1
Media Entertainment - ALL LECTURE NOTES
Session 1: Media selection: Introduction to Media
Entertainment:
What is media entertainment? Emotions.
Why do we care about the scientific study of media entertainment?
1. People spend a significant part of their day consuming
media for entertainment.
2. ME consumption has a strong influence on self, relation to
others and the world.
3. There is a lot of content available for media entertainment.
You cannot define ME by the medium.
You cannot define ME by the content.
You cannot define ME by the pleasantness of felt emotions.
Enjoyment:
Eden, A. (2017). Entertainment Effects: Enjoyment. In The International
Encyclopedia of Media Effects (eds P. Rössler, C.A. Hoffner and L. Zoonen).
doi:10.1002/9781118783764.wbieme0163
According to Anne Bartsch, enjoyment is a meta-emotion, meaning that during
media entertainment we experience many different positive and negative emotions
that we evaluate as enjoyable when we reflect on the experience.
Meta-emotion → the second layer.
Defining enjoyment:
● Early perspectives: entertainment designed to “delight, and, to a smaller
degree, enlighten through the exhibition of fortunes or misfortunes of others,
but also through the display of special skills by others and/or the self led to
growing interest in understanding the appeal of media.
● 1970s-1990s: Beginning from the notion that enjoyment may derive from
cognitive and affec- tive reactions to viewing the actions of others and the
consequences of those actions, a host of related theories pertaining to
entertainment were developed in a relatively short period of time. Excitation
transfer theory, disposition theory (or affective disposition theory), the
three-factor theory of empathy, and mood management theory all stem
from common investigations into the appreciation and enjoyment of media
content.
In the three-factor theory of empathy, empathy is defined as: any experience
that is a response to:
a. information about circumstances presumed to cause acute
emotions in another individual and/or
, 2
b. to the facial and bodily expression of emotional experi- ences of
another individual and/or
c. to another individual’s behaviors presumed to be precipitated by
acute emotional experiences
d. is associated with an appreciable increase in excitation
e. respondents construe as feeling with or feeling for another
individual (Zillmann, 1991, p. 141).
● 2004, special issue of Communication Theory: Exploring the concept of
media enjoyment:
- The articles presented in this special issue attempt to address this
need for media scholarship to further engage in the
conceptualization of enjoyment in addition to continuing to build
upon existing theories related to predicting this experience.
- Although this task may seem ostensibly straightforward, a closer look
reveals that media enjoyment is a complex experience, reflecting much
more than simple pleasure or delight. Rather, media enjoyment likely
reflects the intersection of a variety of factors, including cognitive,
affective, social, and physiological elements, among others (Oliver &
Nabi, 2004, p. 286).
Measuring enjoyment:
Enjoyment: pleasurable response to media use; and most link enjoyment with
positive emotional terms such as pleasure, joy, or delight.
● Bosshart and Macconi (1998) stated that enjoyment is composed of the
following subsystems:
- Physical system: includes materiality, existence, the pleasure of the
senses, manifested for instance in the use of physical abilities or in the
experience of motor or physical activities.
- Psychological system: includes personality, emotions and
cognitions (being in a certain state of mind), the pleasure of emotions
in mood management, or personal knowledge (e.g., competence)
gained from interacting with media.
- Pocial system: social system of enjoyment is rooted in social
coexistence (being with) and includes empathy, feeling with and for
others.
● Nabi and Krcmar (2004) conceptualization of media enjoyment as having
cognitive, affective, and behavioral components, a 20-item scale that
captures enjoyment as a multidimensional construct and includes these
three dimensions has been developed and used in several empirical studies
to date. Also attempting to capture the multidimensional nature of enjoyment,
Oliver and Bartsch (2010) developed a measure for cinematic experiences
, 3
that includes three-item scales for dimensions such as fun, suspense,
moving/thought provoking, and lasting impression.
The same content can be experienced differently depending on the circumstances.
Media entertainment is: "media content designed to be consumed for purposes of
leisure (rather than specifically for information gain, learning, or persuasion)" (Oliver,
2009).
A form of playing, a form of coping with reality. An activity that is most often
characterized by different forms of pleasure, but - in certain situations - also by
unpleasant aspects. It is an intrinsically motivated action that usually leads to a
temporary change in perceived reality and that is repeated quite often by people
who are, during this process, less intellectually vivid and attentive than they could be
(Vorderer, 2001).
Oliver, M. B. (2009). Entertainment. In R. Nabi & M. B. Oliver (Eds.) The Sage
handbook of media processes and effects (pp. 161-177). Thousand Oaks, CA, USA:
Sage.
How to study media?
● Media Selection: a goal-oriented decision process through which people
(consciously or subconsciously) select from the available mediated messages
or avoid certain mediated messages.
● Uses and gratifications: conceives an audience members as “active” media
users, with individuals choosing to consume media on the basis of their felt
needs and the degree to which the media can successfully address these
needs.
Selectivity, interactivity, mobility
● Mood management: argues that one factor influencing entertainment
selection is individuals’ tendencies to arrange their environment to manage
their moods or affective states. For instance, it is assumed that individuals are
predicted to select media entertainment that is successful in prolonging or
intensifying positive moods, and diminishing/terminating negative moods.
Enjoyment of Media Entertainment:
● Disposition theory: suggests that viewers typically use moral considerations
in forming judgements about the “goodness” or “badness” of characters. Once
the dispositional judgements are formed, viewers’ enjoyment is predicted to
be maximized when good (and therefore liked) characters experience positive
outcomes and bad (and therefore disliked) characters experience negative (or
at least “just”) outcomes.
, 4
● Transportation: a convergent process, where all of the person’s mental
systems and capacities become focused on the events occurring in the
narrative. The enjoyment of a transportation experience does not necessarily
lie in the value of the emotions evoked by a narrative, but in the process of
temporarily leaving one’s reality behind.
● Hedonic happiness: associated with positive affect
● Eudaimonic happiness: associated with greater meaningfulness, insight,
and purpose. Assumes that if someone is sad they may use media to stay sad
in contrast to mood management theory.
Session 2: Media selection - Uses and Gratifications:
How and why do people select certain mediated messages?
Media selection:
People don't consume all the content that is available. They make a selection.
MS is a goal-oriented decision process through which people (consciously or
subconsciously) select from the available mediated messages or avoid certain
mediated messages.
Human-media interaction:
What determines media selection? Theories of understanding media selection
behavior:
● User-centered theories:
- Uses and Gratifications (Session 2).
- Mood management (Session 3).
- Habit models (masters).
- Cognitive decisions models (masters).
● Media-centered theories:
Certain features in the (new) media attract audiences (e.g. interactivity).
Phases of Media Selection:
Before media use:
Media Entertainment - ALL LECTURE NOTES
Session 1: Media selection: Introduction to Media
Entertainment:
What is media entertainment? Emotions.
Why do we care about the scientific study of media entertainment?
1. People spend a significant part of their day consuming
media for entertainment.
2. ME consumption has a strong influence on self, relation to
others and the world.
3. There is a lot of content available for media entertainment.
You cannot define ME by the medium.
You cannot define ME by the content.
You cannot define ME by the pleasantness of felt emotions.
Enjoyment:
Eden, A. (2017). Entertainment Effects: Enjoyment. In The International
Encyclopedia of Media Effects (eds P. Rössler, C.A. Hoffner and L. Zoonen).
doi:10.1002/9781118783764.wbieme0163
According to Anne Bartsch, enjoyment is a meta-emotion, meaning that during
media entertainment we experience many different positive and negative emotions
that we evaluate as enjoyable when we reflect on the experience.
Meta-emotion → the second layer.
Defining enjoyment:
● Early perspectives: entertainment designed to “delight, and, to a smaller
degree, enlighten through the exhibition of fortunes or misfortunes of others,
but also through the display of special skills by others and/or the self led to
growing interest in understanding the appeal of media.
● 1970s-1990s: Beginning from the notion that enjoyment may derive from
cognitive and affec- tive reactions to viewing the actions of others and the
consequences of those actions, a host of related theories pertaining to
entertainment were developed in a relatively short period of time. Excitation
transfer theory, disposition theory (or affective disposition theory), the
three-factor theory of empathy, and mood management theory all stem
from common investigations into the appreciation and enjoyment of media
content.
In the three-factor theory of empathy, empathy is defined as: any experience
that is a response to:
a. information about circumstances presumed to cause acute
emotions in another individual and/or
, 2
b. to the facial and bodily expression of emotional experi- ences of
another individual and/or
c. to another individual’s behaviors presumed to be precipitated by
acute emotional experiences
d. is associated with an appreciable increase in excitation
e. respondents construe as feeling with or feeling for another
individual (Zillmann, 1991, p. 141).
● 2004, special issue of Communication Theory: Exploring the concept of
media enjoyment:
- The articles presented in this special issue attempt to address this
need for media scholarship to further engage in the
conceptualization of enjoyment in addition to continuing to build
upon existing theories related to predicting this experience.
- Although this task may seem ostensibly straightforward, a closer look
reveals that media enjoyment is a complex experience, reflecting much
more than simple pleasure or delight. Rather, media enjoyment likely
reflects the intersection of a variety of factors, including cognitive,
affective, social, and physiological elements, among others (Oliver &
Nabi, 2004, p. 286).
Measuring enjoyment:
Enjoyment: pleasurable response to media use; and most link enjoyment with
positive emotional terms such as pleasure, joy, or delight.
● Bosshart and Macconi (1998) stated that enjoyment is composed of the
following subsystems:
- Physical system: includes materiality, existence, the pleasure of the
senses, manifested for instance in the use of physical abilities or in the
experience of motor or physical activities.
- Psychological system: includes personality, emotions and
cognitions (being in a certain state of mind), the pleasure of emotions
in mood management, or personal knowledge (e.g., competence)
gained from interacting with media.
- Pocial system: social system of enjoyment is rooted in social
coexistence (being with) and includes empathy, feeling with and for
others.
● Nabi and Krcmar (2004) conceptualization of media enjoyment as having
cognitive, affective, and behavioral components, a 20-item scale that
captures enjoyment as a multidimensional construct and includes these
three dimensions has been developed and used in several empirical studies
to date. Also attempting to capture the multidimensional nature of enjoyment,
Oliver and Bartsch (2010) developed a measure for cinematic experiences
, 3
that includes three-item scales for dimensions such as fun, suspense,
moving/thought provoking, and lasting impression.
The same content can be experienced differently depending on the circumstances.
Media entertainment is: "media content designed to be consumed for purposes of
leisure (rather than specifically for information gain, learning, or persuasion)" (Oliver,
2009).
A form of playing, a form of coping with reality. An activity that is most often
characterized by different forms of pleasure, but - in certain situations - also by
unpleasant aspects. It is an intrinsically motivated action that usually leads to a
temporary change in perceived reality and that is repeated quite often by people
who are, during this process, less intellectually vivid and attentive than they could be
(Vorderer, 2001).
Oliver, M. B. (2009). Entertainment. In R. Nabi & M. B. Oliver (Eds.) The Sage
handbook of media processes and effects (pp. 161-177). Thousand Oaks, CA, USA:
Sage.
How to study media?
● Media Selection: a goal-oriented decision process through which people
(consciously or subconsciously) select from the available mediated messages
or avoid certain mediated messages.
● Uses and gratifications: conceives an audience members as “active” media
users, with individuals choosing to consume media on the basis of their felt
needs and the degree to which the media can successfully address these
needs.
Selectivity, interactivity, mobility
● Mood management: argues that one factor influencing entertainment
selection is individuals’ tendencies to arrange their environment to manage
their moods or affective states. For instance, it is assumed that individuals are
predicted to select media entertainment that is successful in prolonging or
intensifying positive moods, and diminishing/terminating negative moods.
Enjoyment of Media Entertainment:
● Disposition theory: suggests that viewers typically use moral considerations
in forming judgements about the “goodness” or “badness” of characters. Once
the dispositional judgements are formed, viewers’ enjoyment is predicted to
be maximized when good (and therefore liked) characters experience positive
outcomes and bad (and therefore disliked) characters experience negative (or
at least “just”) outcomes.
, 4
● Transportation: a convergent process, where all of the person’s mental
systems and capacities become focused on the events occurring in the
narrative. The enjoyment of a transportation experience does not necessarily
lie in the value of the emotions evoked by a narrative, but in the process of
temporarily leaving one’s reality behind.
● Hedonic happiness: associated with positive affect
● Eudaimonic happiness: associated with greater meaningfulness, insight,
and purpose. Assumes that if someone is sad they may use media to stay sad
in contrast to mood management theory.
Session 2: Media selection - Uses and Gratifications:
How and why do people select certain mediated messages?
Media selection:
People don't consume all the content that is available. They make a selection.
MS is a goal-oriented decision process through which people (consciously or
subconsciously) select from the available mediated messages or avoid certain
mediated messages.
Human-media interaction:
What determines media selection? Theories of understanding media selection
behavior:
● User-centered theories:
- Uses and Gratifications (Session 2).
- Mood management (Session 3).
- Habit models (masters).
- Cognitive decisions models (masters).
● Media-centered theories:
Certain features in the (new) media attract audiences (e.g. interactivity).
Phases of Media Selection:
Before media use:
