Entertainment?Education and Elaboration Likelihood: Understanding the Processing of Narrative Persuasion
Abstract
The impact of entertainment-education messages on beliefs, attitudes, and behavior is typically explained in terms of social cognitive theory principles. However, important additional insights regarding reasons why entertainment-education messages have effects can be derived from the processing of persuasive content in narrative messages. Elaboration likelihood approaches suggest that absorption in a narrative, and response to characters in a narrative, should enhance persuasive effects and suppress counterarguing if the implicit persuasive content is counterattitudinal. Also, persuasion mediators and moderators such as topic involvement should be reduced in importance. Evidence in support of these propositions are reviewed in this article. Research needed to extend application of these findings to entertainment-education contexts, to further develop theory in the area of persuasion and narrative, and to better account for other persuasive effects of entertainment narrative, such as those hypothesized in cultivation theory, are discussed.
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Stories persuade by reducing reactance.
“The first way in which stories persuade is that they reduce reactance (Moyer-Gusé, 2008; Slater & Rouner, 2002).”
From Stories in Action. (2022) · cites this paper as Slater & Rouner, 2002
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“Transportation refers to the state of being so immersed in a story that the audience can forget where they are (Green & Brock, 2000; Slater & Rouner, 2002).”
Background
- Authors
- Slater, M. D., & Rouner, D.
- Affiliations
- Colorado State University (US)
- ORCID
- Slater, Michael D.
- Venue
- Communication Theory
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2002-05
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 173-191
- ISSN
- 1050-3293 (ISSN-L)
- 1468-2885
- OpenAlex
- W2165096662
- Cited by
- 1,458
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 74 · 2025: 114 · 2024: 104 · 2023: 93 · 2022: 103 · 2021: 115 · 2020: 110 · 2019: 100 · 2018: 70 · 2017: 78 · 2016: 88 · 2015: 71 · 2014: 65 · 2013: 78 · 2012: 51
- FWCI
- 96.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Communication Theory (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Media Influence and Health
- Social Sciences › Communication › Media Studies and Communication
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Narrative Theory and Analysis
- Keywords
- entertainment-education, narrative persuasion, elaboration likelihood model, narrative absorption, counterargument, cultivation theory, social cognitive theory
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