Involved, transported or emotional

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Murphy, S. T., Frank, L. B., Moran, M. B., & Patnoe-Woodly, P. () "Involved, transported or emotional? Exploring the Determinants of Change in Knowledge, Attitudes and Behavior in Entertainment Education." Journal of communication.

"This study examined how three constructs – involvement with a specific character, involvement with the narrative (Green and Brock’s construct of transportation), and viewers’ emotional reaction to the narrative – produce entertainment education effects." (3)

Contents 1 Television entertainment and health information 2 Transportation 3 Affect 4 Research question 5 Method 6 Constructs 6.1 Involvement with character 7 Discussion

Television entertainment and health information

• 26% of the public cited entertainment TV as one of their top sources of health info
• More than half (52%) consider it accurate (4)
• Public health campaigns may "embed" info in popular shows (5)
• Familiar fictional characters perform a kind of "demonstration" of health info
  • Linked to Bandura's social cognitive theory (6)
• No present "universally agreed upon conceptional definition of identification" (8)
  • This project uses "involvement with characters"

Transportation

• Humans are innate storytellers (9)
• Are they also innate story-listeners? Prone to deep engagement with narrative?
• Green and Brock: "transportation"
  • Losing track of surroundings
  • "Heightened emotions and motivations"
  • Emerging "changed" from the experience
• "Transported individuals" may be "harder hit" emotionally by story elements
  • And thus "embedded" lessons (10)
• "Murky" distinction between concepts of "Identification", "involvement with a character", and "transportation" (10-11)
  • Involvment is generally linked to a single character
  • Transportation is generally dependent on a whole narrative (world?)

Affect

• Different emotional states may alter information processing (13)
  • Anger produces closer info processing of messages than fear (13)
• Self-reported emotions:
  • Happiness/joy
  • Sadness
  • Disgust
  • Anger
  • Fear

Research question

" RQ1: Which of the following concepts -- involvement with a specific character, involvement with a narrative more generally, or emotion -- best predict entertainment education effects? More specifically, which concept is most likely to produce an increase in cancer-related a.) knowledge; b.) attitudes; and c.) behavior?" (15)

"RQ2: Which combination and ordering of these constructs -- involvement with a specific character, involvement with a narrative, and/or emotion -- best predicts entertainment education effects?" (15)

Method

Pretest, posttest survey administered by Magid Associates

• 23,842 solicited
• Ultimately 167 were eligible and responded (18)

Constructs

Involvement with character

• Perceived similarity
• Liking
• Wishful identification
• Parasocial interaction

• Factor analysis indicates that this is distinct from involvement with narrative

Discussion

• Transportation was most predictive of increased knowledge (24)