Using role sets to engage and persuade visitors of Web sites that promote safe sex

Promoting safe sexual behavior is difficult because of the face threatening nature of such messages. Too much facework involves the risk of the message to become unclear and noncommittal, while too little facework might end in the reader resisting the message, and even boomerang effects (reactance). In this paper, it is argued that creating appropriate author and reader roles (role sets) might be an effective way to escape from this dilemma. Some examples are analyzed to identify different role sets and to discuss how they can help. The paper concludes with some considerations on the effect of creating role sets on the persuasiveness of Web sites.