A REVISED COMMUNICATION MODEL FOR ADVERTISING - MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS OF THE SOURCE, THE MESSAGE, AND THE RECIPIENT

The purpose of this paper is to present a revised communication model that describes advertising by drawing upon its kinship with crafted te xt rather than with everyday speech. The model expands the traditional communication triad by inscribing advertisers, promotional text, and consumers as multidimensional participants in a complex interactive pr ocess. The paper begins by presenting the rationale for treating comme rcial messages as written ''text'' and recategorizing them as more com plex than the oral discourse of word-of-mouth conversations. It next s ummarizes the steps by which the original oral communication model is transformed from speech to literature to advertising. It then discusse s the expanded triad, considering multiple aspects of the source, the message, and consumer-recipients. It concludes with suggestions for re search using the revised model to investigate gaps in knowledge about source credibility, message/media effects, and the interactive consume r.