Modern scientific studies of persuasion began around the time of World War II, motivated in part by the widespread use of propaganda by warring nations, subsequently reinforced by fears of "brainwashing," communist and otherwise. These early studies focused on context: message and channel characteristics (for example, whether the message used emotional appeals, or stressed one side or two sides of an issue) and the characteristics of the communicator and the audience (expertise of the communicator, attitudes of the audience, similarity of the communicator to the audience).[16] More recent studies of persuasion examine the interpersonal dynamics of the communication relationship: reciprocity, commitment, deference, liking, scarcity.[17] Images and interactive dialogues, key elements of CNN war, have not been the focal points for the sociological and psychological analysis of persuasion. Scientists cannot inform us how to dominate every political debate, make every TV program a hit, or sell refrigerators to every Eskimo. They have no touchstone tactics for winning every CNN war. The analysis of persuasion nevertheless provides some useful suggestions for our involvement in future CNN wars. Some psychological guidelines for persuasive communication:[18] Two-sided messages are better than one-sided messages for persuading neutral or opposed audiences. The rhetorical structure of persuasive messages affects their persuasiveness. Vivid messages (e.g., video) are more convincing when the communicator has high credibility and the message is simple. Case studies or examples are more persuasive than statistical facts. Communicators are perceived as credible if they seem safe (kind, friendly, and just), qualified (trained, experienced, and informed), and dynamic (bold, active, and energetic). Film (or video) messages are markedly effective (and preferred to less vivid media) in teaching factual knowledge, are accepted as accurate, and are not perceived as propaganda. Emotional (fear-inducing) appeals are persuasive when they are truly frightful, suggest effective actions to reduce the fear-arousing threat, and the recipients believe that they are able to perform the suggested action. Great leaders often have advised that compelling speeches generate vivid, emotion-laden images.[19] Churchill's "iron curtain" image galvanized America's response to the Soviet threat the British statesman pronounced in 1946.[20] Communicators who depart from a prepared text and speak "from the heart" are perceived as more committed and persuasive, and extemporaneous speech is often recommended by orators for rhetorical effect.[21] Coretta Scott King described how her husband, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous I Have a Dream speech in 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial [22]: Abandoning his written speech, forgetting time, he spoke from his heart, his voice soaring magnificently out over that great crowd and to all the world. It seemed to all of us there that day that his words flowed from some higher place, through Martin, to the weary people before him. People like pictures, and the believability of video makes pictures more convincing than words: moving pictures "seem utterly real" wrote Walter Lippmann in 1922.[23] People tend to believe what they see on video as positive proof. To make pictures more appealing, advertisers instruct, use familiar scenes with likable people showing favorable associations, and avoid anything challenging strong moral conventions. The viewer should not feel a need to change much in the picture. The viewer should perceive in the picture a promise that his or her desires will be fulfilled. The picture should contain, wrote advertiser Stephen Baker, "a desirable model for the viewer to be."[24] Alexis de Tocqueville never imagined television, but his comments offer provocative ideas on crafting persuasive video images. He wrote that American cultural products "substitute the representation of motion and sensation for that of sentiment and thought. . . . [The] style will frequently be fantastic, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, almost always vehement and bold."[25] Sociologists advise that compelling video messages must be crafted into the framework of the television news media.[26] The credible news frame defines the characteristics of believable news stories: reports must have subframes that are personalized, dramatized, fragmented, and normalized.[27] News media focus on a personalized actor subframe--individual leaders, spokespersons, exemplars of the political actions.[28] Media images convey a dramatized story subframe: beginnings, action style, plot lines and sub-plots, settings and scenery, rising and falling action, major and minor actors with major and minor motives, climax and anti-climax, and endings that close with a chorus (journalists, politicians, experts, the public, or all four) interpreting the moral lessons of the drama.[29] News images are episodic, isolated in time and space from each other, and unable to represent all aspects and all periods of events, falling inside a fragmented, latest development subframe.[30] Images and events speak for themselves in isolation, without context, absent trends or progressions, often without causes to explain effects, lacking any reflection of connectivities and interdependencies.[31] The credible, objective news frame dictates a normalized, official sources subframe to provide the last, authoritative word on interpretation of events.[32] When leaders are unable to sort out these subframes and fit political events and images into credible news frames (e.g., the chaos of Marines intervening in Lebanon, the Islamic revolution in Iran, racial politics in South Africa), media coverage loses its coherent story line, misidentifies actors, and scrambles the latest developments into perplexing, pointless mysteries. The resulting media images show the darker sides of CNN war (a destroyed Marine barracks, American diplomats taken hostage, race riots and terrorism), and reflect the bafflement of official sources lacking coherent frameworks for their actions and policies. In time of war, the official sources subframe becomes even more dominant. Media deviation from official sources might compromise security, provide aid and comfort to the enemy, divulge military secrets, or simply get the story wrong. Because the military and the government are also jealous of their images and the justness of their cause, war shifts the credible news frame much more toward the official sources subframe and generates persistent friction in the media-military relationship. The credible news frame and subframes describe in workable terms the circumstances that create believable content in political news images. The requirements for creating or influencing media images, thus mediating political realities, become fairly clear. No matter how logical the calculus that led to a policy, without a clear and coherent story frame for that policy, there is little hope of building public understanding or support. "If an administration has thought its own foreign policy through and is prepared and able to argue the merits and defend the consequences of that policy, television and all its new technologies can be dealt with," one TV anchor advised the House Foreign Affairs Committee.[33] Psychological guidelines and sociological frames offer some tactical foundations for supporting policies in future CNN wars. Tactics are important, as recent events show. More Winning CNN Wars Media Coverage and Public Perception Introduction The Psychology and Sociology of Visual Persuasion Somalia and CNN War Image Exploitation Signs, Symbols, and Presidential Semiotics Perspectives on CNN War The Pentagon and the Media To Win CNN Wars Footnotes Back to Cry Havoc #33 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com