Media Entertainment P2
HC1: Introduction to media entertainment: What is media entertainment?
Artikel Oliver, 2009
Mood management = one factor influencing entertainment selection is individuals’
tendencies to arrange their environment to manage their moods or affective states.
Ø Entertainment has always been integral to human life.
Ø A Need to express our creativity and identities to willing listeners and viewers.
Media entertainment (Oliver) = media content designed to be consumed for purposes of
leisure (=vrije tijd), rather than specifically for information gain, learning or persuasion.
Media entertainment (Vorderer, 2001) = a form of playing, i.e., 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’s 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.
Artikel Eden, 2017
Concept of enjoyment
Enjoyment was initially defined as a combination of positive affect and arousal experienced
by viewing the behaviours and outcomes of others; and it was tied to narrative
entertainment, in which viewers experienced enjoyment via empathetic reactions to
characters.
Enjoyment recent definition: an evolutionary signifier carrying the message that the viewer
is satisfying a basic psychological or physiological need via his or her behaviour (in the case
of media enjoyment, most often media use
Enjoyment
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.
,HC2: Entertainment selection: Uses and gratifications
Artikel Krcmar, 2017
Uses and gratifications approach seeks to understand “the social and psychological origins of
needs which generate expectations of the mass media and other sources which lead to
differential patterns of media exposure (or engagement in other activities) resulting in needs
gratifications and other consequences, perhaps mostly unintended ones (Katz, 1974).
Uses and Gratification Theory
- One of the most prolific mass communication theories
- Based on a functional model: media use serves a psychological function to gratify a
need
Differentiating media use motives into two related constructs: gratifications sought and
gratifications obtained.
1. Gratifications sought: viewing motives > needs
2. Gratifications obtained: viewing outcomes
Assumptions theory:
1. Media selection is goal-oriented and
motivated
2. People are active participants who select media that best fulfill their needs
3. Media compete with “functional alternatives” to satisfy a need
4. People are more influential than the media in the effects process (social factors play
a role in media effects)
5. But the gratifications obtained don’t always matched the gratifications sought
6. People are able to report what media they use, and why (conscious process)
Individual differences in media use
Personality seem to be related to selective exposure of medium, of content and to content
enjoyment.
è Relationship between sensation seeking and exposure to arousing media types.
Media use motives as moderators of effect: our motives for using a particular kind of media
may not only dictate patterns of use, but also enhance or mitigate effects.
,3 motives for using the Internet:
- Surveillance; escape
- Companionship, or identity
- Entertainment (most salient one overall)
Hoorcollege
Definition of media selection
= People don’t consume all the content that is available. They make a selection.
Media selection = is a goal-oriented decision process through which people (consciously or
subconsciously) select from the available mediated messages or avoid certain mediated
messages.
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
1. Selection of a media-driven (or non-media driven) activit
2. Selection of a medium (TV, mobile, tablet, etc.) and a platform (e.g.Netflix)
3. Selection of a mediated message provided by the medium
Early understanding: agency, escapism
Agency of the Audience: Do audiences passively receive mediated messages or do they
active participants at all stages of the interaction.
, 1950-60’s theories:
- TV in households
- Audience is lacking agency, a passive receptor of mediated messages
- Primary question: What are media doing to us?
Early media research focused on the success of “campaigns”
- Could the new “mass media” produce dramatic effects on “mass society”?
In contrast to assumptions about powerful media effects, empirical studies from the 1940’s
started to show that audience members were:
1. Active, not passive
2. Selective, not a captive audience
3. Obstinate, not gullible
Lazarsfeld & Katz (1940): The importance of selection and use
1. People’s predispositions (traits) affect their media choices
2. People make strategic use of media to meet their needs
3. Media are primarily influential via interpersonal talk
Worries about escapism
Focus on one particular need: Escapism
“People are deprived and alienated, it is suggested, and so they turn to the dreamlike world
of the mass media for substitute gratifications, the consequence of which is still further
withdrawal from the arena of social and political action.
Ø Further withdrawal from the arena of social and political action.
Katz & Foulkes, 1962
What exactly do we mean by consuming “escapist” media? A process...
- Of consuming a distracting content
- Driven by a motivation or “drive”
- Psychological escapism
- Comes with high levels of exposure
- Social context of exposure is important
- Dysfunctional consequences
Katz & Foulkes (1962)
- Yes, some media use is escapist, where people “forget about troubles” or “lose
themselves” (Katz & Foulkes, p. 387)
- But, there is great variation in the type of needs, and “linkages cannot be taken for
granted”
- Escapism (or similar experiences) can be functional
Types of needs/motivations:
1. Cognitive needs = need for knowledge, information, orientation, curiosity, etc.
2. Affective needs = mood management, recreation, entertainment, escapism, stress
release, etc.
