Reference Services for All: How to Support Reference Service to Clients with Disabilities

Summary

Ideally, when clients come in to the library, reference staff should be able to focus on their information needs and not be distracted by the disability. Questions like “How will he get into the building?”, “How can she use the catalogue?” and others, become important because they indicate barriers to the use of the library by persons with disabilities. If these are not addressed on an organizational level, they affect the individual with the disability, the service provider, i.e., the reference librarian, and the quality of the service provided.     

Some relations between personality,speech characteristics and teaching effectiveness of college teachers

The Fishbein‐Ajzen behavioral‐intentions model separates attitudinal and normative influences on behavioral intent. However, some investigations employing this model have obtained strong correlations between the attitudinal and normative components of that model, whereas others have reported no such result. The issue of the relatedness of attitudinal and normative determinants of intent is important to theorists of social behavior and the many researchers who employ the Fishbein‐Ajzen model, as well as to scholars of persuasion. Relying on constructivist theory and research, this investigation hypothesized that an individual difference variable, construct differentiation, mediates the degree of association persons are likely to exhibit between attitudinal and normative beliefs. Investigating the domain of politics and voting behavior, this study found support for that general hypothesis: persons with relatively undifferentiated political construct systems exhibited substantial collinearity between attitudinal and normative components of the Fishbein‐Ajzen behavioral‐intentions model; persons with relatively developed political construct systems did not.     

Conferring Resistance to Digital Disinformation: The Inoculating Influence of Procedural News Knowledge

Despite the pervasiveness of digital disinformation in society, little is known about the individual characteristics that make some users more susceptible to erroneous information uptake than others, effectively dividing the media audience into prone and resistant groups. This study identifies and tests procedural news knowledge as a consequential civic resource with the capacity to inoculate audiences from disinformation and close this “resistance gap.” Engaging the persuasion knowledge model, the study utilizes data from two national surveys to demonstrate that possessing working knowledge of how the news media operate aids in the identification and effects of fabricated news and native advertising.     

The role of nonverbal behaviors as distractors in resistance to persuasion in interpersonal contexts

The role of two nonverbal variables, conversational distance and physical self‐presentation, are examined as potential sources of distraction with consequent effects on susceptibility to persuasion. A model of conversational distancing violations is adapted to a distraction perspective to predict how nonverbal variables specifically might function as distractors. Results of an experiment manipulating violations of distancing expectations and physical attractiveness of confederates (N = 350) indicate that both may be sources of distraction, and offer modest support for the prediction that attractive individuals engaging in violations of expectations will serve as positive sources of distraction, leading to greater susceptibility to persuasion. Failure to support the prediction that unattractive individuals engaging in violations of expectations foster more resistance to persuasion is partly explained by the lack of a sufficiently unattractive confederate.     

Understanding social influence: Relations between lay and technical perspectives

This essay urges an appropriately complicated view of the relationship of the actor's and the researcher's perspectives on persuasion and social influence. As a foil for this project, it initially sketches an interpretive‐phenomenological approach that takes the researcher's central project to be that of describing the actor's point of view. It then argues that because commonsensical conceptions of how persuasion works contain beliefs that are not well‐founded, reproducing the actor's perspective will yield an inevitably inadequate account of social influence. For quantitative studies of persuasion, this points to the importance of assessing actual (as opposed to perceived) message effects; for qualitative investigations, this emphasizes the dangers of unreflective reliance on interview data.     

Communicative Antecedents of Political Persuasion: Political Discussion,Citizen News Creation,and the Moderating Role of Strength of Partisanship

Although much attention has been paid to how media use and interpersonal discussion motivate people to engage in political persuasion, and despite recent efforts to study the role of digital media technologies, less is known about the creation of news and public affairs content online. This study sheds light on how online content creation works alongside other communicative behaviors, such as news use and political discussion, to affect attempted political persuasion. Using two-wave panel survey data, we find that political discussion and citizen news creation mediate the relationships between online and traditional news use, on one hand, and attempted persuasion, on the other. Furthermore, strength of partisanship moderates the relationship between content creation and attempted persuasion. Findings are discussed in light of their implications for the political communication and public sphere processes.     

Anger,fear, uncertainty,and attitudes: a test of the cognitive-functional model

The cognitive-functional model of discrete negative emotions and attitude change (CFM; Nabi, 1999) attempts to bridge the theoretical gap between “emotional” and “rational” approaches to persuasion by focusing on how emotions motivate attention to and processing of persuasive messages. As a first test of the CFM, this study explored the effects of 2 emotions, anger and fear, and 2 levels of expectation of message reassurance, certainty and uncertainty, on attitudes toward domestic terrorism legislation. Results supported a main effect for emotion type, suggesting that anger promotes deeper information processing than fear, and a main effect for reassurance certainty level, with uncertainty promoting deeper information processing. The expected interaction between emotion type and reassurance expectation level was not found. Implications of these findings for the model and persuasion research generally are discussed.     

Emotional Responses to Televised PSAs and Their Influence on Persuasion: An Investigation of the Moderating Role of Faith in Intuition

This research examines the influence of message recipients' emotional responses to televised PSAs on their attitudes toward the advocated issues. Integrating the affect-as-information paradigm and Epstein's cognitive-experiential self-theory, this research hypothesizes that message-induced emotions will have a greater influence on persuasion for individuals who have a strong faith in intuition than for those who have a weak faith in intuition. Overall, the main hypothesis was partially supported. There is some indication that faith in intuition moderates the influence of message-induced emotions on persuasion such that people with a stronger faith in intuition tend to rely more on experienced emotions when making judgments. The moderating effects of faith in intuition, however, appear to be confined to specific PSAs and discrete emotions.     

Online Environmental Engagement Among Youth: Influence of Parents,Attitudes and Demographics

Although young citizens may not always politically engage in the same fashion as their elders, research suggests they are using Facebook, Twitter, and other newer communication systems to mobilize politically both generally and around environmental issues. Given the declining environmental conditions facing young citizens, a national stratified quota sample of 1,096 U.S. parents and their children between the ages of 12 and 17 was conducted to investigate the factors potentially related to their efforts to persuade members of their online social networks to be more environmental. We believe that online peer persuasion is an important concept to investigate because peer persuasion can create subjective norms that ultimately may influence behavior. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that, although parents influence youth behavior (Adj. R ² = .11), the greatest variance in behavior was explained by the youth's own environmental self-efficacy, environmental news consumption, political interest, time spent online, gender, and environmental consumerism (ΔR ² = .29). Youth political interest and environmental consumerism were especially important variables in the final model. Structural equation modeling reinforced that parental influence is primarily indirect. This study appears to be among the first to link environmental consumerism with youth online peer persuasion.     

Persuasion,information technology,and the environmental citizen: An empirical study of the persuasion effectiveness of city applications

As the negative environmental impacts of cities continue to grow, citizens must be involved in climate change mitigation initiatives. A range of policy instruments can be used by municipal policy makers to encourage citizens to engage in environmentally responsible behaviours. Information and communications technology (ICT) is an important lever for changing individuals' behaviours and thus is increasingly found among the policy approaches adopted by cities. This research focuses on cities' use of ICT-enabled persuasion. Combining the unimodel of persuasion with the persuasive system design framework, the research develops and tests a theoretical model explaining how dimensions of the user context (green identity, goal intention) and technology context (integration support) influence the persuasiveness of city-sponsored applications with respect to environmentally responsible behaviours performed in the home and community. A survey of 203 individuals in North America shows that goal intention and integration support provided by the applications significantly influence perceived persuasion effectiveness for environmentally responsible behaviours at home. For environmentally responsible behaviours in the community, all three independent variables have a positive influence on the perceived persuasion effectiveness. The research extends the digital government literature by investigating an emerging policy intervention and providing a novel theoretical explanation of how elements within an ICT-enabled persuasion event come together to affect individuals' behaviours. Furthermore, the research provides municipal policy makers with new insights into how to design an ICT-enabled policy instrument for encouraging greater environmental citizenship.     

The Portrayal of Public Relations in the News Media

This study explored the meanings and connotations of public relations in news stories carried by major newspapers and network television. The findings suggest that the term public relations was primarily used to suggest image building, reputation management, and persuasion efforts. News story interpretations of public relations terms were likely to refer to publicity, image, campaigns of persuasion, and marketing efforts to promote an organization's claims. The results reveal that negative connotations of public relations prevail in journalists' stories discussing the practice of public relations. The results imply that public relations practitioners trying to pitch their clients' stories need to understand how journalists will likely perceive the stories' news value. Two-way communication should begin with media relations via an understanding of journalists' viewpoints.     

Interplay of content type and product type in the consumer response to native advertising on social media

With the growth of consumer skepticism toward advertising, marketers have begun implementing native advertising. Drawing on the Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM), this study examines how content type interacts with product type to influence consumer responses toward native advertising (persuasion knowledge, brand attitude, and intention to click ‘like’) on Facebook. A 2(content type: informative versus entertaining)×2(product type: utilitarian versus hedonic) between-subjects experimental study was conducted with a total of 155 college-attending Facebook users in South Korea. The results show that, for utilitarian products, informative content elicits more favorable consumer responses than entertaining content does. However, consumer responses are similar between informative and entertaining content for hedonic products. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that consumer persuasion knowledge mediates the interaction effects of content type and product type on consumer responses. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.     

REVELATION,INTRUSION, AND QUESTIONS OF TASTE

Obituary columns pick over the expired human condition and deliver their posthumous review with a formidable exercise of authority. They inform, they enlighten, they entertain; they also have the capacity to offend and wound. The obituarist's appraisal will be scrutinised by relatives, lovers, antagonists, and acquaintances who remember the characters on the page with a familiarity not necessarily available to the readership at large. At the same time, though, there is a duty to present a complete account so that the cause of historical record is satisfied. In composing these posthumous studies, therefore, writers and editors frequently encounter an ethical dilemma in deciding what measure of intimate information should be revealed. The cause of death (particularly if self-inflicted) and the subject's sexual persuasion appear in this regard as questions of notable complexity. Then there is the matter of qualification for the page itself. Formerly concerned largely with society's more prominent citizens, whose life histories could safely be compiled from biographies and the files, obituary practice has been extended in recent times to offer an egalitarian coverage—notably in the aftermath of terrorism. Obituary desks have had to intrude on grief and seek information from the newly (and violently) bereaved. This article considers prevailing demands in obituary practice which require the exercise of delicate editorial judgment.     

Threat appeals and persuasion: Seeking and finding the elusive curvilinear effect

One of the earliest theories of threat appeals, the drive model, predicts that the fear–persuasion relationship is characterized by an inverted U-curve. Evidence of such a curve has proven elusive, probably because, in reality, there are two curvilinear hypotheses, not one. Existing primary studies and meta-analyses have tested the between-persons version of the inverted U-curve and found it wanting. In contrast, this study reports on a within-persons version and finds clear support for it. A peaked curve predicted change in intention to use dental floss, whereas a flatter curve did not. Partitioning the sample on individual differences in the behavioral inhibition system produced curves that did not differ in their ability to predict persuasion. Because no contemporary theory of threat appeals can predict these curvilinear findings, researchers should reconsider the utility of drive theory.     

Reducing Native Advertising Deception: Revisiting the Antecedents and Consequences of Persuasion Knowledge in Digital News Contexts

Building on the persuasion knowledge model, this study examines how audience characteristics and native advertising recognition influence the covert persuasion process. Among a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults (N = 738), we examined digital news readers’ recognition of a sponsored news article as advertising. Although fewer than 1 in 10 readers recognized the article as advertising, recognition was most likely among younger, more educated consumers who engaged with news media for informational purposes. Recognition led to greater counterarguing, and higher levels of informational motivation also led to less favorable evaluations of the content among recognizers. News consumers were most receptive to native advertising in a digital news context when publishers were more transparent about its commercial nature. Beyond theoretical insights into the covert persuasion process, this study offers practical utility to the advertisers, publishers, and policymakers who wish to better understand who is more likely to be confused by this type of advertising so that they can take steps to minimize deception.     

Political cartoons as rhetorical form: A taxonomy of graphic discourse

This essay is a taxonomic study of the available means of graphic persuasion as manifested in the art of political cartooning. The authors argue that the neo‐classical canons of rhetoric, slightly modified, provide an adequate superstructure for the production and criticism of graphic discourse. It is further argued that the specific techniques which grow out of the application of the canons reveal significant differences between the means of persuasion available to the graphic artist and those available to the oral persuader. These differences of technique arise from the nature of the medium and force a reconceptualization of the canons of memory and delivery as applied to non‐oratorical forms in general and graphic persuasion in particular.     

The responses of theatre audiences,experimental studies,experimental studies

After setting in proper perspective the nature and extent of the influence of the Reverend Solomon Stoddard, the author attempts to show that in major degree Stoddard's influence depended upon his theories and practice of persuasion. To accomplish his persuasive goal of promoting increased religious devotion—under control of the Church, Stoddard applied an integrated pattern of persuasion: he evoked the aid of civil authorities, urged New Englanders to reform, swept the people into the churches by changes in admission policies, exerted greater control over individuals and churches by means of reforms of liturgy and church organization, and—most important to students of speech—practiced and taught to other ministers his techniques for inducing conversion.     

A Multilevel Analysis of Antimarijuana Public Service Announcement Effectiveness

In public-health campaign research, 3 prominent theories of persuasion and media effects—elaboration likelihood model (ELM), activation model of information exposure (AMIE), and limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP)—have been used to predict message effectiveness. Although conceptually overlapping, these theories suggest contradictory predictions about individual-level and message-level factors on persuasion outcomes. In this study, we contrast and test competing predictions of antidrug message effectiveness from 3 recent publications that draw on ELM, AMIE, and LC4MP. We use televised antimarijuana messages, young-adult samples, and a multilevel modeling approach. Significant interactions between individual- and message-level factors were found predicting message effectiveness as theory dictates; these results replicate some, but not all of the findings from the aforementioned publications.     

News and notes from the state association

This study found that the auditors with initially extreme attitudes were affected differently by a speaker's evidence than were those with initially neutral attitudes and suggests that the role which evidence plays in persuasion may be related to the particular “game” a communicator plays with his audience.