Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

Spring 5-2019

Faculty Advisor(s)

Riva Tukachinsky

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to examine how the source of information about celebrities affects media users’ feelings toward them. Specifically, we will focus on two ways in which people relate to media figures. Parasocial relationships (PSR) are one-sided relationships that people form with media figures. The concept of parasocial interaction (PSI) is closely related in that it entails one-sided involvement with a media figure, but the experience is restricted to the duration a person is viewing the figure. Due to the nature of social media and to celebrities’ increasing use of social media platforms, existing research implies that social media is an ideal medium to create and foster both PSRs and PSIs. We hypothesize that viewing content posted by celebrities on their personal social media accounts will create stronger PSRs and PSIs than when viewing content about celebrities on the social media accounts of tabloid publications. Participants will be exposed to stimuli (e.g. a tabloid celebrity Instagram account versus a celebrity’s personal verified Instagram account) and an online questionnaire to measure the strength of viewers’ PSRs and PSIs.

Comments

Presented at the Spring 2019 Student Scholar Symposium at Chapman University.

Download

Share

COinS