The power of narratives

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Morgan, S. E., Movius, L., & Cody, M. J. (2009) "The power of narratives: The Effect of Entertainment Television Organ Donation Storylines on the Attitudes, Knowledge, and Behaviors of Donors and Nondonors." Journal of Communication 59, pp. 135–151. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2008.01408.x

Misrepresentation of organ donation system in entertainment media may stymie participation. (136)

Contents 1 Theory 1.1 Social learning theory 1.2 Social representations theory 2 Hypotheses 3 Method 4 Instruments

Theory

"It is highly unlikely that after viewing a black market storyline seeing a small-print disclaimer at the end of the show that the story was not based on a real situation, viewers will modify the attitudes created by their visceral experience of the story." (136)

• Support for this claim?
• Experiments by Green and Brock (137)

Social learning theory

"People will observe and then model the attitudes and behaviors of others under particular conditions." (136)

• (Akers, 1998; Bandura, 1971; Rosenstock, Stretcher, & Becker, 1988)
• People must attend to and remember the behavior being modeled.
• People must have the ability and motivation to act on what they have learned.
• "Highly absorbing television dramas create excellent conditions..." (Why?)

Social representations theory

• Trace the development of social representation of a new / relatively unknown phenomenon (138)
• (Flick, 1998; Moscovici, 1998)

1. Media framing
2. Intrapersonal attitudes formed by frames
   1. Individuals rely heavily only the media represenation
3. Social representations solidify as people engage in interpersonal comm about the phenom (138)

Hypotheses

• H1: The more highly emotionally involving an episode, the more it influences (a) learning about organ donation issues and (b) perceived motivation to become an organ donor.
• H2: The more accurately perceived an episode to be, the more it influences (a) learning about organ donation issues and (b) perceived motivation to become an organ donor.
• H3: Knowledge and beliefs about organ donation are significantly correlated with the content presented in entertainment television storylines.
• H4: The content of episodes positively affects nondonors’ (a) knowledge level on how to become an organ donor and (b) willingness to become a donor.
• H5: The content of episodes positively affects the willingness of donors to urge other people to become organ donors.

Method

• Surveys generated w/r/t House, Grey's Anatomy, CSI: NY, and Numb3rs
  • All of which had recently aired 6 organ donation storylines (139)
• Surveys were posted on fan sites and in online chatrooms except for House survey posted to House website (139)
• ~300 responses on fan sites
• ~5000 responses on House homepage
• Majority female (in all cases or just on homepage?)

Instruments

• Emotional involvement was assessed with a self-reporting Likert scale (142)