Students Test Their Powers of Persuasion on Gun Control

It’s not easy to change people’s minds on political issues. That’s one of the lessons Diana Mutz, Samuel A. Stouffer Professor of Political Science and Communication, wanted to impart to the undergraduates in her Media and Politics class. It’s even harder still when your tool for persuasion is a 30-second video.

As a final project, Mutz tasked her class to choose a major national issue and then work in teams of two to produce short video ads that might change Americans’ opinions on a large scale. In the wake of so many horrific mass shootings, they chose gun control.

While each of the eight teams favored gun control, the messages don't necessarily reflect the students’ personal beliefs. Rather, they used polling data to identify parts of the electorate that seem more open to change and then applied the various persuasion techniques they had learned in class to tailor the message to those demographics. After watching each others’ videos and presentations describing the thinking behind them, Mutz’s students then attempted to predict which would be most effective.

Mutz found that the students did an excellent job coming up with novel ideas on how to change opinions about a very deep-seated issue among Americans. 

“They set a difficult bar for themselves, to be sure,” she says. “Gun control attitudes have not changed much at all, even in the wake of some horrific incidents of past gun violence. It will be surprising if 30 second ads can have an impact.”

You can view samples of the videos and read the full story here.