Designed to help students become more successful persuaders, Persuasive Messages offers practical advice on refining purpose, understanding audience, and designing a persuasive message. This textbook combines theory and practice, adopting a cognitive approach to understanding the persuasion process. A guide to successful persuasion, using student-friendly examples to provide a much-needed balance between theory and application Offers a new approach using the Cognitive Response Model, which places a special emphasis on audiences, and how they react to, or process, persuasive messages Covers a broad range of issues including: the relationship between attitudes and behaviour; the nature of ethics in persuasion; dealing with hostile and multiple audiences; and theories of persuasion, including consistency, social judgment, and reasoned action Teaches readers to be critical consumers of persuasive messages by discussing persuasion in advertising and in politics Lecturer resources available at www.blackwellpublishing.com/benoit