1. The document discusses six principles of persuasion from media psychology research: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. It explains how each principle can be applied constructively in social media engagements. 2. For example, the principle of reciprocity suggests providing value to others without expectation of something in return to build influence over time. The principle of social proof indicates that gaining endorsements from others of similar interests can help build authority. 3. In conclusion, the document encourages applying these persuasion principles positively by focusing on creating value for others through helpful content and building relationships, rather than using them manipulatively. This leads to greater social media success.

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Language and Media
Table of contents
1. Introduction to Media & Its persuasion ---------------------------- 02
2. Power of media ------------------------------------------------------------- 05
3. Media rhetoric ------------------------------------------------------------- 06
4. Media modality ------------------------------------------------------------- 07
5. References ------------------------------------------------------------- 09
Assignment submitted to : Ma’am Quratul Ain
Assignment submitted by: 7 Spiders group
Program : M.A. Applied Linguistics
The University of Lahore Pakpattan Pakistan

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1. What is Media:
Our world today is increasingly driven by a combination of information and entertainment values, and
these are both promoted by the explosion of different means of communication, especially electronic
communication such as satellite TV and Internet. People create contact with each other with the help
of media. Media has changed the world into a global village.
Definition:
• A plural form of “Medium:
• A method of sharing personal views.
• Media is a source of sharing ideas, information, knowledge and feelings between one another,
Media persuasion
Let’s be honest, you don’t just want your voice to be added to the conversation; you want your voice to
be heard, repeated, and valued—and your message to be influential. Ultimately, you’re after influence.
So what better way to understand social media than by looking at the fundamental principles of
influence as taught by Dr. Robert Cialdini, professor of psychology and marketing at Arizona State
University? In his seminal book, Influence, Cialdini covers six “weapons of influence” that are hardwired
into our social and cognitive minds. In other words, we can’t help but behave in accordance with these
laws of social interaction.
Does this sound like something useful to keep in mind during your social media engagements? Well,
let’s take a look six powerful persuasion techniques:
1.1. Reciprocation
In Cialdini’s words, the rule for reciprocation “says that we should try to repay, in kind, what
another person has provided us. If a woman does us a favor, we should do her one in return; if a
man sends us a birthday present, we should remember his birthday with a gift of our own; if a couple
invites us to a party, we should be sure to invite them to one of ours.”
And so it is in social media: we’re more likely to retweet someone who has already retweeted us. We
link to people who have linked to us. And we tend to give a business far more trust after it has provided
us with a lot of free value.
Used manipulatively, this turns into auto follow bots that help you amass thousands of followers in a
breathtakingly short time—none of whom may actually care what you have to say. Doh!
Used more positively and constructively, if you focus on initiating reciprocity by providing no-strings-
attached value to those in your network, you’ll ultimately wield far more influence. Not because the gift
economy is a new fad in marketing, but because following the law of reciprocity is how we’re wired as
humans.
1.2. Commitment and Consistency
“Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures
to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that
justify our earlier decision,” said Cialdini.

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Chances are, you follow too many people on Twitter. And you’re signed up for more RSS feeds and
newsletters than you can really read. Objectively, purging your list of followers and unsubscribing would
eliminate distractions and increase your social media signal-to-noise ratio.
But most people never make that purge and hardly ever unsubscribe. Part of it goes back to
reciprocation, but a larger part stems from consistency: you’re loath to admit that following and
subscribing to those people and newsletters was a mistake.
On the positive side, how much more likely are you to comment on a blog that you’ve already
commented on before? Especially if you’re now “signed in” to comment on the blog during future
visits—and if your Gravatar or Disqus headshot shows up next to the comments?
According to the principle of consistency, you’ll want to remind people of their previous positive
commitments through perks, public displays, an elimination of friction for increasing their commitment,
etc. It works for Amazon prime, Amazon’s 1-click ordering, and Amazon’s reviewer system, and it will
work for fostering blog comments and a blog community, too.
1.3. Social Proof
One method we use to determine correct behavior is to find out what other people think is correct. We
view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.
Just watch this video to see this in action!
Whether we admit it or not, most of us are impressed when someone has a ton of blog subscribers,
Twitter followers, YouTube views, multiple blog reviews for their upcoming book, and so on.
Yes, people can game the system (auto follows and such), which can jade our intellectual response,
but our core and initial emotional reactions stay the same.
On the positive side, creating a lot of value for others can help companies and individuals gain social
proof via reciprocation: writing engaging content for guest posts, offering to interview authors and
subject matter experts, and so forth. Not only do these activities provide social proof in themselves,
but they can help you gain a support network capable of “salting” your blog comments, your retweets,
etc.
And when it comes to social proof, tribes matter. It’s not just about what the mass of people are
doing on social media that constitutes proof, it’s what other like-minded people and peers are doing. So
according to the principle of “social proof,” you should concentrate your social media efforts on finding
and building social proof within your tribe.
1.4. Liking
“We most prefer to say yes to people we know and like,” says Cialdini. Extensions of this principle are:
1. Physical attractiveness creates a halo effect and typically invokes the principle of liking;
2. We like people who are similar to us;
3. We like people who compliment us;
4. We like things that are familiar to us;

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5. Cooperation toward joint efforts inspires increased liking;
6. An innocent association with either bad or good things will influence how people feel about us.
How does this work for social media? Well, to start with the virtual equivalent of physical
attractiveness, we give extra credence to attractively designed blogs, messages contained in videos
with higher production quality, and corporations’ landing pages displaying a better sense of social
media savvy in their overall design and layout.
1.5. Authority
Cialdini talks about “The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of
authority…” In his book, he examines how authority can be conferred by (and also manufactured by)
titles, clothes, and trappings.
In social media, authority is less about titles and clothes than about virtual trappings. In his (fantastic)
report, “Authority Rules,” Brian Clark talks about how perceived expertise can frequently differ from real
expertise. Meaning that the guy known for blogging about and offering intelligent commentary on a
subject will likely have far more perceived expertise (and therefore influence as an authority) than a
genuine but unknown non-blogging expert.
But perhaps the most direct measure of authority is the number of people who will buy or download a
recommended resource based on little more than an authority’s endorsement. How many people
would buy a copywriting book simply because Brian Clark said it’s a must-read? How many people will
download a free PDF on nothing more than Seth Godin’s evaluation that it contains important insights?
But one thing social media has seemed to spark is a dawning understanding that authority is (or should
be, at least) limited to a legitimate field of knowledge. So when a relatively famous figure like Robert
Scoble states on his website Scobleizer that search engine optimization isn’t important for small
businesses, he’s “taken to task” on it rather severely.
1.6. Scarcity
Apart from reciprocity, this is perhaps the most used tool in social media. When bloggers open up a
class or inner circle membership or subscription service, it is never for an unlimited number of
customers or for an always open/unlimited time. Smart bloggers either create or fully leverage already
existing scarcity by limiting seats available, length of time to buy, etc.
Laura Roeder has rather famously made scarcity a centerpiece of a signature technique, wherein
bloggers hold competitions with free services as a prize. When contestants don’t win, they then value
the prize more highly precisely because of the newly perceived scarcity. This makes them more likely
to accept a consolation prize of getting the services at a slight discount.
Parting Recommendations
While the six principles of persuasion started out as “weapons of influence” that were used against us
by “compliance professionals,” I—along with Cialdini—would encourage you to practice the positive
side of wielding influence. To sum up many of the recommendations from the post, here are some very
positive ways to leverage the principles of influence to increase your social media success:

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 Focus on creating value and initiating the reciprocity principle by gifting your social media contacts
with high-value content, insights, reports, etc.
 Sincerely flatter your subscribers, friends, and commenters by responding to them and
nurturing your growing community. Actively reach out to people you admire using social media and
pay them the compliment of commenting on their blogs, following their tweets, linking to their
content, etc.
 Commit to consistent engagement on the social media platforms you chose to use, to the
point of staying away from new social media platforms that you don’t have the resources to actively
participate in.
 Use social proof as credibility cues where appropriate. Show off your number of subscribers
next to the Subscribe button. Possibly use colleagues to “salt” your comments on important posts,
build up your network by guest posting, commenting, and retweeting.
 Coordinate within your community on larger efforts for the greater good. You’ll probably be
psyched at what you create or accomplish, you’ll do good and feel good about it, and you’ll likely
become associated with the effort.
 Put the extra effort in on achieving professional and inspiring design. Dress for success on your
blog, website, and social media landing pages.
 When creating a contest or trying to spark immediate action, use the scarcity principle to
positive effect. But be honest about it—no changing “last day for” dates, no miraculously
replenishing supplies, etc.
2. The Power of Social Media:
2.1. Positive impacts
 With the millions of apps, websites and other platforms for people to communicate through media
that are all over the Internet these days, this is truly the age of social media.
 Teenagers like myself are among the top users of most social media platforms on the Internet.
 It provides a space for youth to share opinions, stories and thoughts.
 It allows us to connect with people all over the world.
 It looks upon every segment of life.
 It looks on the downtrodden of societies.
2.2. Negative impacts:
 Sometimes, media spreads false news.
 It creates unethical issues in society.
 Political interference is also included in media.
 It does not watch the true picture of the whole story.

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 In shows and in dramas the characters are engaged in act of violence, swearing, and drugs & the
use of short & even incomplete sentences. This is what the children pick up.
 They emulate tough and bad language they hear on T.V at school among their friends.
3. Media Rhetoric:
3.1. Rhetoric
 The old name of stylistics was ‘Rhetoric’. This term was derived from the Greek techno rhetorike;
means “the art of speech”. It is an art concerned with the use of public speaking persuasion.
 Language that is intended to influence people and that may not be honest or reasonable
 The art or skill of speaking or writing formally and effectively especially as a way to persuade or
influence people.
3.2. Media rhetoric
 Rhetoric is the art of using language to successfully persuade and impact others, and when it comes
to social media this art is often overlooked.
 However, the rhetoric involved in appealing to others through sites such as Facebook cannot be
analyzed in the same terms as rhetoric used in daily life and nonviolent argumentation.
 For instance, in order to catch a viewer’s attention, a Facebook status must be short, to the point,
and intensely interesting.
3.3. Rhetorical benefits of social media
• One of the rhetorical benefits of social media is the opportunity it provides to build one’s own
ethos. However, this does not mean simply bragging about one’s accomplishments through
egotistic statuses. Instead, ethos can be built effectively by creating unassuming yet complimentary
profiles and statuses that focus on positive impacts on society. Too often, social media contributes
to a negative image of its users because they do not monitor what material they post to the Internet.
• Another element of rhetoric that can be taken advantage of through social media is pathos. For
example, many charitable campaigns are started through Facebook using emotional persuasion to
gather more support. These campaigns draw on personal experiences with the cause, sympathy,
and empathy to influence Facebook users to join the campaign and spread awareness through
status updates. However, these campaigns lose their credibility if an effective ethos has not been
established.
3.4. Results of media rhetoric
• Within social media, rhetoric is often underutilized or incorrectly utilized. If social media users learn
to take advantage of rhetoric within sites such as Facebook, they will build their credibility through
ethos and be able to create more of an impact.
• They will also gain the ability to use pathos to gather support for causes they believe in. Social
media can be a platform upon which to develop an influential position in society, but only if rhetoric
is utilized effectively.

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4. Media modality
4.1. What is a Medium?
• Medium means ‘middle’, ‘interval’, ‘interspace’ and so on.
• The standard definition found in dictionaries stresses that a medium is a channel for the mediation
of information and entertainment.
• According to Marshall McLuhan’s influential ideas, media are the ‘extensions of man’
and he suggestively argues that not only the spoken word, the photograph, comics, the typewriter
and television are media, but also are money, wheels and axes.
4.2. Mode
• A ‘ mode’ is a way to be or to do things .
• In the context of media studies and linguistics ,‘multimodality ’sometimes refers to the combination
of ,say,text ,image and sound and sometimes to the combination of sense faculties ;the auditory,
the visual, the tactile and so forth.
• In the work of Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, a mode is understood as any semiotic
resource, in a very broad sense, that produces meaning in a social context; the verbal, the visual,
language, image, music, sound, gesture, narrative, colour, taste, speech, touch, plastic and so on.
4.3. Media modalities:
There are four modalities of Media:
i. Material modality
ii. Sensorial modality
iii. Spatiotemporal modality
iv. Semiotic modality
4.3.1. Material modality
The material modality can thus be defined as the latent corporeal interface of the medium. The material
interface of television programs and motion pictures, for instance, consists of a more or less flat surface
of changing images (in a wide sense of the notion) combined with sound waves. The interface of most
kinds of written text also consists of a flat surface, but the appearance of the surface is not changing.
The interface of music and radio theatre consists of sound waves. Regular theatre, on the other hand,
must be understood as a combination of several interfaces: sound waves, surfaces that are both flat
and not flat and that have both a changing and static character, and also the very specific corporeal
interface of human bodies. The interface of sculptures normally consists of extended, generally solid
materiality.
Modes of material modality
• It is proper to make an approximate distinction between three modes of the material modality:
• Human bodies,
• other materiality of a demarcated character such as flat surfaces and three-dimensional objects,

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• and material manifestations of a less clearly demarcated character such as sound waves and different
sorts of laser or light projections.
4.3.2.Sensorial modality
The sensorial modality is the physical and mental acts of perceiving the present interface of the medium
through the sense faculties. Media cannot be realized: that is, cannot mediate, unless they are grasped
by one or more of our senses.
Modes of sensorial modality
Usually, we talk about the five senses of humans, which may here be described as the five main modes
of the sensorial modality:
• Seeing
• Hearing
• Feeling
• Tasting
• Smelling
4.3.3.Spatiotemporal modality
The spatiotemporal modality of media covers the structuring of the sensorial perception of sense-data
of the material interface into experiences and conceptions of space and time. Media, like all objects
and phenomena, receive their multilayered spatiotemporal qualities in the act of perception and
interpretation; thus, the spatiotemporal cannot be identified with the properties covered by the material
modality,
Modes of Spatiotemporal modality.
Spatiotemporal modality comprises on 6 important modes:
• Space manifested in the material interface.
• Cognitive space(always present)
• Virtual space
• Time manifested in the material interface.
• Perceptual time(always present)
• Virtual time
4.3.4.The semiotic modality
• Semiotics is a theoretical field aiming at understanding how the processes of signification work.
• The semiotic modality thus involves the creation of meaning in the spatiotemporally conceived
medium by way of different sorts of thinking and sign interpretation.
• There are two different but complementary ways of thinking: on the one hand, some cognitive
functions
are mainly directed by propositional representations, while other cognitive functions mainly rely on
pictorial representations.

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Modes of semiotic modality
The semiotic modality has three modes:
• Convention (symbolic signs)
• Resemblance (iconic signs)
• Contiguity (indexical signs)
References:
• Robert B. Cialdini “The Psychology Influence of Persuasion”
• Lars Elleström “The Modalities o f Media: A Model for Understanding Intermedial
Relations”
• Burton, G. (n.d.). What is Rhetoric? Retrieved December 3, 2014, from What is Rhetoric?
• Brooke, Collin Gifford. (2009). Lingua Fracta: Toward a Rhetoric of New Media.
Cresskill, NJ: Hampton.