The Opinion-Changing Power of Computer-Based Multimedia Presentations

This study investigated the persuasive impact of information presented in formats possessing varying degrees of technological sophistication on individuals who were novices and experts in the domain of the information. Participants reviewed a presentation of a football scout's favorable report on a potential recruit and evaluated the recruit's projected success. The experimental design was a 2 (participant football expertise: expert vs. novice) x 3 (technological sophistication of presentation: low [typed summary of statistics] vs. moderate [printed PowerPoint charts] vs. high [computer-based animated PowerPoint charts]) factorial. Based on predictions derived from Dual Process Models of persuasion, we expected that the recruit would be rated higher in the PowerPoint presentation condition but that experts would be less swayed by the difference in communication modality than would novices. We found support for these predictions. For both novice and expert participants, the greater the technological sophistication of the presentation, the more highly they rated the projected success of the football recruit. However, this effect was marked for football novices relative to football experts.