Message effects fall into at least three categories: behavioral (actions caused by a message), cognitive (thoughts caused by a message), and emotional (feelings caused by a message). By message, we mean any kind of symbol perceived by an individual to have some sort of meaning, be it through the printed, spoken, or felt word via
Deceit is part and parcel of daily life. It not only frequents news headlines in conjunction with political chicanery, corporate scandals, campus cheating, telemarketing scams, identity theft, online predators, and terrorist plots but also permeates the fabric of everyday conversation. People who complete diaries of their communication report 20 to 33 percent of their interactions
The object of research on message production is to answer the question, “Why do people say what they do?” The academic sources on this topic come from across the academy, notably cognitive science, discourse studies, and artificial intelligence, and from several specializations in communication, especially persuasion, interpersonal communication, and argumentation. Unconnected research was done by
Message editing is the process whereby speakers review and sometimes revise a message plan prior to speaking. At lower levels of linguistic output, a not-yet-spoken clause might be checked for consistency with phonemic, syntactic, and/or lexical rules. At more abstract planning levels, the acceptability of a message plan could be assessed by comparing it against
The major premise of message design logics is that individuals have different ways of reasoning (“design logics”) about communication. These individual differences affect how messages are structured to achieve goals. As such, message design logic provides a “rational goal analysis” of a speaker’s understanding of means–end relations in communication, which results in a range of
Memory is critical to communication. The near-instantaneous understanding of a familiar word in a conversation, recognizing an advertising image, mentally disagreeing with a politician’s speech, feeling sympathy for a soap opera character, understanding why today’s events in an ongoing news story are important, and countless other responses to communication are all connected in some way
Aging affects many aspects of message production and processing. The nature of conversation changes: unlike young adults, dyads of older adults mix talk about the past with talk about the present which may help them achieve a shared sense of meaning and personal worth. Conversations with older adults are often marked by “painful self-disclosures” of
Message discrimination is a self-report measure of media exposure. In survey interviews, respondents are asked to recall information about a particular topic that they have encountered in various media in the recent past. For example, respondents might be asked, “What have you seen or heard on television about family planning in the last month?” Open