Self-promotion of TV Stations from a Rhetorical Perspective. Persuasion Techniques

Abstract

This paper discusses the persuasive techniques employed by media broadcasters in the self-promotional activities of television stations. A persuasive technique is understood as a specific manner of conduct of a broadcaster in the process of communication in which in order to increase their impact, a broadcaster emphasises or modifies some elements of the process. The starting point is the assumption that the selection of the persuasive techniques is related to such rhetoric determiners as the context of the operations of the media (consequences of technological changes: unification of media products, overwhelming increase in the amount of information, and ever growing global competition), the intended recipient, and the aim a broadcaster intends to achieve. The research material enabled the identification of the persuasive techniques in the self-promotional activities of media broadcasters emoployed at three levels: (1) mode of conveying information (e.g. repeating, and inherited audience); (2) content (e.g. positive selection technique, fragmentation, utilisation of the inaccessibility principle, emphasising the benefits of interacting with a medium, increasing the attractiveness of a communication by referring to broadly understood authority figures); and (3) form of communication (the technique of uniqueness).