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Unit 10: Information vs. Persuasion Factors in persuasion Different types of advertising may have different proportions of informative and persuasive content. Hermerén (1999, 37) observes that even informative content may be persuasive, for example if it indicates superior performance of some product. In order for a communication to be persuasive, the reader must accept some or all of its emotional content, and to do that, the reader must have a reason for doing so. Hermerén (1999, 34-39) distinguishes among the following kinds of power through which an advertisement may have a persuasive influence: •reward power: the product promises some positive benefit. •coercive power: the product is presented upon pain of threat or punishment. •referent power: the message associated with the product fits into the reader's value system. •expert power: the product is presented by an expert. To these, we can add:                                                                                                                           •star power: the product is associated with a celebrity figure. The color choices advertisers make are more than aesthetic decisions; colors have been known to affect (and reflect) a person's mood or emotions, current style trends and cultural beliefs and symbols. According to paint company Glidden, colors represent personalities. Here's what they have to say about the following colors: Pink, emotional in character, connotes a sensitive heart. Universally representing caring and sharing, pink indicates a strong personality. Pink is preferred by the affectionate and concerned individual. Gently, you offer love, attention and nurturing to those in distress and needing guidance. Red, the single most dynamic and passionate color, symbolizes love, rage and courage. Demanding attention, red has great emotional impact. Those who select red are aggressive, impulsive and strive for success. The desire to experience the fullness of living leads to constant activity. Orange is the color of autumn, spice, form and design. In bright tones, orange is jovial, cheerful and playful. Deepened, it becomes exotic and exciting. If orange is your choice, you have abundant energy with an eye for structure and organization. Your social nature finds you surrounded by family and friends. Brown, sensuous in nature, represents an importance of hearth and home. It symbolizes physical comfort, ease and contentment. Should you seek brown, you are conscientious, steady and dependable. Your inner security, honesty and high virtue show that you take life seriously. Yellow is truly joyous and virtuous in its purest form. Yellow exudes warmth, inspiration and vitality, and is the happiest of all colors. Yellow signifies communication, enlightenment, sunlight and spirituality. If your favorite color is yellow, this indicates that you look forward to the future, and that you are intellectual, highly imaginative and idealistic. You tend to have a cheerful spirit and have an expectation of greater happiness. Green is the color of life, and represents freshness, security, and tranquility. Green creates an atmosphere that is calm and restful, and characterizes the intense power of nature. If you selected green, you seek stability, balance and persistence. You are a moral and affectionate individual. Cool and constant, teal indicates stability and resistance to change. If teal is your favorite color, you are a sensitive individual, and have excellent taste. Optimistic and trusting, you have a high degree of faith and hope, easily trusting others. The color of tranquility, blue is cool, soothing and orderly. The color of royalty, blue brings comfort and serenity to our lives. If you choose blue, you have a basic need for a calm, harmonious, and tension-free existence. Capable, conservative and sensitive to others, you make a loyal and trustworthy friend. Violet, the color of luxury, indicates sensuality, passion, and depth of feeling. This lavish color creates an unusual atmosphere and provides and unexpected essence. If you like violet, you tend to be unique, highly sensitive and observant. Creative and artistically talented, you tend to have a complex personality. The cold influence of grey keeps it foreign, remote and distant. Grey is preferred by those individuals who put their noses to the grindstone. If grey is your favorite color, you tend to be a careful, articulate individual who is focused and dedicated to your commitments. White suggests goodness, purity and innocence. Its elusive nature provides serenity and the essence of perfection. The individual who chooses white as a favorite color seeks excellence and enlightenment in all philosophies. Simplicity, purity and recognition are a constant endeavor.

"The people we see in images are for the most part strangers ... The relation between the human participants represented in images and the viewer is once again an imaginary relation." (Kress and van Leeuwen, p. 131-2) The distance between a photograph's subject and the camera, also called the size of frame, suggests different levels of intimacy between the viewer and the viewed. Photographers use the following conventions to define a picture's size of frame: A(n)... Extreme close-up	shows... anything less than head and shoulders, or an isolated body part Close-up	 	head and shoulders Medium close shot	 	human figure from waist up 	Medium shot	 	human figure from knees up 	Medium long shot	 	full figure Long shot	 	full human figure occupying about half the height of the frame Very long shot	 	full human figure occupying less than half the height of the frame

Kress and van Leeuwen suggest that the different sizes in frame correspond to the varying levels of social distance we keep with each other in everyday interactions (see Edward Hall's definitions of personal and social distance in Kress and van Leeuwen, p. 130). The physical distance between people defines how much of one participant the other participant can see; the closer you are to a person, the less you can see of their full body. Because social relations influence the distance in which people interact, the size of frame corresponds to a level of social intimacy. Just as a small distance between two people suggests a level of intimacy and a distance of an arm's length suggests a level of formality, a close-up suggests personal interaction while a medium or long shot suggests observation or a distant relationship between viewer and viewed. People Gaze: demand and offer People in photographs can generally be divided into two categories: those who look at the camera and those who do not. Advertisers use the gaze of the people they picture to convey particular attitudes---pleasure at use of a product or displeasure at the absence of a product, for example. Kress and van Leeuwen characterize the gaze of a person as either a "demand" of or an "offer" to the viewer. Demand "Demand" pictures are those in which its participants are looking directly at the camera (and therefore, the reader). Kress and van Leeuwen assert that vectors, following the gaze of the photographed participant, connect participant with viewer. "Contact is established, even if it is only on an imaginary level." (p. 122) Using a "demand" picture acknowledges the viewer, "addressing them with a visual 'you.'" In addressing the reader directly, the participant's gaze demands an imaginary relation with the viewer. In advertisements, the visual "demand" is usually one of participation or acknowlegement, where the picture seems to say, "I demand you to enjoy this product and its benefits." The woman in 25 Michelob says, "I demand you send me a beer---but only a Michelob." Offer On the other hand, pictures in which participants have a indirect gaze address the reader indirectly. "Here the viewer is not object, but subject of the look, and the represented participant is the object of the viewer's dispassionate scrutiny" (p. 124). The photographed participants are "offered" to the readers "as though they were specimens in a display case," and the relationship between participant and reader is one of unfamiliarity rather than the intimacy of a "demand" photograph. In contrast to the visual "you" presented in "demand" pictures, "offer" pictures lack the corresponding visual "I." Instead, just as the participant becomes the object of the picture, "I" is objectified into a visual "he" or "she."

In "offer" advertisements, the picture visually speaks to the reader through the author of the picture rather than the picture's participants. The author of 28.2 Rave says, "I offer you proof that Rave hair gel really does work."

Relevance is a key concept in understanding advertisements, because it is a primary component of all aspects of human communication.

Anchorage is text (such as a caption) that provides the link between the image and its context; the text that provides relevance to the reader. The text of an advertisement is primarily the extra information that guides the reader to a particular interpretation of the whole, and thereby a particular interpretation of the image.

The advertisement has an Image component, which is typically a scene which provides the background for the entire advertisement.