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People in everyday life are incessantly exposed to a number of messages from various sources and media.
Mass media influence our attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, and behaviors in various ways. Communication
researches has found and theorized this phenomena using philosophical, psychological, and sociological
frameworks. However, there is not yet consensus of opinion about the nature and the size of communication
effects (McQuail, 1994). In spite of this, the communication effect is an attractive issue for social scientists
because communication between people, nations, and any kinds of groups is an inevitable process in social context
and mass media are always around us.
The purpose of this paper is:
- to review several approaches to defining and classifying
communication effects
- to review Hovland's persuasion studies that served as a foundation
for vigorous later studies on communication effects
- to outline major theories in
terms of Leckenby's "strong effects" approach (1999)
- to discuss application of effects
theory in advertising and its implication.
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