Processing: A Critical Literature Review and Future

¶ … Processing: A Critical Literature Review and Future Research Directions by Spickett-Jones and Kitchen (2003) offers insight into much of the scholarly literature that has been written regarding information processing. The authors stress the importance of understating the actual processes and mechanics of what is used when there is interpretation of information as well as the cognitive processes and foundational structures that enable meaning to be associated with these activities (p.2). Persuasive communication is noted as a focus of the writing and the authors stress the significance of understanding communication within the contextual framework of human organization; how it is attended to, understood, interpreted, stored, manipulated, reflected upon and retrieved (p.2). Spickett Jones and Kitchen (2003) review marketing literature that addresses marketing and advertising theory with a primary focus on information processing.

The information provided in the Spickett-Jones and Kitchen article is very much in line with other information I have read on the subject. Chestnut in his work "Persuasive Effects in Marketing: Consumer Information Processing" stressed the importance of persuasion as a primary marketing focus. Consumer attitudes were stressed as the focus of many of the advertising and marketing theories scholars and authorities in the field note as essential to effective information processing and marketing. Chestnut regards persuasion as the cause and effect between the information communicated and the change in attitude that is observed (p. 268). He labels the shift in what has been previously used for the manifestation of this cause and effect relation as information processing; which he purports is designed to direct investigations to a more qualitative assessment and therefore understanding of the persuasive nature and effectives of marketing (p. 268). Information processing, then, purportedly challenges traditional thinking on the effectiveness of persuasion and the importance of understanding the power of communication.

Krugman in "The Impact of Television Advertising: Learning without Involvement" (1965), bespeaks the power of media to communicate innumerable messages to the public through advertisement; repeating messages that persuades the viewer to take the desired action (p. 403). Although it has been argued by some that advertisement has a limited level of influence because not everyone responds in the desired manner, Krugman argues that understanding the power of persuasion in effective communication is the key to successfully marketing. Although at the time of Krugman's writing, the focus on information processing was not highlighted, what he conveys in his article is that persuasive communication and understanding the importance of effective communication results in the direct effects solicited by repeated advertisement.