The focus of this dissertation research was to investigate students' memorable political messages. The memorable messages literature (Knapp, Stohl, & Reardon, 1981) has demonstrated that within domains other than politics, people have recalled messages that serve as a guide for their beliefs, attitudes, or behavior within that domain. This study extended this logic to the political realm in an effort to identify the content of political messages reported as memorable. By understanding what types of political messages people identify as being memorable or important, and through knowing characteristics about the source of these messages, more can be known regarding student's political development. Guidance from Burleson's (2009) message centered approach to interpersonal communication was used to deduce whether certain types of messages, coming from certain types of sources, were more likely to come from politically engaged participants. Thus, relationships between message substance, message source characteristics, and political engagement variables were also tested. In order to obtain students' memorable message, 191 participants were solicited from communication courses and asked to complete an online survey regarding their political opinions. After memorable messages were explained, students were asked to record their political memorable message if one existed. After students reported their message, several follow-up questions assessed including measures of message valance, the identity and role of the source, the channel through which the message was transmitted, and the perceived credibility and similarity of the source. Classification of memorable political messages was accomplished through an author-generated system and though a card sorting task (additional N = ??) and multidimensional scaling. This method led to the creation of a classification scheme for the content of memorable messages and tested whether message and source characteristics associated with political outcomes of interest including: scores on a political knowledge test, a political participation index, self-reported political interest, and an index created from these three measures representing a general engagement index. Results from this dissertation research suggest: a) a vast majority (98%) of students report having a memorable political message, b) the content of these memorable messages can be classified into ten content areas, c) students are more likely to report positive messages that originate from the mass media, and d) students who have the highest levels of political engagement tend to be those reporting a negative message from a non-credible source, or those reporting a positive message from a highly credible source. Although the latter relationship was predicted, the finding that negative messages were consistently reported from those interested and engaged in politics has several practical and theoretical implications discussed through the course of this manuscript.
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