HC1: Introduction to Media Entertainment
Enjoyment: 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.
Media Entertainment: Media content designed to be consumed for purposes of leisure.
A form of playing, e.i., a form of coping with reality. An activity that is most often
characterized y different forms of pleasure, but - in certain situations - also by unpleasant
aspects. It is an intrinsically motivated action that usually leads to 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.
HC2: Media Selection - Uses and Gratifications
Phases of Media Selection
Before: Selection from the available mediated messages
- Selection of a media driven activity
- Selection of a medium and a platform
- Selection os a mediated message provided by the medium
During: Selective processing of the mediated messages
After: Selective remembering of the mediated messages
In contrast to assumptions about powerful media effects, empirical studies from the 1940’s started
to show that audience members were:
- Active, not passive
- Selective, not a captive audience
- Obstinate, not gullible
Escapism: People are deprived and alienated, it is suggested, and so they turn in 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.
- Consuming distracting content
- Driven by motivation or drive
- Psychological escapism
- Comes with a high level of exposure
- Social content of exposure is important
- Dysfunctional consequences
Uses and Gratifications Theory
Based on a functional model: Media use serves a psychological function to gratify a need
Assumptions:
1. Media selection is goals-orientated 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
5. But the gratifications obtained don’t always match the gratifications sought
6. People are able to report what media they use, and why (conscious process)
Types of needs / motivations:
Cognitive needs: need for knowledge, information, orientation, curiosity
Affective needs: mood management, recreation, entertainment, escapism, stress release
,Social-interaction needs: sense of belonging, social contact, connectedness, para social relationships
Integrative-habitual needs: need for regularity, stability, security, habits
Limitations:
- Media use is often not a conscious and rationale decision
- People are not always purposive and active: Ritualized vs Instrumental media use
- Typologies are often inductive and very specific to the particular medium, time period, or study
- Studies often rely on cross-sectional surveys: No cause evidence
- Surveys typically can’t dig deeg into particular message features or psychological responses
- Many studies don’t distinguish between motives, selections, uses, responses, effects
HC3: Media Selection - Mood Management
Mood:
- Emotional experience over a more prologued period of time
- Frame of mind
- No specific direct cause n consciousness
- Gradually developing and lower duration
- Weak intensity
- Different form emotions (affects): short, immediate defined external cause, strong intensity
Dimensions of mood:
- Valence: Pleasantness, ranging from negative to positive, slightly positive is preferred
- Arousal: Intensity, ranging from low to high, moderate arousal preferred
- Semantic affinity: Meaning, connotation
Mood regulation: Any kind of behavior aiming at altering the existing mood (seek for homeostasis)
Mood optimization: Maintaining a balanced mood by seeking positive and avoiding negative
experiences
Mood Management Theory
Assumptions:
- Theory of affect-dependent stimulus arrangement (Zillmann & Bryant)
- Media usage is motivated by the need for mood regulation - Media is used for mood optimization
- Extreme mood states are undesirable, humans seek to regulates these states to a more balanced
portions (not necessarily conscious)
Four key properties of media that can allow for mood management:
1. Excitatory potential: low (nature documentary) vs. high (soccer, horror) arousal — high to
moderate is preferred
2. Hedonic valence: positive vs. negative valence — Positive valence is preferred
3. Absorption potential: high vs. low, the extent to which the message captures and distracts
attention and emotion — high level is preferred
4. Semantic affinity: low or high relevance for the actual mood or situation — low is preferred
Mood Adjustment Theory
A positive mood is not desirable if goals are served by a negative mood - Because of various gender
roles, we might then expect to see sex differences
, HC4: Media Selection - Gaming, Addiction, & Aggression
No official diagnosis for any form of media addiction
Six core elements characterizing media addiction:
- Salience
- Mood modification
- Tolerance
- Withdrawal symptoms
- Conflict
- Relapse
I-PACE Model: Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution
Why addictive? Technology companies center their offerings around staying connected (humans
social creatures), getting bank in touch with lost friends or family, or meeting new people. We are
also driven by a need to feel like we are good at things, likes and comments reason to keep using
Social Media.
Virtual violence: Any user behavior with the intention of doing harm to other social characters in
video game, given that the other game characters are motivated to avoid having the harm done to
them. — Violence in games almost always rewarded, and committed for fun and destruction.
Gaming addiction: A definition by Lemmers, Valkenburg and Peter (2009): “A persistent and
excessive involvement with video games which cannot be controlled, despite associated social and /
or emotional problems.”
Do violent video games promote aggressive behavior or reduce empathy?
Berkowitz’s (1984) neoassociasonistic model: Shortly after exposure to violent films or video
games, people are more likely to have aggressive thoughts or perform aggressive actions.
Anderson and Buchmans (2002) general aggression model explains why individuals might
respond to social encounters with aggression through learning, rehearsal and reinforcement of
aggression related knowledge structures (repeated exposure).
But also some evidence against the frequently proclaimed negative effects of playing violent video
games.
Criticism on video game induced violence:
- Weak methodology
- Games not a sufficient or necessary cause of violence
- Publication bias
- Small effect sizes
Pornography: The graphic and explicit depiction of sexual activity
Triple A-Engine that drives its use:
- Anonymity
- Affordability
- Accessibility
Motivators:
- Curiosity
- Sexual stimulation
- Masturbation
Enjoyment: 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.
Media Entertainment: Media content designed to be consumed for purposes of leisure.
A form of playing, e.i., a form of coping with reality. An activity that is most often
characterized y different forms of pleasure, but - in certain situations - also by unpleasant
aspects. It is an intrinsically motivated action that usually leads to 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.
HC2: Media Selection - Uses and Gratifications
Phases of Media Selection
Before: Selection from the available mediated messages
- Selection of a media driven activity
- Selection of a medium and a platform
- Selection os a mediated message provided by the medium
During: Selective processing of the mediated messages
After: Selective remembering of the mediated messages
In contrast to assumptions about powerful media effects, empirical studies from the 1940’s started
to show that audience members were:
- Active, not passive
- Selective, not a captive audience
- Obstinate, not gullible
Escapism: People are deprived and alienated, it is suggested, and so they turn in 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.
- Consuming distracting content
- Driven by motivation or drive
- Psychological escapism
- Comes with a high level of exposure
- Social content of exposure is important
- Dysfunctional consequences
Uses and Gratifications Theory
Based on a functional model: Media use serves a psychological function to gratify a need
Assumptions:
1. Media selection is goals-orientated 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
5. But the gratifications obtained don’t always match the gratifications sought
6. People are able to report what media they use, and why (conscious process)
Types of needs / motivations:
Cognitive needs: need for knowledge, information, orientation, curiosity
Affective needs: mood management, recreation, entertainment, escapism, stress release
,Social-interaction needs: sense of belonging, social contact, connectedness, para social relationships
Integrative-habitual needs: need for regularity, stability, security, habits
Limitations:
- Media use is often not a conscious and rationale decision
- People are not always purposive and active: Ritualized vs Instrumental media use
- Typologies are often inductive and very specific to the particular medium, time period, or study
- Studies often rely on cross-sectional surveys: No cause evidence
- Surveys typically can’t dig deeg into particular message features or psychological responses
- Many studies don’t distinguish between motives, selections, uses, responses, effects
HC3: Media Selection - Mood Management
Mood:
- Emotional experience over a more prologued period of time
- Frame of mind
- No specific direct cause n consciousness
- Gradually developing and lower duration
- Weak intensity
- Different form emotions (affects): short, immediate defined external cause, strong intensity
Dimensions of mood:
- Valence: Pleasantness, ranging from negative to positive, slightly positive is preferred
- Arousal: Intensity, ranging from low to high, moderate arousal preferred
- Semantic affinity: Meaning, connotation
Mood regulation: Any kind of behavior aiming at altering the existing mood (seek for homeostasis)
Mood optimization: Maintaining a balanced mood by seeking positive and avoiding negative
experiences
Mood Management Theory
Assumptions:
- Theory of affect-dependent stimulus arrangement (Zillmann & Bryant)
- Media usage is motivated by the need for mood regulation - Media is used for mood optimization
- Extreme mood states are undesirable, humans seek to regulates these states to a more balanced
portions (not necessarily conscious)
Four key properties of media that can allow for mood management:
1. Excitatory potential: low (nature documentary) vs. high (soccer, horror) arousal — high to
moderate is preferred
2. Hedonic valence: positive vs. negative valence — Positive valence is preferred
3. Absorption potential: high vs. low, the extent to which the message captures and distracts
attention and emotion — high level is preferred
4. Semantic affinity: low or high relevance for the actual mood or situation — low is preferred
Mood Adjustment Theory
A positive mood is not desirable if goals are served by a negative mood - Because of various gender
roles, we might then expect to see sex differences
, HC4: Media Selection - Gaming, Addiction, & Aggression
No official diagnosis for any form of media addiction
Six core elements characterizing media addiction:
- Salience
- Mood modification
- Tolerance
- Withdrawal symptoms
- Conflict
- Relapse
I-PACE Model: Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution
Why addictive? Technology companies center their offerings around staying connected (humans
social creatures), getting bank in touch with lost friends or family, or meeting new people. We are
also driven by a need to feel like we are good at things, likes and comments reason to keep using
Social Media.
Virtual violence: Any user behavior with the intention of doing harm to other social characters in
video game, given that the other game characters are motivated to avoid having the harm done to
them. — Violence in games almost always rewarded, and committed for fun and destruction.
Gaming addiction: A definition by Lemmers, Valkenburg and Peter (2009): “A persistent and
excessive involvement with video games which cannot be controlled, despite associated social and /
or emotional problems.”
Do violent video games promote aggressive behavior or reduce empathy?
Berkowitz’s (1984) neoassociasonistic model: Shortly after exposure to violent films or video
games, people are more likely to have aggressive thoughts or perform aggressive actions.
Anderson and Buchmans (2002) general aggression model explains why individuals might
respond to social encounters with aggression through learning, rehearsal and reinforcement of
aggression related knowledge structures (repeated exposure).
But also some evidence against the frequently proclaimed negative effects of playing violent video
games.
Criticism on video game induced violence:
- Weak methodology
- Games not a sufficient or necessary cause of violence
- Publication bias
- Small effect sizes
Pornography: The graphic and explicit depiction of sexual activity
Triple A-Engine that drives its use:
- Anonymity
- Affordability
- Accessibility
Motivators:
- Curiosity
- Sexual stimulation
- Masturbation
