Chapter 15: Face-to-face communication

This chapter, serving as a subpart of chapter 10: Determine appropriate methods, discussed a wide range of face-to-face communication techniques. In a word, it’s all about choosing the right person to convey information with supplementary video presentations. After reading these chapters so far, it seems to me that face-to-face communication is more appropriate (or more commonly used) for consensus communication. It must be accomplished by good skills in public speaking and negotiation. In crisis communication, working with the media would be more suitable while interactive intervention programs are now becoming buzz words in terms of care and health communication.

Interactive Health Communication (IHC) applications, which aim to lead to better health status and healthy lifestyles, all seek to change individual behaviors and minimize the risk perceptions of audience. The goal of an IHC resource is to provide services that are informative, persuasive and useful to make a lasting contribution to the user’s ability to maintain and improve health. Many of behavior change theories have been developed and tested concepts of motivation, self-efficacy and social support. For instance, social cognitive theory suggests behavior change and maintenance are decided by two factors: outcome expectations and self-efficacy expectations referring to whether one is capable of successfully engaging in the behavior. In general, people with higher self-efficacy are more likely to initiate new behaviors, maintain changed behaviors and persist longer in their efforts.

Increasingly, discussion boards often serve as virtual communities to provide information exchange and emotional support in IHC programs and campaigns. A prime example of connection to other real people is CHESS’s bulletin-board style Discussion Group, which often accounts for two-thirds or more user of the system. It allows users to share information, experiences, hopes, and fears, give and receive support, and offer different perspectives on common issues. Through participating in online group discussion, patients build a sense of community that affects psychosocial health. Accordingly, research reflects a growing interest in determining the Internet ability to affect psychosocial well-beings among all kinds of diseases, especially among breast cancer survivors. Technology-based communication strategies attract more and more people to go for online heath information.

In terms of constructing face-to-face messages, credibility is the most important criterion regardless of whether the audience or the spokesperson will be doing most of the talking (p. 251). Traditional persuasion research revealed a long-standing interest in source credibility. Credibility has two primary concepts: trustworthiness and expertise. The two concepts affected acceptance of the message and changes in opinion. Needless to say, we all strive for having a spokesperson who are experts in a given industry and highly trusted source. However, being constrained by time and budget, we need to make a balance to determine the right person. If the spokesperson is affiliated with the organization, even thought he/she is a expertise, will they still be trustworthy to publics?