Audience reactions to media personae

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Audience reactions to media personae
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Audience members can react in many ways to media
personae

• The reaction/perspective will depend on a variety
  of factors. A few significant questions include
• Does the audience member treat the personae as
  realistic in some way?
• Does the audience member suspend disbelief in
  relation to the portrayed environment? To the
  character? To the actor/anchor/etc.
• What impression does the audience member have of
  the characters personality?
• Does the audience member like/dislike the
  character? Trust/distrust? Admire/lack
  admiration for her?

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Does the audience member treat the personae as
realistic in some way?

• This does not require that the audience member
  perceive the persona to exist as a real person
  when the show ends. The persona must be capable
  of acting as an appropriate character within the
  constraints of the program-world and the
  program-world must be accepted in the sense of
  suspension of disbelief.
• Robot

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What impression does the audience member have of
the characters personality?

• Viewer/listeners/audience members evaluate the
  morality of characters, etc. through their words
  and deeds and, sometimes, their thoughts as
  revealed by the author/director, etc.
• Attribution
• Audience members tend to affiliate with those
  they admire, but there are exceptions
• Large numbers of viewers liked J.R. Ewing the
  best among characters on Dallas
• Viewer evaluations vary along a wide contiuum,
  from adoraction (fan clubs) to disgust (chearing
  at the dismemberment of villains, etc.)

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What position does the audience member take in
relation to the text and/or the character?

• Does the audience member maintain the position of
  external spectator, aware of the fictitious
  nature of the presentation?
• Does the audience member take a perspective from
  inside the portrayed world?
• Character within the story
• Internal spectator
• Does the audience come to inhabit the body of a
  character, living within the on-screen (or
  in-story, or on-radio) persona?

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Does the viewer/audience member react to the
character in some non-cognitive way?

• The evidence seems to indicate that an audience
  member may be attracted to, repulsed by,
  terrified of, or in some other non-thinking way,
  affected by the persona portrayed.

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What is identification?

• Identification is where the audience member takes
  on the role of the persona
• vicarious experience of things that we could
  not otherwise have any access to Cohen, 2002
• Audience members may try on others identities,
  etc.
• Seen as both natural and troubling in teenagers
• Thought to be especially common in online
  role-playing

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• Identification is fleeting and varies in
  intensity (Wilson, 1993), a sensation felt
  intermittently during exposure to a media
  message. While identifying with a character, an
  audience member imagines him- or herself being
  that character and replaces his or her personal
  identity and role as audience member with the
  identity and role of the character within the
  text. While strongly identifying, the audience
  member ceases to be aware of his or her social
  role as an audience member and temporarily (but
  usually repeatedly) adopts the perspective of the
  character with whom he or she identifies.
• Cohen, 2006

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• An important basis for identification is when the
  audience member understands and then adopts the
  goals of a character. The audience member then
  reacts to the attempt to reach those goals within
  the environment of the story, etc.
• Cohen, 2006

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• Unlike identification with parents, leaders, or
  nations, identification with media characters is
  a result of a carefully constructed situation. .
  . . . identification is a response to
  communication by others that is marked by
  internalizing a point of view rather than a
  process of projecting ones own identity onto
  someone or something else.

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• The process of identification may begin because
  of a production feature that brings the audience
  member to adopt a characters perspective
  (Wilson, 1993), an audience members fondness for
  a specific character (Cohen, 1999), or a
  realization that a similarity exists between the
  audience member and a character (Maccoby
  Wilson, 1957). These lead to a psychological
  merging (Oatley, 1999) or attachment, in which
  the audience member comes to internalize the
  characters goals within the narrative. The
  audience member then empathizes with the
  character and adopts the characters identity.

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• As the narrative progresses, the audience member
  simulates the feelings and thoughts appropriate
  for the events that occur. Identification may be
  ended or interrupted when the audience member is
  made aware of him- or herself through an external
  stimuli (e.g., the phone rings), a textual
  stimuli (e.g., a change of camera angle or a
  direct reference to the reader), or the end of
  the story.

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• Outcomes of identification may include increased
  liking or imitation but can also include negative
  feelings. Identifying with extremely negative
  characters who are evil or very violent may evoke
  some understanding or even sympathy for them
  during reading or viewing but strongly
  identifying with such a character is likely to
  cause dissonance, guilt, or even fear.

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Identification Parasocial interaction Liking, similarity, affinity Imitation
Nature of process Emotional and cognitive, alters state of awareness Interactional Attitude Behavior
Basis Understanding and empathy Attraction Perception of character and self Modeling
Positioning of viewer As character As self As self As learner (self as other)
Associated phenomena Absorption in text, emotional release Attachment to character and text, keeping company Fandom, realism Learning, reinforcement
Positioning of viewer As character As self As self As learner (self as other)
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Four dimensions of identification

• The first is empathy or sharing the feelings of
  the character (i.e., being happy sad or scared,
  not for the character, but with the character).
• The second is a cognitive aspect that is manifest
  in sharing the perspective of the character.
  Operationally this can be measured by the degree
  to which an audience member feels he or she
  understands the character and the motivations for
  his or her behavior.
• The third indicator of identification is
  motivational, and this addresses the degree to
  which the audience member internalizes and shares
  the goals of the character.
• Finally, the fourth component of identification
  is absorption or the degree to which
  self-awareness is lost during exposure to the
  text.
• Cohen, 2002

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Influence of medium

• Literatureinvites identification with
  hero/protagonist and, to a lesser extent,
  narrator
• Filmencourages spectator role, but may foster
  identification with protagonist or
  cameranarrator
• Televisiontoo uninvolving to lead to
  identification at all
• Domestic, chaotic viewing situation

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Identification and fictional involvement

• Identifying with a character
• provides a point of view on the plot
• leads to an understanding of character motives
• brings about an investment in the outcome of
  events
• generates a sense of intimacy and emotional
  connection with a character
• Source Cohen, 2006

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Encouraging identification

• Writing, acting, and directing must be of
  sufficient quality
• partly achieved by offering an illusion of
  reality
• relevance and resonance of issues and events

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Antecedents to identification

• Similarity and homophily
• Children
• Identify with role modelswho they would like to
  be more than who they are like
• Especially children over 8
• Attitude homophily positively related to
  identification
• Identified with child characters (similar to
  themselves)
• Exception girls often identified with male
  characters
• Identified with animals
• Teens
• Often chose opposite-sex characters based on
  romantic or sexual attraction
• Favored young adult rather than teen characters

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• Working-class women identified with upper class
  women on Dynasty more than did middle class women
• 1/5 of German men chose a female as their
  favorite TV person compared to 1/3 German women
  choosing a male
• Aggressive children reported higher homophily and
  identification with aggressive characters

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• it seems that whereas similarity in attitudes
  predicts character choice, simple demographic
  similarity is not a good predictor. People often
  identify with characters that represent what they
  wish to be or to whom they are attracted, rather
  than what they are. It also seems that
  psychological similarity is more important than
  demographic similarity in shaping
  identification.
• Source Cohen, 2006

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Traits of characters that encourage identification

• Men Boys and girls like them for their
  intelligence, girls like them for sense of humor
• Women Boys and girls judged them based on their
  looks
• Heroes were identified with more often than were
  villains
• Exception many preferred J.R. Ewing
• In general, strength, humor and physical
  attractiveness are preferred
• Much like in real life
• Much is left to be determined in why people are
  attracted to characters

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Authorial devices

• Protagonist point of view
• Voice-over narration of thoughts
• Direct address to audience

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Viewer characteristics

• Findings on gender ambiguous
• Women higher in parasocial interaction
• Findings concerning age are ambiguous
• Young, teens and older adults appear to have
  stronger parasocial relationships
• Does not appear to be related to poor
  interpersonal relations
• Some indication that those anxiously attached
  individuals who desire strong relationships but
  have trouble developing secure and stable
  relationships have the strongest parasocial
  relationships
• source Cohen, 2006

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Identification and effects

• mostbut not allstudies point to identification
  as playing an important role in media effects and
  suggest several reasons why identification
  intensifies the effects of media
• Cohen, 2006

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Identification effects

• Increase enjoyment of fiction
• Persuasion
• Memorability
• Modeling and imitation
• Learning
• Reduced critical stance

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• In sum, identification is an active
  psychological state, but neither stable nor
  exclusive. It is one of many ways we respond to
  characters, and one of many positions from which
  we experience entertainment. The development and
  strength of identification depend on multiple
  factors the nature of the character, the viewer,
  and the text (directing, writing, and acting).
  Finally, identification is part of a larger set
  of responses to entertainment, ways in which we
  become engrossed and delighted by the fortunes
  and misfortunes of others.
• Source Cohen, 2006

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Parasocial interaction

• Horton and Wohl used the term in 1956

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Parasocial interaction

• Developing a relationship with a media persona
  that exhibits some of the characteristics of
  interpersonal relationships
• Liking, dislike
• Talking to the character/yelling at the character
• Feeling as though the character is addressing her
  individually
• Seeing the persona as a friend
• Caring about the persona
• Missing the persona when skipping an episode, etc.

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Bibliography

• Cohen, J. (2006). Audience identification with
  media characters. In J. Bryant P. Vorderer
  (Eds.), Psychology of entertainment (pp.
  183-197). Mahwah, NJ Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Horton, D., Wohl, R. R. (1956). Mass
  communication and para-social interaction
  Observations on intimacy at a distance.
  Psychiatry, 19, 215-229.
• Klimmt, C., Hartmann, T., Schramm, H. (2006).
  Parasocial interactions and relationships. In J.
  Bryant P. Vorderer (Eds.), Psychology of
  entertainment (pp. 291-313). Mahwah, NJ Lawrence
  Erlbaum.