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This class will study symbolic communication intended to influence beliefs, attitudes, values, andbehaviors. The course will focus on the critical assessment of persuasive messages, with additionalattention to the theories and research behind persuasive message construction.

We study the effect of noise due to exogenous information distortions in the context of Bayesian persuasion. We first characterize the optimal signal in the prosecutor-judge game from Kamenica and Gentzkow (2011) with a noisy and strongly symmetric communication channel and show that the sender's payoff increases in the number of messages. This implies that, with exogenous noise, the sender prefers to complicate communication. Then, we establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the sender's payoff to weakly increase in the Blackwell-informativeness of the noise channel when the message space and the channel are binary. The reason why a sender may benefit from additional noise is that a garbling may alter the noise structure. Subsequently, we provide sufficient conditions that extend this result to channels of arbitrary cardinality. Finally, we introduce a procedure of making a communication channel more complex and prove that increased complexity benefits the sender.

This article revisits the nonverbal rhetorical tradition in Confucianism and examines how Confucianism actualized the tradition through its careful consideration of supernatural forces. In Confucianism, genuine persuasion produces actual change and transformation of one&rsquo ; s course of action, not merely verbal conviction. Speech only is not enough to genuinely persuade others. A speaker must transform others by his exemplary acts in the rites and holy ceremonies where supernatural forces and the notion of the afterlife hold a significant place. While Confucius was not interested in discussing the existence of demons and ghosts or their actual function in society, he recognized that their supposed and assumed existence in holy rites would provide society with an opportunity for genuine persuasion, which leads people to actual changes and reforms in their political and moral life. Discussing the nonverbal mode of persuasion in Confucianism may enhance contemporary democracy in two aspects. First, nonverbal persuasion recognizes those who may have difficulty in actively participating in verbal communication, such as the disabled, immigrants, foreigners, and politically and socially marginalized people, in political discourses. Second, the positive role of civic religion in contemporary societies may be discovered.

En el libro II de la Retórica se encuentra un estudio sobre las pasiones, las cuales, como bien lo afirma Aristóteles, influyen en la formación del juicio y por tanto en la toma de decisiones; esto hace pensar en su posible incidencia en la conformación de las comunidades humanas, lo cual puede ser inicialmente abordado desde los vínculos que una retórica de las pasiones tiene con la política y con la ética. En la parte final de este artículo se muestra la cercanía que puede existir entre el término de pasión utilizado por Aristóteles, y el sentimiento moral de P. Strawson y E. Tugendhat, con el fin de iniciar una reflexión sobre el valor que la retórica de las pasiones de Aristóteles puede tener en los estudios contemporáneos. ; In book II of Rhetoric, there is a study on the passions, which, as Aristotle affirms, influence the formation of judgment and therefore in decision-making: this leads one to think of its possible incidence in the formation of human communities, which may be first approached from the ties that a rhetoric of passions has with politics and ethics. In thefinal part of this article, it shows the closeness that there could be between the term ofpassion used by Aristotle and P. Strawson and E. Tugendhat's moral sentiment in order to initiate a reflection regarding the value that Aristotle 's rhetoric ofpassions may have in contemporarystudies.

All treaties, akin to contracts between nations, formalize the promises of their parties. Yet the contents of those promises differ, with important consequences. One particular difference is underappreciated and divides treaties into two fundamentally different categories. In one category of treaty, nations agree that they themselves will act, or refrain from acting, in certain ways. For convenience, I call these "resolution" treaties because they demand that states resolve to act. In the second category, nations make promises they can only keep if nonstate third parties also act or refrain from acting. These are what I term "persuasion" treaties because they require states to persuade third parties to do something differently, through regulatory or other means. Significantly, each type of treaty carries a unique set of execution and compliance problems. Persuasion treaties are both distinctly important and distinctly challenged. Identifying the difference between these types of treaty commitment provides conceptual clarity that organizes treaty critiques, clarifies conditions for treaty success, and helps resolve critical persuasion treaty pathologies. This Article seeks to unearth the execution and compliance problems that drive the privatization critique, analyze the nature of those problems, and identify means of ameliorating them. I propose that the answers turn on identifying and understanding the class of treaties to which the problems inhere. Part I outlines the privatization critique and explains why it merits our attention; Part II constructs and defends the persuasion treaty theory; Part III illustrates the theory with preliminary empirical support; and Part IV shows how the theory frames problems and identifies possible solutions.

The article illustrates and compares some of the persuasive strategies of the political and entre­preneurial discourse on labour market flexibilization in different contexts: within the political discourse on labour market reforms and on socio-democratic/leftist basic values, and within the entrepreneurial communication and self-presentation (job advertisements, annual relations, per­sonnel manager guides).

In his essay "Was ist Aufklarung?" ("What is Enlightenment?") Immanuel Kant argues that a person who depends on others for opinions in moral, political, and religious issues is immersed in a kind of mental childhood. In his mind they failed to recognize the importance of discussion, debate, and disagreement to the development of autonomous human beings. Kant's dictum, Sapere Aude, urges us to develop our faculties, and thereby fulfill our potential as free, rational creatures, by participating fearlessly in the conversations that shape our lives.

In many situations, decision makers do not observe all relevant information which undermines their ability to choose the best action or policy. Moreover, it can be difficult or costly to directly acquire the missing information. In such cases, the decision maker may acquire information from privately informed parties with potentially different objectives. The issue is that they may try to influence the outcome in their favor either by withholding or selectively reporting information. For instance, employers rely on information presented by job applicants, financial authorities use firms' reports to evaluate them and elected representatives seek expert advice before selecting policies. In these examples, at least some information is certifiable or verifiable. In other words, the informed party can prove certain statements by presenting hard evidence or the decision maker can verify the accuracy of received claims and documents. Since verification can be costly or time consuming, the decision maker might be able to only partially check the claim. These constraints determine the amount of information that can be verified before the decision is made. The first two chapters focus on models that best describe settings where the decision maker has to evaluate a claim or respond to a request made by an individual or institution. In the third chapter, I consider a slightly different framework where the decision maker seeks advice by consulting informed agents.In the first chapter, I study the basic framework where the informed agent's preferences over the decision maker's actions are independent of the state. In unilateral communication, only the agent sends a message to the decision maker. In bilateral communication, both exchange messages sequentially. I study and compare these two types of mechanisms under the constraint that the agent can present the same amount of certifiable information in both cases. In the canonical bilateral communication mechanism, after receiving a claim from the agent, the decision maker asks him to certify a certain event and bases her decision on his ability to do so. The main result of this chapter essentially states that if information certification is limited and the limitation prevents the decision maker from achieving her first-best in unilateral communication then she strictly benefits from bilateral communication.In the second chapter, which results from a joint work with Frédéric Koessler (CNRS, Paris School of Economics), we study implementation in the presence of ambiguity aversion. We show that if an allocation rule can be implemented with unlimited information certification, then it can also be implemented with limited information certification if the designer can use ambiguous communication mechanisms, and if agents are averse to ambiguity in the sense of maxmin expected utility. The reverse implication is true if there is a single agent and a worst outcome.In the third chapter, I study a setting with two types of informed agents. One type prefers higher actions while the other prefers lower actions. The decision maker ignores the informed agent's preferences. In this case, it might not be sufficient to consult one agent. I study sequential consultation of more than one informed agent and examine its impact on information revelation. It is shown that in equilibrium the decision maker may consult more than one agent and that she continues to seek advice as long as her uncertainty is high enough. Learning on the equilibrium path happens through both revelation and withholding of information. It is possible for agents of the minority - in terms of preferences - to influence the decision maker by withholding information so that she chooses their favorite outcome when she should not. Moreover, sequential consultation can be used as a threat to extract more precise information while consulting only one agent. ; Dans de nombreuses situations, les décideurs sont amenés à choisir une action ou une politique sans être parfaitement informés. De plus, il est parfois difficile ou coûteux d'acquérir directement les informations manquantes. Dans ce cas, ils peuvent solliciter l'aide des institutions ou individus informés. Ces derniers peuvent essayer d'influencer la décision en leur faveur en cachant ou en ne présentant qu'une partie de l'information. Par exemple, les employeurs s'appuient sur l'information présentée par les demandeurs d'emploi, les autorités financières utilisent les rapports des entreprises pour les évaluer et les élus consultent les experts avant de proposer une loi. Dans ces exemples, au moins certaines informations sont certifiables ou vérifiables. En d'autres termes, la partie informée peut prouver certaines déclarations en présentant des preuves ou le décideur peut vérifier l'exactitude de ces déclarations. Puisque la vérification peut être coûteuse ou prenante, le décideur ne peut souvent vérifier qu'une partie de l'information reçue. Ces contraintes déterminent la quantité d'information qui peut être vérifiée avant la prise de décision. Les deux premiers chapitres portent sur des modèles adaptés aux situations où le décideur doit évaluer une déclaration ou répondre à une demande faite par une personne ou une institution. Dans le troisième chapitre, je considère un cadre légèrement différent où le décideur consulte des agents informés avant de choisir une action.Dans le premier chapitre, j'étudie un modèle où les préférences de l'agent informé sont indépendantes de l'état. En communication unilatérale, seul l'agent envoie un message au décideur. En communication bilatérale, les deux échangent des messages. Je compare ces deux mécanismes en supposant que la même quantité de preuves peut être présentée dans les deux cas. Dans le mécanisme canonique de communication bilatérale, après avoir reçu une déclaration de la part de l'agent, le décideur lui demande de présenter une preuve en particulier. La décision dépend seulement de sa capacité à présenter la preuve demandée. Le résultat principal de ce chapitre stipule que la communication bilatérale améliore le résultat si la certification de l'information est limitée de manière à empêcher le décideur d'atteindre son optimum en communication unilatérale.Le deuxième chapitre, qui résulte d'un travail joint avec Frédéric Koessler (CNRS, École d'Économie de Paris), étudie l'implémentation en présence d'agents averses à l'ambiguïté. Nous montrons que si une règle d'allocation peut être implémentée avec une certification illimitée, elle peut également être implémentée avec une certification limitée d'information si le décideur peut utiliser des mécanismes de communication ambigus et si les agents sont averses à l'ambiguïté au sens du maxmin. L'implication inverse est vraie s'il ya un seul agent et une action de punition.Dans le troisième chapitre, j'étudie un modèle avec deux types d'agents informés. Un type veut maximiser l'action du décideur tandis que l'autre veut la minimiser. Dans ce cas, il peut y avoir besoin de consulter plus d'un agent. J'étudie la consultation séquentielle et j'examine son impact sur la révélation d'information. À l'équilibre, le décideur continue de consulter des agents informés tant que son incertitude est suffisamment élevée. Les agents minoritaires - en termes de préférences - peuvent influencer le décideur en cachant l'information lorsqu'elle est défavorable car il anticipe, à juste titre, que la majorité est davantage susceptible de le faire. En outre, la menace de consultation séquentielle peut être utilisée afin d'extraire des informations plus précises tout en consultant un seul agent.

Kolotilin acknowledges financial support from the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award DE160100964 and from MIT Sloan's Program on Innovation in Markets and Organizations. Mylovanov acknowledges financial support from the Office of Naval Research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative Award N0001417-1-2675 and from Kyiv School of Economics. Zapechelnyuk acknowledges financial support from the Economic and Social Research Council Grant ES/N01829X/1. ; We consider a Bayesian persuasion problem where a sender's utility depends only on the expected state. We show that upper censorship that pools the states above a cutoff and reveals the states below the cutoff is optimal for all prior distributions of the state if and only if the sender's marginal utility is quasi‐concave. Moreover, we show that it is optimal to reveal less information if the sender becomes more risk averse or the sender's utility shifts to the left. Finally, we apply our results to the problem of media censorship by a government. ; Publisher PDF ; Peer reviewed

This article is presented to cast light on persuasion and how English is used to persuade in terms of language perspectives. The writer aims to illustrate the importance of persuasion. Apart from this, the persuasive English shown in 1) conversations, 2) business letters, 3) political speeches, 4) advertisements, and 5) proverbs is taken into account to provide further information that persuasive speaking and writing has its own linguistic characteristics leading us, as English language instructors and learners, to have an insight into the power of persuasion based on an analysis and concepts of English language studies.บทความนี้ถูกนำเสนอเพื่อให้ข้อมูลในการทำความเข้าใจเรื่องของการโน้มน้าวใจและการใช้ภาษาอังกฤษเพื่อโน้มน้าวในมุมมองทางด้านภาษาผู้เขียนบทความมุ่งอธิบายความสำคัญของการโน้มน้าวใจ นอกจากนี้ ภาษาอังกฤษเพื่อการโน้มน้าวใจที่ปรากฏให้เห็นใน 1. บทสนทนา 2. จดหมายธุรกิจ 3. สุนทรพจน์ทางการเมือง 4. งานโฆษณา และ 5. สุภาษิตคำพังเพย ถูกนำมาพิจารณาเพื่อให้ข้อมูลเพิ่มเติมว่า การพูดและการเขียนเพื่อโน้มน้าวใจนั้น มีคุณลักษณะพิเศษเฉพาะทางด้านภาษา ที่จะทำให้ผู้สอนและผู้เรียนภาษาอังกฤษเข้าใจถึงพลังอำนาจของการโน้มน้าวชักจูงใจบนพื้นฐานของการวิเคราะห์และหลักแนวคิดต่างๆ ในแง่มุมของภาษาอังกฤษศึกษา

From marketing and advertising to political campaigning and court proceedings, contending parties expend resources to persuade an audience of the correctness of their view. We examine how the probability of persuading the audience depends on the resources expended by the parties, so that persuasion can be modelled as a contest. We use a Bayesian approach whereby the audience makes inferences solely based on the evidence presented to them. The evidence is produced by the resources expended by the contending parties. We find conditions on evidence production and likelihood functions that yield the well-known additive contest success functions, including the logit function as well as the one used in all-pay auctions. We also find conditions that produce a difference" functional form. In all cases, there are three main determinants of which side the audience chooses: (i) the truth and other objective parameters of the environment; (ii) the biases of the audience as distilled in their priors and the likelihood function employed ; and (iii) the resources expended by the parties interested in persuading the audience.

This dissertation explores the strategic communications of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) intergovernmental platform. BRICS is a recent addition to the growing array of international organisations. Though BRICS consists of significant emerging and re-emerging states, it remains poorly perceived and obscure. Previous analyses that have examined BRICS as an aggregation of its member states or distinguished it simply as a slogan designed by Goldman Sachs have failed to discern it for the rhetorical, strategic entity that it is. This dissertation focuses on BRICS' essence and intent, its strategic communications. It analyses BRICS' narrative and scenario, examining its rhetorical appeals, its strategies and tactics of persuasion. The study employs a critical rhetorical analysis to explore publically available primary documentation emanating from high-level BRICS meetings. Three analytical chapters assess this corpus, conceptually distinguished as programmatic (Memoranda of Understanding, agreements and treaties), organic (summit Declarations) and opportunistic (Statements) documents. This analysis expediently takes from disciplines and schools of thought to qualitatively and inductively assess strategic style and agency. It applies theoretical and conceptual tools to examine claims that emerge from the texts. BRICS' documents present organisational strategy and articulate its appeals. These are rhetorically explored to discern BRICS, per se. BRICS' rhetoric motions towards its aims. Its strategic means, ways and ends are closely assessed. The dissertation finds that BRICS is an informal intergovernmental regime towards engendering reform inside of the normative international order. Its claims indirectly shape global governance according to its interests. BRICS is a process-driven advocacy mechanism that brings states together as nodes in a state-centric intergovernmental style. It rhetorically steers towards its aspired outcomes without taking considerable action. It does so to avoid responsibility. It rhetorically performs the principles and norms of the legitimate international order under the United Nations, in order to substantiate its form of multilateralism; to actualise reform while maintaining structure. By employing its principles and norms, BRICS embodies and therefore territorialises the multilateral order. BRICS' strategic communications develop an alternative narrative towards steering international cooperation and exchange. Its articulation of the international order confronts dictated hegemonic conceptions, asserting that no unilateral interpretation holds an absolute truth. Sovereign states are not circumscribed by other states but only by legitimate international law and order. In doing so BRICS pursues international recognition for its member states, disrupts what it perceives to be hegemonic inertia and redefines global governance. BRICS illustrates a significant modality to assess the contemporary international order and the recent developments in global power. Its indirect form, a procedural and fluid platform for extra-Western sovereign states to pursue influence and execute wills, proposes the evolution of international power in the 21st century. BRICS actively employs a hybrid (both-and) strategy to lead toward a reformed global order based on a greater balance of powers (multipolarity). The development of BRICS and BRICS Plus presents compelling cases for further, critical studies.

Speeches and persuasion dominate Plato's Crito. This paper, paying particular attention to the final passage in the dialogue, shows that the focus on speeches, persuasion and allusions to many other elements of rhetoric is an integral part of Plato's severe criticism of democracy, one of the main points of the Crito. Speeches allow members of a democracy – represented in our dialogue by Crito – firstly to break the law for self-interested reasons while considering themselves still to be law-abiding citizens, and secondly to feel that they are in a tolerant society preferring logos/persuasive speech above bia/compulsion. Socrates counters Crito's speeches with speeches of his own, not only to defeat him at his own game, but also to make him aware how dangerous the game is. Real knowledge is preferable to speeches, but a democracy without speeches and rhetoric is doomed.

In his youth, John Stuart Mill followed his father's philosophy of persuasion but, in 1830, Mill adopted a new philosophy of persuasion, trying to lead people incrementally towards the truth from their original stand-points rather than engage them antagonistically. Understanding this change helps us understand apparent contradictions in Mill's canon, as he disguises some of his more radical ideas in order to bring his audience to re-assess and authentically change their opinions. It also suggests a way of reassessing the relationship between Mill's public and private works, to which we should look if we are attempting to understand his thought.

In democratic societies, the media today have a complex relation with the sources of power and the political system. Firstly, they should emit information and attitudes independent from the government and interests of power, secondly, those with interests promote news and information closely related with the political parties and other groups. Hence, there has always been a close relation between the mass communication and the product of politics. In the relation between politics and the media the good informative function is very evident. As a part of the media reality, communication contents do not only transfer messages and information from the political factors, but they also analyze, select, make comments, give their own opinion and share attitudes on them. Media effects on politics are realized through manipulative and propagandistic techniques of persuasion, contrary to the professional standards and criteria of the functioning of the mass media communication.