Pursuasion is like design: When it’s well employed you don’t notice it’s there
Did you ever find yourself reading and nodding your head up and down because you agreed to the writer’s viewpoint? Writers are very clever with the words that they use in order to persuade us of their argument.
The art of persuasion (rhetoric) is essentially the art of one party convincing another party to adopt the first party’s version of truth. Aristotle’s Rhetoric has had an enormous influence on the development of the art of rhetoric:
“The persuasion is accomplished by character whenever the speech is held in such a way as to render the speaker worthy of credence. If the speaker appears to be credible, the audience will form the second-order judgment that propositions put forward by the credible speaker are true or acceptable.” — The Three Means of Persuasion, Aristotle’s Rhetoric
Dating from the 4th century BCE, this phrase explains that by providing evidence and reasoning with the objective to appear credible, you are likely to gain the trust of your audience. For instance, a writer who is showing that s/he is fair makes a more reliable source of information. The reader is expected to see the writer as balanced, honest and trustworthy.
The reason why I’m taking about pursuasion today, is because I happened to read this article about influence in Project Management. I was disappointed to read a list of “six methods” on how project managers can influence project team members. This online source, from a credible medium, is to be believed by younger audiences who may not have the necessary critical thinking and reading skills — let alone the professional experience — to assess the truth or usefulness of what they read. Readers have a right to feel tricked here. And this is just one example.
It seems that we are often tricked on the Internet; For instance, studies reveal that newsrooms tend to utilize a wider range of speech acts when writing presentations specifically for Facebook. It’s called the News Media’s Rhetoric.
I will not discuss how people who interact with Facebook are persuaded to think about or do a particular thing. Messages come at people nonstop, trying to convert them into consumers by exploiting their habits. I watched a new docudrama called “The Social Dilemma” which criticizes the social media, focusing on the exploitation of users for financial gain through surveillance capitalism and data mining, and concluding that “the reality is that we are the product.”
I shivered when technology pioneer Jaron Lanier said “No, this is very simple.”
“It’s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product.”
I meant to read the following articles on influence tonight, but instead I might read the Rhetoric.
