Persuasive Messages is a guide to successful persuasion, providing a balance between theory and application. Firmly grounded in decades of research in the field, it offers a new approach using the Elaboration Likelihood Model to help readers understand how to construct effective persuasive messages. This model, so often neglected in other texts on persuasion, places a special emphasis on audiences, and how they react to, or process, persuasive messages. The book is split into four accessible parts: Key concepts, sources, and the relationship between attitudes and behavior; the Elaboration Likelihood Model; and the nature of ethics in persuasion

• Designing effective persuasive messages, including refining purpose and message, and understanding and dealing with hostile and multiple audiences


• Theories of persuasion, including consistency, social judgment, and reasoned action


• Critical consumers of persuasive messages, discussing persuasion in advertising and in politics.

With its balance between theory and practice, the book works diligently to relate these concepts to the reader through diverse examples. Persuasive Messages makes it clear how students, as persuaders, can use the ideas from this book in the messages they create to achieve their goals.