Section I: Foundational Issues in Message Design
1. Conceptual and Methodological Issues
2. Theory
3. Audience, Source, Channel, Behavior
Section II: Message Elements
4. Argument
5. Evidence
6. Framing
7. Emotional Appeals
8. Grammar
9. Language Style
10. Rhetorical Strategies
11. Visual
12. Audio
Section III: Putting It All Together
13. Message Development
14. Research
15. Practice
Biography
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.
“Having studied and taught health communication and persuasion for 50 years, as well as editing the journal Health Communication for 35 years, I should have been well prepared for the power and value of this new volume on persuasive message design. Nonetheless, it astounded me. Harrington and Head have carefully and critically synthesized a goldmine of research on message design from multiple fields of study in a manner that will prove highly productive for researchers and practitioners and will prompt much development in scholarship and action. This much-needed volume is not only thoroughly grounded in relevant scholarship but is also replete with interesting and helpful examples of messages that make their critique, synthesis, and recommendations clear to readers. The book closes with an especially useful rubric for message design! What is perhaps most unusual is that the book is written in a witty and amusing manner that will reach and interest even the most inattentive student and jaded scholar.”
Teresa L. Thompson, Founding Editor, Health Communication
