Media Entertainment
Contents
LECTURE 1 – INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT .................................................................... 2
LECTURE 2 – USES AND GRATIFICATION ................................................................................................. 3
LECTURE 3 – MOOD MANAGEMENT ...................................................................................................... 6
LECTURE 4 – SELECTIVE NEGATIVE MEDIA: VIOLENCE AND SEX............................................................. 9
LECTURE 5 – EUDAIMONIC ENTERTAINMENT....................................................................................... 15
LECTURE 6 – STORYTELLING .................................................................................................................. 17
LECTURE 7 – PARASOCIAL, IDENTIFICATION, AND TEBOTS ................................................................... 20
LECTURE 8 – SUSPENSE ......................................................................................................................... 23
LECTURE 9 – HUMOUR.......................................................................................................................... 26
LECTURE 10 – INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT ..................................................................................... 29
LECTURE 11 – REPRESENTATION IN MEDIA........................................................................................... 31
LECTURE 12 – ENTERTAINMENT AND FANDOM ................................................................................... 34
LECTURE 13 – USER-GENERATED ENTERTAINMENT ............................................................................. 40
LECTURE 14 – CHILDREN AND MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT ...................................................................... 44
LECTURE 15 – MUSIC AND NEED SATISFACTION ................................................................................... 48
,LECTURE 1 – INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT
Media use in US in 2022:
In 2022, the average daily time spent with major media including TV, newspapers, magazines, radio,
and digital formats amounted to 750 minutes (12 hours and 30 min), 3.5 hours of which are spent on
entertainment.
➔ We care about the significant study of ME, because:
1. people spend a significant part of their day with 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.
How to define ME:
- It is not defined by the medium
- It is not defined by the content
o Content can be experienced differently depending on circumstances.
- It cannot be defined by the pleasantness of felt emotions
- It does have psychological functions in our lives
Enjoyment:
According to Anna 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.
Media Entertainment:
“media content designed to be consumed for purpose of leisure (Rather than specifically for
information gain, learning or persuasion)”
ME: 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 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
that they could be.
,LECTURE 2 – USES AND GRATIFICATION
1. What is media selection?
People don’t consume all the content that is available. They make a selection
Media selection: a goal-oriented decisions process through which people (consciously or
subconsciously) select from the available mediated messages or avoid certain mediated messages.
Human-media interaction
Before -> During -> After
Media selection behaviour -> Psychological processes in users -> Media effects
Understanding media selection
What determines media selection? -> Is it something in the media or the user?
Theories of understanding media selection behaviour
- User-centred theories (What is it in the user that influences what media types they consume)
o Uses and gratifications (L2)
o Mood management (L3)
▪ Mood adjustment theory
o Habit models
o Cognitive decisions models
- Media-centred theories (What in medium influences what media type the user consumes)
o Certain features in the (new) media attract audience (e.g., interactivity)
o E.g., MAIN model by Sundar
Phases of media selection
Before media use:
1. Selection of a media-driven (or non-media driven) activity
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
Before: Selection from the available mediated messages
During: Selective processing of the mediated message itself
After: Selective remembering of the mediated message
2. Early understanding: agency, escapism
Agency of the Audience
Do audiences passively receive mediated messages or do they active participants at all stages od the
interaction?
1950/1960’s theories:
- TV in households
- Audience is lacking agency, a passive receptor of mediated messages
- Primary question: What are media doing to the audience? (impact, persuasion, influence)
Media selection, media effects:
- 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 40’s
started to show that audience members were:
o Active, not passive
, o Selective, not a captive audience
o Obstinate, not gullible
Lazarsfels & Katz (1940): The importance of selection and use
- People’s predispositions affect their media choices
- People make strategic use of media to meet their needs
- Media are primarily influential via interpersonal talk.
➔ 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 consequences of which is still further
withdrawal from the arena of social and political action.” -> Worries about escapism
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
- Yes, some media use is escapist, where people
“forget about troubles” and “lose themselves”
- But, there is great variation in the type of needs,
and “linkages cannot be taken for granted”
- Escapism (or similar experiences) can be
functional
3. Uses and gratifications theory
- One of the most prolific mass communication theories
- Based on a functional model: media use serves a psychological function to gratify a need
Assumptions (derived from process)
1. Media selection is goal-oriented and motivated
2. People are active participants who select media that best fulfil 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)
Contents
LECTURE 1 – INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT .................................................................... 2
LECTURE 2 – USES AND GRATIFICATION ................................................................................................. 3
LECTURE 3 – MOOD MANAGEMENT ...................................................................................................... 6
LECTURE 4 – SELECTIVE NEGATIVE MEDIA: VIOLENCE AND SEX............................................................. 9
LECTURE 5 – EUDAIMONIC ENTERTAINMENT....................................................................................... 15
LECTURE 6 – STORYTELLING .................................................................................................................. 17
LECTURE 7 – PARASOCIAL, IDENTIFICATION, AND TEBOTS ................................................................... 20
LECTURE 8 – SUSPENSE ......................................................................................................................... 23
LECTURE 9 – HUMOUR.......................................................................................................................... 26
LECTURE 10 – INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT ..................................................................................... 29
LECTURE 11 – REPRESENTATION IN MEDIA........................................................................................... 31
LECTURE 12 – ENTERTAINMENT AND FANDOM ................................................................................... 34
LECTURE 13 – USER-GENERATED ENTERTAINMENT ............................................................................. 40
LECTURE 14 – CHILDREN AND MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT ...................................................................... 44
LECTURE 15 – MUSIC AND NEED SATISFACTION ................................................................................... 48
,LECTURE 1 – INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA ENTERTAINMENT
Media use in US in 2022:
In 2022, the average daily time spent with major media including TV, newspapers, magazines, radio,
and digital formats amounted to 750 minutes (12 hours and 30 min), 3.5 hours of which are spent on
entertainment.
➔ We care about the significant study of ME, because:
1. people spend a significant part of their day with 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.
How to define ME:
- It is not defined by the medium
- It is not defined by the content
o Content can be experienced differently depending on circumstances.
- It cannot be defined by the pleasantness of felt emotions
- It does have psychological functions in our lives
Enjoyment:
According to Anna 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.
Media Entertainment:
“media content designed to be consumed for purpose of leisure (Rather than specifically for
information gain, learning or persuasion)”
ME: 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 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
that they could be.
,LECTURE 2 – USES AND GRATIFICATION
1. What is media selection?
People don’t consume all the content that is available. They make a selection
Media selection: a goal-oriented decisions process through which people (consciously or
subconsciously) select from the available mediated messages or avoid certain mediated messages.
Human-media interaction
Before -> During -> After
Media selection behaviour -> Psychological processes in users -> Media effects
Understanding media selection
What determines media selection? -> Is it something in the media or the user?
Theories of understanding media selection behaviour
- User-centred theories (What is it in the user that influences what media types they consume)
o Uses and gratifications (L2)
o Mood management (L3)
▪ Mood adjustment theory
o Habit models
o Cognitive decisions models
- Media-centred theories (What in medium influences what media type the user consumes)
o Certain features in the (new) media attract audience (e.g., interactivity)
o E.g., MAIN model by Sundar
Phases of media selection
Before media use:
1. Selection of a media-driven (or non-media driven) activity
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
Before: Selection from the available mediated messages
During: Selective processing of the mediated message itself
After: Selective remembering of the mediated message
2. Early understanding: agency, escapism
Agency of the Audience
Do audiences passively receive mediated messages or do they active participants at all stages od the
interaction?
1950/1960’s theories:
- TV in households
- Audience is lacking agency, a passive receptor of mediated messages
- Primary question: What are media doing to the audience? (impact, persuasion, influence)
Media selection, media effects:
- 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 40’s
started to show that audience members were:
o Active, not passive
, o Selective, not a captive audience
o Obstinate, not gullible
Lazarsfels & Katz (1940): The importance of selection and use
- People’s predispositions affect their media choices
- People make strategic use of media to meet their needs
- Media are primarily influential via interpersonal talk.
➔ 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 consequences of which is still further
withdrawal from the arena of social and political action.” -> Worries about escapism
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
- Yes, some media use is escapist, where people
“forget about troubles” and “lose themselves”
- But, there is great variation in the type of needs,
and “linkages cannot be taken for granted”
- Escapism (or similar experiences) can be
functional
3. Uses and gratifications theory
- One of the most prolific mass communication theories
- Based on a functional model: media use serves a psychological function to gratify a need
Assumptions (derived from process)
1. Media selection is goal-oriented and motivated
2. People are active participants who select media that best fulfil 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)
