39

This paper presents an experimental research concerning with the reception of political discourse, following, on the one hand, the nature of its content : conforming versus alternative, on the other hand, the “scenario” of the discourse : media exerting (with the expectations deriving from the contract) by contrast rationally formated. Hypotheses are grounded on the connection of three theoretical fields : persuasive communication (two ways models of persuasion) ; psychosocial pragmatics (communication contract) ; and minority influence (relational or epistemic elaboration of the conflict). An interaction between independent variables were assumed : the impact of the ideologically conforming discourse, particularly its evaluation, should increase when its « setting out » favors heuristic processing and focusing on the source (“setting out” corresponding to the media model of communication). On the opposite, the impact should decrease when the content is ideologically alternative. In this last case, focusing of the source should on the contrary lessen the persuasive impact – impact theoretically resulting from a systematic elaboration of the content (favoured by a rationally formated “setting out”). Results account for a hierarchy in the conditions as expected : the media formated conforming discourse, generating an ideological confusion, is preferred to the rationally formated conforming discourse, as well as the rationally formating alternative discourse is preferred to the media formated alternative discourse.