Parasocial Interaction

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Under para social interaction a particular is (deviant, alternatively practiced) social behavior understood characterized in that an actor (a physical person) interacts with individuals or groups whose listening watch, responsiveness or even existence totally be left open, may be but fictitious organization or technically , or who are simply assigned as contact persons.

The phenomenon is very old. Taken agnostically , this also includes prayer , or, since prehistory and early history, inner conversation with the deceased. In terms of the sociology of knowledge , it falls into the area of ​​the social construction of reality .

Research subject

Scientifically, the term parasocial interaction is now mainly used in the field of media psychology . The research interest focuses on recipients who use mass media to establish relationships with assumed partners (e.g. stars ) or in reality non-existent, i.e. virtual actors (e.g. avatars , tulpas ) and communicate with them as if they were real .

The US psychologists Horton and Wohl transferred the concept of social interaction to the media situation in 1956, based on the observation that audiovisual media gave the recipient the illusion of face-to-face contact (a so-called " orthosocial communication). The basic assumption here is that both the media actor and the recipient behave similarly to a face-to-face situation: The media person offers the recipient the illusion of personal contact through direct addressing and behavior directed towards him. The recipient can respond to this communication offer by breaking away from the purely observing position and actively reacting to the offer of the media person. Since the media person also adapts their appearance to the (expected) reaction of the viewer, the more actively the recipient will take part in the media event, the more he perceives this adapting change in the behavior of the media person.

Horton and Wohl refer to this exchange of mutual expectations as a parasocial interaction or a parasocial relationship , on the basis of which long-term emotional ties can develop. Since parasocial "relationship partners" act very reliably and consistently, their behavior hardly harbors any unpleasant surprises for the recipient.

The term is also associated with the mass media expansion of “virtual” worlds , in which socially isolated people are increasingly looking for otherwise lacking social interactions . Sometimes those media recipients show individually pathological forms of behavior in which the distinction between real and virtual communication is no longer perceived. In these cases, the recipient is no longer able to distinguish between reality and fiction because he has already accepted the virtual world as real.

See also

literature

  • Baeßler, Berit, media people as parasocial relationship partners. A theoretical and empirical contribution to person-centered reception , Nomos, Baden-Baden 2009, ISBN 978-3-8329-4603-6
  • Schweizer, K./Klein, K.-M., Media and Emotion ; in: B. Batinic / M. Appel (eds.), Medienpsychologie , Springer Vlg., Heidelberg 2008, pp. 149–175
  • Vorderer, Peter (ed.): Television as a "relationship box". Parasocial Relationships and Interactions with TV Individuals , 1996, ISBN 3-531-12896-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Horton, Donald / Wohl, R. Richard (1956): Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction. Observations On Intimacy at a Distance. In: Psychiatry 19. pp. 215-229.
  2. ↑ Thallmair, Alexandra / Rössler, Patrick: Parasocial interaction at the reception of daily talk shows. A survey of older talk viewers. In: Schneiderbauer, Christian (ed.): Daily talk shows under the microscope. Scientific contributions from research and practice. Applied Media Research Vol. 20. Munich: Verlag Reinhard Fischer, 2001. pp. 179–207.
  3. ^ Bente, Gary / Fromm, Bettina: Affektfernsehen. Motives, ways of offering and effects. Publication series media research of the State Broadcasting Corporation North Rhine-Westphalia. Vol. 24. Opladen: Leske and Budrich, 1997. p. 44.