An Operational Model for Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Normative Actions of Clerics

Today, people are facing more and more diverse cultural and social resources and teachings. The clergy institution, like other media, must find up-to-date and suitable methods to communicate with its audience. The aim of this paper was designing a model for evaluating the performance of the preachers in the field of audience persuasion and measuring the designed model. To design the evaluation model, significant theoretical studies were reviewed in the field of effectiveness and persuasion. A 6-faceted model for the evaluation of a lecturer or spiritual consultant was designed and the output model was implemented and evaluated for the meetings of the “Halghe-hay-e-marefat” held by Astan Quds in Imam Reza's shrine with the method of participatory observation and structured interview. After implementing the model, indicators of persuasion were also extracted, which include communication characteristics (active / passive communication), partiality in the message (obvious position / no obvious position), similarity with Audience (continuous / discrete), approach (emotional / rational), response method (referential / argumentative).The findings of the experimental study section show that the audience mainly favors religious speakers with active communication and similar to them and combined referential and argumentative responses. In relation to the index of partiality and approach, it is mainly different depending on the type of audience. For example, for religious fanatics, the speaker's bias in the form of a clear and strong position is associated with approval and satisfaction. On the other hand, such a stance brings dissatisfaction to the critical audience.