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270 Section 4 Contemporary Mass Communication Theory ENTERTAINMENT THEORY As we saw in Chapter 5, Harold Mendelsohn pioneered an attempt to apply psychological theories to assess what entertainment media do for us and to us. We now look at his functional analysis approach to entertainment as biased toward a status quo that was not literally in disarray. But his view of the need to understand how audiences actually do use entertainment resonates today in some important work. Dolf Zillmann is credited with leading the way in the development of contemporary entertainment theory (Bryant, Roskos-Ewoldsen, and Cantor, 2003). Its proponents place it within the larger context of a psychology of entertainment (Bryant and Vorderer, 2006). It seeks to conceptualize and explicate key psychological mechanisms underlying entertainment and to differentiate entertainment processes from those that underlie information, education, or persuasion (Bryant and Vorderer, 2006, p. ix). Current theorists can draw on much more research than did Mendelsohn (Zillmann and Vorderer, 2000). What separates current entertainment theory from earlier notions is that it doesn’t see entertainment as simply an affective consequence of exposure to certain forms of media content. According to Bryant and Vorderer (2006), it envisions an overall process in which entertainment activity is “influenced, triggered and maybe even shaped by the media product that is selected” (p. 4). Audience members do voluntarily control their selection of entertainment content, but as in information-processing theory, there are many underlying psychological processes they don’t consciously control. It is these processes that provide a comprehensive explanation of how and why we use entertainment media, and they help explain the consequences of this use. Entertainment theory integrates findings from research examining the effects of many different types of entertainment content. Dolph Zillman and Peter Vorderer (2000) summarize research on horror, comedy, conflict, suspense, sex, affect-talk, sports, music, and videogames. They assesse gender and age differences and identify a range of effects resulting from exposure to these forms of content. Some INSTANT ACCESS Entertainment Theory Strengths Weaknesses 1. Stresses media’s pro-social influence 2. Assesses cognitive, affective, and behavioral effects 3. Provides cogent multivariate explanations for why people seek entertainment from media 4. Is grounded in an expanding body of media effects research 5. Provides a useful basis for conducting experiments 1. Tends to accept status quo uses of entertainment media as a starting point for research 2. Has so far found effects that are mostly limited and minimal 3. Tends to ignore and doesn’t provide a good basis for assessing cumulative effects 4. Tends to consider entertainment effects in isolation from other types of effects Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
Chapter 9 Audience Theories: Uses, Reception, and Effects 271 effects are intended by users, but many are not. For example, research finds that there may be a health benefit when we laugh, so viewing situation comedies could make us healthier. Regular viewing of television programs featuring sexual content was linked to phenomena such as ambivalence toward marriage, perceived frequency of sexual activity by others, and attitudes toward homosexuality. It’s not likely that most viewers would have intended these effects or been aware of them. A recent edited collection (Bryant and Vorderer, 2006) has chapters devoted to a large number of psychological processes thought to be involved in or associated with entertainment, including selective exposure, motivation, attention, comprehension, information processing, attribution, disposition, empathy, identification with characters, involvement, mood management, social identity, and parasocial interaction (“interaction” between audience members and characters in media content; for example, talking to the television set). Each can be studied individually or several can be combined and used to study one or more forms of entertainment content. Some processes are more likely to be involved with certain forms of content. One way that research can advance in the future is to assess which processes are most centrally involved with which forms of entertainment. As entertainment theory evolved, “subtheories” were created that focused on the various psychological processes listed here. One of the most interesting of these is mood management theory. We’ll take a closer look at this idea because you might find it useful in analyzing your own use of media. It argues that a predominant motivation for using entertainment media is to moderate or control our moods. It articulates some of our commonsense notions about what we are doing when we seek out entertainment. If we’re in a “bad mood,” we turn on our iPod and listen to music. When we’re “stressing out” from studying, we can take a break and surf the net or turn on a televised comedy. Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick (2006) provides a description of mood management theory: “The core prediction of mood management theory claims that individuals seek out media content that they expect to improve their mood. Mood optimization in this sense relates to levels of arousal—plausibly, individuals are likely to avoid unpleasant degrees of arousal, namely boredom and stress. By selecting media content, media users can regulate their own mood with regard to arousal levels” (p. 240). According to Knobloch-Westerwick, there are four types of media content attributes relevant to mood management: excitatory potential, absorption potential, semantic affinity, and hedonic valence. Excitatory potential involves the ability of content to arouse or calm emotion—to get us excited or to reduce stress. Absorption potential involves the ability of content to direct our thoughts away from things that induce a negative mood and toward other things that induce positive feelings. Semantic affinity concerns the degree to which entertaining content involves things that are similar to (mean the same as) the things that are inducing a bad mood. Hedonic valence refers specifically to the potential that content has to induce positive feelings. It should be possible for you to think about your recent use of entertainment content and assess the extent to which mood management theory can explain what you did and what happened to you. First, did use of the content change your mood in the way you desired? If your mood did change, why do you think this happened? Did the content get you excited? Did it divert your thoughts from things Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
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Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. Al
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1959 C. Wright Mills’s The Sociol
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From the Wadsworth Series in Mass C
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This is an electronic version of th
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To Sidney Kraus His words and actio
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x Contents CHAPTER 2 FOUR ERAS OF M
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xii Contents Limitations of the Exp
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xiv Contents Development of Recepti
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xviii Preface Many if not all of th
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xx Preface THE USE OF HISTORY In th
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xxii Preface about these issues. We
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xxiv Preface their refinement in he
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4 Section 1 Introduction to Mass Co
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10 Section 1 Introduction to Mass C
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CHAPTER 2 convergence The erasure o
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SECTION 2 42 THE ERA OF MASS SOCIET
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46 Section 2 The Era of Mass Societ
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CHAPTER 5 96 NORMATIVE THEORIES OF
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100 Section 2 The Era of Mass Socie
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SECTION 3 132 FROM LIMITED-EFFECTS
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134 Section 3 From Limited-Effects
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CHAPTER 7 OVERVIEW 174 MOVING BEYON
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REFERENCES Adbusters. (2002). “Th
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366 References Century, April 17. (
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368 References Argument about New M
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370 References Gerbner, G., L. Gros
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372 References 1942-1943. New York:
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374 References Lasswell, H. D. (192
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376 References Miller, K. (2005). C
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378 References Preiss, R. W. (2007)
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380 References Smillie, D. (2009).
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382 References query Human capacity
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384 Index children, focus on functi
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386 Index I ice-age analogy, 342 Id
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388 Index media and culture theorie
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390 Index sensemaking, decoding and
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392 Index theory, understanding and
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