Course Title: People and Persuasion

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: People and Persuasion

Credit Points: 12.00


Course Coordinator: Lukas Parker

Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925 5007

Course Coordinator Email: lukas.parker@rmit.edu.au

Course Coordinator Location: Building 9

Course Coordinator Availability: By appointment


Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

None.


Course Description

Understanding people, especially your audience, is critical to developing well-considered and effective persuasive advertising communication. Being able to interpret how people and audiences think, behave and make decisions, can help advertisers to determine how they can be best reached and persuaded. In this course you will explore how theory and research on consumers, and target audiences influence communication decisions. and apply these theories and audience insights to develop effective and persuasive communication. You will also examine how to employ creativity, emotion, rhetoric, and the underlying theories of persuasion to develop persuasive messages and communication. 


Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

Program Learning Outcomes 

This course contributes to the following BP354 Bachelor of Professional Communication Program Learning Outcomes: 

  • PLO3: Employ intellectual agility, knowledge, and skills to develop creative solutions for an unpredictable world and to adapt to professional and personal change. 
  • PLO6: Employ intellectual independence and critical thinking to engage with information, make sound evidence-based decisions, actively challenge assumptions, and undertake research that is ethical, creative and reflective


Course Learning Outcomes 

On completion of this course, you will be able to: 

  1. Identify and describe the characteristics of audiences and what influences them. 
  2. Analyse and discuss on how theories of persuasion work in communication and appraise their use in different communication contexts. 
  3. Apply audience insights and theories of persuasion to recommend tailored communication approaches.
  4. Create persuasive communication messages in response to real-world scenarios to influence audiences. 


Overview of Learning Activities

You will be actively engaged in a range of learning activities such as lectures, tutorials, seminars, project work, class discussion, individual and group activities. 


Overview of Learning Resources

RMIT will provide you with resources and tools for learning in this course through our online systems. 

There are services available to support your learning through the University Library. The Library provides guides on academic referencing and subject specialist help as well as a range of study support services. For further information, please visit the Library page on the RMIT University website and the myRMIT student portal. 


Overview of Assessment

You will be assessed on how well you meet the course’s learning outcomes and on your development against the program learning outcomes. 

Assessment Tasks 

All assessments will be integrated and focused on a different topic/issue each semester:  

Assessment Task 1: Understanding Audience - Digital poster (Individual) 20% CLO1    
Assessment Task 2: Comparing Persuasion Theories – Video presentation (Individual) 40% CLO2 and 3  
Assessment Task 3: Design your Persuasive Strategy – report (Individual) 40% CLO3 and 4.  

Feedback will be given on all assessment tasks. 

If you have a long term medical condition and/or disability it may be possible to negotiate to vary aspects of the learning or assessment methods. You can contact the program coordinator or Equitable Learning Services if you would like to find out more. 

Your course assessment conforms to RMIT assessment principles, regulations, policies, procedures and instructions.