistent pattern of discursive occurrences in a given time period that yields knowledge.
ethics	The study of which actions individuals and society consider desirable and undesirable, as well as of the rationale for their judgments when they are faced with equally compelling choices.
ethos	A persuader's credibility.
evidence	Data gathered from sources external to the audience and offered in support of a claim. There are three types: examples, statistics, and testimony.
example	A description of an actual or hypothetical case, event, or situation.
fallacy	An error in reasoning or evidence.
fantasy	The creative interpretation of an event by group members to fulfill some need.
fantasy themes	Contents of stories that are retold by group members.
fantasy types	Fantasies that have similar plot outlines, scenes, and characters. They are repeated patterns of exchange.
five canons of rhetoric	The principal elements of persuasive oratory: invention, arrangement, style, delivery, and memory.
focus group	A small group of systematically selected people whose attitudes about a product, image, or idea are probed by a trained facilitator using in-depth, open-ended questions. The results may be generalized to a larger audience or used as the basis for a quantitative survey.
foot-in-the-door technique	A persuasive strategy in which the persuader uses a small initial request, followed by a larger second request. The technique works on the premise that the receiver will accept the initial request and then-accept the later request as well.
forensic speech	A speech that attempts to prove that some past action occurred.
framing	A way of talking about a situation that reveals something about how the speaker views others and the world.
geodemographics	An audience analysis technique that shows where audiences with particular demographic characteristics live.
guilt	A psychological feeling of discomfort that arises from some imbalance in our lives.
hegemony	The domination of culture by one particular cultural group, resulting in the empowerment of certain cultural beliefs, values, and practices over others.
hierarchy	A symbolic structure, created by language use, that gives one person, place, or thing a higher standing than others in its group.
hypermedia	A category of interactive electronic media that includes the Internet and interactive CD-ROMs.
iconic sign	A sign that gets its meaning because of its resemblance to what it signifies. Examples include photographs and drawings.
ideal speech situation	A theoretical construct that helps us envision a society free from controlling interests. First, the ideal speech situation requires freedom of speech. Second, all individuals must have equal access to speaking. Finally, the norms and obligations of society must be equally distributed.
identification	A state of alignment that exists with another when we share a similar way of viewing the world.
ideograph	A word or phrase that refers to a culturally understood set of meanings and behaviors or that is "pregnant" with ideological commitment. Examples include liberty, rights of privacy, and religion.
ideology	A set of beliefs, or mass consciousness, that is shared by a group of individuals and that dictates their attitudes and behaviors.
image	A conception that we have of people, institutions, or nations; a mental picture we have of something that is not physically present.
image event	A staged occurrence that is visual in nature; communicates a persuasive movement's identity, ideology, and consciousness; and questions the culture's prevailing ideology.
impression	An audience member's viewing of a persuader's message.
impression management	Our conscious attempt to control how others perceive us.
indexical sign	A sign that gets its meaning because of the association it has with what it signifies. Smoke as a sign of fire is one example.
inductive reasoning	The synthetic process used to reason from particulars to probable conclusions.
inferential statistics	A type of statistics that generalizes from observations. Used to test hypotheses. Includes t tests, ANOVAs, and MANOVAs.
instrumental values	Values that guide the means by which we live.
interview	A structured interaction in which questions and answers are used to achieve specific objectives.
invitational rhetoric	A perspective of persuasion that is more concerned with the principles of equality, immanent value, and self-determination than it is with attitude change.
leak	A statement made by a persuader to attract the attention of the media.
logo	The graphic design used by a company or organization to identify itself and its products.
logos	A persuader's use of logical reasoning (induction and deduction) to persuade an audience.
lowball	A version of the foot-in-the-door technique in which the persuader makes an apparently favorable (but misleading because it omits all the facts) initial offer to obligate the receiver to accept the real proposal.
mainstream culture	The core beliefs, values, and behaviors that have been part of the American dialogue since the 1600s and that have been maintained and are accepted by a majority of Americans.
mass marketing	The advertising of products or services to a wide group of customers without regard for individual tastes or preferences.
media	The web of message transmission means (channels), sources, and content. Includes broadcast signals, media personalities, and the words and images of media content.
media age	Today's cultural environment, marked by a complex web of media and other technological influences that we do not consciously choose but that are difficult to ignore.
media audience	The group of people who can potentially receive media content.
media channel	The means used to transmit a message, including spoken words, print, radio, television, or the Internet. Also called the medium.
media content	The programming carried by a media channel and produced by a media source or organization.
media source	The specific person or group of people who produces messages for audiences.
mediated world	An environment in which media serve as intermediaries in the communication process, coming between audiences and persuaders and affecting the information that passes between the two.
medium	The means used to transmit a message, including spoken words, print, radio, television, or the Internet. Plural: media.
metaethical discourse	An argument about the nature of knowledge and how it is generated.
metaphor	A linguistic device that associates a new idea with an idea the audience already understands.
metatheoretical discourse	An argument about what constitutes good evidence or reasonable standards.
motivational appeal	A feelings-based, or affective, approach by a persuader that targets the audience's emotions, needs, and values to influence audience members and convince them to act.
multiculturalism	Existence of diverse, and often competing or conflicting, cultural beliefs, values, and behaviors in one culture.
naming	Use of labels that contain attitudes toward the objects, ideas, or people they describe and that suggest audience responses.
narrative	A story that serves as an argument.
narrowcasting	A strategy used by persuaders to target a small, narrowly defined audience.
negative	The linguistic act of saying that something is not something else.
negotiation	The process in which both sides present their positions to each other, consider those positions, and then reach a compromise based on the original positions.
news	The content produced by news media.
news media	A specific type of media organization that is concerned with reporting on the state of current events.
nonverbal communication	The conveying of information without words-through such methods as eye movement, facial expression, and body language.
one-to-one marketing	See relationship marketing.
organization	A social collectivity (or a group of people) in which activities are coordinated to achieve both individual and collective goals.
pathos	A form of proof (a persuasive strategy) that appeals to the audience's emotions.
patriarchy	The oppressive structure in society that privileges the beliefs, values, and practices of men.
perfection	The desire to take ideas or actions to their extreme.
peripheral-route processing	Attending to persuasive messages because of the cues they contain, such as images, sound, or spokespeople.
persuasion	The coproduction of meaning that results when an individual or a group of individuals uses language strategies and/or visual images to make audiences identify with that individual or group.
polling	The use of statistical theory to assume some characteristic of a population based on a survey of a representative sample of that population.
popular culture	The products of a culture that are owned and produced by businesses for the purpose of making a profit.
postindustrial culture	A society that is fragmented due to the economic, social, and technological changes that have accompanied its maturation from a manufacturing to a services orientation.
postmodern condition	A breakdown in the accepted understanding of the world, marked by questioning of accepted theories, assumptions, and views of reality and by power struggles among persuaders for control of the meaning of events, images, and symbols.
practical discourse	Communication that questions the nature of influence-that is, the appropriateness of a demand to the relationship between those who would influence each other.
premise	A belief one has about one's world.
product placement	The featuring of branded products in entertainment media.
propaganda	An attempt to persuade without seeming to do so.
pseudoevent	A "false" event, staged simply to prompt news coverage of a person, place, or thing.
puffery	Use of a claim that has no substantive meaning but that may nonetheless be persuasive.
push polling	Political preferences polling containing one or more questions asserting that a candidate has done something illegal or unethical. Often conducted by a rival candidate's campaign or supporters. Considered unethical by many political experts.
pyschographics	An audience analysis technique that combines demographic information about an audience with information about members' attitudes, opinions, and interests.
ratings	Measurements of media audiences by a third party.
reasoning	A systematic procedure used to generalize from specific data; the link between evidence and claim.
referent class	A subgroup of the mainstream against which mainstream culture measures itself.
relationship marketing	A persuasive strategy aimed at keeping customers loyal by communicating with them one to one on a regular basis. Also called one-to-one marketing.
rhetorical vision	A similar way of understanding reality shared by members of a culture, community, or group as the result of fantasy sharing.
segmentation	Audience analysis technique that divides the audience into smaller groups to more precisely infer attitudes.
semiotics	The theory of meaning.
sequential-request strategy	A persuasive approach based on the theory that the way in which a request sequence is structured and the characteristics of the initial request determine the acceptance of the ultimate request. Two such strategies are foot-in-the-door and door-in-the-face.
sign	Something that designates something other than itself.
slogan	A short statement that represents a product or a person and that is memorable because it establishes an emotional connection between audience and persuader. Also, a word, phrase, or expression that suggests a course of action.
source credibility	A persuader's degree of safety, qualification, and dynamism.
spin	The interpretation of persuasive events by journalists, academics, and politicians.
spin control	The attempt by persuaders to establish their perspective as the dominant way in which their ideas are seen.
stasis	The three points at which the two sides in a controversy clash, or disagree. They are definition, existence, and quality.
statistics	Calculated values that represent some characteristic of data. Also, the techniques and theories of data analysis.
stock issues	Common arguments used in policy speeches to contend that the audience should take a specific course of action. The issues are ill, blame, cure, and cost.
style	The manner in which ideas are communicated.
syllogism	A series of three statements used to form a new relationship between two ideas. Used in deductive reasoning.
symbol	A word, image, or gesture that stands for (represents) a physical object, an idea, or a feeling.
symbolic sign	A sign that gets its meaning in a purely arbitrary way. A flag is an example of a symbolic sign.
synecdoche	The representation of large amounts of information in a short, memorable part of that body of information.
terminal values	Goals we have for our lives.
Terms for Order	A four-stage model of guilt purification, in which a persuader scapegoats someone else or takes the blame for some guilt.
testimony	A statement about a given topic. Can be factual or expert.
theoretic discourse	The search for arguments to support a statement concerning truth.
theory	An answer to a question; an explaination of why people do what they do.
thesis statement	A carefully worded declarative sentence that highlights the main idea of a persuasive speech.
trend	A widespread short-term preference for something new.
value	A criterion or a standard of preference.
violence	The use of physical action to compel someone to do something.
virtual reality	Numerous formats that allow the user to enjoy the illusion of being a character within what appears to be a three-dimensional scenario.
visual spectacle	A persuasive event utilizing a combination of images designed to appeal to the senses.
warrant	The rationale for moving from data to a claim.