Running Head: PERSUASION IN THE MEDIA 1

Persuasion in the Media:

Effects on Young Adults

Carlyn Reber

University of Indianapolis

Due: 7.8.16

Author’s Note: This paper was prepared for PSY 370-ONL for Professor Gray

PERSUASION IN THE MEDIA 2

Media and Young Adults:

Effects of Persuasion

The Media; an elusive entity defined by Merriam Webster as “the system and

organizations of communication through which information is spread to a large number of

people” (2016). Media is everywhere. Most consumers think of television, magazines and social

media, but humans themselves can become media by wearing a specific brand on their clothes,

or promoting a product to friends. Adolescents and young adults, especially, are a very

impressionable bunch, and the media masterminds know this, so they gear messages and images

towards them, the future consumers of America. According to the Pew Research Center, only 9%

of teens are “very concerned that some of the information they share on social networking sites

might be accessed by third parties like advertisers or businesses without their knowledge”

(Madden, Lenhart, Cortesi, Gasser, Duggan, Smith, & Beaton, 2013).

Media influences consumers in numerous indefinable ways. In most cases, you cannot

prove that a specific commercial or ad persuaded a consumer to buy a specific product. Almost

all studies conducted surrounding “The Media” are either self-report or correlational. Studies

such as these do not seek to prove a point, but seek to understand relationships between media

consumption and persuasion and buying patterns of consumers. Teens are easy targets for

persuasion and targeted advertisements since they share such a wide range of information about

themselves on social media sites (Madden et.al, 2013).

Persuasion is simply “an attempt to change a person’s attitude” towards something or

someone. The two main routes of persuasion used are the central route and the peripheral route.

The central route involves thoughtful consideration of the content of the message, it is more of

an argument, as opposed to the peripheral route which involves the influence of a simple cue,

PERSUASION IN THE MEDIA 3

such as how attractive or pleasing to the eye a source is (Yalch & Elmore-Yalch, 1984). Both of

these tactics are used in all mainstream media today in order to influence consumers, namely

teens, to buy exactly what they are selling.

What sites and devices are young adults using?

Internet usage for teens and adolescents (young adults) is hard to stay on top of because

everything in their lives seems to be so transient. Friends, significant others, favorite foods,

fashion trends, they all seem to come and go so quickly. In 2010 the Pew Research Center

decided to conduct an inclusive study to determine who is using what media1. They found that

blogging has greatly decreased for young adults and grown in popularity for adults. Teens and

adolescents are much more interested in “micro-blogging.” Micro-blogging is also used

concurrently with “updating one’s status,” much as one does on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

Immediate satisfaction is now preferential.

1 Granted this study is slightly out of date, but I believe this proves a point that if the numbers were this high 6 years ago, imagine how high they are now.

1 2

3

PERSUASION IN THE MEDIA 4

As you can see in graph 1 above, starting at the young age of 12, these kids already have

access to all of the information the world has to offer, good or bad. There is also a strong

correlation between the percentage of teens with a cell phone and the percentages of teens on a

social networking site (graphs 1 & 2), (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith & Zickuhr, 2010). There is

definite evidence that teens are constantly online, making them impressionable and susceptible to

online advertising ploys.

There is a widespread fear that the innocence of children is being lost because of this.

“30% of online teens say they have received online advertising that is “clearly inappropriate” for

their age” (Madden et.al, 2013). 12-year-olds are still children, but with the amount of access

they have to any and all information, they are aware of, and even participating in, activities that

they are not mentally or emotionally prepared for. Over half of the 12-year-olds in today’s

society are seeing the skewed forms of love portrayed on social media and in music and

television meant for a much older and emotionally mature audience in our overly sexualized

society. They take it at face value because they do not have enough emotional maturity to or a

developed enough pre-frontal cortex to fully comprehend these situations and the ramifications

for similar actions.

“A main problem researchers encounter when studying young consumers’ new media

practices is that these technologies are so woven into the fabric of young consumers’ daily lives

that they forget that they are actually using it, (Pascoe, 2012).” As opposed to the Pew study in

PERSUASION IN THE MEDIA 5

2010 (graph 3) where they attempted to gain a picture of how often teens use the internet, with

severely underreported data, a study conducted in 2012 found it too difficult to simply quantify

numerically the amount and type of usage of media by young adults. “Mobile phones… are such

a part of young people’s everyday lives that it is often difficult for a respondent to elaborate on

its use. [Instead, it is better for participants to] provide insight into their communication practices

(Pascoe, 2012).

Teens are almost always on their phone, but also concurrently doing other things. If a

teen has a text conversation with a friend going for 2 hours, are they on their phone the full 2

hours? No. But they are also using it so frequently for such short bursts of time that any true

number seems like an exaggeration and an underestimation all at once. This strong integration

into everyday life has made studies of use near impossible to conduct, but it opens up countless

possibilities for the persuasion of media.

Mere Exposure Effect

With the immeasurable amount of attention young adults give these devices and sites

daily, it would make sense for advertisers to use these sites to gain more revenue from this

impressionable demographic. The mere exposure effect comes into play in these instances and

demonstrates the peripheral route of persuasion. For this method to work an ad does not have to

be particularly impressive or thought provoking, it must merely be present, seen, and exposed to

frequently to affect how one feels about it. This method allows an idea or image to become

subconsciously ingrained in the minds of viewers to the point that once they choose that product

over another at the store or in a conversation, not knowing why, but just seeming as if the right

choice is obvious (Goodrich, 2013).

Direct Advertising

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Another form of advertising is intentional directive advertising, in which a company puts

detailed ads on the market to convey a certain message to a specific public. With this they are

focusing more on the central route of persuasion. To effectively do this, companies study teens

and what they find most attractive about the things that they buy, and why they bought what they

did. This helps advertisers determine what to emphasize and what to downplay in their

subsequent advertisements. In a study conducted in 2009 teens were asked to rate the importance

of specific visual aspects of advertisements and their buying trends and preferences on a Likert

non-forced-choice scale ranging from 1 to 7. The findings were as follows: Items to Measure

Role-Relaxed Consumer Scale Including Sample Means:

How attractive a product is, is as important as how well it workso 6.15

It is important that others think well of how I dress and looko 3.66

When I am uncertain how to act in a social situation, I try to do what others are doingo 3.19

My friends and I tend to buy the same brandso 1.93

If I were to buy something expensive, I would worry about what others would think of meo 2.52

I buy brands that will make me look good in front of my friendso 2.19

From this data we can clearly see that it is most important to teens that the product works

and that it is attractive or pleasing to the eye. Interestingly, teens rated how others viewed them

as significantly less important than how the product itself is interpreted by the general public.

This study, shows that when it comes to consumer products, teens don’t look as much at

conformity, and more how they, as an individual, will be viewed with it (Ebren, 2009). This

suggests that directive advertising has less to do with consumerism and more to do with the

product itself. With this knowledge it may be assumed that getting an effective, attractive

PERSUASION IN THE MEDIA 7

product onto the market, and using “real” consumers’ testimonies is a better means of exposure

than a direct advertisement using paid actors on television commercial or in print.

Advertising on Social Media

App developers and big name companies have been using this tactic very fervently in the

past three years on apps such as Facebook, vine, twitter and snapchat. Users considered “vine

famous” have begun promoting their favorite apps and products on the Internet. Once companies

discovered the effectiveness of this strategy, they began to hire these internet celebrities as

friendly face endorsers. An article posted on fastcompany.com stated that “five tweets a second

contain a Vine link, and studies are showing that a branded Vine is four times more likely to be

seen than a branded [YouTube] video; any brand not onboard with Vine risks losing out on

some serious social media exposure,” (Walter 2013). To

the left are two big names in the Vine world, Nicholas

Megalis, who is well-known for his viral vine, “Gummy

Money” in 2013, and was able to use the fame earned

from vine to published a book. Rudy Mancuso who is

famed for his comedic racial stereotype vines and musical

collaborations (Walter, 2013). In this screenshot, the two

teamed up with Trident Layers Gum for a 2013 campaign

with the hashtag #paymeinlayers, which they claimed to be their most lucrative advertising plan

to date. Nicholas and Rudy were once regular guys who simply downloaded an app, and thanks

to their ingenuity and humor, have now become “internet famous” and have the ability to

influence young people all around the world.

PERSUASION IN THE MEDIA 8

Final Thoughts

It is not a leap to say social media sites are currently the most influential and persuasive

forms of media today. Children and young adults find idyllic traits in the people they follow and

will take anything they say to heart as a factual statement. This is becoming increasingly

dangerous with the vast exposure these types of sites create. If the wrong people are being

idolized, and the wrong products are being presented to today’s teens, then new actions and

ideologies will begin to form and a whole new set of social problems will arise. There is no

doubt social media is an important aspect in society, but today’s youth is putting too much

emphasis on short bursts of satisfaction and too little on true knowledge and integration into the

world system.

Common intelligence is slowly depleting. Math scores have dropped so drastically, the

University of Indianapolis is now requiring ALL incoming students (freshman or transfer) to

participate in math placement coursework and a placement test before beginning their studies2.

The persuasive effect on the younger generations could be detrimental if the big players in social

media do not change the way they portray issues and attitudes towards the world’s problems.

Common core intelligence (including grammar, spelling, and all round etiquette) have the

potential to be lost. Idols need to be more than just entertaining, they need to be heroes, mentors

and examples of how to live and conduct oneself in an intelligent advanced society such as our

own. Media should be a tool used to spread knowledge and grow as a society.

2 I worked for the Admission’s office last year at the University of Indianapolis, and have learned this through my work there and consider it now common knowledge for myself.

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References

Definition of Media. (2016). Merriam-webster.com. Retrieved July 2016, from

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/media

Ebren, F. (2009). Consumer Behavior from a Social Communication Perspective: A Research on

Young Adults. IUP Journal Of Marketing Management, 8(3/4), 42-55.

Goodrich, K. (2013). Effects of age and time of day on Internet advertising outcomes. Journal Of

Marketing Communications, 19(4), 229-244. doi:10.1080/13527266.2011.620618

Lenhart, A., Purcell, K., Smith, A., Zickuhr, K., & Pew Internet & American Life, P. (2010).

Social Media & Mobile Internet Use among Teens and Young Adults. Millennials. Pew

Internet & American Life Project.

Madden, M., Lenhart, A., Cortesi, S., Gasser, U., Duggan, M., Smith, A., & Beaton, M. (2013).

Teens, Social Media, and Privacy. Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech.

Retrieved July 2016, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/teens-social-media-

and-privacy/

Pascoe, C. J. (2012). Studying Young People's New Media Use: Methodological Shifts and

Educational Innovations. Theory Into Practice, 51(2), 76-82.

Walter, E. (2013). 6 Of The Best, Boldest Uses Of Vine In Marketing. Fast Company. Retrieved

July, 2016 from http://www.fastcompany.com/3019652/dialed/6-of-the-most-creative

Yalch, R. F., & Elmore-Yalch, R. (1984). The Effect of Numbers on the Route to Persuasion.

Journal Of Consumer Research, 11(1), 522-527.clever-uses-of-vine-in-marketing