Mass communication use different means to affect attitude change. One of the common tactics used is persuasion. According to Severin & Tankard (1992: 153), “persuasion is only one type of mass communication, but it is a type in which many people are interested”. In their words, “the advertisers using mass communication to sell soft drinks, headache remedies or automobiles are engaged in persuasion”. So is the nuclear power industry when it hires public relations experts to convince the public that nuclear power is safe. So is the health organization that prepares radio programmes to encourage people to stop smoking. In all, these people are attempting to use mass communication messages to affect some kind of change in other people.

Persuasion is a concept defined in many ways by many scholars. Wilcox (1998) define persuasion as an activity in which a communicator attempts to induce change in the beliefs, attitude or behavior of another person or group of persons through the transmission of a message in a context in which the persuader has some degree of choice. People form opinions from the information and interpretations to which they are exposed, which means that even news coverage has an element of persuasion. The media’s attempts to persuade are usually in editorials and commentaries. Most news media separate material designed to persuade from news. For example, Newspapers package their opinion articles in an editorial section while televisions package their opinion as commentary (John 2006). The most obvious of the media messages designed to persuade is advertising while public relations are subtler, seeking to persuade but usually not to induce immediate action. Public relation tries to shape attitudes, usually by persuading mass media audiences to see an institution or activity in a particular light.

It is clear that the unifying characteristics of changing audience attitudes and behaviors dominate the process of persuasion. When we look at newspapers, magazines, or listen to radio and watch television, various attempts are made to change our attitudes. However, it has been asserted that some methods being used can both influence whether or not you change your attitude. This, of course, is very important in this study.

Most common tactics used in mass communication to elicit attitude change is source credibility. A study by Houland and Weiss in 1951 to test the impact of source credibility gives credence to the assertion that “to change one’s attitude, the communicator must be a trusted person and any statement he makes must be believed”. By using different sources to speak on four different topics, they found out that “source credibility has a positive influence on the subjects used for the text”.

Another common tactics used in mass communication to elicit attitude change is to threaten or arouse some kind of fear in the audience. This is the technique adopted in most advertisement. According to Schramm (1954: 3), “for the campaign message that is sent across to a target audience to modify behavior to be effective, it must have such devices and contents as necessary to get past the perpetual barriers of the perceivers”. It must also “arouse basic needs within the receiver and suggest ways of satisfying those needs”. He further stated that “the ability of a message to attract and hold the attention of the receiver and convey the intended meaning to him/her is a function of its ability to arouse relevant needs in the receiver”. The use of fear appeal is centered on the second stage of Maslow’s hierarchy of Need. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of Need, as soon as physiological needs are satisfied, safety need appears. An individual’s safety becomes very important to him once physiological needs are satisfied. Questions such as what happens to me when I get sick? How am I protected from hazards, become his major concern. From this theory, it can be perceived that the need to avoid anything hazardous and be safe is highly valued by human beings. In other words, anything that is hazardous to the individual either physically or psychologically is a threat to the safety and security need. Hence, if an individual believes that cigarette smoking is harmful, the person will try to desist from such habit.

Another important consideration in persuasive communication is the demographic make up of the target audience. Tubbs & Moss (1980: 286) in their work on “persuasibility of audience” has it that; “Certain variable must be considered because they constitute factors that could determine the success or failure of any such campaign, among these includes, age, sex, geographical background, occupation, socio-economic level, education and religion”. This implies that a variable or a combination of these variables can have influence in the existing attitude or behavior that is about to be changed therefore this knowledge will be very instrumental in the choice of message and other technique(s) to be used in modifying or changing the attitude or behavior. For example, in relation to education, Tubbs & Moss (1980) noted that “education plays an important part in the rejection or acceptance of a message”. They cautioned that for a successful persuasion, it would be important to take into account that “intelligent or better educated audience responds more readily to a two-side rather than one sided appeal”. Conversely, less educated people would be expected to be more responsive to a one-sided appeal than more educated people. It would therefore be appropriate to assume that a technique of two-sided anti-smoking campaign appeal would be more successful with educated people than with uneducated or less educated audience. This of course, could be a crucial fact or in the success of the cautionary note, especially as regards the focus of literate youth smokers.