Persuasion

Catalog description

The course aims to impart knowledge of scientific theories of persuasion by engaging students in the design and execution of a persuasion campaign. The applied component of the course involves (a) selecting a consequential issue, (b) evaluating the extent to which that issue might be amenable to solution via persuasion, (c) learning how members of the target audience view the issue via formative research, (d) designing theoretically-informed messages adapted to the target audience, (e) implementing a campaign that utilizes multiple messages in multiple modalities, and (f) evaluating the impact of the campaign. Classic and contemporary concepts of persuasion science are brought to bear on each stage of this sequence.