Persuasion: Theory and Context

Abstract

Reardon views persuasion as not only the means for selling goods or political parties -- something that one person or group does to another. She also sees it as an exchange, a way of defining our self identity, our personal opinions and our shared ideals. She applies a fresh sensitivity towards the situational complexity of persuasion in her study of interpersonal, organizational, and mass media persuasion. '...choose this volume for a class or seminar on communication theory because it is a thoughtful and useful explication and polemic for a rules perspective on communication, with particular reference to persuasion...whether you choose it for one class or another or none at all, do not miss choosing to read it.' -- Quarterly Journal of Speech, May 1982 '...Reardon's Persuasion is an outstanding, perhaps landmark contribution to the contemporary persuasion literature. Her rules-based theoretical model is a coherent, systematic, and thoroughly exciting new direction in persuasion theory and research. I expect Reardon's ideas to have a significant impact on the thinking of all serious scholars of persuasion in the 1980s and beyond.' -- The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol 47, 1983