Political Persuasion The Use of Values in Communication

Values are fundamental to political attitudes. Ideals like freedom, equality, democracy, and fairness give us standards to judge whether conditions are good or bad and whether policy solutions are preferable or detrimental. Political Persuasion examines how partisan communicators recruit social and political values to persuade the public to support their positions on controversial issues, making it one weapon in the arsenal that communicators and political entrepreneurs deploy to shape public opinion.

In this book, Thomas E. Nelson explores the different strategies and tactics constituting value recruitment and examines how communicators respond to the value recruitment efforts of their opponents. Drawing primarily from two cases in modern American politics, Nelson presents interviews with activists and policymakers to understand the values at stake and the tactics in play, and provides evidence from experiments that examine how value recruitment shapes our opinions. Through this analysis, readers will gain greater recognition and understanding of value recruitment, which in turn will deepen our knowledge about the dynamics of political debate and public attitudes.

Thomas E. Nelson received his degree in social psychology from the University of Michigan in 1992. He joined the faculty in political science at The Ohio State University that same year. He teaches and studies topics at the intersection of psychology and politics, including political communication, political attitudes and public opinion, and racial politics. He also enjoys teaching social science research methods, including experimental design and survey research. When asked whether he roots for the Wolverines or the Buckeyes, he always answers: the underdog.

Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Value Recruitment Defined
Chapter Three: Teaching Intelligent Design
Chapter Four: Intelligent Design Interviews
Chapter Five: Intelligent Design Experiments
Chapter Six: Snowmobiles in Yellowstone
Chapter Seven: Yellowstone Interviews
Chapter Eight: Yellowstone Experiments
Chapter Nine: Conclusions

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