Peter Truong- s3362364 Communication 2378 Planning and goals theory:

In 1997, Bergers Theory of Planning was proposed and there are eleven propositions showing the connection between goals and planning to apply in different situations. There are three main propositions that could apply into an example for better understanding. Firstly, to meet goals, their first priority is to access long-term memory to determine whether an alreadyformulated plan is available for use. Secondly, to reach a social goal increases, the complexity with which plans are formulated also tend to increase. Thirdly, increasing concerns for the metagoals of efficiency and social appropriateness tends to reduce the complexity of plans to reach social goals. The song named You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift can be taken as a good example for this theory. Particularly, the song is about a love story of a girl with a man living next to her house and they usually chat with each other by showing paper with sentences and mostly about caring and sharing feeling as good friends. She loves him and wants to tell him but there is something about her appearance, style, her position in the school and the most important thing is that he already has had girlfriend, so she keeps it secretly. However, one day, she changes her mind and decides to let him know her love by showing her strength and attraction for everyone and prove herself. Then, they are happy together since he has also loved her for a long time but secretly. To illustrate, at the begin, when the girl wants to tell him know her loves that when she sets a goal, she did think of some available plan for use and popular way to express and that is simply saying I love you. Nevertheless, she was stuck with many social goals and concerns which are the way people comments and talk about her styles or her position in the cheers team at school or even she contradicts herself about comparing with his girlfriend. Therefore, it leads to the increase of complexity and complication in her planning to reach the goal. After all, she decides to stay focus on the primary goal which is telling him that she loves him by concerning more for the metagoal of efficiency and social appropriateness in order to decrease the complexity to reach social goals. As a result, she is confident with herself and ignore what people think of her weakness and then strangely come to the party and show him the I love you paper and he also open a paper with I love you that both she and he have hided them. Applying Planning and Goals Theory into this song might be seen as an effective way to tell a love story with goal, interruption and how to reach the goal by planning and going over the

social concerns. In addition, it could be applied in many situation and provide good critical thinking about a issue and its planning when trying to reach a goal. In my opinion, Planning and Goals Theory is an useful tool of communication as well as social skills due to its specification and flexible methods. Particularly, it helps us in how to set a goal and how to reach the goal by making a plan to follow and provides suggestions and explanation in some potential situation that we might be stuck in order to solve and come up with the goal.

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source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37273989@N05/3507521159/, viewed 22/11/2011>

<Photo source: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/8/tay5.jpg/sr=1, viewed 22/11/2011>

<Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37273989@N05/3508341526/in/photostream, viewed 22/11/2011>

Reference: Miller, K 2005, communication theories: perspective, processes and contexts, 2nd edn, Mc Graw-Hill New York America. TaylorSwiftVEVO, 2009, Taylor Swift You Belong With Me, Youtube, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw&ob=av3e>

Cognitive Dissonance Theory:

In 1975, Cognitive Dissonance Theory was proposed by a theorist named Leo Festinger and then became one of the most influential theories in that period of time. Festinger assert that Human must have consistency between their attitude and behavior, however, actually behavior influences attitude. In specific, if we behave inconsistently with our attitudes, we will feel an uncomfortable sense of dissonance that we must relive in some way, either changing our belief or by changing our behavior (Festinger 1975). For instance, Free Public Transport with the message Our Solution for Pollution Our Suggestion for Congestion which was launched in Manchester in January 2010 aimed to increase and restate the reliability of public transport in order to encourage many people use public transports instead of personal vehicles to protect the planet. To illustrate, mostly people are prefer to use their own private vehicles such as cars or motorbikes for better convenience when they can manage their time of moving but it costs a lot and is harmful to the planet by their smoke, so this campaign provided the ideal solution to save the money by giving free service which could be effective since almost people are prefer to use and attracted by something free. Therefore, the way people behave that is using the public transport frequently influences and changes their attitude into thinking of the benefits of public transport which are saving money and saving the earth instead of wasting a lot money to petrol and maintenance of cars and polluting the air. Applying Cognitive Dissonance theory into this campaign might be not really effective because peoples belief about traffic choice is personal interest and depends on different condition such as daily activities and purposes of transport. Furthermore, free public transport is not strong enough to motivate people to take action comparing with their attitude about the

benefits that personal vehicle bring to them. Therefore, when behavior could not change the attitude to match it due to the level of effects to current belief, the dissonance would be more complicated and then behavior must change to be consistent with the belief. In my opinion, Cognitive Dissonance theory is a useful tool for communication since it could be applied in some cases to help our mind and our action consistent. Particularly, we all usually are stuck in many options of choice and ambition to achieve our goals that we have made but life is not always as what we expect and plan and its time for Cognitive Dissonance Theory. Therefore, when we do not have ability to approach and reach our needs anymore, we must back to tell and persuade ourselves to accept the fact and avoid dissonance in making decision and then get out of the stuck and move on. As a result, it contributes to help us feel satisfied with our life anyways. Reference:

Two Contrasting Photos That Say It All, Campaign For Free Public Transport, viewed 21/11/2011, <http://www.freepublictransport.org.uk/> Theory of Message Processing 2011, lecture slides for Comm2378 Theory of Communication and Persuasion, RMIT University, Vietnam, viewed 19 November 2011, Blackboard@RMIT

Planned Behavior Theory:

In 1980, Planned Behavior Theory was developed by theorist namely Fishbein and Ajzen. The theorists argued that attitude toward a particular issue might influence behavior relevant to the issue. In particular, there are three main points including attitude which is your belief about a particular behavior, subjective norm which is the influences of people around you and perceived behavioral control that mean you are able and/or confident enough to do it together affecting the behavior (Fishbein and Ajzen 1980). For better understanding, having clean and fresh breath is a good example for this theory. In specific, this is an important and priority issue in communication although you are beautiful/handsome, intelligent, powerful or successful, if you have terrible smell from your mouth, you could still be failed in communicating with others. To illustrate, Listermint Mouthwash advertising do send out the message of the issue and persuade people to use it for better breaths smell. The advertising uses the image of good models of personality such as an attractive and sexy girl on boxing stage and a powerful vicar in the church but both of them make people around shocked and get away from due to their bad breaths smell (below

pictures). Obviously, mostly people are aware of this fact in behavior and people around do so, but the important point is that they are either able to do that or not, or they just have not enough motivation to do it. Therefore, the advertising tended to persuade people thinking of Listermint Mouthwash which is behavior intention and motivate peoples confidence to buy it and improve their breath which is their final behavior step to carry out. Applying Planned Behavior Theory into this advertising and communication issue might positively affect the audience since it provides the relevant facts and concept that many people can get, understand, perceive in the good way or even change their behavior to buy it. In addition, the awareness of breaths smell issue has been well-known and highly concerned in communication so the advertising just has to focus on the significant impacts and highlight the issue to remind and lead people to take action. In my opinion, Planned Behavior Theory is useful for better understanding in both communication and society due to its realistic and achievable. In specific, although we all have our own awareness and knowledge about something as well as others have but sometimes they could be in sleeping state which means that we do not realize their exists and let it work out and apply into particular issue in our life. Therefore, we think of this theorys arguments and rearrange our points of view and compare with others one to have better communication skills, then whether we can carry out it or not, so just put it in and make it on in order to make attitude become behavior, in other words, make things come true.

<Photo source: http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/listermint_mouthwash_priest?size=_original, viewed

21/11/2011>

<Photo source: http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/listermint_mouthwash_round_1?size=_original, viewed

21/11/2011>

Reference: Igor Ovsyannykov, 51 Example Of Funny & Creative Advertisement, Inspirationfeed, viewed, <http://inspirationfeed.com/inspiration/51-examples-of-funny-creativeadvertisement/>

Theory of Message Processing 2011, lecture slides for Comm2378 Theory of Communication and Persuasion, RMIT University, Vietnam, viewed 19 November 2011, Blackboard@RMIT

 Social Cognitive Theory:

In 1961, Social Cognitive Theory was developed by Albert Bandura, particularly in a series of testes called Bodo doll experiments which figured out that they used the same type of behaviors as theyd viewed. Bandura argues that behavior (good and/or bad) is learned through observing and imitating others including in media representations. Besides, the theory also asserts that these behaviors have a social and cognitive context, meaning people view the behavior in society, the consciously or unconsciously decide that the behavior is acceptable for them to carry out and therefore imitate it (Bandura 1961). In specific, there are four main effects of this theory which can be put in step or selective some of them, including motivation which is about a good reason to want to adopt the behavior, modified through punishment or reward effect; identification which is a feeling of strongly psychologically connect with the model; self-efficacy which means audiences ability to imitate the desired behavior and finally imitation which is direct, mechanical reproduction of behavior. For example, TV commercial of Pepsi in 2011 is an interesting advertising with the main idea sound check which means that they use the sound and image of action to send the message to audience and motivate them buy it. In particularly, its a sunny and hot day when people are gathering at the football field to watch a music show; however, they do not care and stay focus to hear about the sound check and welcoming to the start of the show. Then, a man records all the sounds of his action when opening a can of Pepsi, ice falling into a glass, pouring Pepsi into the ice and drinking Pepsi into his mouth and then breath out the sound of refreshing. After all, audiences run and want to get a can of Pepsi immediately. To illustrate, people have motivation to adopt the behavior that is drinking Pepsi through getting the awareness of rewarding which is asserted that can increase the aggression (Bandura 1961) is relaxing and refreshing drink when they are hot due to sunny day or tired and remember the image of the advertising. Next, they identify that they are in the same situation and connect with the model of the advertising that the man is drinking Pepsi refreshingly when they are really in need of that feeling. Then, audiences consider their self-efficacy that they are able to get one and drink Pepsi or not in their own situation and if yes, they can do it so they come to imitation to directly and automatically reproduce the behavior of the man.

Applying Social Cognitive Theory into the sound check TV commercial of Pepsi might be really effective because it brings out the lively and simple but impressive image and sound to come up with the relevant concepts of Pepsi product as well as touch the real and particular feeling of people in that situation. To illustrate, when a commercial can find and effectively use a casual link between media which is TV, a high frequency and habit of peoples life to update information and to be influenced and behavior of audience. Furthermore, this idea can be applied among many different viewers and viewing situation. Lastly, they put the strong explanatory into every single scenes and images of the commercial to make it lively and easy to adopt. In my opinion, Social Cognitive Theory is useful for better understanding about both communication and society in real life since it provides the deep and specific understanding and tools to the way of perception and communication with others. Particularly, the theory helps us to critically and quickly analyze the situation in order to find out the reason whether we should adopt the behavior or not and skills that we can further identify the mutual concepts or link between us and others to better behave in some relationships. However, taking to the last two points which are self-efficacy and imitation, it could be useful or bad depends on making decision about imitating a desired behavior because we should only learn the good behavior, not bad one and take it as experience in communication but not reproduce ourselves to be same as that model although they are greater than us, just be yourself and make the difference so that others will learn from us somehow in some way. Reference: JonPrincesMusic, 2011, Pepsi Soundcheck 2011, Youtube, viewed 21/11/2011, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeA6_hQ51N8&feature=related>

Media Effects, Part 1 2011, lecture slides for Comm2378 Theory of Communication and Persuasion, RMIT University, Vietnam, viewed 19 November 2011, Blackboard@RMIT