|
After successfully finishing the course, students will be able to outline and discuss up-to-date scientific theories and recent empirical findings on communication and social influence. Another objective is that students will be able to combine several theoretical approaches in an attempt to address a societal problem (assignment). A final objective of this course is that students further develop their analytical, writing and discussion skills.
|
|
Wherever we go, we are faced with deliberate attempts to influence our thought and actions. Advertising entices us from billboards, TV-screens in buses or trains, and of course from the smartphone in our own hands. Then there is the government trying to ‘inform’, or sometimes ‘nudge’ us into being good citizens, while charities ask us to spare a thought (and some money) for the poor and afflicted. What is the theory behind these attempts? And to what extent do they work? How can we improve persuasive attempts? Or do we prefer a world with less persuasion, where people make up their own minds? Should we teach children the skills necessary to resist the persuasive attempts by advertisers, for instance?
The course ‘Communication and Influence’ deals with these issues. Theories from social psychology and communication science are used to shed light on issues of social influence, with specific attention for mediated communication: the information that reaches us through social and mass media.
The course consists of 9 two-hour sessions. In the first session, the course will be introduced. The basic format of each of the sessions 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 is that students engage in an in-depth and critical plenary discussion of the selected literature in the first half of the meeting. This discussion is prepared and chaired by (pairs of) students. In the second half of the meeting, the lecturer provides an interactive lecture, providing additional thoughts on the literature of that specific week. Session 4 has the character of an active workshop in which students discuss their assignment with each other and with the lecturer. In the final session 8 each student briefly introduces his/her assignment to the class in the format of a brief ‘pitch’ presentation.
|
 |
|