The ELM (Elaboration Likelihood Model) suggests two ways in which people are persuaded by media information, the central and peripheral routes. It is imperative to note that each of the routes to persuasion has its foundations on the manner in which individuals involve themselves with the message of the communication. In specificity, where the consumers of the messages involve in a critical analysis of the information, the arguments being conveyed by the advertisement, they are likely to be persuaded using the central route. Conversely, when people only rely on the superficial elements of the communication, they are likely to be convinced through the peripheral model. The ELM model has been extensively applied, especially in measuring the types of media advertisements that involve adults. However, it does not mean that the model has not been tested with communications that involve children. This essay reviews which between the two routes to persuasion is more relevant when analyzing media containing children. The paper first reviews literature on each of the two routes to persuasion before arguing that the peripheral route is the most applicable for the case in the study objective.
According to the Elaboration Likelihood Model, the central route of persuasion incorporates some effortful cognitive activity in which the individual has experience and knowledge beforehand. Therefore, the person can evaluate and scrutinize the information in light of preexisting knowledge (Petty and Cacioppo, 2002). The central route of processing information is also referred to as the elaborated route. Messages that are centrally routed comprise of rational arguments, a wealth of information as well as evidence to support a particular conclusion. In the US for instance, politicians during the election season attempt to persuade voters to vote for them. Therefore, they give out speeches, engage in debates as well as roundtable discussions. Every message that the politicians issue out is laden with elaborated and information that is rational concerning the candidate’s platform, political history as well as viewpoints.
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For instance, while watching television, an individual who plays soccer may come across a commercial for a pair of soccer boots that claim to give extra agility when playing football. The advert could also try to support the claim by availing laboratory results from various independent investigations that are in tandem with the view. The individual will be convinced that having the shoes will genuinely improve performance on the pitch. The central route of persuasion, in this case, occurred when the individual who plays soccer is persuaded to purchase the pair of soccer boots based on the arguments or the content of the message. In this example, the individual that is convinced knows the field that is being discussed.
Looking at the case of the US politics, for example, a Democrat politician could be invited on television for a discussion. Two viewers could be sitting somewhere in a room watching the debate. One of the viewers could be a Democrat while the other one is a Republican. The Democrat viewer will most likely be persuaded through a central route process because he or she already has prior knowledge of the party and its ideals. Therefore there is a high likelihood that the viewer who is a Democrat will pay more attention to the content of the message. The other viewer will most likely be impressed by other cues of the politician. The Republican viewer in the first place does not share in the ideals of the Democrats and will less probably pay attention to the content of the message. Maybe other cues of the Democrat politician might impress him or her. Therefore, for a central route of processing information to take place, the person being targeted must have prior knowledge of the argument or the issue at stake and just as well pay attention to the content of the message (Moyer‐Gusé and Nabi,2010).
Scholars posit that messages that are centrally routed have the highest probability of creating changes that are long term for the recipient compared to peripheral signals.
The ELM suggests that words that are centrally routed only succeed in long-term when two conditions are achieved. In the first factor, the audience that is targeted ought to be highly motivated to process the information being provided. The second element requires that the target audience ought to have the capacity to interpret the message cognitively. Petty and Cacioppo propose that to achieve the central route of processing information, the individuals providing the information ought to create persuasive arguments (Petty and Cacioppo, 2002). The two authors allude those strong arguments result in long-term change and leads to predictable behavior
On the contrary, the peripheral route to processing takes place at a significant superficial level. In this route the audience pays less attention to the content of the message itself, and instead focuses on other secondary factors, which include visual appeal, source credibility, presentation, and source enticements such as sex, food, age, religion, physical appearance and humor among others (Petty and Cacioppo, 2002). This is route attitude that some viewers develop towards media that includes children. The attitudes that are reinforced in manner are regarded as to be less enduring, in need of continual reinforcement and are subject to change during the process of counter-arguments.
It is also imperative noting that the peripheral route to persuasion takes place when a viewer decides to agree with message contained in the information that has be delivered by a child based on other factors apart from the strength or the weight of the argument or ideas in the message. Receivers who are engaged in peripheral processing are usually passive in relation to those doing central processing. For instance, a listener may choose to agree with a message just because the source is a child who looks innocent or honest (Petty and Cacioppo, 2002). This route occurs when the viewer is unwilling or unable to engage in comprehensive thought on the message .The peripheral route can also occur when a listener is persuaded by noticing that the message by the child has many arguments, but does not have the motivation or ability to critically think about them individually (Petty and Cacioppo, 2002). The viewer does not want or cannot think carefully about the ideas and the content in this persuasive message, but treats it as affair gamble and goes ahead to agree with the message since the source has appeared to be knowledgeable or when there are many arguments that have been presented by the child in support of the message.
In its relation to children, it is notable that such children in the media present innocent image as compared to mature people. Viewers can easily be moved by the apparent sense of honesty that might be portrayed by children. Persuasion goes hand-in- hand with design and messaging. However, there are also other ways to do it wrong, thus distractions. Such peripheral cues and attitudes are distractions that can undermine the viewer’s persuasive technique just as fast as they were developed (Petty and Cacioppo, 2002). For instance, if the potential user encounters long loading time, nine pop-ups, or three pages of disclaimers to obtain the meat of the advertisers’ message, then the target audience is unlikely going to choose to taste it. Distractions, whether visual, physical, intangible may temporarily impair the whole elaborate process.
Considering the elements of each of the routes to persuasion in the preceding paragraphs,it is plausible noting that the peripheral route is the most suitable for the case of media containing children. The reasons given for the justification of this argument lie in four factors considered in each of the models, elaboration, information processing, attitude, and strength of the attitude that the children are able to evoke into the audience. Specifically, it should be understood that most of the media containing children do not last long, or if they do, they do not convey critical research information (Yocco, 2014). This idea means that such communications do not have as much information for the target audiences to process as does those from the older individuals and when they do, they are always superficial (Yocco, 2014). For such reasons, people only get attracted to the advertisements since they have an emotional appeal, causing them to admire the children in the media or their parents, their environments, and other elements that do not necessarily rely on the type of information being conveyed.
The second, arguably the most critical factor distinguishing the two routes to persuasion is the processing of information. According to McAlister et al. (2016), adults do not concentrate on the type of information that children pass to them in advertisement media. The reason given for this argument is twofold. First, most of such advertisements do not contain too much information to be understood by the target audiences. In another study, (Hafer, Reynolds, and Obertynski, 2006) connects the depth of information given in any media with the commitment that people have towards understanding what such information means to them. Even while this idea could be contrary to the other, which suggests that most people are persuaded unconsciously such as Andrews and Shimp(2010), and Crano and Prislin (2011), it serves to explain the relationship between the peripheral route to persuasion and the processing of information in media containing children. The lack of in-depth information in the communications featuring children, therefore, does not give enough motivation to audiences to process such information.
The peripheral route to persuasion holds that the attitude that people develop towards speakers in an advert does not rely on the messages that they pass, but rather, on other factors apart from the content of the information. The fact that literature already reports that most of the communications in advertisements containing children do not have deep information implies that people have other factors that attract them to the advertisements. In fact, it is notable that most of the advertisements that involve the children target a very narrow market compared to those featuring the older individuals (Hafer, Reynolds, and Obertynski, 2006). For example, an advertisement involving a baby diaper is only appealing to nursing or expectant women. The use of children in such communications, therefore, is meant to evoke an emotional connection between the children and their target audiences, which diverts the attention from the message to other factors such as the environments in which the children stay.
The emotions that children evoke in the consumers of their advertisement messages determine the attitudes that such audiences develop towards them. However, it should be understood that such attitudes are more likely to be changed, especially when the same audiences get exposed to other information containing contrary information. Specifically, people tend to be swayed more by information given by experts than they do concerning information from ordinary people. Why the attitudes that people develop towards the children in advertising media is because they believe that children do not have an ability to give expert information (Hafer, Reynolds, and Obertynski, 2006; Cornwell, McAlister, and Polmear-Swendris, 2014). For this reason, the people will more likely be swayed by information that might appear to be opposing what they have learned from an earlier exposure to media containing children.
In conclusion, the peripheral route to persuasion is more resourceful in explaining how people get persuaded by advertisements and other media containing children. This review of literature has found that most consumers consider that children do not have an ability to give detailed information, which is why people do not concentrate on the depth of the messages in their advertisements. More importantly, the essay has found that people tend to be persuaded by such media because of the emotional appeal that children create on their target audiences. It could be for such a reason that most of the advertisements featuring children have been used to target narrower audiences than have done those that involve the older people. Additionally, the inability of children to give expert opinions means that most of their audiences have been swayed easily by an exposure to additional information, especially from experts in the fields related to the communication featuring children. While the central route to persuasion would stress otherwise, the peripheral media stresses that the message of the communication is not the most predetermine factor to persuasion, which is why the latter model explains better the manner in which people analyze media containing children.
References
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Crano, W. D., & Prislin, R. (Eds.). (2011). Attitudes and attitude change . Psychology Press.
Hafer, C. L., Reynolds, K. L., & Obertynski, M. A. (2006). Message comprehensibility and persuasion: Effects of complex language in counter attitudinal appeals to laypeople. Social Cognition , 14 (4), 317-337.
McAlister, A. R., McAlister, A. R., Bargh, D., & Bargh, D. (2016). Dissuasion: the Elaboration Likelihood Model and young children. Young Consumers , 17 (3), 210-225.
Moyer‐Gusé, E., & Nabi, R. L. (2010). Explaining the effects of narrative in an entertainment television program: Overcoming resistance to persuasion. Human Communication Research , 36 (1), 26-52.
Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2002). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in experimental social psychology , 19 , 123-205.
Yocco, V. (2014). Persuasion: Applying the elaboration likelihood model to design. Graphic Design, Web Strategy, User Research , 1 .
