Abstract

Persuasion knowledge is an established construct in the explanation of recipients’ coping with persuasive communication. It gains particular importance when persuasion attempts are covert. This is the case for sponsored content, as it closely adapts to its media environment. Hence, disclosures are employed to uncover such content as persuasion attempt. In the present study, we argue that disclosures activate different sub-dimensions of persuasion knowledge which can lead to paradoxical effects: On the one hand, disclosures increase recipients’ activation of conceptual persuasion knowledge by highlighting the persuasive intent of sponsored content. On the other hand, disclosures decrease recipients’ activation of attitudinal persuasion knowledge by making sponsored content appear less deceptive. This results in two opposing mediation effects where disclosures simultaneously increase and decrease anger through persuasion knowledge activation. The findings of two experimental studies show that these mediation effects occur consistently in the contexts of social media and blogs, while a third experiment reveals divergent findings in the context of journalistic media.

摘要

说服知识是解释接受者应对说服性沟通的既定结构。当说服尝试是隐蔽的时，它变得特别重要。赞助内容就是这种情况，因为它非常适合其媒体环境。因此，披露被用来揭露诸如劝说企图之类的内容。在本研究中，我们认为披露激活了说服知识的不同子维度，这可能导致矛盾效应：一方面，披露通过突出赞助内容的说服意图来增加接受者对概念说服知识的激活。另一方面，披露通过使赞助内容看起来不那么具有欺骗性，从而减少了接受者对态度说服知识的激活。这导致两种相反的中介效应，其中披露通过说服知识激活同时增加和减少愤怒。两项实验研究的结果表明，这些中介效应在社交媒体和博客的背景下始终如一，而第三项实验则揭示了新闻媒体背景下的不同发现。