Communication modality as a determinant of persuasion: The role of communicator salience.

Abstract

In two experiments, a likable or unlikable communicator delivered a persuasive message via the written, audiotaped, or videotaped modality. In both studies, the likable communicator was more persuasive in videotaped and audiotaped (vs. written) conditions, whereas the unlikable communicator was more persuasive in the written modality. Because of these opposing effects of modality on the persuasiveness of likable and unlikable communicators, communicator likability was a significant determinant of persuasion only in the two broadcast modalities. Additional findings suggested that subjects engaged in more processing of com-municator cues when exposed to videotaped or audiotaped, compared to written, messages and that communicator-based (vs. message-based) cognitions predicted opinion change primarily within videotape and audiotape (vs. written) conditions. It was concluded that the videotaped and audiotaped modalities enhance the salience of communicator-related information with the consequence that com-municator characteristics exert a disproportionate impact on persuasion when messages are transmitted in videotaped or audiotaped (vs. written) form. The relevance of the findings to understanding "vividness " phenomena is also dis-cussed. Previous research on media effects in per-suasion has proven largely inconsistent. Al-though the modal finding in this literature appears to be that live or videotaped messages induce greater opinion change than do au-diotaped messages (Frandsen, 1963), which, in turn, induce greater change than do writ-ten communications (Cantril & Allport, 1935; Haugh, 1952; Knower, 1935, 1936; Wilke, 1934), a number of studies have obtained either no differences in persuasiveness as a function of communication modality or greater opinion change with written messages

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