Persuasive Message Design

This book presents a comprehensive approach for designing messages to influence beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors.

Divided into three sections, each focusing on key components of persuasive message design, the book outlines the conceptual and theoretical foundations for investigating message effects and then goes on to present a working list of message design elements and best practice guidelines for message-focused research design and reporting. It offers an intensive examination of literature from fields including health, environmental and political communication, advertising, and marketing to investigate the content, structure, and format of persuasive messages. The authors establish a common vocabulary for message design and testing, conveying the broad applicability of message design principles.

By focusing extensively on specific aspects of message content, structure, and format that can be drawn on to build persuasive messages for a variety of contexts, this book fills a critical gap in the communication science literature. This book is ideal for social science researchers engaged in persuasive message design research, scholars engaged in graduate education and their students, and practitioners who design campaigns and interventions to promote behavior change.

Nancy Grant Harrington is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Kentucky, USA. Her recent books include Health Communication (2nd ed., Routledge, 2024) and The Routledge Handbook of Health Communication (3rd ed., Routledge, 2022).

Katharine J. Head is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Indiana University Indianapolis, USA. She has published over 90 academic journal articles and book chapters.