Persuasive Dimensions of Health Communication

Chapter 10 introduces the topic of persuasion in health communication with a case study involving the 2019 documentary The Game Changers and how the film advocates for a vegan diet. The chapter content then opens by defining various key terms, including health, health communication, and health care provider. Next, the chapter introduces a few key interpersonal issues of health, such as how socialization impacts how people talk about health to others and persuasion in the patient–provider context. The text then discusses mediated persuasion in advertising/health campaigns by explaining the following types of campaigns and advertising: direct-to-consumer advertising and how it relates to cultivation theory and social comparison theory, prosocial health messages and health campaigns, impacts of persuasive mediated messages and how they relate to the health belief model, and evaluating mediated health messages.