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16 ‘Infosuasion’ in European

Newspapers:A Case Study

on the War in Kosovo

Rossella Sa v a r ese

From a theoretical point of view, persuasive communication can be portrayed
1
schematically as a diagonal line on a graph with two orthogonal axes: one of the
axes being ‘interactive communication’ while the other is that of ‘transactional
communication’ (Jowett and O’Donnell, 1992). While the purpose of the first is
the interaction between people independent of the cognitive content (emotive
participation), the aim of transactional communication is to give access to infor-
mation (Brown and Yule, 1983). In fact, the two forms are always interwoven and
each communication is accompanied by both a content aspect and one of relation
(Watzlavick et al., 1967).
However, persuasive communication uses interactive communication for a
very definite purpose: to influence the interlocutor’s attitude to the content in
the direction established by the speaker. It may use both verbal and non-verbal
language to achieve its aim (Savarese, 1995). On a verbal level, traditional figures
of speech, narrative structure and other persuasive techniques are used uncon-
sciously or otherwise to persuade the audience on a specific point of view.
Of all the different forms of mass media, television is the one that acts most on
the emotive aspects of persuasion because it uses various and different signals
(iconic, verbal and kinaesthetic) and reaches the recipient using two principal sen-
sory channels, those of sight and sound. For this reason television is considered as
being the most persuasive and insidious means of communication ever. The per-
suasive capability of television has grown with the advent of ‘neotelevisione’.
The concept of ‘neotelevisione’ was first put forward by Eco (1983). Eco took up
Williams’s (1974) idea of television’s flux. Among the principal characteristics of
‘neotelevisione’ he described are: the supremacy of contact with respect to the
referential function; the evidence of the enunciation verified by the news reader
when he or she looks directly into the camera, the announcer’s machine; the
unclear relationship between information and fiction, inasmuch as events are
organized for the purpose of television broadcasting.
In the 1980s, a new type of television programme was established, in which
information and entertainment are mixed together, so as to influence not only on
a cognitive level but also on an emotive one. Altheide (1991) has defined this
kind of format as ‘infotainment’.

Source: EJC (2000), vol. 15, no. 3: 363–381.