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2015 When Political Narratives Entertain: The Effects of Political Entertainment on the Attitudes of Young Viewers Toward Female Lead Characters Azmat Rasul
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COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION
WHEN POLITICAL NARRATIVES ENTERTAIN: THE EFFECTS OF POLITICAL ENTERTAINMENT ON THE ATTITUDES OF YOUNG VIEWERS TOWARD FEMALE LEAD CHARACTERS
By
AZMAT RASUL
A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2015 Azmat Rasul defended this dissertation on March 30, 2015. The members of the supervisory committee were:
Arthur A. Raney Professor Directing Dissertation
Betsy J. Becker University Representative
Laura Arpan Committee Member
Jennifer M. Proffitt Committee Member
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements.
ii
Dedicated to the loving memory of my parents who shouldered the arduous responsibility of sending me to the institutions of higher learning away from our hometown in a remote rural area.
iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
All human beings are a product of their social environment and a smooth functioning of social and professional life is impossible sans support we receive from people around us. Since my childhood, I have been supported, loved, and guided by several people who made my life worth living. No words would suffice to express my deep sense of gratitude to my benefactors who left no stone unturned in helping me strive for the excellence and tread in the footsteps of illustrious people involved in seeking and creating knowledge. Many of them have left for their heavenly abode and their cherished memories will always remain with me. My most valuable treasure is several others who keep wishing me well from different corners of the world. I could not have reached this stage without their support, cooperation, and guidance. Thank you for showing me light and for being available when I needed you, especially in the darker hours of my life. Unlike Rudyard Kipling, I was not taught everything by what, when, why, how, and who. From my school days to the University of Amsterdam, I had more than a few excellent teachers to whom my debt is great. However, one man who has displayed a tremendous degree of patience while dealing with my incorrigible lifestyle has been Professor Arthur Raney at Florida State University. As a supervising professor, mentor, friend, and co-author, Dr. Raney’s valuable contribution to my academic growth and a general outlook toward academic life has been simply great. As a lifelong relationship, I hold in high esteem and deeply value the mentorship of Dr. Raney. Likewise, another professor directing my MS in Measurement and Statistics thesis, Dr. Betsy Becker, has been a great source of learning and support when I was going astray. Thank you very much Dr. Raney and Dr. Becker for guiding me to explore the areas I would have never ventured to study if you were not there to guide me. Dr. Laura Arpan has been another professor who inspired me with her work. Her presence in the School would be a source of satisfaction for me, as I would go to her office without any appointment to ask intricate questions related to my research designs and methodologies. Without an iota of indignance, she would always smilingly answer my, sometimes silly, questions. Her valuable pieces of advice have always helped me solve academic and professional mysteries.
iv It would be difficult for me to say something about Dr. Jennifer Proffitt. How could someone be so amazingly cooperative, creative, and caring when a student is discussing almost everything under the sun? I feel myself so blessed that I have found an awesome friend and a co- author at FSU with whom I will continue my activism and critique of the social injustices around the world in future. Dr. Stephen McDowell is another professor and friend who belong to the ilk of people ready to support and help everybody. Without Dr. McDowell’s support, it would have been impossible for me to present my work at international conferences in different corners of the world. From these wonderful people, I have learned how satisfying it is to help others when they need it, and I will follow this cooperative model in my professional life as an academic. I would also like to thank Dr. Gary Heald, Dr. Berry Solomon, Dr. Jay Rayburn, Dr. Davis Houck, Dr. Ulla Sypher, Dr. Brian Parker, Dr. Felicia Jordon, Dr. Andy Opel, Dr. John Mayo, Dr. Jaejin Lee, Dr. Insu Paek, Dr. Jennifer Jerit, Linda Okun, Audrey Post, Dr. Joe Clark, Qihao Ji, Leah Hunter, and Fatih Orcan for helping and allowing me to recruit from their classes. This list is not exhaustive, as I may have missed a few names, but I am grateful to everybody who supported me in my difficult years as a graduate student. My special thanks to Dr. William Yeaton who taught me to be extremely conservative in designing my experimental studies. He is an inspiring source of learning and creativity for me. Lastly, I am grateful to my children for sacrificing their pleasures at the altar of Dad’s work. These kids have been extraordinarily caring and practiced “deferred gratification pattern” during my stay at FSU. Thank you kiddos for being patient with the poor Dad. We are definitely going to Orlando in April.
v TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables ...... viii List of Figures ...... ix Abstract ...... x
1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1
Breaking the glass ceiling: Female politicians and the entertainment media ...... 2 Reorienting the relationship between amusement culture and politics ...... 6 Blending politics and entertainment: Effects of political narratives on the attitudes ...... 8 The goals and significance of the study ...... 12
2. LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 15
Attitude toward female politicians: The role model effect ...... 15 To expose or not to expose: Audiences exposure to political entertainment ...... 19 Enjoyment of the political entertainment: The perennial relationship ...... 22 Affective disposition theory: Political characters and enjoyment ...... 25 Identification with the fictional characters ...... 26 Transportation into the narrative and the entertainment media ...... 31 Summary ...... 34
3. STUDY ONE: EXPLORING THE EFFECTS OF BIOGRAPHICAL MOVIES ON THE POLITICAL ATTITUDES OF THE AUDIENCES ...... 37
Serious entertainment and attitudes toward mediated role models ...... 40 Method ...... 44 Participants and procedure ...... 44 Stimulus materials ...... 46 Measures ...... 47 Results ...... 48 Discussion ...... 55 Limitations ...... 58
4. STUDY TWO: EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE TO FICTIONAL POLITICAL ENERTAINMENT AND THE ATITUDE TOWARD FEMALE POLITICIANS ...... 62
Politicizing fictional entertainment: Use(s) of political drama and audiences ...... 65 Dramatically entertaining: Developing a model for political influence of primetime drama ...... 70 Identification ...... 71 Narrative transportation ...... 72 Enjoyment ...... 73 Political self-efficacy and attitude toward female politicians ...... 74 Methodology: Study two ...... 77
vi Study design ...... 77 Power analysis ...... 78 Stimulus materials ...... 80 Pretesting ...... 82 Sample for study two ...... 84 Procedure ...... 85 Measures ...... 86 Analysis of data: Study two ...... 92 Evaluating assumptions of statistical analysis ...... 93 Results: Study two ...... 95 Establishing causal links through path model ...... 101 Discussion: Study two ...... 105 Limitations: Study two ...... 112
5. GENERAL DISCUSSION ...... 115
Effects of semi-fictional political narratives on attitude toward mediated lead characters ...... 116 Effects of fictional drama on attitude toward mediated lead characters ...... 119 Implications for future research and conclusion ...... 122
APPENDICES ...... 128
A. QUESTIONNAIRE STUDY ONE ...... 128 B. QUESTIONNAIRE STUDY TWO ...... 142 C. HUMAN SUBJECTS COMMITTEE APPROVAL LETTERS ...... 169 D. INFORMED CONSENT STATEMENT ...... 172 E. POWER ANALYSIS ...... 176
References ...... 178
Biographical Sketch ...... 205
vii LIST OF TABLES
1. Correlations between dependent variables: Study one ...... 49
2. Univariate effects for gender: Study one ...... 52
3. Direct and indirect effects associated with model parameters: Study one ...... 54
4. EFA items for attitude toward female politicians scale ...... 92
5. Correlations between deendent variables: Study two ...... 96
6. Univariate effects for experimental condition: Study two ...... 97
7. Univariate effects for political ideology: Study two ...... 98
8. Multiple comparisons across experimental conditions (Tukey HSD) ...... 99
9. Multiple comparisons across political ideology (Tukey HSD) ...... 100
10. Predicting attitude toward female politicians ...... 100
11. Direct and indirect effects associated with model parameters: Study two ...... 103
viii LIST OF FIGURES
1 The hypothesized model: Study one ...... 43
2 Profile plots for dependent variables in MANOVA: Study one ...... 50
3 The path model with standardized coefficients: Study one ...... 54
4 The hypothesized path model: Study two ...... 77
5 Scree plot of eudaimonic motives items ...... 90
6 Scree plot of hedonic motives items ...... 90
7 Scree plot of attitude toward female politicians items ...... 90
8 CFA model for attitude toward female politicians ...... 91
9 Standardized path coefficients in the hypothesized model ...... 102
10 Standardized path coefficients in the constrained model ...... 104
ix ABSTRACT
Political narratives have entertained human beings since times immemorial. The political narratives in the form of drama, novel, ballads, and contemporary televisual and filmic stories revolved around various characters that served as role models. Citizens tended to identify with good, morally ambiguous, and sometimes bad characters depending on the context and a host of personal motives, which subsequently determined the enjoyment of the entertainment narratives and absorption into the storyline. Storylines and characters in political entertainment has also been a great source of enjoyable entertainment for the audience. However, female lead characters in political roles were marginalized and frequently represented in conventional roles that were uninspiring and cultivated negative sentiments about females in various leadership roles. In the past few decades, the representation of female lead characters has considerably changed due to the entry of several notable female politicians in the corridors of power across the globe. Since females are visible in different leadership roles, they are attracting attention of the news and entertainment media and their increased visibility is positively influencing attitudes of female and male citizens toward feminine role models. This dissertation focused on the portrayal of female politicians in semifictional and fictional political narratives and explored if enjoyment, character identification, and narrative transportation influenced the attitudes of the audiences toward female protagonists in political entertainment. As political entertainment became a dominant pattern to involve uninterested voters in democratic processes, entertainment psychology research paid attention to the dual process model of entertainment, and several scholars investigated the “serious” nature of enjoyment experience associated with the consumption of political narratives. Several other studies reported that audiences identified with positive political role models featured as the protagonists in “meaningful” semifictional or fictional narratives. Audience were likely to enjoy such narratives by transporting them into the storyline that reduced critical evaluation of the narratives and subsequently influenced their attitudes and beliefs. By designing and conducting two studies to explore the serious nature of political entertainment, this dissertation empirically tested the relationship between exposure to semifictional and fictional narrative and audiences’ attitudes toward female protagonists playing the role of a politician, which was not adequately addressed in extant research. Study one served as a pilot study that tested the causal associations
x between exposure to semifictional biographical political movies and attitude of the audiences toward female politicians, followed by an exploration of the mediating role of a few variables such as enjoyment and narrative transportation. Study two, on the other hand, scrutinized similar relationships between exposure to fictional political drama and viewers’ attitude toward female role models featured as political protagonists in the drama narratives. Both studies found significantly insightful results and paved the way for future inquiry into the effects of fictional entertainment, as was advocated by Holbert (2005) in his “typology for the study of entertainment television and politics”. Exposure motives with meaningful intentions proved to be a significant exogenous variable due to their potential to elicit cognitive and elaborative processing of the entertainment narratives. This dissertation addressed significant questions surrounding political communication and entertainment psychology research. The studies conducted for this research offered plausible results and paved the way for continued research on fictional political entertainment and its effects on attitudes. Various conceptual models were examined (using SEM) to understand the effects of political entertainment and consistent with the previous research, this dissertation developed a plausible and replicable model that reasonably established causal links between different constructs frequently tested in entertainment psychology research. This research followed and confirmed the results of a relatively new approach based on the dual process model of entertainment experience. In agreement with current research in this area, studies in the dissertation found that biographical political movies and primetime drama engendered meaningful entertainment experience that subsequently paved the way for a story-consistent attitudinal change. This line of research also supported the use of entertainment to involve citizens in political processes, not approved by a stream of research arguing that entertainment weakened democratic ethos. Contrariwise, studies in this dissertation confirmed that entertainment was not a negative emotion, and in a postmodern world, entertainment should be effectively used for political well-being and ensuring the existence of a healthy public sphere.
xi CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
World with more women leaders will be a better place – Malala Yousafzai
Since the ancient Greek period, political philosophers, literary maestros, and social scientists have been interested in the role females could play in the public sphere. Traditionally, the females were considered a pariah group in politics whose primary responsibility was to tackle issues pertaining to the private sphere and until recently, female politicians and activists were criticizing the gender gap in politics and their minimal symbolic representation in the corridors of power (Carroll, 2003; Milestone & Meyer, 2012). Several researchers criticized the unwritten masculine conventions for holding political offices and the stereotypical portrayals of female politicians in the news and entertainment media, which was allegedly controlled by the misogynist elite unwilling to offer a fair representation to the female role models (Goren, 2009; Lawrence, 2013; Ross, 2013). The last few decades have witnessed a sizable number of female politicians entering into the business of politics and their presence in positions of political power engenders a role mode effect that leads to higher levels of political self-efficacy among female citizens and helps males visualize females in leadership roles (Atkeson, 2003; Lawless & Fox, 2010). Consequently, females’ representation in the news and entertainment media has plausibly changed, and a relatively positive portrayal of highly visible female politicians in various media is changing attitudes of the audiences toward female role models (Campbell & Wolbrecht, 2006; Gauntlett, 2008; Lawrence & Rose, 2010). Despite the fact that female politicians’ coverage in the news and entertainment media has considerably improved in the recent decades, the conventional portrayal of female politicians still dominates in various entertainment genres and causes female citizens to stay away from the “dirty” business of politics (Falk, 2010; Ross, 2013; Van Zoonen, 2005). Goren (2009) argued that entertainment media could play a significant role in changing attitudes of the citizens toward female politicians as the role and significance of entertainment narratives cannot be underestimated in modern politics. Since the exposure to entertainment media has proliferated with the advancement in technology (Postman, 2006), political parties and
1 candidates are heavily reliant on the persuasive potential of the assorted entertainment genres that significantly influence political socialization patterns among audiences (Carroll, 2003). Being significant agents of political socialization, various entertainment genres help citizens learn the norms of political behavior and model popular patterns of political behavior through observation (Bandura, 2009). Besides, political campaigns have become increasingly entertaining. Political marketing scholarship concurred that the entertainment media transpired as the focus of political campaigns and short biographical films were produced using semi-fictional narratives to persuade undecided voters and change their attitudes in favor of the political candidates. In addition, television and film industry also produced semi-fictional biographical movies on the lives and achievements of female politicians (e.g., The Iron Lady, 2011), movies based on fictional narratives (e.g., The Contender, 2001), and fictional primetime drama (e.g., Commander-in-Chief, 2005-06) featuring viable and strong female politicians. The effects of female politicians’ representation in the above-mentioned entertainment media, however, remained under-researched and paltry academic attention was paid to the question whether these semi-fictional biographical and wholesome fictional narratives adjusted attitudes of the audiences toward female political role models. Likewise, the role of enjoyment, identification with the characters, and narrative transportation in mediating the relationship between exposure to semi-fictional or fictional narratives and a plausible attitudinal change was not adequately addressed in the media effects, entertainment psychology, and political communication literature. This study, therefore, explored the influence of exposé of female lead characters in semi-fictional biographical political movies and purely fictional primetime drama on the attitudes of the audiences toward female politicians.
Breaking the glass ceiling: Female politicians and the entertainment media
Female politicians are visible in the fictional and non-fictional media across the globe due to many reasons. Despite stereotypical portrayals in the news and entertainment media, female role models’ increased visibility in various genres of media is positively affecting attitudes of the audiences toward them (Gauntlett, 2008). Accordingly, Kornblut (2009) claimed that Hillary Clinton’s rising approval ratings indicated that the United States would elect a female president someday. Campus (2013) argued that female politicians’ were skillfully using
2 their femininity to gain political power and that there was a greater acceptance for female leaders due to their increased visibility in the news and entertainment media. Goren (2009), on the other hand, suggested that the Americans would have to first visualize a female president before they could actually have one, and positive portrayals of female leaders in the primetime dramas and movies could help break the “highest and hardest” glass ceiling. This line of argument holds ground as audiences cultivated friendship bonds with the characters in the fictional and semi- fictional dramas and movies through processes involving identification and narrative transportation, which produced positive dispositions toward liked characters by reducing reactance to the messages in the narratives (Cohen, Bryant, & Vorderer, 2006; Igartua, 2010). Consequently, positive portrayals of viable and competent female characters would foster positive attitudes toward real or fictional female role models. Extant research offered mixed evidence on the effects of positive portrayals of feminine role models and suggested that the females and the youth generally espoused positive attitudes toward visible female political leaders, as they were the groups known for their liberal and sometimes radical political attitudes (Banducci, Gidengil, & Everitt, 2012; Campus, 2013; Gauntlett, 2008). In addition, Baum and Jamison (2006) argued that “entertainment-oriented” media content could motivate viewers to vote for the candidates deliberated in the media narratives. On the other hand, the results of research on the effects of visibility of females in the news and entertainment media on the offline political participation and attitude toward female political characters produced varied empirical evidence, and often found “little support that their symbolic presence translates into an increase in political attitudes and behaviors” (Banducci et al., 2012, p. 169). Over the years, the portrayal of female leaders in conventional roles negatively affected female audiences of the movies and television drama, and numerous studies revealed inconsequential effects of the narratives on the political attitudes and behaviors of both female and male audiences (Hahn, 1996; Moy, Xenos & Hess, 2005; Van Zoonen, 2005). Existing literature featured myriad other reasons for political passivity and inertia among politically inattentive groups such as females. As explained in the preceding lines, stereotypical portrayals of female leaders in the movies and primetime drama dissuaded female viewers from participating in the political processes, and strengthened sexist attitudes among male audiences. The gender-role development was also affected by a variety of influences operative in a socio- political system, which affected the expected conduct of males and females in the society
3 (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). Van Zoonen (2005) argued that the absence of viable fictional or real female role models in the entertainment media was directly related to the political passivity prevalent among female citizens. A few studies found that descriptive representation of women in the parliaments of different countries augmented their portrayal in the different media genres that led to greater discussions about female leaders among youth and fashioned a role model effect, which subsequently increased political knowledge and participation (Campbell & Wolbrecht, 2006; Hoyt & Simon, 2011; Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007). In the fictional political drama and the semi-fictional biographical movies, dominant Hollywood conventions were employed and viable political leaders were frequently represented as middle-class Caucasian males (Van Zoonen, 2005). When female politicians were exposed in leading roles in the primetime drama and biographical movies, they were represented as incompetent leaders unsuitable to serve as the commander-in-chief. Fictional political dramas such as Commander-in-Chief (2005-06) and Battlestar Galactica (2003-04), and movies such as Whoops Apocalypse (1986) and Kisses for My President (1964) offered good examples of an ineffectual female fictional presidency. In addition, the fictional female presidents entered into the corridors of power merely by chance with the exception of 24 in which president, Allison Taylor, is an elected leader making tough policy decisions in the While House. Goren (2009) argued that hackneyed portrayals of female political leaders buttressed patriarchal notions of political leadership and alienated females and other disadvantaged groups from participating in assorted political processes. Bearing in mind the ineffective filmic portrayals of female politicians, it would be difficult for the audiences to identify with these bungling role models. Hoyt and Simon (2011), on the other hand, claimed that even stereotypical representations offered opportunities by creating counter-stereotypic resistance and exposure to biographical movies and fictional primetime drama depicting female protagonists would positively influence the attitudes of the audiences, specifically females, toward the mediated female role models if they were challenging the negative stereotypes. Likewise, the extant research paid sparse attention to the effects of character identification in biographical, political movies and primetime drama on the attitude toward female politicians featured as the lead characters. Identification with the fictional characters is an important concept as it defines enjoyment of the narrative and absorption into the storyline that would determine an attitudinal change. In addition, identification with one’s social groups and
4 gender explained political participation of the citizens for a long time (Simon & Hoyt, 2008). Traditionally, female voters supported female candidates, as social group membership had been a robust determinant of the voting behavior of males and females. Social identity theory advocated political involvement along gender schema lines, and identification with gender-based characters could influence one’s attitude in the direction of the media narratives (Simon & Hoyt, 2008; Tajfel, 1982). Several studies indicated that males were slow to show sympathy toward female politicians responsible for making important policy decisions (Conovers, 1988). Consequently, identification with one’s gender could be considered a significant predictor of psychological involvement in politics and semi-fictional (biographical movies) or fictional media (primetime drama) could expediently make gender-identity politics salient. Historically, there were numerous examples of gender-identity politics; for example, the gender of candidates played a pivotal role in 1992 when 14 women ran in the gubernatorial race in the United States and the gender of the voters significantly predicted voting behavior in eight out of the 13 states (Simon & Hoyt, 2008). Lately, women keenly supported and identified with Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries and a gender gap was evident all through the nomination process (Ross, 2013; Simon & Hoyt, 2008). There is plenty of support for the assumption that people like to identify and socialize with other people based on perceived similarity. In a fictional entertainment media environment, identification with the characters is considered a strong predictor of transportation into the narrative and a subsequent enjoyment of the media genre. Identification with the characters magnifies the enjoyment value by absorbing viewers into the entertainment narratives (Cohen, 2006). Tal-Or and Cohen (2010, p. 229) argued that identification involved merging of the self with a media character that helped viewers understand and internalize the perspective and worldview of the media characters in a fictional narrative. Audiences actively seek out certain gratifications from the entertainment narratives and selectively expose them to a media that meet their cognitive and affective needs (Harris & Sanborn, 2014). Identification with the characters in a biographical movie or primetime drama also facilitates the genre selection process by reducing cognitive load. Being cognitive misers (Bandura, 2009), audiences of the fictional entertainment, specifically drama and movies, tend to unquestioningly absorb the messages cloaked in the narrative. Absorption into the narrative leads to greater enjoyment and the persuasive power of the fictional/real stories tend to increase over time (Appel & Richter, 2007).
5 Appel (2008) argued that identification facilitated narrative transportation that led to the cultivation of beliefs in the direction of the media narratives. However, the extent to which identification with the characters, narrative transportation, and enjoyment of the political narratives is effective in altering the political attitudes of the audiences remained an under- researched area. Portrayal of viable female politician in the biographical movies and primetime drama, therefore, opens a research window to explore the effects of psychological involvement with media, which has significant academic and policy implications as “in strategic political communication and policymaking, the use of narratives and storytelling are also recognized as effective communication strategies” (Weber & Wirth, 2014). Considering insufficient academic attention paid to the psychological processes related to the effects of the consumption of entertainment narratives, this study addresses important gaps found in the literature on the relationship between entertainment media and politics and seeks to examine the effects of biographical political films and political drama on the political attitudes of the audiences. Being one of the germinal studies examining the mediational role of identification with the fictional characters, narrative transportation and enjoyment of the semi-fictional and fictional media, this research advances an understanding of the effects entertainment media on the political attitudes of a predominantly young audience, who are typically considered a politically liberal but indifferent and uninterested group. Specifically, the study explores the extent to which identification, transportation, and enjoyment mediate the effects of biographical movies and primetime drama on the attitude toward female politicians. By using a new scale to measure audiences’ attitudes toward female politicians, this study facilitates the work of future researchers interested in exploring the interrelationship among semi-fictional and fictional entertainment narratives and the audiences’ attitude toward viable female political role models. The study also facilitates a reorientation of the approaches suggested by various researchers in the recent scholarship (Delli Carpini, 2012; Holbert, 2005; Ridout, 2013; Van Zoonen, 2005) to investigate the relationship between politics and entertainment media.
Reorienting the relationship between amusement culture and politics
Entertainment and politics have been intertwined constructs since times immemorial. Literature and art served as natural cultural allies of politics that bundled political content into
6 different entertaining formats throughout the known history of humankind. Van Zoonen (2005) argued that Plato “had a hedonistic notion of political activity, because he thought that it should serve the human pleasure and happiness” (p. 10). The European and American literary and cultural traditions paid adequate attention to the political narratives, as great literary maestros believed that politics and culture were inseparable domains and politics was associated with mundane cultural practices of people. Especially, satire was used profoundly as an entertainment genre to convey political messages and stories to the people (Keighron, 1998). With the advent of technology-intensive audiovisual media, political narratives found a powerful channel to amuse and entertain people. Hollywood, for example, began producing melodramatic political movies in the third decade of the 20th century (Van Zoonen, 2012). The effects of political entertainment on the citizens, however, remained shrouded in the mist of uncertainty as researchers found mixed evidence of the efficacy of various entertainment genres. A few scholars critically evaluated the pervasiveness of entertainment media in the democratic societies and held “amusement culture” responsible for the declining standards of civic and political engagement (Mander, 1978; Postman, 2006). The modernist critics considered the enjoyment of political entertainment an escape from the social conflict and reform movements that were a hallmark of the post-World War II era (Van Zoonen, 2005). Politicians and political parties, on the other hand, responded favorably to the power of entertainment media to involve citizens in multifarious political activities. The campaign managers effectively used the prowess of entertainment media to persuade undecided and indifferent voters to cast their votes in favor of their candidates in the elections. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher employed a conservative populist political strategy in the United States and the United Kingdom respectively, which served as a catalyst in modern political communication and facilitated the use of entertainment to engage the citizens in assorted political processes (Street, 1997). Since 1980s, various entertainment media genres emerged as powerful factors affecting the dissemination of political messages to the voters and “by 2008, entertainment media in its various forms were arguably as much a factor in politics as more traditional sources of news” (Delli Carpini, 2012, p. 10). Political parties released biographical movies in close proximity to the elections and major political parties in the United States strategically sough support from Hollywood to release movies in the election years that could support certain candidates (Scott, 2011). Empirical
7 research in communication, nonetheless, paid insufficient attention to the effects of semi- fictional and fictional entertainment media on political attitudes and behavior of the citizens. Researchers argued that the effects of entertainment on the political attitudes of the audiences were a byproduct of the exposure to the entertainment narratives (Baum, 2002). Until recently, for example, scholars such as Kaid (2004) offered paltry attention to the role and effects of entertainment media in her Handbook of Political Communication Research (Delli Carpini, 2012). Especially, the effects of biographical political movies and television drama on various groups of audiences remained an under-researched area despite the fact that Hollywood movies cultivated positive affective dispositions toward the presidential candidates in the past (Adams et al., 1985). Likewise, Holbert et al., (2003) argued that watching fictional TV drama such as The West Wing primed audiences to hold positive attitudes toward George Bush and Bill Clinton as watching a caring fictional president reinforced confidence of the audiences in the institution of the presidency, and increased ratings of the current and former presidents. A few recent studies (Cao, 2008; Corner, Richardson, & Parry, 2013; Holbert & Hansen, 2006; Holbrook & Hill, 2005; Moy et al., 2005) also found that exposure to political comedy, drama, and movies could increase political awareness and motivate audiences to involve in politics. Effects of entertainment narratives with female politicians as the lead characters were, however, another less attended area despite the fact that a number of semi-fictional biographical movies and fictional dramas were produced in the recent decades. Thus, there is a heuristic demand to apply empirical methods to examine the convoluted nature of the relationship between political films and drama and the political attitudes of the audiences through the lens of innovative theoretical approaches that focus closely on the psychological involvement of the audiences in the entertainment media.
Blending politics and entertainment: Effects of political narratives on the attitudes
Considering heavy viewership of the fictional entertainment programs and to address important gaps in the existing research, the role of the fictional and biographical political movies, prime-time drama, and docudrama in changing political attitudes needs to be rigorously investigated. Recently, a few study reported significant effects of exposure to Hollywood movies, primetime drama, and political comedy on the political knowledge and evaluation of
8 fictional and real political characters (Cao, 2008, Holbert et al., 2003; Jackson, 2007; Nabi et al., 2006). Researchers also focused on the so-called “indifferent groups” such as youth and females and suggested that watching competitive female politicians through filmic content primed female viewers to act more politically (Baumgartner, Morris, & Walth, 2012; Goren, 2009; Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007). The potential of the political movies to prime viewers and the capacity of the real/fictional political characters to engender an attitudinal change that would significantly enhance political engagement were capitalized by the campaign managers in various European countries and the United States (Thussu, 2009). The young voters, especially females, were likely to learn about politics and subsequently modeled political behaviors after an exposure to the fictional and biographical political movies, prime-time drama, and other genres of political entertainment (Baum & Jamison, 2006; Delli Carpini, 2012; Holbert, 2005; Rasul & Raney, 2013). In view of the ubiquity of various categories of entertainment media, political communication scholarship tended to favor the notion that entertainment programs carrying political messages directly or indirectly affected political learning and psychological engagement of the audiences in various political processes. However, there are numerous heuristic questions awaiting the attention of researchers working in the area of political communication and offering them opportunities to investigate the extent to which political entertainment possessed the potential to change attitudes of the audiences toward politicians, political parties, civic institutions, and different political processes. The prevalence of political narratives in the entertainment media world, therefore, raises important questions regarding the nature and ethics of political stories, identification with, and exposé of political characters, transportation into the narrative world, dispositions toward outcomes harvested by various characters, and ensuing enjoyment leading to a potential change in the attitudes toward politics and politicians. To answer these questions, extant empirical research evaluated the relationship between entertainment and politics by adopting a number of approaches such as cultivation, priming, uses and gratification, and entertainment-education (Delli Carpini, 2012; Singhal, Rao, & Pant, 2006). Since seemingly disparate academic agendas addressed questions dealing with the relationship between entertainment media and politics, substantial empirical evidence would be needed before suggesting a comprehensive model outlining the relationship between the consumption of political entertainment, identification with political characters, transportation into the political narratives, enjoyment, and a consequent
9 attitudinal change. Researchers (Delli Carpini, 2012; Semetko & Scammell, 2012; Van Zoonen, 2005) agreed that the approaches to study political entertainment needed refinement as extant research found mixed and sometimes conflicting evidence of the effectiveness of entertainment media in changing political attitudes of the citizens. Weber and Wirth (2014), for example, argued that there was negligible evidence to suggest that a meaningful relationship existed between entertainment media, especially film, and the variables mentioned in the preceding lines. Holbert (2005) summarized numerous “epistemic divides” addressing the study of entertainment media and politics and argued that various approaches could be combined under the umbrella of affective disposition theory (ADT) of media enjoyment. His typology of the study of entertainment and politics, however, sketchily discussed the underlying psychological processes such as disposition toward media characters investigated by the researchers in the media psychology tradition. Of late, ADT was employed to explore character liking, moral evaluations, and various processes underlying enjoyment of the mediated content (Raney, 2004, 2011; Shafer & Raney, 2012). Raney and Bryant (2002) argued that audiences expend cognitive resources to untangle storylines within which characters operate, and an optimal level of enjoyment depended on expected outcomes various characters might yield as the story unfolded. Raney (2002) suggested that the audience liked characters whose actions were in accordance with their moral values and they developed negative attitudes toward characters who violated moral boundaries drawn by the consumers of the entertainment media content. Similarly, Zillmann (1998) reported that the audiences enjoyed news stories highlighting good fortunes for their favorite characters, while the level of enjoyment decreased if there was a bad news about the liked characters. These findings clearly suggested that ADT could serve as a valuable theoretical framework to comprehend political entertainment narratives, as politics revolved around stories, characters, and the issues of morality and moral judgments (Van Zoonen, 2005). Acknowledging the scope of ADT, Holbert (2005) claimed that ADT could serve as a useful mechanism to examine the effects of various entertainment genres on the enjoyment of political media narratives and subsequent attitudinal changes. Besides, the work of scholars in the area of entertainment psychology (Bandura, 2009; Bryant & Vorderer, 2006; Green et al., 2004; Raney, 2006; Weber & Wirth, 2014; Zillmann, 1996) offers new opportunities to empirically investigate the interrelationship between
10 enjoyment of political entertainment and the attitudes of the audiences. Since 1970s, media psychologists have paid attention to the processes involved in the processing of entertaining narratives and subsequent effects on the attitudes of the viewers (Shafer, 2009). Numerous theories were developed by the researchers in this tradition, but for the purpose of this research, specific attention would be paid to the affective disposition theory (Raney, 2003, 2006; Zillmann & Cantor, 1976, Zillmann, 2000), identification with the characters (Cohen, 2006), social identification theory (Tajfel, 1982; Trepte, 2006), narrative transportation (Apple & Richter, 2010; Green et al., 2004), and role model effect (Campbell & Wolbrecht, 2006). Although Campbell and Wolbrecht’s (2006) work does not fall under the purview of the media psychology literature mentioned in the foregoing lines, however, their work is expressively closer to the empirical findings of the psychology of entertainment scholars as they have emphasized on the effects of the consumption of media on the political attitudes of audiences by addressing the influence of female politicians as characters in the media narratives. One of the important questions related to the effects of narratives deals with the attitude of the audiences toward characters in the political entertainment. Raney (2002) argued that audiences enjoyed media narratives when liked characters were rewarded and disliked characters were punished. Levels of enjoyment would also increase if the audiences identify with the lead characters in various genres of fictional entertainment media (Shrum, 2012). Besides, identification with the media characters is highly correlated with transportation into the narrative that minimizes critical evaluation of the messages and results in an attitudinal change in the direction of the media content (Dal Cin, Zanna, & Fong, 2004). In political communication literature, a few studies have shown positive effects of the fictional narratives on the audiences’ attitudes. Adams et al. (1985) investigated the effects of a semi-fictional biographical movie about an astronaut on the political attitude of the voters toward John Glenn, a former presidential candidate and an astronaut, and found that the movie generated positive dispositions toward Glenn. Other researchers (Carlson, 1985; Holbert et al., 2003; Holbert & Hansen, 2006; Lenart & McGraw, 1989; Rasul & Raney, 2013) argued that satire, comedy, primetime drama, docudrama, and biographical movies influenced political attitudes of the audiences toward fictional and real- life characters. Likewise, audiences watching fictional narratives portraying female protagonists in progressive and powerful roles were likely to hold liberal views regarding gender equality and their attitudes toward females were positive (Holbert et al., 2003).
11 A plausible change in the attitudes of the audiences could be defined by the audiences’ dispositions and identification with the lead characters. The audiences tended to identify with the protagonists that transported them into the narrative and enhanced levels of enjoyment, which changed their attitudes toward the main characters exposed in the entertainment narratives. Especially, the female audiences expressed greater liking for the female protagonists, and entertainment programs focusing on gender issues and favoring women were more popular among young girls (Van Zoonen, 2005). In their study, Simon and Hoyt (2008) found that female participants expressed greater liking for Hillary Clinton when she was a front-runner in the presidential nomination race in 2008. They argued that citizens were likely to “vote along gender lines” (p. 162) in the elections. Considering gender-identity based politics and processing of political entertainment narratives, Campus (2013) argued that the popularization of politics as a soap opera created new space for female leaders and the salience of female protagonists in the fictional political narratives would help voters visualize females in leadership roles. Additional empirical evidence, however, is needed to understand the processing and evaluation of fictional characters, especially female protagonists, in the political entertainment narratives. Since biographical movies and primetime dramas are popular modes of political communication across the globe, representation of female politicians in powerful roles is likely to engender significant effects on the political attitudes of the audiences and opens a research window for the researchers to examine how audiences identify and enjoy political narratives in which female protagonists are involved in making tough decisions as capable leaders. ADT and other popular approaches in media psychology and political communication literature need to focus on the effects of representation of viable and competent feminine characters in the entertainment stories as gender of the audiences is a significant factor in the processing of the narratives and subsequent attitudinal changes.
The goals and significance of the study
As discussed in the preceding paragraphs, the ubiquity and popularity of the semi- fictional and fictional entertainment narratives necessitates a heuristic demand to investigate the effects of biographical movies and primetime drama on the political attitudes of the audiences. This dissertation highlights that the biographical movies and primetime drama not only serve
12 hedonic purposes, but also “seriously entertain” audiences through their eudaimonic potential (Roth et al., 2014). Biographical political movies are used in the election campaigns to influence voters and generate positive attitudes toward political candidates. Likewise, fictional primetime drama has been influential in positively shifting the attitudes of the audiences toward politics and the institution of presidency in the United States (Parry-Giles & Parry-Giles, 2006). Adams et al. (1985) underscored the impact of semi-fictional biographical movies in changing attitudes of the audiences toward a presidential candidate who was similar to the lead character in the movie. One of the important goals of this study is to investigate the influence of semi-fictional biographical movies and fictional primetime drama with female politicians as the lead characters to examine how these genres impact audiences’ attitude toward mediated characters. Female politicians and feminist activists have been criticizing the negative portrayal of female politicians in the news and entertainment media and a few studies have concluded that positive and effectual portrayal of female role models in the entertainment media could break “the highest and hardest glass ceiling” in the United States (Falk, 2010; Goren, 2009). The extant research paid inadequate attention to the empirical investigation of the effects of exposure to biographical movies and primetime drama in changing political attitudes of the audiences toward lead characters playing the role of female politicians, and this dissertation addresses this gap by employing appropriate empirical procedures. In addition, prior research applied various epistemological approaches to study the relationship between entertainment media and politics. Various scholars (Bartsch & Schneider, 2014; Delli Carpini, 2012; Holbert, 2005; Ridout, 2013; Roth et al., 2014; Van Zoonen, 2005) described dominant theoretical frameworks explaining effects of political entertainment, but these studies fell short of explicating the psychological processes underlying the concept of political entertainment. Enjoyment of the entertainment is a complex phenomenon and involves numerous intervening processes. This dissertation focuses on the enjoyment of semi-fictional and fictional narratives by exploring the role of mediating variables such as identification with the characters and narrative transportation. Drawing inspiration from ADT and other theoretical concepts frequently used in entertainment psychology literature (Tal-Or & Cohen, 2010; Green et al., 2004; Oliver & Raney, 2014; Raney, 2006, 2011; Vorderer, 2004), this study pays special attention to the power of characters in the entertainment narratives and empirically tests the causal associations between exposure to entertainment and the attitude of the audiences toward
13 female lead characters by scrutinizing the role of mediating variables such as enjoyment, identification, and narrative transportation. Considering the growing number of female politicians playing a significant role in the public sphere, this dissertation sheds light on an important social and political issue dealing with the representation of female politicians in the semi-fictional and fictional entertainment media and its effects on the audiences’ attitudes toward female politicians. Specifically, this study focuses on differences in the processing of entertainment narratives in movies and drama and has policy implications, which could be used by political parties and governments to amplify political engagement among young voters, which are considered an indifferent group and their indifference has been leading to the trivialization of democratic norms in deliberative democracies.
14 CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Attitudes toward female politicians: The role model effect
The central focus of this study is to explore the attitudinal change toward female politicians that might occur because of exposure to political entertainment. Extant literature sheds light on the processes such as identification with the characters, enjoyment, and narrative transportation that facilitate a change in the attitudes in the direction of the storyline. If the characters are positively portrayed in the media narrative, audiences are inclined to enjoy the narrative and absorb the perspective of the characters that leads to the narrative transportation, which in turn persuades audiences to uncritically accept the messages enshrined in the narrative and change their attitudes accordingly. The portrayal of lead characters, female politicians for the purpose of this study, as weak or powerful, active or passive determines the attitude of the audiences toward these fictional characters (Ferguson, 2012). Banducci et al. (2012, p. 165) argued that media have a tendency to expose female politicians “as women and objects rather than as political protagonists, something they rarely do for male politicians”. Likewise, Goren (2009) claimed that female politicians fell a prey to the overtly sexist tendencies in the fictional and nonfictional media that subsequently affected the attitudes of the audiences toward female politicians. Matland and King (2002) reviewed experimental studies and found that female candidates were considered suitable for promoting education, helping the poor, and supporting art, while male candidates were deemed good at handling serious policy issues. The portrayal of female politicians in the fictional and nonfictional media, therefore, would determine the attitude of the voters toward them. If the female protagonists are challenging the negative stereotypes, a more positive effect is likely on the attitudes of the viewers (Hoyt & Simon, 2011). Processes of identification, enjoyment, and narrative transportation would also be affected by the nature of the portrayal of the female protagonists in the entertainment narratives. Biographical political movies present positive political role models as inspirational examples for the audiences in a semi-fictional fashion. An assertive female political role model could be considered as “someone to look up to, and someone to base your character, values, or
15 aspirations upon” (Gauntlett, 2008, p. 223). Numerous studies outlined the relationship between psychological political engagement and exposure to various media genres that were consumed for different reasons (Atkeson, 2003; Campbell & Wolbrecht, 2006; Ford, 2011; Goren, 2009; Jackson, 2009). Wolbrecht and Campbell (2007) argued that visibility of female politicians as viable political candidates enjoyed the capacity to motivate other women to participate in practical politics. The portrayal of female politicians as powerful characters influenced attitudes of the female audiences, as gender identities were primed and gender empathy increased (Simon & Hoyt, 2008; Trepte, 2006). Extant research also showed that women traditionally endorsed non-traditional roles and liberal political attitudes, and tended to support female candidates. Similarly, gender stereotypes, gender role attitudes, and gender identity politics were considered important factors that influenced the voting behavior of both men and women. Simon and Hoyt (2008), for example, explored the relationship between the voting patterns of men and women and their political attitudes in the United States during 2008 race for the presidential nominations by concentrating on the attitude of voters toward Senator Hillary Clinton. When primed with their gender identity, female voters’ support for Clinton significantly increased and they turned out to be more politically liberal than male participants were. In their seminal study, Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) discussed the influence of female politicians as role models for young girls who were likely to learn politics, develop political attitudes, and model behavior patterns popularized by the female political leaders. The female audiences of assorted entertainment genres showed keen interest in politics due to a substantial increase in their existing knowledge as they sought information about their favorite female political leaders (Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007). Thus, the influence of female role models on the political attitudes is likely to generate greater political involvement among young female adults. The role model effect contributes significantly toward processes culminating in enhanced levels of political socialization, and Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) attributed this attitudinal change to the enjoyment of the narratives that would spark political discussions among family members about female candidates. Goren (2009), therefore, argued that visualization of female political leaders in primetime drama and biographical movies would generate greater acceptance for women in leadership roles, and the audience would frequently identify with and discuss female politicians due to their salience in assorted genres of entertainment media.
16 However, fictional and semi-fictional entertainment media tended to focus on telegenic female politicians, and Hart (1999), for example, argued that televisions’ focus on the faces of politicians engendered negative psychological attitudes culminating in the personalization of politics. Entertainment media typically treat female politicians as celebrities, which are lacking in professional and political experience due to familial responsibilities. Celebritization of female politicians is likely to generate greater identification and subsequent enjoyment of the narratives showing female protagonists, but its effects on a favorable change in attitudes have not been fully explored in political communication scholarship. Over the years, psychologists have underscored the prominence of masculine traits in politicians, which has been skillfully embedded in Hollywood’s political discourses that treat women as outsiders (Van Zoonen, 2005). Consequently, the gender gap in politics widened in different societies as female audiences of entertainment narratives could not identify with stereotypical female protagonists, and misogynist tendencies were reinforced among male audiences (Campbell, 2006; Carroll & Fox, 2013; Parry-Giles & Parry-Giles, 2006). Popular movies and primetime drama showed numerous male protagonists as successful and caring politicians, but very few female political protagonists were visible in the entertainment narratives. Visibility of the characters is a significant determinant of identification that would lead to other important processes, resulting in attitudinal changes toward such characters. Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) argued that one of the chief indicators of discernibility was the office for which a woman was a contestant in practical politics and fictional narratives. Since fewer women practically contested elections, a female politician running for a high-profile political position was a relatively unusual phenomenon that received public attention, Internet discussion, and media coverage. The more a female candidate is discussed, the more adolescent girls learn about politics, change political attitudes, and express their propensity to politically involve in the campaigns. Extant literature also found a significant relationship between women’s political attitudes and visibility of female politicians involved in high politics, as female politicians were more likely to discuss issues pertinent to their gender, which would spark an interest in politics among other women, especially young girls. Bandura (2001) argued that “people are motivated by the success of others who are similar to themselves” (p. 274). Extant research recurrently found that the positive portrayal of women in all genres of media served as a
17 catalyst for girls who initiated political discussions with their peers on the Internet and sought to actively engage in political activities (Goren, 2009). Since women are less visible in the news and entertainment media in many societies, the level of motivation among young females to pursue a career in politics is substantially low. However, in vibrant democracies, women are encouraged to join political parties, and ultimately attract media’s attention, which makes them visible to young female adults. Wolbrecht and Campbell (2007) found that the political discussion among women of all ages significantly increased when female members of parliament were salient, and the participants expressed willingness to be politically active. Especially, lead characters playing the role of female politicians in the biographical political movies on the lives of female politicians are likely to enhance the frequency of political discussions among women, which would spark an interest in politics, and the female audiences would be positively influenced by the roles through processes involving mediated political socialization and narrative transportation. Thus, visibility of female politicians as viable candidates in the news and entertainment media politically activates young voters, especially females, and results in greater belief in the viability of female politicians and anticipated political participation. The attitude toward electing female politicians for a higher office (presidential, gubernatorial, or leader of the house) and viability of female candidates determine a role model effect spawned through increased visibility of female politicians (Campbell & Wolbrecht, 2006; Gauntlett, 2008; Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007). As female politicians are getting an amplified media attention, it is academically imperative to explore how various genres of political entertainment are portraying female role models. In this research, study on and two concentrated on investigating the effects of semi-fictional and fictional entertainment narratives on the viewers’ attitude toward female politicians and developing and testing a theoretical model that surveyed the causal connections between exposure motives to semi-fictional biographical movies and fictional primetime drama on the identification with characters, enjoyment, narrative transportation, political self-efficacy, and a perceptible change in the attitude of the audiences toward female politicians. Study one served as an exploratory study to examine the processes discussed in the ensuing paragraphs through which exposure to biographical political movies lead to the enhanced levels of narrative transportation facilitating greater enjoyment, which subsequently changed attitudes of the audiences and necessitated an
18 exploration of the fictional entertainment to examine if the effects of exposure to both media genres was similar.
To expose or not to expose: Audiences’ exposure to political entertainment
The politicians have exploited the appeal and persuasive prowess of entertainment media to coax ordinary citizens for a long time. Van Zoonen (2005) argued that politics might turn into an alien sphere if it is not a meaningfully entertaining experience connected with the routine cultural practices of the citizens. Exposure to and experience of political entertainment could be treated as a media effect (Zillmann & Bryant, 1994; Bryant, Thompson, & Finklea, 2012) at micro and macro levels as popular genera of modern entertainment affected individual citizens at micro level and political discourses at societal level. Over the years, seeking political entertainment has transformed into an enjoyable and intimate hedonistic activity that establishes bonds of personal relationships between celebrity politicians and the audiences (Hart, 1994; Van Zoonen, 2005). The personalization of politics through a pervasive entertainment culture has transfigured audiences into active participants instead of vulnerable victims to the appeal of fictional narratives, and they independently select media program and process political entertainment in their brains using affective subsystems (Marcus, 2010). Especially, the role of disposition system, according to Marcus (2010Lee), is critical in explaining audiences’ enjoyment and attitudes toward assorted political processes. One of the key reasons for the exposure to political entertainment, therefore, is the nexus between modern politicians and interactive digital technologies that facilitated personalization of politics and enabled audiences to identify and interact with politicians (Gauntlett, 2008; Jackson, 2008, 2009; Thussu, 2009; Van Zoonen, 2005). Political entertainment programs such as primetime drama and movies provide pleasurable shortcuts to the cognitively miser audiences (Bandura, 2009) uninterested in expending time and effort to learn about politics. Entertaining narratives about politics and politicians facilitate the process of making complicated political judgments by reducing cognitive load and critical evaluation of the messages. Zillmann’s (1988) mood management theory also suggested that the audiences tended to avoid exposure to stimuli spawning negative moods and preferred exposure to enjoyable media resulting in positive mood. Selection of
19 political entertainment could, therefore, be termed as a deliberate effort of the audiences to enjoy pleasurable fictional narratives instead of exposure to usually negative news and current affairs programs (Reinecke et al., 2012). Existing literature suggested that excitatory homeostasis, intervention potential, hedonic valence, and message-behavior affinity typically determined audiences’ exposure to entertainment narratives to acquire an optimal level of arousal, pay attention to an absorbing narrative, enjoy direction of the narrative, and establish a relationship between entertainment narratives and behavioral outcomes (Bryant & Davies, 2006; Reinecke et al., 2012; Tamborini et al., 2011). Van Zoonen (2012) argued that dramatization of politics through the excessive use of quest, bureaucracy, conspiracy, and soap plots in the entertainment narratives affected moods of the audiences by incorporating elements of the mood management theory discussed in the preceding lines. Keeping in view the plots in political entertainment, audiences’ exposure to the political narratives is likely to be affected by the vividness of the stories that would subsequently influence their perception of the political realities (Lee & Oh, 2012; Zillmann & Brosius, 2012). Thus, audiences’ deliberate efforts to manage their moods and the plots in political narratives that facilitated mood management could be considered another significant determinant of exposure to political entertainment. Uses and gratification approach also sheds light on audiences’ selection of and exposure to assorted entertainment media. In media effects literature, the uses and gratification approach offered valuable insights into the selection of political entertainment and revealed that audiences of assorted genres of media had certain gratification-oriented motives that satisfied their emotional and informational requirements (Bryant & Oliver, 2009; McQuail, 2010; Roth et al., 2014; Rubin, 2002, 2008; Ruggiero, 2000). Audiences tended to selectively expose themselves to a variety of entertainment genres to seek out various gratifications. The central reasons behind this exposure were directly linked to a particular set of gratifications such as happiness, parasocial interaction, diversion, and numerous other cognitive and emotional gratifications (Nabi et al., 2006). For the last few decades, researchers explored gratifications audiences sought from media and politically active citizens were found to be heavy consumers of political entertainment and other broadcast programs (Blumler & McQuail, 1969; Rubin, Palmgreen, & Spher, 2009). Before exposure to a particular entertainment genre, the anticipated emotional and cognitive gratifications such as pleasure and learning might also relate to absorption into the narrative and subsequent enjoyment of the entertainment programs (Nabi et al., 2006). Exposure
20 to the politically relevant entertainment programs, therefore, depended largely on a set of gratification-oriented motives satisfying cognitive and emotional needs of the audiences. Audiences were likely to enjoy these programs by transporting themselves into the entertainment narrative, and their emotional (e.g., sadness; Oliver, Weaver, & Sargent, 2000) and cognitive (e.g., moral evaluations; Raney, 2004, learning; Holbert et al., 2003) reactions were associated with the treatment of the main characters, which might affect their attitudes toward different characters presented in the storyline (Nabi et al., 2006). Appel and Richter (2010) also argued that a logical outcome of transportation into the narrative while seeking cognitive and emotional gratifications was a tangible change in attitudes and beliefs. Politically motivated selective exposure to the media received paltry academic attention and extant research paid inadequate attention to the consequences and psychological effects of exposure to the political entertainment on various groups of audiences. Researchers (Bennett & Iyengar, 2008; Knobloch-Westerwick, 2012; Mutz, 2002) argued that audiences preferred media messages confirming and reinforcing already existing attitudes, and the nature of selective exposure to political narratives might result in political intolerance and polarization. Simon and Hoyt (2008) also found that the females tended to support female candidates while the males espoused a tendency to support male politicians. However, there is sparse research focusing on the effects of exposure to political entertainment and causal relationships have not been adequately established to explore the effects of selective exposure on the political attitudes of the viewers or vice versa (Knobloch-Westerwick, 2012; Stroud, 2010). Likewise, additional inquiry is needed to empirically examine the intervening processes between cognitive and emotional motives associated with exposure to political entertainment and attitudinal change. Entertainment narratives have personalized politics at individual levels and identification with the characters in political entertainment and subsequent enjoyment and dispositions toward these characters might be polarized across gender-lines. Besides, Simon and Hoyt (2008) found convincing evidence of identification with politicians along gender lines, and argued that gender of the politicians played a significant role in motivating voters because social identities would be primed as suggested by the social identification theory. Since media audiences “have been found to prefer attitude- consistent messages” (Knobloch-Westerwick, 2012, p. 631), it would be interesting to investigate if the audiences identify with the characters, transport into, and enjoy political narratives confirming their already existing attitudes.
21 Enjoyment of the political entertainment: The perennial relationship
One of the most significant gratifications obtained during exposure to political entertainment is the enjoyment experienced through the unfurling of the story. Scholars (Bartsch, 2012; Conway & Rubin, 1991; Tamborini et al., 2011) argued that the enjoyment of the entertaining narratives is the focal concern and one of the most significant determinants in the selection of a particular entertainment genre. Audiences spend time and money on entertainment products to amuse themselves, and individuals have been seeking hedonistic pursuits through a number of cultural activities created by ingenious artists during different phases of history (Postman, 2006). Although the study of enjoyment dates back to the Greek era, recent scholarship paid adequate attention to the explication of the construct in the wake of popularization of the audiovisual media. Usually, the enjoyment is associated with character liking, and the treatment of the characters in the entertainment narrative is associated with the hedonistic experiences of the audiences (Raney, 2004; Shafer & Raney, 2012; Vorderer, Klimmt, & Ritterfeld, 2004). The affective disposition theory (ADT) explicated enjoyment as the disposition of the audience toward content and characters in the entertainment media. Vorderer et al. (2004) outlined that enjoyment was a complex construct associated with different conditions and contexts. In the framework of politics, enjoyment of the entertainment narratives emerged as a relative and contextual experience guided by different attitudes and beliefs (Van Zoonen, 2005). Enjoyment as an effect of consumption of political entertainment and its effects on various political attitudes has not been adequately researched and conceptualized in the communication literature. Tamborini et al. (2011) argued that a few researchers attempted to “explicate the component parts of enjoyment as both an attitude (Nabi & Krcmar, 2004) and an experiential state (Vorderer et al., 2004), the majority of entertainment research has overlooked the complexity of the enjoyment concept” (p. 1025). Van Zoonen (2005) agreed that enjoyment was an essential component of the “entertainment effect” that could influence citizens at an individual level, but its potential to leave an impact on the political system was not a plausible proposition. Recent scholarship, however, explicated enjoyment as an intrinsically rewarding activity that satisfied hedonic as well as nonhedonic needs of the viewers and that enjoyment should not simply be understood as a pleasure-seeking pastime having little meaningful impact
22 on the media audiences (Bartsch, 2012; Tamborini et al., 2010; Vorderer, Steen, & Chan, 2006; Zillmann & Vorderer, 2000). For example, Tamborini et al. (2010) were able to predict that 51% variance in the enjoyment was explained by the nonhedonic needs including autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which meant that audiences did not simply look for short-term pleasurable activities, but also wanted to engage in meaningful experiences elucidated by the self-determination theory. These findings are specifically relevant to the role of political entertainment such as drama and political movies as political actors are increasingly depending on the enjoyment appeal of the entertainment media to transfer political information camouflaged as entertainment to the “indifferent groups” unwilling to consume it otherwise. Since politics and entertainment are intertwined spheres in the contemporary political cultures, it is academically significant to understand enjoyment of the political entertainment in functional terms (Street, 2012). Enjoyment is largely determined by “the sense of pleasure that one derives from consuming media products” (Raney, 2004, p. 348; Shafer 2009). Vorderer and Hartman (2009) developed a two-factor model to explicate hedonic and nonhedonic need satisfaction of the audiences of various entertainment genres. Recent scholarship looked at appreciation (higher-order factor) as a meaningful entertainment experience that could be differentiated from superficial enjoyment (lower-order factor) and would lead to the satisfaction of eudaimonic needs (Oliver & Bartsch, 2011; Oliver & Raney, 2011; Oliver & Hartman, 2010). Commenting on Vorderer’s model, Tamborini (2011) argued that the enjoyment and appreciation factors in the above-mentioned model were similarly processed by the viewers to satisfy hedonic and nonhedonic needs and subsequently led to a positive evaluation of the entertainment, which resulted in positive mood management and less reactance to the messages enshrined in the narratives. Since both enjoyment and appreciation were positively valenced explanations of the concept of enjoyment associated with the consumption of entertainment media, Tamborini et al. (2010) argued that all positive evaluations of entertainment could be bundled as enjoyment. Excepting criticism of the prevalence a predominantly hedonic entertainment culture by the modernist scholars (Mander, 1978; Patterson, 2003; Postman, 2006), political communication scholarship considered enjoyment as a functionally unified concept, which could be pleasurable as well as meaningful (Van Zoonen, 2005). Meaningful political dialogue has been an essential ingredient of numerous political entertainment programs that strive to change audiences’ attitudes in the direction of the narratives, specifically during election campaigns. Thus,
23 enjoyment could be simultaneously conceived as a pleasurable experience and a meaningful activity that appreciates the significance of the message and its consequences in political and media psychology literature (Tamborini et al., 2010; Van Zoonen, 2005). Extant literature in political communication recognized the significance of enjoyment in changing political attitudes and beliefs (Holbert, 2005; Delli Carpini, 2012; Van Zoonen, 2007). Delli Carpini and Williams (1996) examined the enjoyment value of entertainment television and argued that viewers actively responded to the televisual political communication in a fashion that resembled interpersonal interactions. Holbert (2005) argued that affective disposition theory explained audiences’ engagement with different genres of entertainment, as the theory elucidated that empathy and affective dispositions of the audiences toward protagonists were associated with the audiences’ perceived interaction with the media characters and subsequent enjoyment. He opined that ADT could be used as an efficient mechanism to explore the potential of entertainment in engaging the citizens in politics. Thus, ADT provided a platform to initiate the study of the effects of enjoyment on political attitudes of the consumers of entertainment media. Nabi and Krcmar (2004) went beyond the affective dimension of enjoyment and argued that cognitive and behavioral dimensions of enjoyment were equally significant in generating affective reactions among audiences toward entertainment narratives. Accordingly, conceptualizing enjoyment as an attitude with affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences might result in a better understanding of the association between enjoyment and psychological political engagement of the audiences of various entertainment genres. For the purpose of this study, affective, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions of enjoyment are vitally important. Affective disposition toward media character with the unfolding of the story might lead to a potential change in the beliefs and behaviors. Audiences were predisposed to experience greater levels of enjoyment of political entertainment when they were more knowledgeable about the context of the story and characters (Van Zoonen, 2005). Cognitive and behavioral effects of enjoyment could, therefore, be associated with potential changes in political attitudes and behaviors. Since fictional television and movies are popular entertainment genres among audiences (Jackson, 2009), the audiences are likely to empathize with the liked characters presented in the narratives that would subsequently determine absorption in the fictional settings, and enjoyment of the stories leading to a possible change in the existing beliefs (Appel & Richter, 2007). Especially in biographical political movies and
24 primetime drama, viewers’ identification with the characters would largely be negotiated by their gender (Cohen, 2006; Simon & Hoyt, 2008) that would lead to a stronger and positively affective disposition toward the lead characters.
Affective disposition theory: Political characters and enjoyment
Drawing parallels between politics and entertainment, Van Zoonen (2005) argued that entertainment media characters and real-life politicians had fans that enjoyed when their liked characters and politicians were successful in entertainment narratives and actual political progressions respectively. Enjoyment of the entertainment programs heavily depended on the fortunes harvested by the lead characters with the flow of the story. Audiences tended to “respond to the fictional events as though they were real” (Zillmann, 2006, p. 216) and cultivated relationships with the fictional characters that would help them internalize the perspective of the characters. Association with the characters is efficiently captured by the affective disposition theory (Krakowiak & Tsay, 2011; Raney, 2004, 2012; Zillmann, 2000; Zillmann & Cantor, 1976) that illustrated the effects of associations audiences developed with the characters in the entertainment narratives. The affective disposition theory proposes that “enjoyment increases the more we like heroes and find them deserving of reward and less we like the villains and find them deserving of defeat” (Shafer & Raney, 2012, p. 1029). According to Raney (2004), audiences carefully evaluate lead characters in the entertainment narratives and their attitudes toward media characters are based on the judgments they have made as the narrative unfurls. As entertainment narratives revolve around characters, evaluative judgments and affective dispositions of the audiences adequately explain the enjoyment associated with dissimilar categories of entertainment (Hoffner & Cantor, 1991; King, 2000; Krakowiak & Oliver, 2012; Oliver, 1996; Raney & Bryant, 2002; Shafer & Raney, 2012). The theory suggests that enjoyment of the media is determined by the emotional reactions of the audiences toward the success or failure of the protagonists and the affective dispositions of the audiences range “from extreme negative affect through neutral point of indifference to extreme positive affect” (Zillmann & Cantor, 1976, p. 100; Shafer, 2009). Issues of morality and moral judgments are key factors influencing audiences’ evaluations of the characters as suggested by Zillmann’s (2000, p. 54) notion that viewers work as “untiring moral monitors” of the actions of
25 lead characters that subsequently determines their favorable or hostile dispositions toward these characters. Affective disposition theory is an appropriate theoretical lens to investigate political narratives in the entertainment media, as politics is intrinsically linked to the issues of morality and political entertainment is frequently based on the stories of quest and conspiracy that invoke moral judgments related to the conduct of the characters. For the purpose of this study, it is significant to investigate enjoyment resulting from the selection of political entertainment and the audiences’ reactions toward lead characters in the stories. As per postulates of the affective disposition theory, the audiences of political entertainment, especially film and drama, would negatively or positively evaluate the lead characters and their enjoyment would depend on the treatment of the characters in the narrative. Holbert (2005) argued that diverse theoretical agendas could be connected to the tenets of the affective disposition theory to explain the relationship between the enjoyment of the political entertainment and its effects on the political attitudes of the audiences. Despite acknowledging the significance of affective disposition theory as an effective and “coherent whole” explaining the enjoyment of political entertainment, scholars (Delli Carpini, 2012 Holbert 2005; Kaid, 2004; Van Zoonen, 2005) agree that further inquiry is needed to explore the dispositions of the audiences toward political characters and an ensuing enjoyment of political film and drama. The key element driving viewers’ dispositions and identification with the characters in the political entertainment would be the presentation of lead characters in the narratives. In addition, a host of personal traits and situational contexts that would subsequently affect enjoyment of the narrative and identification with the characters would affect the dispositions toward the characters.
Identification with the fictional characters
Another important psychological construct used in this research is the identification of the audiences with various characters in the entertainment media. Identification with the media characters psychologically affected attitudes of the audiences who frequently began to emulate lead characters (Hoffner & Buchanan, 2005; Murray, 1999). In media psychology literature, identification is conceptualized as a “mechanism through which audience members experience the reception and interpretation of the text from the inside, as if the events were happening to them” (Cohen, 2001, p. 245). The equivalent of identification is conceived as “fandom” in
26 political psychology. Typically, fans of political entertainment are psychologically involved in the narrative of the program and build associations with various characters because of heavy exposure to the entertainment media (Abercrombie & Longhurst, 1998). Fans’ association with the political characters is governed by psychological mechanisms similar to that of identification, and fandom results in attitudinal changes driven by emotional processes and involvement in the fictional environment created by the narratives (Van Zoonen, 2005). Identification with the political characters in the entertainment media, therefore, creates communities of fans willing to develop affective dispositions toward their favorite characters. Affective appreciation of the political characters results in the uncritical acceptance of political messages leading to significant changes in the political attitudes of the audience fans. Political communication literature, however, produced little empirical support to explicate processes involving audiences “mindless” associations with the characters and assorted genres of political entertainment (Van Zoonen, 2005). As a psychological construct, identification with the characters in political entertainment has not been adequately explored, and, therefore, researchers could apply identification as a useful theoretical lens to heuristically elucidate processes behind absorption in and enjoyment of political narratives by various communities of fans. Identification has been employed in extant research in several ways as an effect of heavy exposure to media or as a significant moderator of the influence of entertainment narratives on the audiences’ attitudes (Cohen, 2006; Hoffner & Buchanan, 2005; Hoffner & Cantor, 1991; Zillmann, 1994). Researchers agree that significant psychological and social repercussions are associated with the process of identification that might be short-term and vary in intensity (Cohen, 2001); while others (Hoffner & Buchanan, 2005; Rosengren et al., 1976) treat identification as a long-term and durable effect carrying significant psychological and political ramifications for the audiences in case of political entertainment. Identification, being a cognitive and affective state, is an important precondition for the internalization of the perspective of the characters in media narratives and reinforces fans’ trust in the ideology being propagated through media texts without critical evaluation (Cohen, 1999; Oatley, 1999). The psychological attachment with the characters facilitates audiences to empathize and develop affective appreciation of the characters’ identities that subsequently paves the way for a durable attitudinal change. It is precisely for this reason that supporters of political causes merge their identities with the characters of various media programs advocating that cause (Van Zoonen, 2005).
27 However, Cohen (2001) pointed out that increased liking or imitation of bad characters promoting negative agendas might invoke negative emotions such as anger, guilt, and fear. Identification, therefore, is a two-pronged weapon that might generate an appreciation of entertainment (Oliver & Bartsch, 2011) or might induce negative emotions leading to the imitation of negative behavior (Bandura, 2009). Extant research indicated that identification with the characters yielded significant effects on the attitudes of the audiences of entertainment media. Papa et al. (2000) argued that fictional programs generated positive attitudinal and behavioral changes, and close relationships with the fictional characters persuaded audiences to behave in the direction of the agenda enshrined in the narratives. Likewise, other researchers (Bandura, 2009; Brown & Cody, 1991; Harrison, 1997; Hoffner & Buchanan, 2005; Murray, 1999; Van Zoonen, 2005) argued that fans of assorted entertainment genres modeled behaviors popularized by the liked characters and frequently imitated actions of the lead characters they liked. The influence of identification has been often powerful as “persuasion through identification leads to an internalization of attitudes that is likely to be stronger and longer lasting than persuasion through other means” (Cohen, 2006, p. 192; Kelman, 1961). Identification is also considered an important predictor of the narrative transportation that is known to enhance persuasive capacity of the narratives by minimizing critical evaluation and reactance to the messages (Green & Brock, 2000). Van Zoonen (2005) argued that governments and political parties strive hard to present telegenic politicians as ordinary people to facilitate voters’ identification with the political leaders that would consequently persuade them to vote for their policies. Modern political narrative heavily depends on maximization of identification with the lead characters so that audiences could not apply their critical faculties to evaluate the messages. Identification, therefore, is a key variable in determining absorption into the messages that would lead to the enhancement of enjoyment and persuasive potential of the political entertainment. In the media effects literature on identification, two allied concepts, i.e., parasocial interaction and wishful identification with the fictional characters, are found to be useful extensions of character liking and associations. Parasocial interaction. Communication scholarship paid adequate attention to explicate the concept of parasocial interaction that is different from identification in interactional terms (Cohen, 2001). In identification, the audiences lose their self-identity and imagine being the character by adopting the perspective of the fictional character; while in parasocial interaction, it
28 is important for an individual to maintain a distinct sense of self-identity and social distance (Horton & Wohl, 1956). Instead of imagining one being the character in political entertainment as a psychological process, parasocial interaction would require an interaction with the characters (Livingstone, 1998). Biographical political movies and dramas are, therefore, an important genre of entertainment that could amplify identification and parasocial interaction simultaneously by increasing psychological engagement with the characters in entertainment and a direct interaction with the real-life politicians. However, parasocial interaction is akin to friendship with the characters and possesses the potential to change audiences’ attitudes. In addition, Cohen’s (1999) study of an Israeli soap opera suggested that liked characters served as pseudo friends and audiences tended to engage in an interaction with their fictional friends by maintaining their individual identities and perspectives. However, parasocial interaction emerged as a powerful psychological mechanism affecting attitudes of the audiences (Giles, 2009). Van Zoonen (2005) stated that affective subsystems of the brain were applied to process parasocial interaction with the political figures in the entertainment narratives and audiences routinely established bonds of friendship with the mediated characters that subsequently influenced their political attitudes. Wishful identification. Wishful identification is another psychological construct used to illustrate the audiences’ relationship with the mediated characters in the entertainment narratives. Wishful identification signifies long-term consequences of media use and lasting associations with favorite media characters that help audiences absorb in the stories (Hoffner & Buchanan, 2005). Wishful identification is a significant construct in political psychology, as political actors prefer to witness lasting effects of the narratives they are championing. Hoffner and Buchanan (2005, p. 327) define wishful identification as the “psychological process through which an individual desires or attempts to become like another person”. Although Cohen (2001) argued that effects of identification might be fleeting and dissipate when the fictional narrative ends, many studies found that wishful identification is a stable psychological effect of entertainment media. For example, televisual role models were found to be powerful enough to change occupational preferences of the audience (Gauntlett, 2008). Research has shown that perceived similarity with the characters was a powerful predictor of audiences’ involvement in the entertainment narratives. Demographic characteristics of the viewers were significant factors determining the audiences’ sense of similarity and a subsequent identification with the
29 characters, which helped them emulate attitudes and behaviors of the favorite characters (Hoffner & Buchanan, 2005; Turner, 1993). Simon and Hoyt (2008) argued that political attitudes of the citizens were influenced by their gender identities and females were inclined to favor female political candidates. Likewise, Van Zoonen (2005) argued that plots in political entertainment focused more on similarities between politicians and their voters in order to maximize the persuasive power of the narratives. Hoffner and Buchanan (2005) listed numerous character attributes such as attractiveness and humor that facilitated the process of wishful identification with the characters and affected audiences’ future course of action. Especially, the social identity of the audience is an important character attribute that determines the wishful identification of the viewers leading to potential behavioral changes. Social identification theory. Being a significant approach explicating audiences’ reactions to the entertainment media, social identification theory is an important theoretical framework in social psychology and media effects literature. Since viewers of political entertainment tend to process enjoyment of the narratives along gender lines, numerous studies (Ford, 2011; Goren, 2009; Iyengar, 2011; Perloff, 2014) identified that the gender of the audiences is a significant factor in learning and adopting new attitudes. Trepte (2006, p. 262) argued that “battle of sexes” is one of the most popular areas in media psychology literature. Various studies (Mastro, 2003; Oliver, 2000; Trepte, 2004; Zillmann, 1995) pointed out that the selection and effect of entertainment media varied by gender, nationality, race, and in-group favoritism. Social identity theory sheds light on selective exposure to various genres of entertainment media and evaluates the role of social groups in helping audiences decide selection processes and receive effects afterwards. One’s social identity is a part of his “self-concept, which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership” (Tajfel, 1978, p. 63; Trepte, 2006, p. 258). Thus, salient and valued social idnetity(ies) play a significant role in determining viewer’s selection of different media and their identification with the character and enjoyment of the narrative. For example, females selected movies with successful female role models and experienced greater levels of enjoyment when female protagonists achieved their goals (Gauntlett, 2008). Similarly, Simon and Hoyt (2008) found that gender of the citizens was a critical determinant of who they are going to vote for. Social identity theory attempts to clarify the processes explaining audiences attachment to the group identities; however, this theory has
30 been sparingly applied to investigate the role of these identities in influencing attitudes of the audiences toward political entertainment and characters. Exploring identification with the characters in biographical political movies, primetime drama, and docudrama is a significant heuristic question, which could be adequately investigated using concepts mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, specifically focusing on “battle of sexes”.
Transportation into the narrative and the entertainment media
When audiences are absorbed in the flow of the stories, they are more likely to enjoy the narratives and less likely to invoke reactance and critical evaluation of the narratives and actions of the characters. Absorption in the stories is termed as transportation into the narrative or narrative transportation (Appel & Richter, 2007; Green, Brock, & Kaufman, 2004; Igartua, 2010) that allows viewers to temporarily immerse in the flow of entertainment narratives and helps them imagine as if they are active participants in the events as the story unfolds. Igartua (2010) argued that associations with the characters facilitated by the processes involving identification engendered an affective impact of the fictional content that lead to the enhanced cognitive elaboration and appreciation of the stories. Narrative transportation is known for its capacity to influence existing beliefs of the audiences during the course of viewership of entertaining narratives (Appel & Richter, 2010; Green & Brock, 2000). Political communication literature, however, paid paltry attention to the narrative transportation function of the popular culture texts, and researchers discussed processing of fictional political entertainment in passing despite focusing on the engaging frames such as conspiracy, quest, and soap (Van Zoonen, 2005). Existing literature (Delli Carpini, 2012; Holbert, 2005; Kaid, 2004) deliberated on typologies for the study of fictional political entertainment, but completely ignored relevant theoretical frameworks such as identification with the characters and transportation into the narratives, which could have a direct bearing on the enjoyment of the stories and likely attitudinal changes as a result of the uncritical reception of the messages. Narrative transportation is a substantial psychological construct applied in this study, which is known for mediating the impact of the fictional entertainment by cognitively and emotionally involving the audiences in the stories (Green al., 2004). Factors affecting political attitudes such as perceived realism, fandom (identification), and prior knowledge were found to
31 be significantly related to the narrative transportation in the existing research. In different parts of the world, political parties and candidates exploited audiences’ self-transformation and emotional involvement with the characters, which are positively portrayed in the plots of political drama (Green et al., 2004; Van Zoonen, 2005). Commenting on the televised fictional narratives, Appel (2008) argued that transportation into the fictional television narratives cultivated and reinforced audiences’ existing attitudes and belief in a just world contrary to the cultivation theory’s focus on the consumption of nonfiction media that led audiences to believe in a violent and mean world. Thus, fictional narratives have been altering and reinforcing attitudes of the viewers in a positive direction due to the melodramatic nature of films and primetime drama in which good characters are the ultimate winners. Green et al. (2004), however, argued that transportation could “sometimes be downright scary” (p. 313). Considering the overarching appeal of entertainment, persuasion through fiction emerged as a popular academic domain that established profound persuasive effects because of positive associations with the characters and transportation into the stories (Appel, 2008; Gerrig & Prentice, 1991; Green & Brock, 2000). Considering results found in the recent media effects literature, persuasive effects of political entertainment such as movies and primetime drama could be effectively explicated by exploring direct or mediating influence of narrative transportation, which, for the purpose of this study, has been conceptualized as “a process by which the consumer actively seeks to be taken away from one’s everyday life into different narrative worlds, where one could experience a different self and engage empathetically with media characters like real friends” (Batat & Wohlfeil, 2009). Empirical evidence suggests that entertainment narratives are powerful tools to change existing beliefs of the audiences (Appel & Richter, 2007), and transportation into the narrative is an important heuristic construct that could predict many other variables such as enjoyment and subsequent effects on the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of the audiences. Audiences exposed to the entertainment narratives experience transportation and their “mental system and capacities become focused on the events occurring in the narrative” (Appel & Richter, 2010, p. 103; Green & Brock, 2002). Proposed by Green and Brock (2000), transportation consistently predicted the influence of narrative involvement on real-life beliefs of the audiences. Green, Brock, and Kaufman (2004) also suggested that transportation involved audiences imaginatively, cognitively, and emotionally into the narrative. Transportation might significantly reduce
32 cognitive capacity of the audiences that could resist the power of persuasive narratives by producing significant levels of enjoyment, positive mood, arousal, and character identification (Appel & Richter, 2010). Keeping in view the potential of transportation into the narratives, politicians and political parties spent fortunes to create persuasive narratives to win favor of the voters in the election campaigns, and change public opinion in the direction deemed desirable by the producers of the narratives. Due to its transportation potential, both parties in the United States effectively used political film to cajole voters and shift public opinion in favor of the policies advanced by the policymakers in the White House (Uscinski, 2009). As mentioned in the preceding lines, narrative transportation accorded researchers significant opportunities to focus on the process of attitude change by exploring cognitive, emotional and imaginative involvement of the viewers in the events happening in the narrative (Green & Brock, 2000; Green et al., 2004). Weber and Wirth (2014, p. 125) defined narrative persuasion as “the attitudinal and behavioral effects of narrative forms of communication” that could be strategically used by politicians and policymakers to change public opinion. Numerous studies have found that the changes in attitudes and beliefs of the audiences were measurable and lasted longer even after the narrative ended and the transportation experience was over. Identification with the characters facilitated transportation, which revealed significantly higher correlations with the enjoyment experienced by the audiences while watching the fictional media. During exposure to the entertainment narratives, audiences expected transportation that would lead them to experience optimal levels of enjoyment, and if this did not happen, the audiences were disappointed and reacted negatively toward the texts and characters (Green et al., 2004). Markus and Nurius (1986) argued that transportation introduced the viewers to new possible selves that audiences might transform into, aspire to become, or would avoid transfiguring into after passing through the absorption experience. The negative and stereotypical portrayal of female politicians in the fictional narratives, therefore, has negative consequences, as the female audiences would avoid establishing identification with a punished self. Negative advertising in political campaign also delivers similar results and audiences develop negative feelings about the bad characters. However, we still need plausible evidence to claim that negative portrayals of certain characters in the fictional narratives would lead to a different type of transportation enabling audiences to avoid identification with the characters portrayed in a hackneyed fashion.
33 The arguments outlined in the foregoing paragraphs have significant academic implications for the media effects research concentrating on the effects of fictional entertainment on political attitudes of the audiences. To explicate how entertainment narratives influence attitudinal change, it is imperative to explore the influence of aforementioned mediating and moderating variables. A careful survey of the existing literature, however, reveals that significant mediating variables such as transportation into the narrative have been ignored in political communication research. Exposure to the politically relevant entertainment content, especially movies and drama, could transport or immerse audiences into the narrative and “affect subsequent story-related attitudes and beliefs” (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009, p. 321). Green et al., (2004) reported that applying transportation to measure attitudinal change could be useful in many areas as transported readers or viewers consistently exhibited a story-consistent change in their beliefs. Traditionally, transportation was strongly correlated with a host of hedonistic states and was considered a frequently sought gratification by the readers and viewers. Green et al., (2004) argued that transported audiences were highly likely to develop sympathy and friendship with the protagonists that would lead to identification with the fictional characters. As Cohen (2001, p. 129) argued that identification resulted in the “loss of self-awareness and its temporary replacement with heightened emotional and cognitive connections with a character”, transported individuals were highly likely to adopt the standpoint of the characters they identify with. Extant research found that audiences tended to support and identify with the perspective of their social group and gender (Cohen, 2006; Simon & Hoyt, 2008; Tajfel, 1982). In Cohen’s (2006, p. 187) words, viewers have a propensity to identify with the characters “they wish to be like”, and therefore, narrative transportation is likely to be influential in the adoption of the perspective of lead characters in the political entertainment that would lead to story-consistent attitudinal changes.
Summary
The current study seeks to extend entertainment psychology research to generate a clear understanding of the effects of exposure to political entertainment on the political attitudes of the audiences toward female political characters. The central argument of the study revolves around psychological constructs such as dual process model of entertainment experience, presumed
34 effects of exposure to political entertainment, identification with the characters, enjoyment of the narratives, narrative transportation, political self-efficacy, and attitude toward female politicians. The fundamental question investigated in this dissertation is that exposure to and identification with the lead characters in the biographical political movies and primetime drama transport audiences into the narrative and enhance enjoyment of the fictional content that subsequently lead to the development of positive dispositions toward female protagonists in the semi-fictional and fictional entertainment narratives. The academic literature listed numerous reasons and motives (eudaimonic and/or hedonic) for selecting entertainment programs, and Tamborini (2011) argued that the key gratification obtained through entertainment was the enjoyment. Numerous other gratifications and motives are discussed in the literature on exposure to the media, and researchers agree that the audiences want to enjoy the narratives (Tamborini et al., 2010) and experience a sense of pleasure (Raney, 2004). The entertaining stimuli invoke cognitive and affective responses resulting in pleasurable enjoyment and meaningful appreciation (Vorderer et al., 2004). However, enjoyment is driven by affective dispositions espoused by the audiences toward media characters and these characters play a significant role in determining the pleasure audiences extract from the narratives (Raney, 2006). Recent literature (Bartsch, 2012; Bartsch & Schneider, 2014; Roth et al., 2014) investigating the effects of political entertainment also discusses dual process model of entertainment experience, which elucidates that audiences’ processed entertainment both hedonically and eudaimonically signifying that along with experiencing pleasurable enjoyment, audiences considered exposure to political entertainment a meaningful experience they would appreciate. Identification with the characters, therefore, is essential to develop affective appreciation of the entertainment narratives (Cohen, 2006). Identification with the characters could be considered a prerequisite for the enjoyment and absorption in the narrative (Green et al., 2004). Absorption in the story narratives is termed as narrative transportation that possesses significant persuasive prowess. Being a significant predictor of enjoyment, narrative transportation is highly correlated with the enjoyment experienced during exposure to semi-fictional or fictional narratives and effectively changes existing beliefs and attitudes (Appel & Richter, 2010). Thus, attitude toward the protagonist in the biographical political movies or primetime drama will be a function of identification with the characters, enjoyment of the storyline, and narrative transportation. Several studies have explored the relationship between fictional narratives and
35 political attitudes; however, psychological constructs mentioned in the preceding lines have not been adequately explicated in the political communication literature. Although Holbert (2005) advocated the relevance of ADT in studying political entertainment, there are significant gaps in the existing literature that could be tackled by adroitly applying not only ADT, but also other noteworthy theoretical concepts used in the entertainment psychology and media effects literature. Accordingly, this dissertation is grounded in two studies to explore significant issues raised in the preceding paragraphs. Study one explored the hitherto untested causal relationships between variables associated with the consumption of entertainment and political attitudes toward female politicians. An SEM model was used to explore causal connections between presumed effects of entertainment media gratifications, enjoyment, transportation, and two different political attitudes toward female politicians, namely the attitude toward electing a female president and general attitude toward female politicians. The key objective of the first exploratory study, which served as a pilot study, was to survey the causal relationships among exogenous and endogenous variables and to specifically examine the empirical fidelity of the two scales previously used by Simon and Hoyt (2008) in their research to measure attitudes toward female politicians. Based on the results obtained from this study, the study two was designed to address the limitations of the study one and other important concerns. Study two investigated the effects of fictional political drama on the attitudes of viewers and examined the prognostic power of various constructs by establishing causal relationships between variables mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs. This study focused on the concept of identification with characters and proposed a theoretical model that looked into various processes underlying the processing of semi-fictional and fictional political entertainment.
36 CHAPTER 3
STUDY ONE: EXPLORING THE EFFECTS OF BIOGRAPHICAL MOVIES ON THE POLITICAL ATTITUDES OF THE AUDIENCES
The current study examined the effects of exposure to semi-fictional biographical political movies on the attitudes audiences espouse toward lead characters. As mentioned in the previous chapters, political candidates and parties frequently used biographical movies in election campaigns to win voting favors from the undecided voters. Hollywood and other major film industries produced films based on the life stories of famous politicians with an intention to perpetuate political ideals championed by competent leaders in different parts of the world (Van Zoonen, 2005). On the other hand, scarce academic attention was paid to survey the cognitive and affective influences of biographical political movies and the psychological processes underlying these influences such as narrative transportation and enjoyment, which might challenge existing attitudes or shape new attitudes toward political protagonists. Exploring the effects of biographical political movies on the audiences’ attitudes toward female politicians, therefore, was the central issue that stood at the heart of this study. Since fewer female politicians were successful in making waves in the deep political sea, there were hardly a few biographical movies on the lives and achievements of the female leaders. However, political scenario changed in the past few decades, female politicians took center stage in assorted societies across the globe, which enthused entertainment industries, and semi- fictional biographical movies were produced on the lives and struggle of female politicians. Although these movies were also criticized for incorporating Hollywood conventions (Van Zoonen, 2005) -- which signified weaker roles for the female leaders -- researchers (Ford, 2011; Simon & Hoyt, 2013; Skewes, 2009; Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007) recognized that even symbolic representation of female politicians in powerful roles could have an effect on the audiences. Gauntlett (2008) and Goren (2009) argued that an increased descriptive representation of the female role models in the televisual media was positively affecting attitudes of the audiences and the trends to accept females in leadership roles were in ascendance. Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) claimed that the visibility of female political role models in the parliaments
37 and media stirred discussions about their meaningful role in the public sphere, which altered the attitudes of the citizen toward female leaders. Especially, young girls became more self- efficacious when they were exposed to viable and strong female politicians playing a significant role in the society (Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007). Simon and Hoyt (2008) found similar trends in their study when they explored participants’ attitude toward electing a female president as a head of the state. They found that the political support of the participants was divided along gender lines and females tended to support Hillary Clinton compared to the male participants. Academic literature advocated that gender was a significant factor determining audiences’ identification with the role models. Cohen (2006), Hoyt and Simon (2011), and Trepte (2006) also documented the role of gender and group identity as cohesive bonds between audiences and role models and established close connections between people who were similar to one another. Thus, gender identity is likely to play a pivotal role in defining audiences’ liking for the lead characters in the biographical political movies. The gender identity, prior knowledge, ingroup membership, and existing attitudes influenced affective appreciation of the political characters (Street, 2012), narrative transportation (Green et al., 2004), social identification (Lin, 2013; Trepte, 2006), and reception of the mediated role models (Hoyt & Simon, 2011). The enjoyment of the narratives would also significantly decrease if the audiences failed to develop affective dispositions toward characters due to their persistent moral monitoring of the actions of the characters (Raney, 2006). Accordingly, it was academically significant to explore if the salience of gender identity (Simon & Hoyt, 2008) and the existing attitude toward a known female politician (Heflick & Goldenberg, 2011), influenced presumed effects of exposure, enjoyment, narrative transportation, and subsequent attitudes toward female politicians. This study finds it heuristically significant to compare a biographical political movie with a more salient female political leader to another movie with a less known female politician to find if the gender and existing attitude of the audiences moderated enjoyment and narrative transportation that consequently affected attitudes toward female politicians. The following research question was asked to explore the effects of gender on the audiences attitudes toward female politicians portrayed in biographical political movies: Research Question 1: Is there any difference between males and females on key dependent variables including exposure to biographical political movies, enjoyment,
38 narrative transportation, general attitude toward female politicians, and attitude toward electing a female as a head of the state? Likewise, the audiences’ prior knowledge and existing attitudes toward various politicians were important influences that positively or negatively affected the shaping of new attitudes (Potter, 2012). Since biographical movies were different from pure fictional narratives, audiences might hold predetermined dispositions about protagonists in the narrative. Adams et al. (1985) found that the similarity between the lead character in a biographical movie on the life of an astronaut and a presidential candidate, John Glenn, engendered positive support for him in the elections. Several studies discussed that viewers of political entertainment tended to retain and recall information consistent with their dominant schemas (Campus, 2013; Iyengar, 2011; Van Zoonen, 2005; Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007), which, upon activation, could significantly alter the behavior of the viewers in the direction of the content. Hitchon and Chang (1995) explored how exposure to televisual political content could influence recall, cognitive and affective responses, and message effects, and their study suggested that gender of the mediated politician played a pivotal role in the differential processing of political entertainment by males and females. Atkeson (2003) also asserted that exposure to a competitive female leaders running for an office would work as a catalyst for the young voters, especially females. In addition, contextual cue theory (Hansen, 1997) maintained that particular political contexts played a defining role in shaping citizen’s political attitudes and behaviors, and exposure to entertainment content showing a strong female candidate could serve as a contextual cue having the potential to motivate young voters. Exposure to biographical movies portraying competent female politicians was likely to increase audiences’ interest in the narrative, which would subsequently generate favorable affective responses toward the lead characters due to an enhanced level of enjoyment. Nevertheless, the audiences’ responses to semi-fictional entertainment would also be moderated by the exiting attitude toward the female politicians playing the lead roles and a host of other factors such as gender and ingroup membership. Since it was beyond the scope of this study to account for numerous factors affecting attitude toward mediated female politicians, the salience effect (existing positive or negative attitude) was explored by employing a multi-treatment with a control experimental design (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002) that involved the selection of two biographical political movies; one on the political activities of a relatively known politician;
39 and the other on the political struggle of a less known female politician. The current study focused on the following research question to explore if there were differences among audiences randomly assigned to different experimental conditions on key study variables such as presumed effects of movies, narrative transportation, enjoyment, and attitudes toward female politicians: Research Question 2: Is there any difference among viewers in experimental, comparison, and control conditions on key dependent variables including presumed effects of biographical political movies, enjoyment, narrative transportation, general attitude toward female politicians, and attitude toward electing a female as a head of the state? Following this question, an exploration of the role of enjoyment and narrative transportation in influencing the attitudes toward female politicians would help answer a hitherto unanswered set of questions in the existing literature. Movies are systemic entertainment genre having historical connections with politics. However, the relationship between the entertaining potential of movies and the political attitudes of audiences was not empirically explored excepting a few studies (Delli Carpini, 2012; Holbert, 2005). As explained earlier, this study served as a pilot to explore the causal connections between variables frequently tested in the media psychology literature (for example, presumed effects of entertainment, enjoyment, narrative transportation) and the audiences’ attitudes toward viable female politicians. By proposing an SEM model (Figure 1) to examine the hypothesized causal relationships between the exogenous and endogenous variables, this study paved the way for future academic research (study two in this dissertation) to examine how various significant, but hitherto ignored psychological constructs explain the causal associations between fictional entertainment and politics. In addition, the hypothesized SEM model also evaluated the role of enjoyment and narrative transportation as mediating variables.
Serious entertainment and attitudes toward mediated role models
Why do audiences seek out political movies? What are the effects of political entertainment on cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions of the attitudes? Is exposure to semi-fictional or fictional political narratives a meaningful entertainment experience? Academic literature responded to these questions and, from Greek scholarship to the modern positive
40 psychology, researchers explained the role of entertainment in the public sphere using different, and sometimes, conflicting approaches. Since entertainment and politics were viewed as intrinsically interrelated spheres for a long time, philosophers and social scientists were involved in probing the mutual influence of both on each other (Jackson, 2009; Postman, 2006; Van Zoonen, 2005). Several studies suggested that the audiences wanted to enjoy political entertainment and that the hedonic notion of enjoyment stood at the heart of exposure to entertainment products (Oliver & Bartsch, 2011; Roth et al., 2014; Vorderer, 2004; Wirth, Hofer, & Schramm, 2012). The affective disposition theory also upheld the hedonic perspective associated with the entertainment experience by focusing on the positive affect associated with the actions of the lead characters (Raney, 2003; Wirth et al., 2012). Inversely, existing literature documented the serious nature of the exposure to political entertainment that led to a meaningful experience by satisfying certain cognitive and intrinsic needs of the audiences (Bartsch & Schneider, 2014; Baum, 2002; Kaye & Johnson, 2002; McLeod & McDonald, 1985; Tamborini et al., 2010). Academic literature also recognized that the audiences derived meaningful and pleasurable experiences from consuming entertainment media that supported their existing political attitudes (Roth et al., 2014). The political predilections of the audiences were a significant determinant of their exposure to the entertainment media as the viewers almost invariably exercised their selective judgments in the use of media of their choice (Iyengar, 2011; Iyengar & Hahn, 2009; Tamborini, Eden, & Bowman, 2013). Van Zoonen (2005) highlighted the significance of exposure to political entertainment as a vital effect operating at micro level and changing attitudes of the audiences toward political leaders and civic processes. Thus, audiences’ exposure to the political entertainment narratives was governed by their intentions to seek enjoyment and pleasure as well as meaningful political knowledge they could use to evaluate political activities and characters in the fictional (primetime drama and movies), semi-fictional (biographical/docudrama), and news media. Such an exposure, beyond doubt, has effects and this study hypothesized the following causal association between presumed effects of gratifications sought from exposure to biographical political movies and enjoyment: Hypothesis 1a: Presumed effects of exposure to the biographical political movies will positively predict enjoyment of the movie narratives.
41 Hypothesis 1b: Presumed effects of exposure to the biographical political movies will positively predict transportation into the narratives of the movies. As enjoyment was a frequently sought after gratification (Tamborini, 2011) and numerous studies investigated how audiences enjoyed what they claimed to enjoy, it was important to examine if enjoyment was merely a pleasurable experience or lead to “more profound feelings of appreciation offering deeper insights into human existence” (Oliver & Raney, 2011; Wirth et al., 2012, p. 407). Enjoyment was facilitated by transportation into the narrative that helped audiences apply a peripheral route to process the narratives and reduce critical evaluation of the entertainment messages (Rasul & Raney, 2013). Ample empirical evidence existed suggesting that the narrative transportation generated positive moods that minimized reactance to the messages and helped audiences enjoy the narratives. Green et al. (2004) indicated that enjoyment and narrative transportation were highly interrelated psychological constructs that expedited an attitudinal and behavioral change by reducing cognitive load to process complicated information. Murphy, Frank, Chatterjee, and Baezconde- Garbanati (2013) argued that storytelling and narratives were specifically effective in altering attitudes of various disadvantaged groups as the narratives were found to be “indeed more effective than non-narrative communication for overcoming resistance, facilitating information processing, providing social connection, and representing emotional and existential issues” (Kreuter et al., 2007, p. 223). Several studies discussed the persuasive influence of fictional narratives that absorbed the attention of the viewers and temporarily disconnected them from their realities (Green et al., 2004; Moyer-Guse & Nabi, 2011). Exposure to Desperate Housewives, for example, strongly affected cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions of the viewers’ attitudes (Murphy et al., 2013). The enjoyment experienced because of absorption into the narrative might involve an elaborate processing of a different type in which the viewers were unknowingly involved and that subsequently left powerful effects on the attitudes (Murphy et al., 2013). Thus, the transportation into the narrative was strongly correlated with the enjoyment and both possessed the potential to modifying the existing or fashioning new attitudes and beliefs in the audiences. For the purpose of this study, the prognostic potential of the narrative transportation and enjoyment was examined in bringing forth an attitudinal change toward mediated female politicians. The study also explored if enjoyment and transportation could
42 mediate the relationship between presumed effects of exposure and attitude toward female politicians and the following hypotheses were proposed: Hypothesis 2: Narrative transportation will be a positively significant predictor of the enjoyment experienced while watching biographical political movies. Hypothesis 3a: Enjoyment will be a positively significant predictor of the general attitude toward female politicians. Hypothesis 3b: Enjoyment will be a positively significant predictor of the attitude toward electing a female head of the state. Hypothesis 4: Enjoyment and narrative transportation will mediate the relationship between presumed effects of exposure to biographical political movies and (a) general attitude toward female politicians and (b) attitude toward electing a female head of the state. Although it was well established and several studies documented that narrative transportation and enjoyment were harmonious psychological constructs, which were highly interrelated in many situations, this study proposed the following research question to investigate the nature of relationship between enjoyment and narrative transportation when audiences were exposed to the biographical political movies featuring strong female politician as the protagonists: Research Question 3: In case of biographical political movies, what is the direction and strength of the relationship between enjoyment and narrative transportation?
Figure 1. The hypothesized model: Study one
43 Method
As the central purpose of this study was to explore whether exposure to the biographical political movies affected the political attitudes of participants toward female politicians, the following multiple treatments and controls experimental design was applied to address the issues raised in this study:
R XExperimental O
R XComparison O
R XControl O According to Shadish, Cook, and Campbell (2002), multiple treatments and control design allowed “the study to detect effects that might otherwise be missed if only two levels of a treatment that [were] not powerful enough to have an effect [were] varied” (p. 262). The experimental design randomly assigned participants to experimental, comparison, and control groups. Considering the significance of movies being a vastly popular medium among audiences, this study randomly assigned participants to two different biographical political movies (experimental and comparison groups), in which female lead characters played the role of a viable politician. The experimental group watched a video clip from a political movie revealing Sarah Palin’s unsuccessful race for one of the highest offices in the 2008 presidential elections in the United States. To control for the salience effects, the comparison group was exposed to a video clip from another biographical movie on the life and political achievement of the former U.K. Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Both movies were selected in consonance with the assumptions of the role model effect, which ascertained that young voters were likely to change their psychological political involvement if competitive female politicians were vying for a high office. The control group watched a clip showing the making of an HBO drama, which was based on the interviews of the crew and cast and had no relationship with gender issues and political campaigns.
Participants and procedure
For the purpose of this study, the data were collected in the first week of December 2012 and undergraduate students (n = 331) at a large Southern university participated in the
44 experiment in exchange for an extra course credit, the amount of which was determined by the relevant course instructors. The sample contained 90 (26.9%) males and 242 (73.1%) females with a median age of 20 years. The ethnic distribution of the sample closely resembled national statistics and revealed that 68% participants were Caucasians, 11.2% reported to be African Americans, 13.3 % were Hispanics, and 7.5% belonged to smaller ethnic groups such as Asians and Native Americans. Disclosing their political affiliations, 28.7% respondents were affiliated with the Democratic Party, 32.3% were associated with the Republican Party, 28.1% chose to remain independent, while 10.9% did not disclose their political memberships by selecting the “other” category. The participants were randomly assigned to experimental (Sarah Palin), comparison (Margaret Thatcher), and control (non-political clip) conditions. The participants attended an experimental lab and read a brief description of the study before signing the informed consent form. Using Qualtrics software, participants completed a pretest questionnaire measuring presumed effects of exposure to political entertainment and a few demographic variables. After completing the pretest, the participants were asked to watch three different video clips. The experimental group (n = 112) watched a 15-minute clip from the Sarah Palin biographical movie; the comparison group (n = 104) was exposed to a 15-minute clip from the movie about Margaret Thatcher; and the control group (n = 115) watched a video clip of equal length that was gender and politics neutral and merely focused on the making of an HBO drama. To avoid unnecessary treatment effects and ensure control across experimental, comparison, and control conditions, the length and focus of the clips in the experimental and control conditions were the same. For example, the video clips showing Sarah Palin and Margaret Thatcher focused on viable and powerful female politicians, while the control group watched a video clip containing no political and gender-related undertones. The portrayal of the lead characters in the clips was positive and carefully edited in such a way that the audiences could only watch positive aspects of the personality of the lead characters. Likewise, the biographical movies were professionally edited to represent a complete story, which was necessary for the narrative transportation measures. After the participants finished watching video clips in three conditions, they all completed the questionnaire dealing with different variables measuring presumed effects of exposure to entertainment, enjoyment, transportation into the narrative, the general attitude toward female politicians and the attitude toward electing a female politician as the head of state.
45 Stimulus materials
Experimental group. In the experimental condition, the participants were exposed to a 15-minute video clip from a biographical political movie, Game Change, based on the 2008 presidential race in the United States featuring Sarah Palin as a popular and strong female politician. The movie clip concentrated on the nomination of Sarah Palin as the vice presidential candidate and the challenges she faced during the campaign. In the professionally edited 15- minute clip used in this experiment, Sarah Palin was shown as a viable candidate for the office of the Vice President of the United States. The clip focused on Palin’s efforts to coax female voters during the campaign and portrayed her as an independent and intelligent politician capable of attracting the attention of voters. The stereotypical statements and hostile media coverage shown in the original movie was edited to maximize the treatment strength. Comparison group. The comparison group watched a 15-minute video clip from a British biographical movie, The Iron Lady. The biographical movie revolved around the life and achievements of Margaret Thatcher, who served two terms as the prime minister of the United Kingdom during 1980s. In a complete 15-minute story format, the narrative of the movie revolved around the challenges faced by Margaret Thatcher as a female politician, and her determination to make decisions on vital national and international issues faced by the United Kingdom in 1980s. The clip was professionally edited to portray Margaret Thatcher as a tough and decisive politician capable of dealing with the economic and security challenges in an efficient way. All negative aspects of the narrative related to the protagonist were edited. The movie clip was chosen for its powerful narrative that portrayed an authoritative woman politician who could serve as a role model for the participants. Control group. The control group was exposed to a 15-minute documentary that described the making of HBO fantasy drama, Game of Thrones. The clip was based on the interviews of crew and cast and was neither portraying politics nor gender issues. The clip was carefully selected to avoid the influence of overtly political or gendered narrative on the responses of the participants. It was ensured that the clip did not affect any of the political variables measured in the posttest condition and did not represent a coherent story. As stated earlier, it was ensured and pretested that the participants in experimental and control conditions will watch a video clip that highlights positive aspects of the life and struggle of the political
46 characters while in the control group, participants only watched a documentary-type clip that was not associated with gender or politics.
Measures
Presumed effects of the exposure to biographical political movies. Adopted from Rubin et al. (2009), a modified version of the scale named “presumed effects of rap” was used in this study. The participants were asked to respond to two statements associated with the viewers’ perception of the effects of political entertainment. A 10-point Likert-type scale was used in which one meant not at all and ten signified a great deal. The scores were combined to create an index. Participants were asked to respond to items such as “Over all, how much would you say your attitudes would be influenced after watching this video clip” In this 10-point 2-item scale, higher scores indicated greater presumed effects of the biographical political movies (M = 13.29, SD = 3.09). Considering the small number of items, and to ensure unidimensionality of the scale, Pearson correlation (r = .75) was calculated, which indicated a high correlation between items, and a subsequent exploratory factor analysis using principal axis factoring and promax rotation yielded a one factor solution with an eigenvalue of 1.50 and explained 75% of variance that was ideal as per instructions provided in the literature (Kline, 2009). Transportation into the narrative. A scale developed by Green and Brock (2002) was used to measure the construct through an eleven items 7-point Likert-type scale in which one was associated with strongly disagree and 7 anchored strongly agree. Three items were recoded to ensure that higher numbers showed higher levels of transportation into the narrative. An index was created by summing up responses to the eleven items used in the scale. Example items included, “I could picture myself in the scene of the events described in the movie narrative” and “The events in the movie narrative have changed my life”. Participants showing higher levels of transportation scored higher on the scale, while low-scoring participants experienced lower levels of transportation. The scale revealed a fine level of reliability (M = 46.99, SD = 10.15, α = .82). Enjoyment. Enjoyment has been reliably measured through various scales in the extant literature. For this study, a modified version of the enjoyment scale was adopted from Motl et al., (2001). Due to its content validity and simplicity, the scale was widely used in studying various
47 aspects of enjoyment of physical activities, especially among young participants (Moore et al., 2009; Motl et al., 2001). The construct was measured with four items using 7-point Likert-type scale. The lower end of the scale indicated strongly disagree; while the higher end specified strongly agree responses. One item was reverse coded so that higher scores showed more enjoyment. Examples of the items were “Watching the movie clip was fun,” and “I liked watching the movie clip”. The scale was reliable (α = .96), and the mean and SD of the scale were 19.45 and 3.50 respectively. Attitude toward electing a female head of the state. To measure the role model effects as a latent construct, we adopted an eight-item 7-point Likert-type attitude toward electing a female president scale from Simon and Hoyt (2008). Wolbrecht and Campbell (2007) also adopted a couple of similar scales to measure the effects of representation of female politicians on young voters. The scale reflected a decent level of reliability (M = 35.52, SD = 7.07, α = .83). Example items included, “I would prefer to have a woman for president”, “I would vote for a qualified woman candidate for president”, and “Americans are ready to elect a woman for president.” Three items were recoded to reveal higher support for electing a female as a president. General attitude toward female politicians. To measure the second construct associated with the role model effect, we used support for Clinton scale from Simon and Hoyt (2008). The scale was based on several statements that measured the viability of female politicians as presidential candidates. Ten items measured responses of the participants on a 7- point Likert-type scale that showed good reliability (M = 50.89, SD = 10.17, α = .94). Example items were, “A female presidential candidate will be a competent President of the US,” and “If nominated, a female presidential candidate will win elections for the President of the US”.
Results
To answer questions one and two, this study used a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to examine if the means of male and female participants and participants assigned to different experimental conditions were different on the presumed effects of exposure to biographical political movies, enjoyment, transportation, general attitude toward female politicians, and attitude toward electing a female head of the state. The results of the multivariate
48 tests were significant for gender (Pillai’s Trace = .06, F = 3.89, df = (5, 321), p < .05, partial ɳ2 = .06) and experimental conditions (Pillai’s Trace = .10, F = 3.45, df = (10, 644), p < .05, partial ɳ2 = .05) demonstrating that males and females showed a significant difference on the dependent variables. Likewise, the multivariate test results revealed that the participants assigned to dissimilar experimental conditions were significantly different from each other on at least one of the variables. Follow-up univariate tests reflected that there were significant differences between males and females on the presumed effects of exposure to biographical political movies (F = 7.39, df = (1, 325), p < .05, partial ɳ2 = .02), narrative transportation (F = 5.47, df = (1, 325), p < .05, partial ɳ2 = .02), general attitude toward female politicians (F = 13.92, df = (1, 325), < .05, partial ɳ2 = .04), and attitude toward electing a female head of the state (F = 5.44, df = (1, 325), < .05, partial ɳ2 = .02). However, this study failed to find a difference between males and females on the enjoyment of the movie clips in the three experimental conditions (F = 3.16, df = (1, 325), p > .05). The interaction between gender and experimental condition was also non-significant. Table two reflected univariate results for gender.
Table 1. Correlations between dependent variables: Study one Perceive Enjoy Trans Attitude General Presumed effects of Political 1 .342** .419* .089 .208** Movies Enjoyment 1 .668** .037 .170** Transportation into the 1 .080 .196** Narrative Attitude toward Electing a 1 .650** Female President 1 General Attitude toward Female Politicians
13.32(3. 19.45(3. 46.99(10 34.06(5. 50.89(10 Means & Standard Deviations 89) 50) .16) 42) .17) N = 331 Note: ** signify that a correlation is significant at .01 level (2-tailed). Full names of the dependent variables are given in the first column.
Profile plots of Variables used in MANOVA could be seen below:
49
Figure 2. Profile plots for dependent variables in MANOVA: Study one
50
Figure 2 Continued.
51 In comparison, the univariate tests for the three experimental conditions showed significant results for presumed effects of exposure to biographical political movies (F = 4.73, df = (2, 325), p < .05, partial ɳ2 = .03) and enjoyment (F = 5.04, df = (2, 325), p < .05, partial ɳ2 = .03) only; while the differences between the three groups were not significant on narrative transportation (F = 2.19, df = (2, 325), p > .05), general attitude toward female politicians (F = 1.84, df = (2, 325), p > .05), and attitude toward electing a female head of the state (F = 0.67, df = (2, 325), > .05). The LSD test was used for the post hoc comparisons and the results denoted that the experimental and comparison groups exhibited significantly higher levels of presumed effects of exposure to biographical political movies, enjoyment, and narrative transportation than the control group, while the three groups were similar in their attitude toward electing a female head of the state. However, the experimental and comparison groups had more positive general attitude toward female politicians than did the control group. The participants in the comparison group (less known politician condition) experienced greater enjoyment than other two groups. The results suggested that gender identity and existing attitudes toward the politician portrayed in the biographical political movie had a significant influence on various affective and behavioral dimensions of the attitudes of the audiences.
Table 2. Univariate effects for gender: Study one Source Dependent df df Mean Square F Sig Partial ɳ2 Variables error Presumed effects of 1 325 106.69 7.39** .00 .02 Political Movies
Enjoyment 1 325 37.65 3.15 .07 .01 Transportation into 1 325 544.56 5.47* .02 .02 the Narrative Gender Attitude toward Electing a Female 1 325 158.90 5.44* .02 .02 President General Attitude toward Female 1 325 1372.66 13.92** .00 .04 Politicians *p <.05, **p <.01
52 The next fundamental step in this study was to examine the hypothesized SEM model to explore how various variables affected each other. It was essential to refine the measures before running the specified SEM model to reduce measurement error and maximize internal validity. In addition, this study attempted to address the measurement error issue as self-report measures of various psychological constructs were replete with measurement error and it was important to account for the this error before using exogenous and endogenous variables in the proposed SEM model (DeStefano & Motl, 2006; Wayne et al., 1997). Following a procedure used by Wayne et al. (1997), this study equalized the variance of the adopted measures and error variance and subsequently multiplied it by one minus α values of the scales. It was an assumption in this study that items were measured without error and the error variance was set to be zero while the path connecting the latent variable and the indicator was fixed at one (Wayne et al., 1997). The procedure helped overcome measurement error issues routinely found in measures of self-report and could influence results. The hypothesized model was examined after refining the measures and Figure 3 showed the hypothesized paths, which were based on the theories and existing literature described in the preceding paragraphs. Direct paths from the presumed effects of exposure to biographical political movies (positively portraying lead characters) to other endogenous variables and the mediating role of transportation and enjoyment were tested using MPlus 7. Maximum likelihood was used as an estimator and the results of the path model revealed that there was a good fit between the hypothesized model and data. The goodness of fit indices associated with the model (χ2 =3.51, df = 4, p = 0.53; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.00; CFI = 1.00, TLI = 1.01; standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = 0.03) indicated the level of fit between the model and the data. As the χ2 test is sensitive to sample size, this study relied on other goodness of fit indices discussed above to evaluate the model fit, and the other indices including CFI, TLI, RMSEA, and SRMR signposted a good model fit (Browne & Cudeck, 1993; Hu & Bentler, 1999; Kline, 2009). The hypothesis 1a and 1b expected a significantly positive relationship between presumed effects of exposure to biographical political movies and enjoyment and narrative transportation, and the results of this study supported the hypothesized relationships between presumed effects of biographical political movies and enjoyment (b = .13, p < .05) and narrative transportation (b = .53, p < .05). Likewise, transportation turned out to be a strong predictor of enjoyment and hypothesis 2 was supported (b = .63, p < .05). Enjoyment was a significant
53
Figure 3. The path model with standardized coefficients: Study one
Table 3. Direct and indirect effects associated with model parameters: Study one Parameter Unstandardized SE Standardized Direct Effects Perceived Enjoyment .12* .05 .13* Perceived Transport 1.33** .15 .53** Transport Enjoyment .23** .02 .63** Enjoyment Gen.Attitude .91** .19 .31** Enjoyment AttitudeFePr .26* .13 .13 * Specific Indirect Effects Perceived Enjoyment Gen. Attitude .11* .05 .04* Perceived Enjoyment Transport Gen. Attitude .28** .07 .10** Perceived Enjoyment Attitude Fe Pr .03 .02 .02 Perceived Enjoyment Transport Attitude Fe Pr .08 .04 .04 Total Indirect Effects Perceived Gen. Attitude .38** .09 .14** Perceived Attitude Fe Pr .11 .06 .06 Total Effects Perceived Gen Attitude .38** .09 .14** Perceived Attitude Fe Pr .11 .06 .06 p* < .05, p** < .01
predictor of the general attitude toward female politicians (b = .31, p < .05), while the relationship between enjoyment and the attitude toward electing a female head of the state was
54 significant (b = .13, p < .05).Thus, hypothesis 3a and 3b were supported. In consonance with the results mentioned in the preceding lines, narrative transportation and enjoyment were effective mediators between presumed effects of biographical political movies and the general attitude toward female politicians. All total direct (b = .14, p < .05) and total indirect effects (b = .14, p < .05) confirmed the mediational prowess of narrative transportation as a mediator. However, narrative transportation and enjoyment could not emerge as significant mediators between presumed effects of biographical political movies and the attitude toward electing a female head of the state. The relationship was not significant and both total direct (b = .06, p = .056) and total indirect (b = .06, p = .056) effects were not supporting the hypothesis. However, these effects would turn significant if α was set at .10. Consequently, this study offered partial support to the hypothesis 4 and sustained the argument in academic literature that construction of a new scale to measure audiences’ attitude toward female politicians as a single trait is heuristically required (Rasul & Raney, 2013; Rasul, Orcan, & Yang, 2014). Table 3 presented the maximum likelihood estimates of total, direct, specific indirect and total indirect effects in the hypothesized model. In response to research question three, the relationship between enjoyment and transportation was very strong (b = 0.63, p < .05) and the value of R2 associated with the enjoyment and narrative transportation was 0.50 and 0.28 respectively, which indicated that not only enjoyment and transportation are strongly related to each other, but also explained around 78% of variance in the model.
Discussion
The central objective served by this study was to examine casual associations between the effects of exposure to biographical political movies, enjoyment, narrative transportation, and attitudes toward viable and competent female leaders. Since effects of political fiction and semi- fiction such as biographical political movies remained under-researched in the media effects and political communication literature, this study paved the way for further inquiry into the role of political entertainment in changing attitudes of the audiences by focusing on the meaningful or higher-order function of the enjoyment experienced through such exposures (Bartsch & Schneider, 2014; Oliver & Raney, 2011; Tamborini, 2011; Vorderer & Hartman, 2009). The meaningful (eudaimonic) function not only provided appreciation of the media narratives, but
55 also engendered effects on the attitudes and beliefs through pleasurable exposure activities. This study examined if the gender identity and existing attitudes toward salient political role models affected attitudes of the audiences toward female politicians. Significant gender differences were found and the less-known viable female politician transfigured as a more powerful role model compared to the known female politician. Likewise, this study hypothesized that presumed effects of biographical political movies would affect the enjoyment and narrative transportation experienced during the exposure process. The study confirmed these hypotheses and catalyzed the need to probe the prognostic potential of these constructs in different fictional settings. The subsequent set of hypotheses explored if narrative transportation caused people to enjoy the narratives and that enjoyment predicted audiences’ general attitude toward female politicians and attitude to elect a female head of the state. The study also hypothesized the mediating role of enjoyment and narrative transportation between exposure and a shift in the attitudes toward female politicians. Extant literature is brimming with studies investigating the mediating role of enjoyment and absorption in the studies, i.e., narrative transportation, in changing existing attitudes and beliefs of the audiences (Appel & Richter, 2007, 2010). Finally, this study examined the strength of the relationship between enjoyment and narrative transportation, which was found to be positive and strong in several settings. It was important to answer this question, as the strength of relationship between enjoyment and narrative transportation was not explored in the context of political entertainment with known and relatively less-known female role models as the protagonists. The results indicated that ingroup attachments and gender identity played a significant role in influencing the impact of entertaining political narratives. Females experienced greater effects on exposure, enjoyment, narrative transportation, and successive attitudinal change toward female politicians. However, the difference between males and females was not statistically significant on enjoyment. It could have been significant if the study had used a liberal α value of .10. The direction of the results was in consonance with the findings reported in the existing literature and it was confirmed that gender identity and ingroup membership were significant factors moderating the effects of political entertainment based on stories with females as the protagonists (Simon & Hoyt, 2008; Trepte, 2006). Hoyt and Simon (2011, p. 145) argued that “role models can be both inspiring and injurious to others depending on a variety of factors, including whether the models are ingroup members, the perceived attainability of their success,
56 and the extent to which they successfully disconfirm negative stereotypes”. Likewise, the experimental group was exposed to a biographical movie clip depicting Sarah Palin, as a viable role model, the comparison group watched a powerful and positive portrayal of Margaret Thatcher and the control group viewed a gender and politics neutral clip of an equal length. This study assumed that the effects of exposure on the dependent variables could be moderated by the existing attitudes toward Sarah Palin being a well-known politician in the United States. This assumption was confirmed by the results and the effects of exposure to the biographical movie with a less-known politician, Margaret Thatcher, were greater on the participants compared to the experimental and control conditions. However, the follow-up univariate tests indicated that only presumed effects of exposure and enjoyment showed statistically significant results. These findings also supported results found in the existing literature, as the sample comprised of a predominantly young population, which is known for its liberal attitudes toward female politicians and counter stereotypical attitudes in politics (Ford, 2011; Goren, 2009; Van Zoonen, 2005). However, the gender differences articulated by this study should be read carefully as the sample size was asymmetrically divided between males and females. Despite this caveat, the study found gender differences among participants, but no statistically significant differences were found among experimental, comparison, and control groups on narrative transportation, general attitude toward female politicians, and attitude toward electing a female head of the state. In accordance with the existing literature, enjoyment and narrative transportation were strongly and positively interrelated constructs in this study. As Green et al. (2004) asserted that higher levels of transportation were invariably related to greater enjoyment of the entertainment narratives. The other indirect causal associations between different exogenous and endogenous variables were also found significant. Enjoyment and narrative transportation effectively mediated the relationship between exposure to biographical political movies and general attitude toward female politicians. A plausible reason for greater transportation and enjoyment could be that the path model was run only on data collected from experimental and comparison group participants who had seen a positive portrayal of female politicians. All total, total indirect, and specific indirect effects were significant, which suggested that enjoyment and narrative transportation were effective mediators between exposure and general attitude toward female politicians. However, the mediational prowess of enjoyment and narrative transportation was questionable when this study explored total and total indirect effects between presumed effects
57 of biographical movies and the attitude toward electing a female head of the state, as the results were not significant at an α value of .05. Even these effects would turn significant if a liberal α value of .10 was used. Thus, the hypothesized SEM model yielded significant results and supported the arguments raised in this study that enjoyment and narrative transportation could be used as plausible mediators to understand the effects of entertaining narratives on the political attitudes of the audiences. This study served as an important germinal research to probe the effects of biographical political movies on the attitudes of the audiences. The results were in agreement with the findings of the Adams et al.’s (1985) study that investigated the effects of biographical movies on the audiences. Delli Carpini (2012) and Holbert (2005) also advanced similar arguments that focused on a further exploration of the role of entertainment in influencing attitudes of the audiences in modern democracies. The pervasiveness of the entertainment-laden media and increasing use of infotainment by political parties and candidates also necessitated an inquiry into the effects of exposure to popular entertainment genres such as movies and primetime drama on changing the political attitudes of the consumers of entertainment culture. As fittingly argued by Holbert (2005), affective disposition theory and other approaches to explore the effects of entertainment narratives could be applied to examine attitudinal changes caused by the consumption semi-fictional and fictional entertainment narratives.
Limitations
Although the effects of exposure to the biographical political movies advanced a plausible understanding of the role of political entertainment in shaping attitudes of the audiences, this study had several potential limitations. One of the primary limitations dealt with the issue of external validity and generalizability of the study findings. Field and Hole (2011) and many other scholars have advocated the use of university students as participants in experiments; however, the results of these studies cannot be generalized beyond the populations studied. That said, one of the advantages of recruiting participants from student populations is the element of homogeneity that serves as a common denominator among young consumers of entertainment media across the globe.
58 Another significant limitation of the study was related to the exposure time. The participants were not exposed to the full-length biographical movies and instead, they watched a 15-minute clip highlighting the positive aspects of female leadership. Although it might have maximized the treatment strength, but the effects of a partial exposure might be limited to the immediate situation and may not extend to the real-life political experiences of the audiences. Major political parties across the globe, however, are using short biographical movies produced in a semi-fictional manner to influence voting behavior of the citizens, which might be used as a justification for the stimulus material. Although the stimulus material was carefully edited to convey a coherent story, yet a shortened version might have repercussions for the use of Green & Brock (2002) transportation scale. Use of a full-length fictional or semi-fictional political movie as a stimulus would, therefore, be a plausible approach to detect effects in a more realistic fashion. An additional limitation dealt with the absence of identification with the characters as a variable in the SEM model. Identification, being a significant mediator variable in the media effects literature, efficiently predicted narrative transportation in the extant literature and should be used in future research. Another issue was related to the availability of a reliable and valid scale to measure audiences’ attitude toward feminine political role models. The scales were adopted from Simon and Hoyt (2008), who had used these measures to investigate gender differences in the voting behavior in the 2008 elections. Additionally, the scale used to measure attitudes toward female politicians in this study mentioned “president”, which might fit into the political system in the United States, but may not be relevant in other societies where someone other than a president might be the chief executive of the country. However, these scales could still be used and future studies in different research settings could replace the word “president” with another appropriate term. It was also pertinent to mention here that the use of word “president” was in agreement with the academic literature, which suggested that a female politician could influence voters if she was running for a high and visible office (see, for example, Campbell & Wolbrecht, 2006; Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007; Simon & Hoyt, 2008). In summary, the results of this study indicated that political entertainment in the form of biographical political movies did not merely help audiences manage their moods through heuristic processing, but also influenced their attitudes by engaging them in elaborate processing (Bartsch & Schneider, 2014), which transfigured a pleasurable entertainment experience into a
59 meaningful one. In line with the existing research, viewers processed narratives along gender lines; however, this claim should cautiously interpreted due to the asymmetrical ratio of males and females in the sample that is considered an issue while interpreting the results of analysis of variance. Gauntlett (2008) also argued that young adults were known for having uniform political dispositions and traditionally supported radical political values. Regardless of the significant gender differences supporting the so-called gender gap, this study suggested that young viewers unvaryingly processed entertainment narratives in the experimental, comparison and control conditions. Another significant contribution of this study dealt with the exploration of the role of narrative transportation and enjoyment in bringing forth a plausible attitudinal change. The path model suggested that audiences perceived biographical movies as entertaining narratives capable of affecting their attitudes through absorption in the storyline and a meaningful enjoyment of the narrative. Enjoyment and narrative transportation explained a large portion of variance (78%) in the entertainment experience associated with the exposure to biographical political movies. These findings have implications for future research and a logical upshot of the promising results found in this study would be to examine the effects of fictional entertainment media, especially primetime drama, on the attitudes of young viewers toward mediated female politicians. Even though the effect sizes were small in this study, it could be expected that another study evaluating the effects of primetime drama may yield larger effect sizes due to a pure fictional narrative and greater transportability potential. Additionally, it was all the more important to examine fictional primetime drama featuring female protagonists as politician after the successful reception of an idealized primetime presidency (Parry-Giles & Parry-Giles, 2006) with a male protagonist in The West Wing. It would also be important in future studies to examine causal relationships among significant variables in entertainment psychology such as eudaimonic and/or hedonic exposure motives (Bartsch & Schneider, 2014; Oliver & Raney, 2011), identification with the characters as a precursor to narrative transportation (Hoeken & Sinkeldam, 2014), enjoyment (Roth et al. 2014) and a reliable and valid scale to measure attitude toward female politicians (Rasul, Orcan, & Yang, 2014). To satisfy these intrinsically academic needs, this dissertation incorporated study two to investigate the causal connections among various variables to explicate the influence of fictional political narratives on the attitude toward characters. Exploring these causal relationships would be practically and scholastically
60 significant, as it would advance academic research on the effects of fictional political entertainment per recommendations of a few significant academic contributions (Holbert, 2005; Delli Carpini, 2012) that called for the need to pay greater attention to fictional entertainment and pursuant effects by applying innovative empirical methodologies. Chapter four encompassed study two, which proposed a causal model among variables mentioned in the preceding lines and suggested that a meaningful (eudaimonic) entertainment experience would lead to a plausible change in the political attitudes of young viewers of primetime drama.
61 CHAPTER 4
STUDY TWO: EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE TO FICTIONAL POLITICAL ENTERTAINMENT AND THE ATTITUDE TOWARD FEMALE POLITICIANS
It’s time to go back to an idealized president—a well-articulated and idealized president – Howard Gordon
The “legitimization and enhancement of entertainment theory” (Bryant, 2004; Oliver & Raney, 2014, p. 367) and its relationship with assorted political activities became increasingly popular in recent years. Several studies (Delli Carpini, 2012; Holbert, 2005, 2014; Oliver & Raney, 2014; Roth et al., 2014; Van Zoonen, 2005) mentioned existing research gaps surrounding cognitive processing of entertaining narratives having political undertones and emphasized the need to analyze the role various genres of political entertainment were playing to politically socialize citizens. To traverse these previously unexplored areas, this dissertation reconnoitered the effects of semi-fictional movies on viewers’ political attitudes toward female politicians in study one, and the plausibility of the results paved the way for study two, which would survey how exposure to fictional political entertainment narratives containing powerful feminine protagonist could influence audiences’ attitude toward female leaders. Semi-fictional and fictional entertainment narratives are considered integral elements of political socialization in democratic political systems across the globe. Politicians and political parties seek refuge under the overarching influence of various genres of entertainment media to influence opinion of the voters. Several studies confirmed that exposure to fictional and non- fictional political entertainment on television mobilized voters (Baum & Jamison, 2006), enhanced political self-efficacy (Hoffman & Thomson, 2009), reduced knowledge gap (Prior, 2005; Young, 2004), and primed citizens to positively evaluate personality traits of the politicians (Druckman, 2003; Holbert et al., 2005). Considering the attitudinal change potential of television, entertainment programs served as an influential agent of political socialization and helped audiences, expressly young adults, learn and imbibe the political ethos, and repose their
62 trust in the political leaders and the system. Advancing this line of argument, Hoffman and Thomson (2009) proclaimed that audience depended on entertainment television to learn and analyze the political environment in today’s entertainment-laden societies. Entertainment television historically relied on the engaging potential of political broadcasting, and political fiction played a significant role as a narrator of stories about politics and politicians using different plot lines such as comedy, drama, thriller, and action (Van Zoonen & Wring, 2012). The fictional stories on primetime television mainly focused on a competent president in the White House and the narratives primarily revolved around men grappling with gigantic national issues and finally triumphing in safeguarding the “American dream” (Christensen & Haas, 2005). Female characters appeared in supporting roles, and the only task assigned to them was to assist the male protagonist in achieving his goals (Van Zoonen, 2005). No job for a lady (British sitcom) would appropriately delineate the representation of female politicians in fictional political entertainment, which cultivated negative stereotypes and strengthened gender role schemas. As their descriptive representation in news and entertainment media remained at a minimal level, several studies raised questions about political involvement of females, attitude toward female politicians, and political self-efficacy among female viewers and leaders aspiring to participate in political processes (Goren, 2009; Simon & Hoyt, 2008; Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007). Despite the fact that women constituted nearly half of the population in many democratic societies, their visibility in leadership roles, or lack thereof, was explained by many factors such as gender stereotypes in various media genres, family responsibilities, and early childhood socialization (Rasul & Raney, 2013). An ubiquitous entertainment culture exacerbated the situation by diffusing negative gender stereotypes, which, subsequently, led to widespread disparities among women and men in different cultures. Particularly, negative treatment of the female politicians in fictional narratives was positively correlated with conventional gender roles and strengthened biased schemas and deleterious perceptions about female leaders (Simon & Hoyt, 2013; Yamamoto & Ran, 2014). Several studies (Carlin & Winfrey, 2009; Eagly & Carly, 2007; Goren, 2009; Heilman, 2001; Van Zoonen, 2005) found a negative relationship between prejudiced media images and women’s aspirations to navigate political waters. Exposure to less competent and less deserving role models in fictional entertainment adversely affected women’s self-perceptions and desires to climb the leadership ladder (Hoyt & Simon, 2011; Van Zoonen,
63 2005). Recent trends in fictional political entertainment, nonetheless, deviated from an overtly patriarchal tradition and numerous primetime dramas (Commander-in Chief, 2005; 24, 2009; Borgen, 2013) displayed viable and competent female leaders, who, against all odds, changed the rules of the game and helped audiences visualize female politicians in powerful leadership roles. Extant research observed that the prevalence of sexist sentiments in entertainment media was changing, albeit slowly (Gauntlett, 2008), and counterstereotypical representation of the female leaders flourished in magnitude, which resulted in greater acceptance of female frontrunners in various walks of life (Rasul & Raney, 2013). Females were shown in powerful roles in fictional media including movies and dramas, and fictional narratives featured several female political leaders as protagonists (Gauntlett, 2008). Due to political reforms and women’s mounting interest in seeking professional excellence in different societies, their descriptive representation in assorted entertainment media genres and decision-making forums significantly increased in the past few decades. Wolbrecht and Campbell (2007) argued that the presence of females in the corridors of power made them visible in the mass media, which sparked greater discussions about their competence and favorably affected attitudes of the audiences toward female politicians. These attitudinal changes were meticulously investigated and researchers (Gauntlett, 2008; Hoyt & Simon, 2011; Lockwood, 2006) found consistent patterns of identification with successful role models that afterwards enhanced self-efficacy of audiences due to the attainable nature of success and power embodied in the mediated role models. Specifically, the mediated role models in entertainment television generated an affective response among disadvantaged groups such as females, which were victims of negative stereotyping in the public sphere. Exposure to a successful and powerful role model belonging to their fraternity invoked positive emotional reactions by changing the attitudes among females of all age categories (Neuman, Marcus, Crigler, & Mackuen, 2007). After exposure to counterstereotypical entertainment narratives, females were likely to be positively impacted by the success of the mediated female politicians, and extant research confirmed that there was a “strong push to provide young women with successful role models” in order to shift their political attitudes and actively engage them in assorted political processes by augmenting their degree of internal self-efficacy (Hoyt & Simon, 2011, p. 144). Consequently, several studies underlined that greater space should be provided to successful female politicians in news media and more politically competent female protagonists should
64 feature in primetime drama to upturn the levels of identification with female leaders and finally lead to a visualization of females in viable leadership roles (Campbell & Wolbrecht, 2006; Goren, 2009; Van Zoonen, 2005; Wilson, 2012). Since habitual exposure to fictional entertainment is pervasive in all societies, and audiences, especially young adults, cultivate gender realities based on the fictional narratives in movies and primetime drama, the objective of study two is to explore causal interactions between exposure to counterstereotypical fictional drama and attitude toward female politicians. To understand the processes through which exposure to primetime drama culminates in an attitudinal change, the current study also proposes an SEM model to explicate the role of essential mediating variables such as identification, transportation into the narrative, enjoyment, and political self-efficacy, and focuses on direct and indirect effects between media use motivations and attitude toward female politicians.
Politicizing fictional entertainment: Use(s) of political drama and audiences
Political entertainment emerged as a legitimate and vibrant field of research and scholars applied diverse epistemological approaches to explore the effects of political entertainment (Amarasingam, 2011; Delli Carpini, 2012), analyze its content (Van Zoonen & Wring, 2012; Young, 2008), and relate it with entertainment or persuasion theories (Holbert, 2005; Roth et al., 2014). A strong concentration of research in the area of political entertainment centered on various genres across a multitude of theoretical paradigms. Talk shows such as the Daily Show with John Stewart, Saturday Night Live, and Late Show with David Letterman received significant attention from various pockets of research (Niven, Lichter, & Amundson, 2003; Voth, 2008; Xenos & Becker, 2009) and reinforced the research on political entertainment to gain momentum in the last couple of decades. A significant contribution of the contemporary research was to acknowledge the power of political entertainment as an individual effect, and popular culture as a group effect because it operated at macro level and catalyzed significant political and civic changes in different societies. Likewise, researchers (Fielding, 2008; Holbert, Shah, & Kwak, 2003; Parry-Giles & Parry-Giles, 2002; Van Zoonen, 2007; Van Zoonen & Wring, 2012) paid adequate attention to the individual effects of political drama by focusing on political narratives; however, televisual fiction containing political undertones and female protagonists was peripherally addressed (Goren, 2009). For example, The West Wing featuring a male
65 protagonist as the president of the United States was repeatedly investigated for its potential to engage citizens (Holbert et al., 2005; Parry-Giles & Parry-Giles, 2006; Pompper, 2003) and its “educational, inspirational, and ideological values” (Van Zoonen & Wring, 2012, p. 264), sparse academic attention was paid to Commander-in-Chief in which a female president was dealing with intricate political and policy issues (Goren, 2009). By and large, communication scholars “tended to focus on the effects of mainstream journalism and public affairs programs on political attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and knowledge while largely ignoring entertainment and fictional genres and leaving aside questions of interpretation, identity, and discourse” (Tenenboim- Weinblatt, 2009, p. 368). Therefore, collecting empirical evidence explicating the significance of fictional political drama in changing attitude of various groups of audiences such as young voters toward politicians, political processes, and political institutions would contribute to the existing literature on political entertainment. In recent decades, a few female politicians rose to prominence and attracted news and entertainment media’s attention in different parts of the world. Above and beyond television, Hollywood and other transnational entertainment industries such as Bollywood also focused on “girl power” by producing fictional entertainment products in which female superheroes were amusing the audiences with their heroics not only in action movies but also in movies with overt political undertones. Laine Hanson as the vice-presidential nominee in The Contender and the vice president Kathryn Bennet in Air Force One were excellent examples of successful female politicians in powerful roles supporting roles in fictional movies. A couple of biographical movies (The Iron Lady (2011) and Game Change (2012) were based on the lives and political careers of female politicians and captured the attention of the audiences. Televisual portrayal of fictional female presidency also gained momentum and played a significant role in promoting female politicians as competent leaders capable of handling convoluted political situations, which were considered a prerogative of male politicians in the primetime drama. Viable female presidents were shown in Commander-in-Chief, Battlestar Galactica, and 24 that challenged the myth of primetime presidency—a male’s domain in the past (Parry-Giles & Parry-Giles, 2006; Van Zoonen, 2005). These fictional movies, dramas, and all other genres that peripherally depicted successful female politicians contributed to an affirmative political socialization that paved the way for a greater acceptance for female leaders. In an age of ubiquitous entertainment culture, the persuasive prowess of fictional drama could not be underestimated, and considering
66 Van Zoonen’s (2007) conceptualization of the “political self” that emerged in response to the exposure to fictional political entertainment, it could be argued that the audiences vicariously learnt from political characters and identified with the fictional role models to “anchor their utopias in firm ground” (p. 542). Fictional entertainment was considered a powerful agent of political socialization due to the enjoyment quotient associated with it, which minimized critical evaluation of the roles and messages transported by the lead characters (Christensen & Haas, 2005; Young, 2008). As discussed in study one, the real-life political campaigns are also relying on the prowess of political entertainment to engender an “affect effect” in favor of party candidates by producing short biographical movies in a semi-fictional manner to attract voters’ attention. Likewise, many commentators (see, for example, Goren, 2009) claimed that it was important to fantasize a female president in the United States after the widespread popularity of The West Wing that conceptualized a patriarchal political system in which a male president performs benevolent political management (Holbert et al., 2005; Skewes, 2009). Van Zoonen (2007) also argued that that audience performed a political self while watching political entertainment and an integral component of this process was fantasy, which reflected their hopes and aspirations. Fantasy augmented audiences’ identification and engagement with the political characters and helped them internalize political messages that changed their attitudes toward narratives and characters (Holbert et al., 2005; Moy & Pfau, 2000). Christensen and Haas (2005) cautiously furthered this line of argument by asserting that positive portrayals of politicians could meaningfully influence political participation of the viewers. Thus, a counterstereotypical and affirmative exposé of female politicians in fictional political drama would function as an engine of political engagement and understanding and its long-term effects would help audiences generate favorable opinions about female leaders, judge them, and reflect on their characters (Goren, 2009; Simon & Hoyt, 2013; Ridout, 2013; Van Zoonen, 2007). Discussion in the preceding lines necessitated an empirical response to the following research question: Research Question 4: Does exposure to fictional political drama featuring a female politician affect the audience’s attitude toward female politicians? Another pertinent question soliciting an academic response is associated with the fictional media use motives of the young audiences. Several studies (Hollander, 2005; Moy, Xeno, & Hess, 2005; Roth et al., 2014) focused on the predictive value media use variables in
67 their analysis of the effects of political entertainment. By tradition, researchers in entertainment psychology seemed to have developed a consensus that one of the central objectives of consuming entertainment media in general and political entertainment in particular is seeking pleasure (Oliver & Bartsch, 2010; Roth et al., 2014; Wirth, Hofer, & Schramm, 2012) and young adults constitute a community, which concentrates heavily on the use of entertainment media for pleasure and other gratifications (Inthorn & Street, 2011). Oliver and Raney (2011) recognized that motives to use entertainment media could be diverse and the “recognition of entertainment use for purposes of insight (in addition to pleasure) broadens the theoretical scope of entertainment psychology” (p. 61). Likewise, Van Kruistum, Leseman, & de Haan (2014) supported this stream of thought by asserting that the uses and gratification research also needed to move beyond pleasure-seeking motives associated with assorted genres of entertainment media. Although the central objective of study two was not to solely focus on the differences between pleasure seeking and meaningful motives of entertainment media exposure and their effects on political attitudes, it was found instructive to assume that rather than considering the use of fictional entertainment drama as serving pleasure seeking motivations of the audiences, the current research would also harvest significant gains by focusing on the meaningfulness of the entertainment experience. The scope of empirical inquiry in this area broadened in recent decades and scholars conceptualized the consumption of entertainment media as a meaningful experience that could serve various needs of audiences (Oliver & Bartsch, 2010; Roth et al., 2014; Vorderer, 2011). Bartsch and Schneider (2014, p. 369), for example, argued that meaningful entertainment experience generated “reflective thoughts about politically relevant content, issue interest, and information seeking” and the findings of their study were consistent across fictional entertainment and soft news stimuli. Roth et al. (2014) also found meaningful (eudaimonic) uses of entertainment media playing a significant role in predicting various dimensions of political attitudes. Popularly termed as hedonic (pleasure-seeking) and eudaimonic (meaningful) motives to use media, these relatively new conceptualizations are relevant to the consumption of political entertainment, especially primetime drama. Several studies (see, Delli Carpini, 2012; Holbert, 2005) described the potential of meaningfulness of fictional political drama in changing attitudes of the viewers. Thus, entertainment use motives, whether hedonic or eudaimonic, is a significant construct and its utility has been discussed in numerous studies (Bartsch, 2012; Bartsch &
68 Schneider, 2014; Oliver & Raney, 201; Roth et al., 2014; Tamborini et al., 2010; Vorderer & Reinecke, 2012; Wirth et al., 2012), which means that this construct could be used to investigate entertainment experiences defining “political performance” resulting from the creation of a fantasized environment after exposure to political fiction (Van Zoonen, 2007) in which narrative absorption lowers critical evaluation of the messages and characters (Young, 2008). Research exploring the meaningful or otherwise use of primetime drama has both academic and practical ramifications as a battery of female politicians is serving in important and highly visible political positions across the globe these days, and it would be interesting to empirically explore if fictional drama narratives supplement female politicians’ acceptability in leadership roles. To examine the relationship between audiences’ attitude toward female politicians and their consumption of primetime drama to seek pleasure (hedonic use) and to satisfy their needs related to a meaningful entertainment experience (eudaimonic use), study two proposes the following research question: Research Question 5: What is the influence of motives to use (hedonic versus eudaimonic) fictional primetime drama displaying a viable female politician on audiences’ attitude toward female politicians? In the context of political entertainment, another potentially influential variable that could regulate the effects of fictional political drama was political ideology. Hoffman and Thomson identified that audiences following a particular ideological orientation were likely to have varying levels of political self-efficacy and participation. Likewise, Thussu (2008) and Ford (2011) suggested that entertainment television “fans” were likely to espouse liberal ideologies and support introduction radical ideas in political processes. Liberals were also considered pro female politicians despite the fact that the first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, in the Western world belonged the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. In the United States, Hillary Clinton represented the epitome of liberal politics and her supporters generally adhered to liberal political ideology. To examine the effects of ideology and experimental conditions, study two applied a multivariate analysis of variance to test the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 5a: Participants exposed to fictional political drama in experimental comparison, and control conditions will experience different levels of identification, narrative transportation, enjoyment, and political self-efficacy.
69 Hypothesis 5b: Participants adhering to liberal, conservative, and neutral political ideologies will experience different levels of identification, narrative transportation, enjoyment, and political self-efficacy.
Dramatically entertaining: Developing a model for political influence of primetime drama
As outlined earlier, recent research in political communication and entertainment psychology stressed the need to focus on fictional political entertainment, as it would be a “step beyond a singular focus on news” and would efficiently explicate processes underlying political persuasion (Holbert et al., 2005, p. 508; Roth et al., 2014). Other researchers (Delli Carpini, 2012; Holbert, 2005) enumerated various epistemologies applied to study the nexus between entertainment and politics. In almost all approaches focusing on the study of political entertainment, various psychological constructs such as identification with the characters, transportation into the narrative and enjoyment associated with the narrative played a central role in explaining the entertainment experience. Study two, therefore, developed a path model to analyze causal associations between different constructs. Since several studies revealed that exposure to primetime drama facilitates attitudinal changes and audiences experienced a significant increase in their political knowledge and self-efficacy, this study investigated causal links among exposure motives, identification, transportation, enjoyment, political self-efficacy, and attitude toward female politicians. It was assumed that exposure to fictional media (primetime drama) representing female leaders in hackneyed roles may satisfy pleasure-seeking needs as it would be harmonious with the existing gender role schemas, but the audiences would be less likely to use it for meaningful purposes such as information seeking, trust in government, and self-efficacy. Inversely, exposure to counterstereotypical representations in fictional primetime drama was likely to culminate in a meaningful experience that might result in greater identification with female characters, transportation into the narrative, enjoyment, self-efficacy, and a subsequent change in attitudes in accordance with the existing research on political entertainment.
70 Identification Bartsch and Schneider (2014) highlighted that motives (hedonic and eudaimonic) concomitant with exposure to fictional entertainment were related to cognitive processing of messages and possessed absorption potential that was connected to other constructs and explained effects of fictional entertainment on various political attitudes. One such construct – identification with television characters – was decidedly an outcome of television viewing motives (Hoffner & Buchanan, 2005) that facilitated absorption into the messages, which led to greater enjoyment of the narratives. Acknowledging prognostic power of identification with the fictional characters, Holbert (2005) underscored the importance of affective disposition theory in understanding the enjoyment associated with political entertainment, but his “typology for the study of entertainment television and politics” fell short of an adequate explication of the other significant processes, which were integral components of the entertainment experience. Since affective disposition theory dealt with the development of affective dispositions toward characters and moral evaluation of the behavior of characters, identification with the characters should also be interrelated with other constructs expounded by the affective disposition theory. As Cohen (2006) and Green et al. (2004) reported that identification with the characters is a prerequisite for the narrative transportation, it is empirically significant to examine these constructs together to explain the enjoyment extracted from exposure to fictional political drama. Study one had found significant causal relationships between different variables involved in the entertainment experience, especially enjoyment and narrative transportation, but did not pay apposite attention to the role of identification in expediting transportation that climaxed in enjoyment and led to a meaningful entertainment experience, i.e., enhanced self-efficacy and a positive change in audiences’ attitudes toward female politicians. Some researchers (Igartua, 2010; Raney, 2003; Vorderer, Steen, & Chan, 2006) even defined the whole process of entertainment in terms of relationships with media characters, as the nature of these connections would determine absorption into the narrative and enjoyment experienced due to the success of the liked and failure of disliked characters. Bandura (2009) advanced the argument by claiming that identification with and similarity to a media character determines inhibiting and disinhibiting effects on the motivation to perform a behavior. Thus, identification not only led to greater absorption (transportation) into the messages and enhanced enjoyment, but also translated into tangible behavior change. Likewise, LaRose and Eastin (2004) developed an entertainment
71 model of media attendance by fusing Bandura’s (2001) social cognitive theory and uses and gratification approach, and argued that exposure to media was associated with cognitive and affective gratifications audiences routinely sought by watching their favorite characters on media. These cognitive and affective gratifications depended on perceived similarity, identification, and audiences’ motivations to use a particular media (McNair, 2011). Identification, therefore, was defined as a process that helped audiences adopt the identity and perspective of characters in televisual narratives, and identification was with the same gender characters (Cohen, 2001; Hoffner & Buchanan, 2005). Considering the role of identification in enhancing the entertainment value of the fictional political drama, this study stipulated the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 6a: Eudaimonic motives to use fictional political drama will be a strong positive predictor of identification with the main character in the dramatic narrative. Hypothesis 6b: Hedonic motives to use fictional political drama will be a strong positive predictor of identification with the characters. Hypothesis 7: Identification with the characters will be a strong positive predictor of (a) transportation into the narrative and (b) enjoyment of the fictional political drama. Hypothesis 8: Female viewers of fictional political drama will be significantly more likely than male viewers to identify with the lead female character in the drama. Narrative transportation Extant research provided ample evidence suggesting that identification with the characters in entertainment narratives and narrative transportation were closely intertwined psychological constructs. Identification consistently predicted narrative transportation that in turn was highly correlated with enjoyment of the exposure to entertainment media (Appel & Richter, 2010; Bilandzic & Busselle 2011; Green & Brock, 2000). Although identification was known for its fluid nature, higher levels of identification increased the probability of imitating the behavior modeled by the mediated characters and a greater involvement in the narrative (Bandura, 2009; Cohen, 2001). Narrative transportation defined as “the state of feeling cognitively, emotionally, and imaginably immersed in a narrative world” (Green & Brock, 2000; Sestir & Green, 2010, p.275) was an important mediator variable in this study as it facilitated an understanding of the process of persuasion and attitude change (Appel & Richter, 2007, 2010).
72 Several studies identified that absorption into the storyline minimized critical evaluation of the narratives that led to attitudinal and behavioral changes. Due to its influence on cognitive and emotional responses of the audiences, audiences of political entertainment were likely to use the peripheral route while processing political stories (Sestir & Green, 2010). Therefore, study two assumed that transportation would work as a powerful mediator and moderator of attitudinal change (Green & Brock, 2000) and a significant factor influencing audiences’ self-efficacy and subsequent attitudes toward female politicians by reducing reactance toward females’ acceptance in leadership roles. Study one also found that narrative transportation was significantly related to enjoyment and the audiences’ general attitude toward female politicians. Sestir and Green (2010) elaborated that as the audiences’ absorption in stories increased, they were emotionally bonded to the narrative world and “began to see the real world through the filter of the media-created worlds” (p. 276). Consequently, the audiences would have greater self-efficacy after exposure to drama showing a powerful female role model, who succeeded in achieving excellence against all odds. Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) advance this argument in a cross-cultural study and argued that positive representation of female politicians was significantly related to higher levels of political self-efficacy. This study proposed the following hypothetical predictions to examine the predictive power narrative transportation and to reassess the relationship between enjoyment and narrative transportation when audiences were exposed to fictional political drama: Hypothesis 9a: Eudaimonic motives to use fictional political drama will be a positive and strong predictor of transportation in to the narrative. Hypothesis 9b: Hedonic motives to use fictional political drama will be a positive and strong predictor of transportation in to the narrative. Hypothesis 10: Transportation into the narrative will be a positive and strong predictor of enjoyment experienced by the viewers of fictional political drama. Enjoyment As indicated in the forgoing paragraphs, one of the central objective of exposure to entertainment media was enjoyment (Tamborini, 2011). Enjoyment was a complex psychological construct and different approaches were applied to fully explicate how people enjoyed what they enjoyed (Green et al., 2004; Raney, 2006; Raney & Oliver, 2014). The affective disposition theory offered plausible explanations by connecting enjoyment with the actions of the characters in the narrative, and Bilandzic and Busselle (2011) argued that enjoyment was a function of
73 identification, narrative transportation, immersion, and perceived realism of the entertainment narratives. Bilandzic and Busselle (2011) claimed that narrative transportation was significantly associated with enjoyment while Green et al. (2004) asserted that identification with the characters in the narrative was a prerequisite for transportation into the narrative. Considering assertions of researchers in media psychology and effects literature, it could be argued that enjoyment essentially depended on identification with the characters and narrative transportation with a potential to influence mood, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. The affective disposition theory also focused on the affective appreciation of the actions of the characters in fictional narratives. On the other hand, Cohen (2006) argued that audiences wished to identify with the characters, which are similar to them and the perceived similarity with the characters – also termed as empathy – would enhance enjoyment of the fictional narratives. Enjoyment was conceptualized as a post hoc experience in entertainment psychology literature; however, several studies focused on the potential of enjoyment quotient of entertainment media in creating a formidable “sense of achievement, control, and self-efficacy” (Bandura, 1997; Klimmt & Hartmann, 2010; Vorderer et al, 2004, p. 394). Vorderer, Hartman, and Klimmt (2003) also argued that enjoyment was correlated with higher levels of self-efficacy, as an upbeat mood strengthens audiences’ belief in their capacity as good citizens. In an earlier study, Salomon (1984) found that television narratives were peripherally processed being less demanding compared to printed narratives and positively affect self-efficacy of the viewers. Thus, visual nature of primetime drama makes complicated political issues comprehensible to many indifferent groups such as youth, and due to identification with the protagonist, audiences tended to enjoy the narratives with an increased self-efficacy. A powerful female protagonist in a fictional political drama was a special case as a political self-efficacy booster because audiences tended to conform to the message and modeled behaviors presented through entertainment narratives. To explore relationship between enjoyment and self-efficacy, study two hypothesized the following causal relationship: Hypothesis 11: Enjoyment of the fictional political drama will be a positive and strong predictor of political self-efficacy of the viewers. Political self-efficacy and attitude toward female politicians Conventionally, politically less efficacious segments of the society such as women and youth were stereotyped as indifferent groups responsible for the trivialization of politics (Van
74 Zoonen, 2005). Being a significant political attitude, political self-efficacy was defined as “the feeling that political and social change is possible, and that the individual citizen can play a part in bringing about this change” (Campbell & Cooper, 1956, p. 188). Hoffman and Thompson (2009) argued that political entertainment affected political self-efficacy, as television was predominantly a source of political socialization and information for young viewers. Empirical evidence suggested that use of entertainment media was positively correlated with political self- efficacy and young adults turned out to be more politically self-efficacious when exposed to political stories in primetime drama and other entertainment media (Kushin & Yamamoto, 2010; Ford, 2011; Sheckels, Gutgold, & Carlin, 2012). Prior studies demonstrated that enjoyment experienced while watching television drama positively affected political self-efficacy that led to the enhanced levels of political participation (Ford, 2011; Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007). Increased levels of self-efficacy facilitated cognitive involvement and bestowed upon youth an agentic perspective that energized and activated them to work for a positive social change. Kaid et al. (2007) argued that political information efficacy could be a determinant of voters’ confidence in their political awareness that would determine a subsequent voting behavior. Likewise, Wolbrecht & Campbell (2007) demonstrated that visible and viable female politicians could positively influence political self-efficacy of young people and sparked an interest in political activities. To examine the prognostic power of political self-efficacy, following causal links were hypothesized: Hypothesis 12: Political self-efficacy of the viewers will be a positive and strong predictor of their attitude toward female politicians. Attitude toward female politician was influenced by numerous factors. Wolbrecht and Campbell (2007) argued that visibility of female politicians as viable political candidates enjoyed the capacity to motivate other women to participate in practical politics. Portrayal of female politicians as powerful characters influenced attitudes of the female audiences, as gender identities were primed and gender empathy increased (Simon & Hoyt, 2008). In their seminal study, Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) discussed the role of female politicians as role models for young girls who were likely to learn politics, develop political attitudes, and model behavior patterns popularized by the female political leaders. The audiences of assorted entertainment genres showed a keen interest in politics due to a substantial increase in their political self- efficacy and knowledge as they sought information about their favorite female political leaders
75 (Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007). The role model effect contributes significantly toward processes culminating in enhanced levels of political socialization, and Ford (2011) attributed this attitudinal change to the prevalence of political narratives in assorted entertainment media genres, especially fictional drama. Study also centered on the several indirect effects of various variables postulated in the hypothesized SEM models on attitude toward female politicians. Measuring indirect effects of psychological involvement with entertainment media gained popularity in the past few years. Tukachinsky (2014, p. 2), for example, argued that “transportation was impacted by distraction, perspective taking instructions, and meta-narrative information”. Likewise, researchers argued that a variety of media effects operate at indirect levels, and, therefore, a careful assessment of the indirect effects was a necessary step before making knowledge claims (Hayes, Preacher, & Myers, 2011; Holbert & Stephenson, 2003). Study one found that enjoyment and narrative transportation significantly mediated the relationship between effects of exposure to biographical political movies and the general attitude toward female politicians. To examine indirect effects and the mediating role of identification, narrative transportation, enjoyment, and enjoyment in the theorized SEM model, this study proposed the following research question and hypotheses: Hypothesis 13.1: Political self-efficacy (a), enjoyment (b), transportation into narrative(c), and identification with the lead character (d) will be significant mediators between hedonic exposure motives and attitude toward female politicians. Hypothesis 13.2: Political self-efficacy (a), enjoyment (b), transportation into narrative(c), and identification with the lead character (d) will be significant mediators between eudaimonic exposure motives and attitude toward female politicians. Research Question 5: Which mediator has the strongest indirect effect on the relationship between exogenous and endogenous variables? The proposed hypotheses would be explored using analysis of variance and a hypothesized SEM model. These relationships are discussed in extant research and based on the theoretical guidelines forwarded by Bartsch and Schneider (2014), Delli Carpini (2012), and Holbert (2005).
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Figure 4. The hypothesized path model: Study two
Methodology: Study two
Study design In order to examine the causal relationship between the fictional primetime drama (Commander-in-Chief, 2005-06 and 24, 2009-10) and other variables discussed in the main document, a randomized experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of fictional narratives on the attitudes of the viewers toward female role models. In extant social science, experimental designs served as a dominant methodological procedure that allowed researchers to expose participants to the stimulus materials, which was akin to the real world media choices of audiences (Iyengar, 2002). Highlighting the significance of experiments in entertainment psychology, Holbrook and Hill (2005) argued that exposing participants to crime drama made them place more emphasis on the need to address violence in the society in posttest settings. Control over experimental conditions and randomization of both participants and treatments uniquely positioned experiments as an internally valid methodology capable of improving the credibility of social science inquiry (Barabas & Jerit, 2010). On the other hand, the obtrusive nature of experiments, artificial laboratory environment, and limited external validity adversely affect acceptance of experiments as an immaculate technique applied to determine causality. Despite inherent weaknesses, experiments are considered a gold standard to find empirical, verifiable evidence supporting a causal relationship between independent and dependent variables (Field & Hole, 2003). To explore whether exposure to entertainment media displaying powerful female characters affects enjoyment and a subsequent attitudinal change, this study proposed the
77 following basic randomized experimental design comparing two treatments and a control (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002):
R XCIC O
R X24 O R O The proposed design randomly assigned participants to experimental, comparison, and control groups. Randomization helped prevent a significant internal validity threat that dealt with selection bias and reduced the probability of confounding this threat with the treatment (Shadish, Campbell, & Cook, 2002). The design selected for study two was tested in Boston to investigate the effects of housing projects on improving neighborhoods inhabited by poor families (Orr, 1999), and pretesting was omitted as it could unnecessarily sensitize participants. Holbrook (2011) also underscored the significance of this design in attitude change experiments by arguing that multiple comparison design was useful in understanding the persuasive prowess of two different messages on attitudes. Since primetime drama was a popular medium among young viewers, study two evaluated the effects of fictional entertainment on identification with characters, enjoyment, narrative transportation, political self-efficacy, and an expected change in the attitude of the viewers toward female politicians. The stimulus materials were selected in consonance with the assumptions of the role model effect, which ascertained that audiences were likely to enjoy the presence of a female role model as the protagonist and would change their attitudes toward lead due to a powerful impact exercised by the stimulus material, which would generate positively valenced feelings toward counterstereotypical fictional characters (Adams- Price & Greene, 1990; Wolbrecht & Campbell; 2007).
Power analysis For study two, students were recruited from various departments and colleges at Florida State University (FSU). Instructors teaching large classes in the College of Communication and Information, College of Education, Department of political science, Department of Humanities, and School of Public Administration were contacted and requested to grant extra course credit to their students for participation in this study. Shafer (2009) identified that female students constituted the majority of the student population at FSU and several other studies expressed concerns over the recruitment from student populations with female-dominated samples. The
78 ANOVA results are also adversely affected if detecting gender differences is the agenda of an experimental study (Field, 2009), However, the objective of study two was to compare different treatments and their effects on different variables, the issue of gender imbalance in the study was ignored, as numerous practical problems were encountered in the recruitment process. Two experimental and a control condition were used in the current study. The experimental condition used stimulus material originating from primetime drama Commander- in-Chief and the comparison condition involved another fictional drama 24, while the control group was exposed to a gender and politics neutral clip of equal length. Considering the significance of randomized experimental design comparing two treatments and a control, it was imperative to conduct an a priori power analysis to decide an optimal sample size that could guarantee statistically acceptable level of power. G*Power—an open-access software to calculate statistical power – was used to calculate required sample size at an optimal .80 level of power with an α value of .05 and effect size set at .25, which is considered a medium effect size in power calculations related to the tests of mean differences. A post hoc power analysis was also performed after collecting the data to see if the required level of power (.80) was achieved. The results of the a priori power analysis revealed that 158 participants were needed to run ANOVA tests with a power of.80. More or less similar results were found for MANOVA and other tests of mean differences. The post hoc power analysis after collecting data revealed that with 359 participants across three conditions, the level of achieved power for ANOVA and other mean difference tests was .99. As study two proposed an SEM model to examine causal connections between exogenous and endogenous variables, power analysis was calculated for the χ2 goodness-of-fit tests. With seven degrees of freedom (df), power and α levels of .80 and .05, and an effect size of .30, a medium effect size, the optimum number of required participants was 160. The post hoc power analysis, however, indicated that study two enjoyed a power of .99 with a sample size of 359. Criterion stipulated by Kline (2009) was also applied, which suggested that a 20:1 ratio of cases to parameters would suffice. The sample size in study two clearly exceeded the required number of participants delineated in power analysis and prescribed by other researchers in academic literature. The current study also considered previous exposure to the fictional political dramas used as stimulus in this research as; according to Druckman & Leeper (2012), “pretreatment effects” could significantly influence the results of randomized experiments in political
79 communication. Students (N = 72) were surveyed in two classes in the School of Communication at FSU and, surprisingly, only 6.5% participants (N = 9) had previously exposed themselves to the fictional political dramas used in experimental and control conditions. Despite the fact that fewer number of student participants indicated their familiarity with Commander-in-Chief and the latest seasons of 24 with a female president, it was decided to over-recruit to avoid potential pretreatment effects.
Stimulus material Since the experimental design for this study relied on multiple treatments and a control, three different video clips were used. The key objective was to compare two treatments and one control condition. Burrell (2008) pointed out that very few fictional outlets were available to help audiences accept and visualize a likable and effective female commander-in-chief. Following Hollywood conventions (Van Zoonen, 2005), fictional political entertainment neglected viable and competent female political protagonists, and female politicians were usually shown in supportive roles assisting the male lead characters playing the role of head of state. For example, chief of staff in The West Wing was a female, but her role was limited as an assistant to a male president. ABC’s Commander-in-Chief (2005) was the first fictional drama that seriously focused on female presidency in the United States (Adams, 2011). Fox’s counterterrorism drama 24 (2009) displaying a powerful female president was chosen as a comparison stimulus to Commander-in-Chief, as president – Allison Taylor – was not the main protagonist, but her role was powerful enough to attract attention of the audiences interested in existing political culture in the United States (Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2009). Thus, the objective was to compare treatment effects of a fictional drama with a female politician protagonist with a fictional drama displaying a female protagonist in a powerful but secondary role. These experimental conditions were compared with a control condition representing a gender and politics neutral stimulus that described the making of HBO drama Game of Thrones. It was ensured that the portrayal is positive to enhance treatment effects. Experimental condition. The pilot episode Commander-in-Chief was professionally edited to prepare a short stimulus to avoid fatigue effect, which could potentially bias responses of the participants if the experiment is considerably long (Field & Hole, 2011). To strengthen treatment effects, irrelevant scenes were edited and content positively focusing on the
80 competence of President Mackenzie Allan was shown while maintaining the cohesiveness of the story. The opening scene represented President Allan taking oath followed by scenes of television reporting describing it a historic moment. President Allan had to face numerous challenges, as she was the vice president and entered into the oval office after the death of Republican President Teddy Bridges. She emerged as a strong leader and spoke to her cabinet and chief of staff with full conviction, allowing them to resign if they did not want to work with a female president. All but one cabinet member decided to work with her. She had made a plan to evacuate a young female captured in an African country for allegedly having sex and sentenced to death. The President called the ambassador of that country in meeting full of US army generals and told her that she was sending strong signals abroad regarding her competence as a female president and her potential to execute her plans. The drama video represented an effective short story about a competent and viable female president, who properly took care of her family and made tough decisions while dealing with national and international policy issues. Comparison condition. As Tenenboim-Weinblatt (2009) rightly asserted that lead characters in 24 were integral elements of US political culture, this popular drama was selected as a comparison stimulus. Various episodes from season seven and eight were carefully edited to positively describe a short story displaying a viable and effective female president as the lead character. Although it might provoke questions regarding the ecological validity as the female president is not the main protagonist in this fictional drama, these concerns were set aside because of the focus of study on the depiction of powerful characters in fictional drama. The drama narrative opened with President Allison Taylor taking oath and delivering her inaugural speech. As the main plot of the drama was counterterrorism, President Taylor was also focusing on effective counterterrorism strategies and she was entering into a peace treaty with a fictional Islamic state. Despite some opposition from international allies, President Taylor stood firm and invited the president of the Islamic state to New York, where a gang of terrorists threatened President Taylor to use deadly weapons in Manhattan if the guest president was not handed over to them. Contrary to the opinion given by one of the generals and her chief of staff, President Taylor did not want to negotiate with the terrorists and asked Jack Baur to protect President Omar Hassan. In the meantime, the visiting president voluntarily handed himself to the terrorists to save New York, and President Taylor’s chief of staff betrayed her by plotting with a general to ostensibly avoid a deadly catastrophe. Despite best efforts of President Taylor, the terrorists
81 execute President Hassan; however, Jack Baur was successful if diffusing the bomb in Manhattan. The short video clip revealed a short story portraying a competent president capable of dealing with significant national and international security issues. Control condition. A stimulus was prepared for the control condition containing a gender and politics neutral clip that described the making of an HBO drama. The short video was based on interviews of various actors and other crewmembers regarding various aspects of the drama. Sporadic scenes from the drama were also included in the video, but there was no cohesive story and it was ensured that the participants did not get a cue related to politics or gender issues. Since various studies have used “extracts of media content” in exploring how participants respond to media narratives related to specifically isolated features of content (Gunter, 2000, p. 154), study two carefully ascertained the length of the stimulus materials to further avoid a potential fatigue effect. To examine the efficacy of the stimulus material, video clips of varying duration (15 minutes and 22 minutes) were prepared by editing relevant episodes of the selected fictional dramas. Two focus groups (four participants in each group) were conducted and the participants, who were not the students of FSU, were shown professionally edited long 22- minute video and a short version spanning over 15-minutes in natural settings. The verbatims were carefully analyzed, and it was decided that the short clip (15-minute duration) would be used to collect data for the final study, as almost all focus group participants disclosed that 22- minute clip contained a few redundant shots and that the 15-minute clip embodied a better and focused story.
Pretesting To examine the effectiveness of stimulus material, a pretest was performed in July 2014. Since a small survey was already conducted to assess exposure to the fictional dramas mentioned in the foregoing lines, and the results indicated that pretreatment effects as a result of prior exposure were not a major problem; participants were recruited for the pretest without accounting for the previous exposure. Pretest was conducted in the computer lab of Assessment and Testing Center at Florid State University and participants were recruited from different courses offered in summer in the School of Communication, Department of Humanities, and Department of Political Science at FSU. Participants were offered extra course credit, the amount
82 of which was determined by relevant instructors, who distributed an online signup sheet that subsequently helped to randomly assign students to experimental, comparison and control conditions. Shadish, Campbell, and Cook (2000) argued that random assignment prevented several threats to internal validity albeit a few issues related to the generalizability of results and artificiality of the lab environment. Since a priori random assignment to experimental conditions was completed, proctors guided participants to agree to the human subjects’ committee consent form, subsequently expose to stimulus material, and respond to various statements in a Qualtrics survey under tightly controlled lab conditions. In agreement with the literature discussed in the preceding paragraphs, the objective of the pretest was to assess differences across experimental conditions. As young adults are a homogenous group, it was not plausible to expect differences based on gender. Study two expected that compared to comparison and control conditions, participants in experimental condition would have higher means of identification with the characters, narrative transportation, enjoyment, and attitude toward female politicians. These constructs were measured using a Likert-type 7-point scale in which lower scores signified lower levels while higher scores anchored greater levels of identification with the characters, narrative transportation, enjoyment, and attitude toward female politicians. Commander-in Chief was expected to elicit more positive responses being a drama featuring a fictional female president in the lead role. On the other hand, 24 was based on a counterterrorism narrative in which Jack Baur was the lead character and a powerful female president was featured in a supporting role. Therefore, comparison condition was likely to attract relatively less upbeat responses, and the third stimulus was expected to produce lower scores with no change in the attitudes. Since random assignment equalized participants in three conditions, it was assumed that greater means in experimental and control conditions would be a direct effect of the stimulus. As many as 121 undergraduate students consented to participate in the pretest, and demographic information revealed that majority of the participants, 76 (62.8%), comprised of females, while males were 45 (37.2%), which was in accordance with the results presented in previous research studies (Shafer, 2009). A univariate analysis of variance procedure was adopted to evaluate the effects of experimental conditions on significant dependent variables. The results revealed a main effect of experimental condition on identification with the characters 2 and transportation into the narrative, F(2, 118) = 6.46, p = .002, η identification = .10 and F(2, 117) =
83 2 6.86, p = .002, η transportation = .10 respectively. Contrariwise, the ANOVA results failed to detect differences among experimental, comparison, and control conditions for the enjoyment and attitude toward female politicians. However, the means were in expected direction for enjoyment
(MExperimental = 52.48, MComparison = 50.61, MControl = 47.08 and SDExperimental = 12.37, SDComparison =
12.11, SDControl = 13.44) and attitude toward female politicians (MExperimental = 280.80, MComparison
= 279.53, MControl = 280.03 and SDExperimental = 16.73, SDComparison = 15.58, SDControl = 15.29), and the non-significant results might be due a small sample size that reduced the power of the tests. To explore group differences further, Tukey procedure was used for post hoc analysis for identification with the characters and narrative transportation and the results indicated that the two variables had higher levels in the experimental condition compared to comparison and control conditions. The comparison condition had higher scores on identification with the characters and narrative transportation compared to the control condition. Thus, mean differences were in the expected direction and statistically significant at (=.05, which confirmed that stimulus videos produced anticipated results and produced evidence that the Commander-in- Chief was a stronger treatment than 24 while both treatments were sturdier than the control condition, which meant these results did not occur by chance.
Sample for study two The data for study two was collected from various undergraduate classes in the School of Communication and Department of Humanities at the Florida State University in exchange for an extra credit the amount of which was determined by relevant instructors. The participants were contacted via email and requested to voluntarily participate in this study per instructions of the human subjects’ committee. A detailed information document was sent to the students informing them about signup process and the address of the computer lab where study would be conducted. A practical problem was encountered dealing with the gender imbalance prevalent at FSU as female students constituted the bulk of student population at FSU (Shafer, 2009). However, this problem was overlooked, as the focus of this study was not exploring gender differences, but explicating the effects of exposure to fictional primetime entertainment on the young adults. Regardless of threats to the external validity, this study broadly recruited undergraduate students to oversample considering the application of the SEM procedure, which was considered a large sample technique (Kline, 2009). As academic literature defined young
84 adults as a population with their age ranging between 18 to 24 years, the undergraduate sample recruited for this study could be cogitated as fairly representative of the target population albeit gender imbalance and other external validity issues. A total of 364 undergraduate students from large courses in the above-mentioned schools were recruited for this study, and 359 completed the entire study with a 1.4% dropout rate. Demographic characteristics of the sample revealed that an overwhelming majority of the sample was comprised of females (270, 75.2%), while male participants (89) constituted 24.8% of the sample. The median age of the participants was 20 years and the self-reported ethnic background disclosed that 60.2% (216) were White, 8.4% (30) were African Americans, 4.2%(15) were Asian Americans, .8% (3) were Native Americans, 20.1% (71) were Hispanics, and 6.4% (23) decided not to disclose their ethnic background. Regarding party affiliation, 107 (29.8%) were associated with the Democratic Party, 111 (30.9%) were affiliated with the Republican Party, 102 (28.4) were independent, and 39 (10.9%) chose the “other” category, which meant other smaller parties having little influence on the political processes in the United States. A priori random assignment helped to equally split the participants across three experimental conditions and the number of participants in experimental, comparison, and control conditions was 120, 119, and 120 respectively.
Procedure Participants were asked to participate in the experiment in the FSU Assessment and Testing Center’s computer lab and different study sessions were organized each day in the third week of September 2014. After arriving at a time participants signed up for, they were asked receive an instruction sheet from the proctors containing useful information regarding the experimental procedure. A priori random assignment was completed to increase power and equalize number of participants in the three conditions by using Research Randomizer software (Shadish, Campbell, & Cook, 2002). The randomization procedure helped minimize a number of threats to the internal validity including history (comparison group), selection bias (random assignment), mortality (over sampling), and testing (proxy pretest and tightly controlled lab settings). The proctors were provided instruction sheets in agreement with the assignment procedure to help students go to the computer terminals reserved for different conditions. The computer lab was appropriately setup to reserve 10 computers for each condition in a typical
85 session. Computer terminals were located in three rows in such a way that participants could not look at other computers to avoid potential internal validity threats such as diffusion, testing, and impact of instrumentation. As the proctors in the FSU Assessment and Training Center were well trained, the experiment went smoothly and no major complains were received from the participants except for one session during which five participants had minor technical difficulties. These participants were removed from the final analysis to avoid any noise that might accrue due to the frustration of the participants. Since a post-test experimental design was used, participants were required to respond to the key variables of interest in an online survey after receiving the treatment. After reaching at their computer terminal, the participants were asked to click on a link, which would open the online survey hosted by Qualtrics (https://fsu.qualtrics.com). The participants were required to sign the consent form before proceeding to the questionnaire. Subsequently, the participants responded to a few statements regarding their political self-efficacy and media use motives before they were asked to watch stimulus videos available on their computers in different conditions. The participants returned to the main survey again following exposure to the video and responded to various statements measuring key variables used in this study. Toward the end of the survey, the participants entered their demographic information and details for extra credit purposes. Over all, the experimental procedure worked and no complaints were received from the participants regarding signup process, questionnaire, and the stimulus material.
Measures The continuous variable used in this study consisted of items scored on a Likert-type 7- point scale ranging from one to seven, in which lower scores meant strongly disagree and higher scores signposted strongly agree (see Appendix B for full questionnaire used in study two). Despite the fact that gender was not a major variable of interest in this study, it was instructive to examine gender difference on certain key variables. Gendered was measured as a dichotomous variable following research tradition in entertainment psychology literature (see, for example, Raney, 2002; Shafer, 2009; Zillmann & Bryant, 1975). Another categorical variable used in this study was political ideology as differences were expected across experimental conditions due to ideological orientation (Hoffman & Thomson, 2009; Iyengar, 2011). Ideology influenced political attitudes of the audience (Gershtenson, 2002), and the median ideological orientation
86 reported by the respondents (117, 32.6%) was “neither liberal nor conservative”. As the variable was categorically measured on a scale in which one and two meant left/liberal and center-left, while four and five anchored center-right and right/conservative respectively (Hoffman & Thomson, 2009), the measure was recoded into three categories, in which one signified liberal, two represented center, and three signified conservative. Recoding was imperative to roughly equalize the number of participants to meet certain analysis of variance assumptions (Field, 2009). Eudaimonic motives to watch political entertainment. Adopted from Oliver and Raney (2011), the scale measured “truth-seeking” or meaningful entertainment experience. Oliver and Raney (2011) had established discriminant and construct validity of a 12-item scale measuring audience motivations to watch fictional entertainment. Study two split the scale in two parts: scale one measuring eudaimonic or meaningful motives to watch political entertainment consisted of six items, and scale two measured pleasure-seeking or hedonic motives with six items. To ensure unidimensionality, scale reliabilities were checked and an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was run to examine if the items were loading on one factor. For the eudaimonic motives, the participants were asked to respond to a list of six statements associated with viewers’ motives to watch meaningful political entertainment on a 7-point scale. The scores were combined to create an index with sample scale items such as, “I like dramas that challenge my way of seeing the world.” and “My favorite kind of dramas are the one that make me think”. The scale reliability was excellent (α = .87, M = 34.35, SD = 5.10) and the results of EFA (principle axis factoring and promax rotation) revealed that the items loaded on one factor (see Figure 5) with an eigenvalue of 3.21 and explained 53.44% of variance. Hedonic motives to watch political entertainment. Hedonic or pleasure-seeking motives to watch political entertainment were measure with six items on a Likert-type seven- item scale adopted from Oliver & Raney (2011). As the original scale was modified, reliability and factor loadings were explored before using the scale in study two. The scale (M = 30.84, SD = 5.58) had a good level of reliability with α = .79, and the results of EFA with principal axis factoring and Promax rotation reflected that the scale items loaded on one factor and explained 40.32 of variance with an eigenvalue of 2.42 (see Figure 6). The scale included items such as “Dramas that make me laugh are among my favorites”, and “My favorite kinds of dramas are happy and positive”.
87 Identification. Extant research indicated that audiences tended to identify with media characters they liked. In study two, an established scale from existing measures (see, Cohen, 2001) was used to appropriately operationalize the construct. Examples of the items used to measure identification with the characters were, “I think I have a good understanding of the lead character”“, When the female lead character succeeded, I felt joy but when she failed, I was sad,” and “I totally understand female lead character’s behavior”. The scale mean and standard deviation were 55.60 and 10.55 respectively, and the value of α was .89, which signified an excellent level of reliability. Narrative transportation. As a construct, transportation into the narrative was efficiently measured in several studies and showed consistent levels of validity and reliability (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2009; Green & Brock, 2000). In this study, a slightly modified version of transportation into the narrative scale developed by Green and Brock (2002) was used and contained 10 items on a 7-point Likert-type scale in which one was associated with strongly disagree and 7 anchored strongly agree. Three items were recoded to ensure that higher numbers showed higher levels of transportation into the narrative. An index was created by summing up responses to the eleven items used in the scale. Example items include, “I could picture myself in the scene of the events described in the movie narrative” and “The events in the movie narrative have changed my life”. Participants showing higher levels of transportation scored higher on the scale, while low-scoring participants experienced lower levels of transportation. The α level was .79, which reflected that the scale (M = 41.17, SD = 9.07) was reliably measuring the construct under discussion. Enjoyment. Enjoyment has been reliably measured through various scales in the previous studies and the study two measured the construct with a seven-item scale used by Raney and Bryant (2002). The lower end of the scale indicated not at all, while the higher end specified a great deal responses. Example items were, “How much did you enjoy the movie treatment”, and “How exciting was the movie treatment”. The scale (M = 47.84, SD = 13.19) displayed an excellent level of reliability with an α level of .93. Political self-efficacy. A four-item 7-point Likert-type scale was adopted from Kushin and Yamamoto (2010), to measure the political self-efficacy of the participants. On this scale, strongly disagree and strongly agree were scored as one and seven respectively. The item scores were summed to produce an additive scale with a good reliability (M = 19.70, SD = 4.22,
88 Cronbach α = .83). The example items included “I have a real say in what the government does” and “my vote makes a difference.” Attitude toward female politicians (ATFP). Attitude toward female politicians was considered a significant construct in political psychology, and the extant research failed to address the need to develop a reliable and valid scale to measure audiences’ attitude toward mediated female role models (Rasul, Orcan, & Yang, 2014). For the purpose of this study, 13 items were borrowed from scales used by Simon and Hoyt (2008) and Rasul, Orcan, and Yang (2014) to operationalize the construct. To ensure unidimensionality, reliability, and validity of the scale, reliability analysis and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on two independent samples. Data for EFA was collected in July 2014 (N = 121) and the results indicated that the items loaded on two factors and cumulatively explained 63.23% variance. Eigenvalues and factor loadings could be observed in Table 4. These factors were named as viability and competence in accordance with the academic literature in the area, which suggested that audiences formed positive affective dispositions toward viable and competent female politicians. A CFA was specified on another data (see Figure 8), collected in September 2014 (N = 359), and the results indicated that the data acceptably fitted the model. The goodness of fit indices for the model (χ2 = 86.72, df = 59, p = 0.02; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.04; CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.99; standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = 0.07) designated the degree to which our hypothesized model fitted the data. The reliability statistics also testified the construct validity of the instrument (α = .86, M = 55.43, SD = 10.53). Sample items included, “I would support a female presidential candidate’s nomination”, and “If elected, a female presidential candidate will be a competent President of the US”. Political ideology. Political ideology was measured with a single item asking the participants to describe their ideological orientation. The mean ideology reported by the participants was 2.83 (SD = 1.28) with a mode of 3, which signified neutral ideology. Adopted from Hoffman and Thomson (2009), this 5-point scale coded 1 as very liberal, and 5 as very conservative. Subsequently, the measure was folded into three to reflect ideological extremity, with “liberal”, “conservative”, and “neutral” ideologies. Scree plots associated with various measures are given below:
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Figure 5. Scree plot of eudaimonic motives items
Figure 6. Scree plot of hedonic motives items
Figure 7. Scree plot of attitude toward female politicians items
90
Figure 8. CFA model for attitude toward female politicians
91 Table 4. EFA items for attitude toward female politicians scale Scale Items Viability Competence If elected, I am confident that a female presidential candidate would .92 be a good president. If elected, a female presidential candidate will handle domestic .86 policy well as a competent president. If elected, a female presidential candidate will be an influential .85 President of the US. If elected, a female presidential candidate will be a competent .82 President of the US. I would vote for a female presidential candidate if equally liberal .77 male and female candidate are contesting the elections. If equally competent male and female candidates are contesting the .76 elections, I would like a female candidate. I would participate in the election campaign of a female presidential .73 candidate if equally competent male and female candidates are contesting the elections. If an equally competent male and female are running for the .83 elections, Americans would prefer to have a male for president (Recoded). If two equally competent candidates are contesting election, .82 Americans would vote for a qualified man over a qualified woman (Recoded). I think Americans believe that a man would do a better job leading .81 the country than a woman would (Recoded). If an equally competent male and female are running for the .77 elections, Americans would prefer to have a woman for president. I think Americans believe that a woman would do a better job leading the country than a man would. .69 If an equally liberal male and female are running for the elections, .48 Americans would vote for a qualified woman candidate for president Eigen Value 3.08 5.15 Variance Explained 23.65 39.58
Analysis of data: Study two
The hypotheses postulated in this study were analyzed using analysis of variance and structural equation modeling. Regression analysis was also performed to assess the relationship between eudaimonic and hedonic motives and attitude toward female politicians. All statistical
92 models were specified keeping in view existing literature on the relationship between political entertainment and attitudinal change (Delli Carpini, 2012; Holbert, 2005; Van Zoonen, 2005).
Evaluating assumptions of statistical analysis
It was important to check assumptions of various statistical analyses used in this study before reporting the results. Since linear models such as multiple regression and ANOVA were used, checking linearity and normality of the data was considered. Skewness and kurtosis statistics were examined to check the normality assumption as skewness helped figure out symmetrical distribution of data, while kurtosis dealt with the peakedness of the data. Skewness and kurtosis statistics indicated that no significant departure from normality was found. Besides, both F tests in ANOVA and maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) in regression and SEM were robust to small and sometimes moderate violations of the normality assumption. Based on a series of Levene’s F tests, the homogeneity of variance assumption was considered statistically significant or nonsignificant (p > .05). Where Levene’s test was significant due to the violation of homogeneity of variance assumption, Welch and Brown-Forsythe procedures were reported, which provided an adjusted F test that was robust to the homogeneity variance violations (Field, 2009). Likewise, multicollinearity assumption was specifically considered while running regression analysis and values associated with VIF (1.00) and Tolerance (.99) were checked, which indicated that the regression analysis was just fine and the predictors were unrelated with each other (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). Other assumptions associated with the linear models were also carefully examined before running the final analyses and reporting results. In accordance with Cramer and Bock (1966), study two also relied on multivariate analyses and a MANOVA was performed on the means to help protect against inflating Type 1 error rate in the follow-up ANOVAs and post-hoc comparisons. However, prior to conducting the MANOVA, a series of Pearson correlations (see Table 5) were examined between all of the dependent variables in order to test the MANOVA assumption that dependent variables should be correlated with each other in a moderate range (Meyers, Gampst, & Guarino, 2006). Additionally, the Box’s M value was interpreted as significant or non-significant based on Huberty and Petoskey’s (2000) guideline (i.e., p < .005). Afterwards, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to test the hypothesis that there were one or more mean
93 differences between experimental conditions, political ideology (independent variables) and identification, transportation, enjoyment, and political self-efficacy (dependent variables). Finally, a series of post-hoc analyses (Tukey procedure) was performed to examine individual mean difference comparisons across all three levels of experimental conditions. The effect sizes were also reported in the form of partial eta square. Using data from experimental and comparisons groups only, which focused on a positive portrayal of female politicians, a path model was hypothesized to analyse causal links among significant exogenous and endogenous variables in the specified model. To account for unidimensionality and measurement error, two procedures were applied. Where necessary, EFA and CFA procedures were used to examine if the items loaded on single factors. Reliabilities were checked and reported for the scales used in this study to evaluate construct validity and unidimensionality. Likewise, as suggested by Wayne et al. (1997), measurement error was corrected “by setting the path from the latent variable to the indicator to the square root of the reliability” (p. 995). Using their procedure, the variance of the selected scales and the error variance were equalized and multiplied by 1:00 minus the obtained reliability of the scales. It was also assumed that variables used in this study were measured with no error, and per convention, error variances were fixed at zero and the path between the latent variable and the indicator were set at one (Rasul & Raney, 2013; Wayne et al., 1997). MPlus 7.1 was used to run analysis for the purpose of this study. With normally distributed continuous variables in SEM, MLE was conventionally the method of choice having the capacity to generate appropriate estimates of the model parameters. Multivariate normality assumptions for the variables used in the path model were also explored and the skewness and kurtosis coefficients were not greater than cutoff points (± 5) suggested by Mardia (1970), indicating that parameter estimates in the model were reliable. Extant literature suggested that chi square test was sensitive to sample size in path models, and researchers preferred a non- significant chi square value, which indicated a good fit. A ratio of the chi square test value to its degrees of freedom was examined, as a value less than 2 was desirable to determine a reasonable fit of the model (Maruyama, 1998). Researchers identified (Hu & Bentler, 1999; Bentler & Bonett, 1980) that values of CFI and TLI should be ≥ to .95 to indicate a good fit. Browne and Cudeck (1993) argued that the value of RMSEA should be less than .05 to indicate a reasonable fit. RMSEA could be considered an important index that described the complexity of the model.
94 Similarly, the anticipated values of SRMR should be less than .08 for a good model fit (Hu & Bentler, 1998), while a smaller AIC measure was desirable as it reflected good fit when researchers were comparing one model with the other models (Browne & Cudeck, 1993). As discussed in the preceding lines, all test values in the path model were in agreement with the academic conventions in study two.
Results: Study two
As reported earlier, the pretest results indicated that the multiple treatment and control groups had no statistically significant differences on attitude toward female politicians, a one- way ANOVA was conducted to examine if significant difference existed in experimental conditions meeting power requirements. Likewise, a multivariate analysis of variance was performed to explore if the treatments and political ideology affected (independent variables) significant dependent variables such as identification, narrative transportation, enjoyment, and sell-efficacy. These tests also served as manipulation checks that helped determine the efficacy of treatment conditions in the expected direction. Research questions were answered and the hypothesized mediated effects were tested using IBM SPSS. Before reporting the results, statistical assumptions of normality, linearity, multicollinearity, and homogeneity of variance- covariance matrices were evaluated and found satisfactory. To respond to research question 3, a one-way ANOVA procedure was adopted and the results indicated that the experimental conditions had a significant effect on the attitude toward female politicians. Thus, a statistically significant difference between groups was detected by one-way ANOVA (F(2, 356) = 7.52, p = .001, η2 = .04). To further explore group differences, a Tukey post-hoc comparison test disclosed that the participants exposed to Commander-in-Chief in the experimental condition had a more positive attitude toward female politicians compared to the participants in the control condition (p < .05). No statistically significant difference was found between participants watching Commander-in-Chief in experimental condition and 24 in comparison condition (p = .10); besides, the participants in comparison condition were also not significantly different from participants in the control condition (p = .19) albeit the mean score on attitude toward female politicians was higher (M =55.30) for the participants watching 24 compared to the control condition (M = 52.90).
95 To test hypotheses 5a and 5b, a two-way MANOVA was used to investigate effects of experimental conditions and political ideology on identification, narrative transportation, enjoyment, and political self-efficacy. Political ideology was recoded to denote ideological extremity with left/liberal and center-left in the “liberal” category, center as the “moderate” category, and right/conservative and center-right as the “conservative” category (Hoffman & Thomson, 2009). Pearson correlations were examined to explore if the MANOVA assumption dealing with the moderate relationship (.20 to .60) between dependent variables was satisfied (Meyers, Gampst, & Guarino, 2006). Table 5 reflected a statistically significant and meaningful pattern of correlations among dependent variables and justified the use of MANOVA procedure. To examine the equality of covariance matrices between groups, the Box’s M value (116.32) was found to be nonsignificant (p = .01) keeping in view Huberty and Petoskey’s (2000) guidelines recommending a p value of < .005 that signified that the assumption of homoscedasticity was satisfied. Using Wilk’s ʎ criterion, the results indicated that identification, narrative transportation, enjoyment and political self-efficacy were significantly influenced by both experimental conditions (Wilk’s ʎ = .82, F(8, 694) = 9.02, p < .0001, partial η2 = .09) and political ideology (Wilk’s ʎ = .94, F(8, 694) = 2.81, p < .01, partial η2 = .03), but not by their interaction (Wilk’s ʎ = .95, F(16, 1060) = 1.22, p = .242, partial η2 = .01). The results reflected that experimental conditions and political ideology explained a modest 9% and 3% of variance in dependent variables respectively.
Table 5. Correlations between dependent variables: Study two
Enjoy ATFP PSE Identifi Trans Enjoyment 1 .232** .118* .594** .787** Attitude toward female 1 .141** .303** .263** politicians Political Self-efficacy 1 .102* .131** Identification 1 .580** Narrative Transportation 1
Means & Standard Deviations 47.84(13 55.43(10 19.70(4. 55.60(10 41.17(9.
.19) .53) 22) .55) 07) N = 359 *p <.05, **p <.01. Note: Full names of the dependent variables are given in the first column.
96 To examine the influence of each main effect on the dependent variables used in the study, analysis of variance was conducted. The results of this analysis could be seen in Tables 6 and 7. Homogeneity assumption was checked before interpreting results of between-subjects effects. The Levene’s test signposted that the variances associated with identification and enjoyment were not homogenous, but the observed standard deviations disclosed that “none of the largest standard deviations were more than four times the size of the corresponding smallest”, which signified that follow-up ANOVA was robust to the violation of homogeneity of variance (Howell, 2012, p.134). All ANOVA tests on dependent variables were significant except for political self-efficacy, which was not affected by the experimental condition. However, political self-efficacy was significantly impacted by the political ideology in the follow-up ANOVA. As could be observed in Tables 6 and 7, the effect sizes (partial η2) associated with between-subjects ANOVA tests oscillated between .02 (narrative transportation across political ideology) to 0.13 (identification across experimental condition).
Table 6. Univariate effects for experimental condition: Study two Source Dependent Variables df df Mean Square F Sig Partial ɳ2 error Enjoyment 2 350 791.28 4.77** .00 .03 Identification 2 350 2522.60 26.68** .00 .13 Narrative 2 350 1116.75 14.98** .00 .08 transportation Political Self- 2 350 8.64 .49 .61 .00 efficacy *p <.05, **p <.01
To further explore group differences across experimental conditions and political ideology, a series of post hoc tests (Tukey) were conducted to examine mean differences across three levels of political ideology and experimental conditions (see Tables 8 and 9). As expected, the results of the post-hoc mean comparisons indicated that significant group differences were found across experimental conditions (p < .05), except for the political self- efficacy. The participants exposed to Commander-in-Chief had significantly higher means compared to the
97 participants in other two conditions. Across experimental conditions, the trend of the effect was linear by and large, which meant that on average, participants who watched
Table 7. Univariate effects for political ideology: Study two Source Dependent df df Mean Square F Sig Partial ɳ2 Variables error Enjoyment 2 350 798.13 4.81** .00 .03 Identification 2 350 498.78 5.28** .00 .03 Narrative 2 350 264.60 3.55* .03 .02 transportation Political Self- 2 350 91.02 5.17** .61 .03 efficacy *p <.05, **p <.01
Commander-in-Chief had significantly higher means than comparison and control groups (with two negligible exceptions, enjoyment and political self-efficacy) and participant exposed to 24 in comparison condition scored significantly higher than the control group. However, the post hoc tests across three levels of political ideology showed interesting results and participants exposed to 24 (comparison condition) had significantly lower means on all dependent variables than participants in experimental (exposed to Commander-in-Chief) and control conditions (exposed to placebo). The participants exposed to Commander-in-Chief had significantly higher means than other two groups across levels of political ideology as well. Tables 8 and 9 indicated that hypotheses 5a and 5b were supported with the exception of political self-efficacy. To answer research question 5, multiple regression was used and, based on the existing literature, it was assumed that motives to use fictional political entertainment would be a good predictor of attitude toward female politicians (Holbert et al., 2005; Parry-Giles & Parry-Giles, 2006). The results of the regression model identified that hedonic (pleasure-seeking) motives to watch fictional political drama were unrelated to the attitude toward female politicians (β = .05, t(358) = .35, p ˃ .05) and failed to account for a sizeable variance as could be seen in Table 10 by looking at R2 change statistics. In contrast, the eudaimonic motives related to the exposure to primetime drama did predict attitude toward female politicians, perhaps indicating that audiences did consider a meaningful experience before watching fictional political entertainment. The
98 multiple regression model mentioned in the preceding lines supplied evidence that exposure to political drama (β = .21, t(358) = 4.03, p < .05) was a significant predictor of attitude toward 2 female politicians and explained modest but statistically significant amount of variance (R = .04, F(1, 358) = 15.72, p < .05).
Table 8. Multiple comparisons across experimental conditions (Tukey HSD) Dependent Variable Experimental Experimental Δ Mean (I-J) Sig. 95% CI Condition (I) Condition (J) Lower Upper Bound Bound 2 Two -.76 .89 -4.68 3.15 1 One 3 Three 4.34* .02 .42 8.25 1 One .76 .89 -3.15 4.68 Enjoyment 2 Two 3 Three 5.10* .00 1.18 9.02 1 One -4.34* .02 -8.25 -.42 3 Three 2 Two -5.11* .00 -9.02 -1.18 2 Two .36 .95 -2.60 3.31 1 One 3 Three 8.42* .00 5.46 11.37 1 One -.36 .95 3.31 2.60 Identification 2 Two 3 Three 8.05* .00 5.09 11.02 1 One -8.42* .00 -11.34 -5.46 3 Three 2 Two -8.06* .00 -11.02 -5.09 2 Two .64 .83 -1.99 3.26 1 One 3 Three 5.61* .00 2.98 8.23 1 One -.64 .83 -3.26 1.99 Transportation 2 Two 3 Three 4.97* .00 2.34 7.60 1 One -5.61* .00 -8.23 -2.98 3 Three 2 Two -4.97* .00 -7.60 -2.34 2 Two .38 .76 -.89 1.65 1 One 3 Three -.067 .99 -1.34 1.20 Political Self- 1 One -.38 .76 -1.65 .89 2 Two efficacy 3 Three -.45 .68 -1.72 .83 1 One .07 .99 -1.20 1.34 3 Three 2 Two .45 .68 -.83 1.72 *p <.05, **p <.01
99 Table 9. Multiple comparisons across political ideology (Tukey HSD) Dependent Ideology Ideology Δ Mean (I-J) Sig. 95% CI Variable (I) (J) Lower Bound Upper Bound 2.00 5.22* .00 1.42 9.01 1.00 3.00 1.17 .76 -2.77 5.11 1.00 -5.22* .00 -9.01 -1.42 Enjoyment 2.00 3.00 -4.04 .05 -8.15 .05 1.00 -1.17 .76 -5.11 2.77 3.00 2.00 4.04 .05 -.05 8.15 2.00 4.37* .00 1.51 7.24 1.00 3.00 1.08 .67 -1.89 4.06 1.00 -4.37* .00 -7.24 -1.51 Identification 2.00 3.00 -3.29* .03 -6.39 -.19 1.00 -1.08 .67 -4.06 1.89 3.00 2.00 3.29* .03 .19 6.39 2.00 3.16* .01 .61 5.70 1.00 3.00 1.62 .31 -1.02 4.27 1.00 -3.16* .01 -5.70 -.61 Transportation 2.00 3.00 -1.53 .38 -4.28 1.21 1.00 -1.62 .31 -4.27 1.02 3.00 2.00 1.53 .3 -1.21 4.28 2.00 1.52* .01 .28 2.76 1.00 3.00 -.00 1.0 -1.29 1.27 Political self- 1.00 -1.52* .01 -2.76 -.28 2.00 efficacy 3.00 -1.53* .02 -2.86 -.19 1.00 .01 1.0 -1.27 1.29 3.00 2.00 1.53* .02 .19 2.86 *p <.05, **p <.01
Table 10. Predicting attitude toward female politicians Model Unst. Coefficients St. Coeff t Sig Multicollinearity B SE Beta R2 ΔR2 Tolerance VIF Model 1
Eud Mot .42 .11 .21* 3.96 .00 .04 .04* 1.00 1.00 Model 2 Eud Mot .43 .11 .21* 4.03 .00 .99 1.00
Hedonic .09 .10 .05 .93 .35 .05 .00 .99 1.00 Mot *p <.01
100 Likewise, a separate one-way ANOVA procedure was applied to explore hypothesis 8. Although exploring gender differences was not the mainstay of this study, it was deemed instructive to observe if females developed higher levels of identification with the female protagonist in the political drama. Cohen (2006), for example, suggested that audiences tended to identify with the people or groups similar to them and this in-group bonding had an impact on the attitudes. Wolbrecht and Campbell (2007) also supported the argument that identification with visible female politicians enhanced self-efficacy of female viewers of all ages. Contrary to the results reported in extant research, the findings indicated that there were no differences between males and females on identification with the female protagonist in the drama (F(1, 357) = 00, p = .98). Thus, hypothesis 8 was rejected. A plausible explanation to explicate this seemingly contradictory result could be found in the literature claiming that young adults tended to be liberal and supported radical and unconventional political ideas (Gauntlett, 2008; Simon & Hoyt, 2008; Van Zoonen, 2005). Therefore, it would be reasonable to consider that young adults have espoused the idea of a female commander-in-chief and it would be difficult to find gender differences in levels of identification with the female role models.
Establishing causal links through path model
Based on the academic research discussed in the previous chapters and foregoing paragraphs, a path model was hypothesized delineating causal links focused on the effects of exposure to fictional political drama on the attitude toward female politicians. The initial model also performed mediational analysis by examining specific and total indirect effects between exogenous and endogenous variables. Excepting hypothesis 8, which focused on the analysis of variance, direct and indirect causal links among hypotheses 6 to 13 were tested using the hypothesized path model containing significant variables such as hedonic and eudaimonic motives to use functional political drama, identification with the characters, narrative transportation, enjoyment, political self-efficacy, and attitude toward female politicians. To satisfy multivariate normality assumption, the skewness and kurtosis coefficients were not greater than cutoff points (± 5) proposed by Mardia (1970), which meant that the estimates in the hypothesized model were reliable. Direct and indirect paths from hedonic and eudaimonic motives to the endogenous variables were tested using SEM software, MPlus 7, to examine the
101 fit of the hypothesized model. Using maximum likelihood as a method of estimation, the path analysis indicated that the specified model fitted the data reasonably well. The goodness of fit statistics for the model (χ2 = 18.35, df = 11, p = 0.07; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.05; CFI = .97, TLI = .95; standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = 0.06) indicated the degree to which the hypothesized model fitted the data with all goodness of fit indices in acceptable range. Direct paths between exogenous and endogenous variables were examined and as predicted by hypotheses 6a and 9a, the standardized results reflected that meaningful (eudaimonic) motives to use fictional primetime drama were a significant positive predictor of identification with the characters (b = .24, p < .05) and narrative transportation (b = .22, p < .05) among young viewers. On the other hand, the causal links between hedonic motives to use fictional political drama and identification with the characters (b = .08, p > .05) and narrative transportation (b = -0.03, p > .05) were not significant and, therefore, hypothesis 6b and 9b were not supported. It was interesting to note that the relationship between hedonic motives and narrative transportation was negative. These results connoted that young viewers were interested
Figure 9. Standardized path coefficients in the hypothesized model
102 in fictional political drama for meaningful purposes and they fittingly appreciated the positive messages enshrined in entertainment narratives. Hypothesis 7a and 7b were supported suggesting that identification with the characters positively predicted narrative transportation (b = .33, p < .05) and enjoyment (b = .25, p < .05). Likewise, hypothesis 10 found support (b = .62, p < .05), and in consonance with the existing literature (Green, Brock, & Kaufman, 2004; Krakowiak & Oliver, 2012; Moyer‐Gusé, 2008), narrative transportation and enjoyment were highly related. Hypotheses 11 and 12 were also supported, indicating that enjoyment was a strong predictor of political self-efficacy (b = .21, p < .05), and, in turn, political self-efficacy efficiently predicted attitude toward female politicians (b = .13, p < .05).
Table 11. Direct and indirect effects associated with model parameters: Study two Parameter Unstandardized SE Standardized Direct Effects Eud mot Identification .42*** .11 .24*** Eud mot Transport .40*** .11 .22*** Hed mot Identification .11 .09 .08 Hed mot Transport -.06 .08 -.04 Identification Transport .34*** .06 .33*** Identification Enjoyment .35*** .06 .25*** Transport Enjoyment .85*** .06 .63 *** Enjoyment Pol self-eff .08*** .02 .21*** Pol self-eff Att fem pol .32** .16 .13** Total Indirect Effects Eud mot Att fem pol .01* .01 .01* Hed mot Att fef pol .80 .00 .80 Total Effects Eud mot Att fem pol .01* .01 .01* Hed mot Att fem pol .80 .00 .80 p* < .10, p** < .05, p** < .01
A mediation analysis was performed to inspect indirect effects between variables used in this study. Hypotheses 13.1 and 13.2 stipulated a mediational relationship between hedonic and eudaimonic motives to use political entertainment and attitude toward female politicians. A liberal α value of .10 was used to assess the mediational potential of significant mediators. Hypothesis 13.1 did not find support at all as total, total indirect, and specific indirect effects
103 between hedonic motives to use political drama and attitude toward female politicians were not statistically significant (p > .10). On the other hand, total effects (b = .01, p < .10) and total indirect effects (b = .01, p < .10) between eudaimonic motives to use political drama and attitude toward female politicians were statistically significant. However, the specific indirect effects were not significant even if a liberal α value of .10 is used. Thus, hypothesis 13.2 was supported and reflected that the relationship between eudaimonic motives and attitude toward female politicians was jointly mediated by identification, narrative transportation, enjoyment, and political self-efficacy at α value of .10. To examine the prognostic power of individual mediators such as identification with the characters, narrative transportation, and enjoyment, mediational analysis indicated that these mediators were significant at α < .10. Enjoyment seemed to be a good mediator as both total (b = .03, p < .10) and total indirect (b = .03, p < .10) effects were statistically significant followed by narrative transportation with significant total (b = .02, p < .10) and total indirect effects (b = .02, p < .10). Identification was also a plausible mediator having significant total (b = .01, p < .10) and total indirect (b = .01, p < .10) effects. The results reflected that as the number of in-between mediator variables increased, the total and total indirect effects became weaker. Standardized maximum likelihood estimates of total and total indirect effects could be seen in Table 11.
Figure 10. Standardized path coefficients in the constrained model
104 Study two performed post hoc modifications to develop a better fitting model as two insignificant direct paths were found in the hypothesized model, which was compared to a constrained nested model using a χ2 difference test (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988) by eliminating the insignificant paths one by one. The model was constrained by removing the insignificant direct paths (hedonic motives to identification and hedonic motives to narrative transportation) and compared with the initial model. All direct paths between exogenous and endogenous variables were significant in the constrained model and the variation in the χ2 value between both models denoted the effects of deletion of non-significant direct paths. The value of χ2 for the constrained model was 15.33 (df = 8 and p > .05) and the χ2 difference between hypothesized model and constrained model was 3.02 with df = 3 and p > .05. The χ2 difference test was not significant and the constrained model was favored over the hypothesized model keeping in view the parsimony principle (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988; Kline, 2009). These results suggested that deleting insignificant paths upgraded the model quality and sustained the assumption that eudaimonic motives to use fictional political drama had a positive effect on the attitude toward female politicians (see Figure 10). The results of the path model were in consonance with the results produced by regression analysis and ANOVA, and, therefore, supplemented confidence in the capacity of eudaimonic motives, identification with the characters, narrative transportation, enjoyment, and political self-efficacy in positively impacting young viewers’ attitude toward female politicians.
Discussion: Study two
Study two focused on the role of fictional political entertainment in engendering a tangible change in the attitude of the viewers toward lead characters in the narrative. In agreement with the previous research, study two hypothesized an SEM model to explicate the relationship between various intervening variables that played a role in transforming a superficial entertainment exposure into a meaningful experience that left an imprint on the memory of the viewers. However, extant research in entertainment psychology peripherally dealt with the effects of politicized fictional entertainment on the attitudes of the viewers (Holbert, 2005; Van Zoonen & Wring, 2012). Likewise, literature in political communication addressed academic questions dealing with the effects of late-night comedy shows (Hollander, 2005; Young, 2008),
105 political satire (Hmielowski, Holbert, & Lee, 2011; Jones, 2010; LaMarre, Landreville, & Beam, 2009) and soft news (Baum, 2003; Prior, 2005), but fictional political drama (especially with female protagonists) was not a part of the mainstream academic research with the exception of studies on The West Wing, which narrated the story of a male president (Holbert et al., 2005; Parry-Giles & Parry-Giles, 2006). Likewise, entertainment researchers fell “short of capturing the experiential qualities and complex emotional processes triggered by various types of media entertainment that exist in reality” (Klimmt, 2011, p. 34). Bartsch and Schneider (2014) underscored the significance of fictional entertainment in eliciting emotional involvement, which might result in elaborate cognitive processing of the information packaged in political entertainment such as drama and promoted interest in political discussions and processes. Study two sought inspiration from this line of research and it was conceptualized that exposure to fictional political drama with a female lead character would positively change attitude of the viewers toward the character. Before moving forward and explaining the results obtained in study two, it was plausible to dissect psychological dimensions of the central dependent variable in this study, i.e., attitude toward female politicians. Numerous studies outlined the relationship between political attitudes and exposure to fictional and non-fictional mediated narratives and characters (Atkeson, 2003; Campbell & Wolbrecht, 2006; Jackson, 2009). Extant research disclosed that women traditionally endorsed non-traditional roles and liberal political attitudes, and tended to support female candidates after exposure to media portraying powerful female role models (Simon & Hoyt, 2008). Likewise, Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) discussed the role of real-life and fictional women politicians as role models for young girls who were likely to learn politics, develop political attitudes, and model behavior patterns popularized by the real or mediated female political leaders. Thus, the influence of mediated female role models on the development of political attitudes was likely to generate greater political involvement among young adults and the “role model effect” contributed significantly toward processes culminating in enhanced levels of political socialization. Since female protagonists in lead political roles in the fictional political drama were scarce, it was significant to hypothesize if audiences’ attitude toward female politicians changed because of exposure to stories in which females were shown as trustworthy, ambitious, and courageous political leaders (Appel & Mara, 2013; Mutz & Nir, 2010; Slater, 2002; Van Zoonen, 2005; Zillmann, 2006). Considering the significance of powerful female
106 characters in changing attitudes toward gender roles, the results explained in this study established the significance of powerful female characters in media narratives to influence opinions, attitudes, and behavior. The results indicated that young viewers exposed to dramatic narratives containing female protagonists developed more positive dispositions toward mediated female politician compared to the viewers in the control condition. Since very few fictional dramas were produced depicting a viable and competent female politician (Goren, 2009), the current study compared two versions of primetime dramas featuring powerful female politicians; one (President Mackenzie Allan in Commander-in-Chief) focusing solely on a female president determined to efficiently run American democracy albeit her family responsibilities, and the other (President Allison Taylor in 24) representing a powerful fictional female president in a supporting role who relied on the support of her anti-terrorism unit to address significant national and international security issues. It was expected that viewers in the Commander-in-Chief condition would develop a comparatively greater positive attitude toward female politicians (Research Question 3), and the results indicated a linear trend, which clearly showed that viewers in the Commander- in-Chief condition had a greater mean compared to viewers exposed to 24, while the viewers in the control condition had developed a less favorable attitude toward female politicians. These results were consistent with the research on the effects of entertainment media toward mediated characters. Krakowiak & Tsay (2013), for example, argued that assorted intrinsic and extrinsic factors such as attractiveness of mediated characters, trustworthiness, intelligence, courage, and ambition determined audiences’ attitude toward characters in fictional media. This line of arguments followed what Zillmann (2006) had described as the development of affective dispositions toward mediated characters based on evaluation of the characters’ behavior and motivations. Likewise, Appel and Mara (2013) asserted that competent and trustworthy media characters affected attitudes and behavioral intentions of the viewers and exercised a story- consistent influence. Thus, portrayal of positive female role models in televised fiction would logically generate favorable sentiments toward female protagonists and the results in study two echoed assertions of the entertainment researchers. Likewise, viewers’ political attitudes would be affected considering the motives or personal traits they espoused before exposing themselves to a particular genre of political entertainment (Delli Carpini, 2012). In the political communication literature, researchers argued
107 that academic scholarship should strive to explore why consumption of a particular genre of political entertainment affected attitudes of the audiences (Holbert, 2005; Holbert, Lambe, Dudo, & Carlton, 2007). In the same vein, Holbert et al. (2007) suggested that motives to use fictional political entertainment could be linked to the individual level media use orientation of the viewers. This study also explored the relationship between media use motives and viewers’ attitude toward female politicians (Research Question 4) and the results indicated that meaningful (eudaimonic) motives were a good predictor of a positive attitude toward female leaders, while pleasure-seeking (hedonic) motives were unrelated to the attitude toward lead characters. These findings suggested that as “viewers are motivated to consume entertainment for a variety of reasons” (Oliver & Raney, 2011, p. 984), it might be plausible to assume that eudaimonic motives were more important for the viewers while watching fictional political drama. Fictional entertainment was not always used to extract pleasure, but like many other genres of deeply gratifying entertainment media, which are “not ‘enjoyable’ in the colloquial sense of the term” (Oliver & Raney, 2001, p. 985), viewers could be engaged in processes that appreciate the deeper meanings contained in drama entertainment narratives such as political drama. Thus, study two found that viewers were more interested in a meaningful exposure they could appreciate and cognitively and affectively responded (Bartsch & Oliver, 2011) to the protagonists in the stimulus materials. Although the effect size was small (R2 = .04), but study two found an effect by exploring the relationship between media use motives and a tangible attitudinal change. Study two also examined the role of political ideology and found plausible results. Political ideology is known to influence political self-efficacy in academic literature (Hoffman & Thomson, 2009). Thus, participants adhering to liberal, conservative, and neutral ideologies were found to have different levels of attitude toward female politicians (see tables above). In the hypothesized SEM model for study two, identification with the characters was a significant mediator. Viewers tended to identify with the characters they liked and which were perceived as similar to them (Raney, 2002; Cohen, 2001, 2006; Simon & Hoyt, 2008), it was plausible to assume that powerful and likable protagonists would stimulate positive feelings about their actions and motives (Krakowiak & Tsay, 2013). In political psychology literature, a sizable body of literature suggested that there was a causal relationship between exposures to the visual coverage of female politicians and increased levels of development of positive and
108 favorable political attitudes among women (Atkeson, 2003; Campbell & Wolbrecht, 2007). Therefore, it was hypothesized (Hypothesis 8) that females would develop a more favorable attitude toward female politicians because of identification with the characters. However, the hypothesized causal relationship was not supported and reason might be a young sample, which was known for espousing liberal political attitudes (Iyengar, 2011). On the other hand, identification was significantly related to eudaimonic motives compared to the hedonic motives of exposure to political entertainment. Viewers identified with the characters involved in meaningful activities and the results obtained while testing hypothesis 5a indicated that viewers experimental and comparison conditions developed greater identification with the characters compared to the viewers not exposed to a female role model (control condition). These findings were also consistent with the literature as Lin (2013) indicated that identification with the characters was am antecedent of attitudinal change and audiences having higher levels of identification were easily transported into the narrative of the stories, which subsequently, lowered critical evaluation of the messages and led to greater attitudinal change followed by a tangible influence on the behavior. In study two, identification with the characters was a significant predictor of transportation and enjoyment as was argued in the entertainment psychology literature (Cohen, 2001; Igartua, 2010; Raney, 2002; Sestir & Green, 2010). As argued in the earlier paragraph, identification led to great transportation into the narrative, which facilitated peripheral processing of information contained in entertainment narratives by reducing reactance (Appel & Richter, 2010). It was hypothesized in study two that motives to use fictional entertainment and identification with the characters would predict absorption (transportation) into the narratives of the fictional content, which, in turn, would predict levels of enjoyment. The results reflected that eudaimonic motives and identification with the characters significantly predicted narrative transportation while hedonic motives fell short of establishing a plausible relationship with transportation into the stories. In fact, transportation decreased, with an increase in the pleasure-seeking motives to watch fictional prime time drama. A conceivable explanation could be audiences’ processing of political information and motivations to watch a specific genre. Shen, Ahern, and Baker (2014) argued that narratives influence both affective and cognitive processing of the messages and might generate a tendency to acquire information, besides eliciting emotional reactions. In this study, young viewers might have paid more attention to the meaningful actions and ambitions of the lead protagonists that
109 led them to appreciate the narrative instead of involving in a superficial pleasure-seeking experience. Thus, transportation in this study seemed to be influenced by the appreciation attached of fictional political narratives and greater identification with the action and motivations of the female political leaders. By generating affectional and emotional responses, transportation led to greater enjoyment and confirmed the assertions made in extant research about a strong relationship between enjoyment and narrative transportation (Green, Brock, & Kaufman, 2004). Results (Hypothesis 5a) also indicated that audiences exposed to Commander-in-Chief and 24 were more transported than audiences in the control condition, and the linearity of the transportation trend indicated that viewers in experimental condition were significantly higher than the viewers in the comparison condition, and the viewers in control condition experienced the lowest level of transportation. Study two focused on enjoyment as a significant predictor and mediator of relationships between exposure and attitudinal change. It was hypothesized that an increased level of enjoyment would lead to greater political self-efficacy in consonance with the arguments presented by Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) that viewers enjoyed the presence of female politicians by identifying with them and consequently their internal political self-efficacy was bolstered. The results were significant and enjoyment emerged as a significant predictor of political self-efficacy, which signified that enjoyment experience during exposure to fictional political entertainment efficiently influenced viewers’ political attitudes. Vorderer, Klimmt and Ritterfeld (2004) fittingly suggested that enjoyment stood at the heart of entertainment consumption and other researchers also argued that both enjoyment and entertainment “ go hand- in-hand” and the “ultimate ‘goal’ or pursued ‘outcome’ of entertainment has generally assumed to be that of enjoyment” (Oliver & Bartsch, 2011, p. 29; Oliver & Raney, 2011, p. 984; Raney, 2003, 2004, 2006). Study two, however, extended this stream of academic discourse by finding plausible results indicating that a meaningful entertainment experience might lead to an attitudinal change due to the cognitive processing emanating from the appreciation of the narratives that stimulated a freedom from the self-limiting individual identities and created a life balance (Oliver & Raney, 2014). This study also opened a research window for future investigations in entertainment psychology and political communication, and scholars could go beyond the “ultimate goal” conception of enjoyment, which limited the vitality of this wide-
110 ranging psychological construct that truly stood at the heart of all mediated experiences in an entertainment-laden world. In an attempt to explore the effects of enjoyment on attitudes, the current study hypothesized that greater enjoyment would be associated with higher political self-efficacy. Empirical evidence suggested that exposure to entertainment media was positively related to the political self-efficacy of viewers, and young adults specifically turned out to be more politically self-efficacious when exposed to political entertainment (Holbert et al., 2007; Hoffman & Thomson, 2009; Kenski & Stroud, 2006; Kushin & Yamamoto, 2010; Valenzuela et al., 2009). Political self-efficacy would lead to political involvement and Kaid et al. (2007) argued that political information efficacy could be a determinant of voters’ confidence in their political awareness that would regulate a subsequent voting behavior. Keeping in view the existing literature (see Holbert et al., 2007) on the uses of political entertainment, it was reasonable to assume that political self-efficacy would be a good mediator between attitude toward female politicians and other exogenous variables. It was also assumed that higher political self-efficacy would predict a more positive attitude toward female politicians and the results indicated that political self-efficacy and attitude toward female leaders were positively related and considering a liberal alpha value of .10, it was a significant mediator between endogenous and various exogenous variables (see Figure 10). However, political self-efficacy remained unchanged across experimental conditions (Hypotheses 5a, 5b) and a probable reason might be the homogenous nature of the sample that was approximately evenly distributed across party and political ideology lines. To summarize, significant differences were found across experimental conditions and largely a linear trend was visible, which suggested that exposure to the Commander-in-Chief led to a greater change in viewers’ attitude toward female politicians in comparison to the exposure to 24. On the other hand, the participants in the control group remained unaffected. As argued by Goren (2009), more fictional stories about successful female politicians would help viewers visualize a female head off the state, study two results found evidence that a stories with female protagonists as political leaders had stronger effects than the stories having female leaders in supporting roles. The hypothesized model also furthered research on political entertainment and a significant model confirmed the assertions of scholars in entertainment psychology (Bartsch, 2012; Bartsch & Schneider, 2014; Delli Carpini, 2012; Holbert, 2005; Oliver & Raney; Van
111 Zoonen, 2007) that meaningful entertainment experiences formed appreciation of the fictional entertainment narratives and positively changed attitudes toward characters by eliciting emotional and cognitive processing of the media narratives. Future research could move beyond pleasure-seeking motives and consider fictional political drama as a meaningful entertainment genre (Parry-Giles & Parry-Giles, 2006) inclosing narratives having the potential to produce appreciation of the stories and subsequently changing viewers’ political attitudes and opinions about the characters (Van Zoonen, 2005).
Limitations: Study two
Despite interesting and insightful findings presented in the foregoing paragraphs, the current study was not free from potential limitations. A significant caveat dealt with the eudaimonic motives to use political entertainment as it was considered a situational factor having dispositional traits and depended on the mood of the viewers (Bartsch & Schneider, 2014; Oliver, 2008; Oliver & Raney, 2011). Since this study, applied eudaimonic and hedonic motives as separate scales, it would be plausible in future research to examine the effects of combined exposure motives on attitude toward characters in the political entertainment. The study also intended to account for measurement error frequently found in SEM models by using a full structure model; however, the specified model was highly complicated with an enormous number of degrees of freedom, which called for the need to use item parceling (which was beyond the scope of this study) in future political entertainment research to explore the plausibility of SEM models (Matsunaga, 2008). Another caveat dealt with the use of stimulus materials. Study two relied on short (15- minute) video clips that might not be akin to the real-life primetime drama exposures. Besides, the video-clip used in comparison condition consisted of shots taken from various episodes of 24, which is a drama that centered on counterterrorism themes. Although the episodes were professionally edited to generate a coherent story and its efficacy was pretested both qualitatively and quantitatively, exposure experience was not natural. Likewise, the artificiality of the lab environment also violated assumptions of the ecological validity. However, randomized experiments in tightly controlled lab settings suffered from these issues (Mutz, 2006; Shadish, Campbell & Cook, 2002), and Gunter (2000) argued that researchers in social sciences heavily
112 relied on excerpts from media content by isolating specific features of a particular content to maximize treatment strength. Use of student sample was another limitation that affected generalizability of results. Although, Field and Hole (2011) argued that psychology was the study of the undergraduate behavior, a few researchers argued that “experiments studying attitude change” with student samples carried inherent weaknesses (Holbrook, 2011). Druckman and Kam (2011), however, provided another perspective by arguing that experimental research was not adversely affected by student samples and the external validity of studies with student participants was not intrinsically threatened. As study two found consistent results in consonance with other research in entertainment psychology and political communication, it could be argued that the results were reliable. With the growth of academic research in this area, it is hoped that future studies would rely on more representative random samples to explore significant effects of fictional political entertainment. The scales used in this research were another area of concern. Conceptually, entertainment is a complex psychological construct involving ambiguities in operationalization and conceptualization of the construct. Study two sought inspiration from empirical works claiming that appreciation and pleasure were “quantitatively distinct reactions to entertainment media” (Lewis, Tamborini, & Weber, 2014, p. 411), extant research widely differed on the meaning and application of these concepts in entertainment research. Likewise, measuring attitude toward female politicians with a reliable and valid scale could not attract attention of the academic community. Although, this study ran exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to verify construct validity of the scale and found reasonable results, future research in this area could pay attention to constructing and validating a scale toward fictional female politicians that would improve the research on the effects of fictional political narratives on attitude toward political characters. Overall, study two was a step forward in understanding the effects of fictional political narratives on attitude toward political protagonists. This study resonated the concerns of politicians, academics, and activists that a positive media portrayal was required to promote acceptability of the female leaders in powerful positions. In agreement with the recent research on entertainment and well-being and the role model effects, the current study produced evidence that exposure to fictional political entertainment could influence attitudes in a meaningful
113 manner by reducing critical evaluation of the messages enshrined in the entertaining narratives. The SEM model also elucidated the processes at play during the exposure phase and offered substantial expositions of the cogent nature of “meaningfulness” associated with this experience. As aptly claimed by Oliver & Raney (2014, p. 363), “a focus on affect alone does not seem to be sufficient to cover the range of responses that individuals experience, either during the process of consumption itself, or in the outcomes that entertainment may have on individuals”, it was incumbent upon entertainment psychology and political communication researchers to delve deep into the effects political entertainment might cause. This line of research would have significant implications for academicians, policy-makers, and politicians, and would enable them to learn how viewers (especially young voters) consumed and processed political entertainment, which became an integral part of modern democracy across the globe.
114 CHAPTER 5
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The central objective of this dissertation was to speak across assorted streams of research on political entertainment and its effects on mediated characters. The two studies encompassing this research explicated a relatively less researched area in political communication research, i.e., fictional political drama featuring female political leaders as head of the state and responded to Holbert’s (2005) call to investigate multifarious political entertainment genres for theory building. Secondly, these studies examined the effects of exposure to semi-fictional and fictional entertainment on the political attitudes of young citizens and explored if political entertainment introduced a tangible change in the attitude of viewers toward a counterstereotypical media character (Delli Carpini, 2012; Nelson, Bryner, & Carnahan, 2011; Simon & Hoyt, 2011; van Zoonen, 2005). Finally, this dissertation focused on the mediating influence of identification with the characters, narrative transportation, and enjoyment on attitude toward female politicians, as political communication literature was a leading proponent of application various SEM models and exploring a plausible model explaining processes underlying fictional political entertainment was heuristically significant (Holbert and LaMarre, 2013). By fusing these significant constructs of entertainment and political psychology together and examining indirect effects of various variables, which were often overlooked in media effects research (Holbert & Stephenson, 2003), was a significant contribution of this research. As Oliver (2009) rightly pointed out, “there is no more exciting time to be a scholar of media entertainment than now as the questions and challenges that face us are causing us to develop new theories and to augment existing ones” (p. 171-172). Likewise, Oliver and Raney (2014) argued that a focus on the affective dimension of entertainment research did not adequately encircle entertainment experience and a focus on the cognitive processing of entertainment narratives was imperative. Subsequently, the findings of the research reported in this dissertation instigate significant research questions related to the entertainment experience when the nature of narratives is not merely pleasure and play.
115 Effects of semi-fictional political narratives on attitude toward mediated lead characters
Study one focused on the appeal of semi-fictional biographical movies in altering audiences’ attitude toward mediated female protagonists. Extant research established links between exposure to assorted entertainment genres and a perceptible change in attitudes (Baum, 2002; Cao, 2008; Delli Carpini, 2012; Holbert et al., 2003; Moy at al., 2005; Van Zoonen, 2005; Young, 2004); however, petite attention was paid to the effects of semi-fictional political movies on the cognitive processing of the narratives. As Nelson et al. (2011) argued that more experimental work was required to unearth the nature of psychological processing of entertainment media, study one explored if the viewers meaningfully processed semi-fictional entertainment. Significant findings were reported in study one, which explained that entertainment was more than an enjoyable experience and changed the attitude of the viewers toward mediated characters. One of the plausible explanations for our significant results could be the vital role of entertainment culture that became an integral part of the environment within which political activities take place and, resultantly, people learn political behaviors (McNair, 2011). In consonance with social cognitive theory and affective disposition theory, participants in study one tended to follow the lead characters featured in the biographical political movies and favorably responded to the actions, ambitions, courage, and motivations of the mediated female role models. Zaller (1992) argued that since audiences exposed themselves to entertaining narrative as a diversion, enjoyment experienced during the entertainment experience substantially decreased usual deliberation and counterarguments audiences applied while viewing news media. Thus, meaningful and serious political messages draped in entertainment narratives, especially movies, could change cognitive and affective responses of the viewers toward political characters and the messages they convey. Media psychology literature posited that media routinely portrayed women as a part of the private sphere and unfit for handling important responsibilities in the public sphere, it was logical that young viewers would internalize stereotypical ideas and develop negative attitudes toward feminine characters. Nonetheless, study one revealed that counterstereotypical female protagonists would increase the probability of cognitive processing of semi-fictional entertainment and attitude toward lead characters would positively change. Since female counterstereotypical characters were scarce in political entertainment, viewers
116 would be influenced by the skills exhibited by female lead characters playing the role of the head of state in dramas and movies and affectional bonds would be developed between viewers and the characters through processes involving identification with the characters and narratives transportation, which enhanced enjoyment of the narratives and resulted in an attitudinal change (Rasul & Raney, 2013). Another key objective served by the study one was to examine casual associations between the effects of exposure to biographical political movies, enjoyment, narrative transportation, and attitudes toward viable and competent female leaders. As Bartsch and Schneider (2014) asserted that eudaimonic motives to watch political entertainment yielded mixed results and were a less-attended academic area, study one paved the way for further inquiry into the role of political entertainment in changing attitudes of the audiences by focusing on the eudaimonic or higher-order function of the enjoyment experienced through such exposures (Bartsch, 2012; Oliver & Raney, 2011; Tamborini, 2011; Vorderer & Hartman, 2009). By focusing on semi-fictional narratives, the study examined if the gender identity and existing attitudes toward salient political role models affected attitudes of the audiences toward female politicians. Significant gender differences were found and the less-known viable female politician transfigured as a more powerful role model compared to the known female politician. As Holbert and Stephenson (2003) argued that researchers paid inadequate attention to the role of indirect effects in SEM models applied in political entertainment literature, study one focused on specific and total indirect relationships between study variables. Extant literature provided empirical evidence and numerous studies investigating the mediating role of enjoyment and narrative transportation concluded that these variables played a significant role in changing existing attitudes and beliefs of the audiences (Appel & Richter, 2007, 2010; Sestir & Green, 2010). To gain an understanding of the efficacy of semi-fictional entertainment, study one examined the strength of the relationship between enjoyment and narrative transportation, which was a significant finding as the strength of the relationship between enjoyment and narrative transportation was not explored in the context of political entertainment and in consonance with the existing literature, both variables were highly related. Likewise, narrative transportation emerged as a powerful mediator between general attitude toward female politicians and presumed effects of movies, as all specific indirect and total indirect effects were significant and in a desirable direction. Thud, narrative transportation was recognized as a significant mediator
117 determining the effects of political entertainment based on stories with females as the protagonists (Simon & Hoyt, 2008; Trepte, 2006). Study one also found significant gender difference, which was consistent with the past research. However, with young undergraduate students as the sample, these results should be interpreted cautiously as young viewers were considered a population with liberal biases and supported unconventional political ideas (Iyengar, 2011; Jackson, 2009; Street, 2011) Hoyt and Simon (2011, p. 145) argued that “role models can be both inspiring and injurious to others depending on a variety of factors, including whether the models are ingroup members, the perceived attainability of their success, and the extent to which they successfully disconfirm negative stereotypes”. Extant research also highlighted that ingroup membership facilitated identification with the characters, but its effects on the processing of political entertainment could not be determined as various groups of audiences tended to report similar results because of exposure to entertainment media (Ford, 2011; Street, 2011). Overall, the results found in study one were in agreement with the findings of the Adams et al.’s (1985) study that investigated the effects of biographical movies on the audiences and found significant results. Research on the effects of political entertainment was passing through a nascent phase (Delli Carpini, 2012; Holbert, 2005) and researchers placed greater importance on the role of entertainment in changing attitudes of the audiences in modern democracies. Bartsch and Schneider (2014) proposed a “dual process model of entertainment experience” in their recent work and cautiously advanced the argument that eudaimonic motives explained entertainment experience during exposure to political narratives. The psychological processes involved in the processing of semi- fictional and fictional narratives were complex and mutually intertwined, which made it difficult for researchers to advance the knowledge claims determining the efficacy of political entertainment through demonic or hedonic processing. However, the pervasiveness of the entertainment media and frequent use of political entertainment to persuade people in democratic societies dictated the need for a continued inquiry into the effects of exposure to entertainment narratives such as movies and dramas on the cognitive processing and a plausible attitudinal change. The results of this study were promising and instigated debate revolving around the functioning of democracy in postmodern societies in which entertainment media were probably the only source to convey political messages and fashion political changes to strengthen the public sphere (Van Zoonen, 2005).
118 Effects of fictional drama on attitude toward mediated lead characters
The logical corollary to study one was an empirical exploration of the effects of exposure to fictional political narratives and study two focused on primetime drama to explore if viewers exposed to primetime drama presenting female politicians developed positive dispositions toward mediated female role models. As modern politics relied on “telegenic” politicians, television was a medium that celebritized and personalized politics to the extent that politics, especially for high offices, depended on a televisual popular culture, which was at a complete tangent with traditional conceptions of political communication (Campus, 2013; Dahlgren, 2009; Holbert, 2005; Jones, 2005; Street, 2011; Van Zoonen, 2005). However, females unlike males could not exploit the potential of television to marketize their quest for high offices, and fictional entertainment in the form of The West Wing remained a male’s domain (Campus, 2013; Goren, 2009). To address this research gap and to properly explore the nature of enjoyment experienced because of exposure to fictional political entertainment, study two investigated the effects of primetime drama on the attitude of viewers toward female lead characters by applying a multiple treatments and a control design. Since female actors playing the role of politicians were conventionally represented in supporting roles in fictional entertainment in general and primetime dram in particular, and only a few primetime dramas depicted female politicians in counterstereotypical and powerful roles, study two compared a fictional TV drama featuring a female politician as the protagonist (Commander-in-Chief) with another primetime drama portraying a female president in a supporting role (24). Although the short drama clips were professionally edited to reveal a story and maximize treatment strength (Gunter, 2000), it was assumed that Commander-in-chief would elicit more favorable responses compared to 24 and the control condition. The assumption followed affective disposition theory and dual process model of entertainment experience, which explicated processes underlying entertainment experience and engendered an explanation of the attitudinal changes due to the affective and cognitive processing of fictional political entertainment (Bartsch, 2012; Bartsch & Schneider, 2014; Holbert, 2005; Oliver & Raney, 2014). To explore viewers’ attitude toward mediated protagonists in primetime drama, study two assumed that the viewers would experience enjoyment after watching their liked characters succeed and disliked characters punished (Krakowiak & Tsay, 2013; Raney, 2002, 2006;
119 Zillmann, 2000). Being constant evaluators of characters’ actions and motivation influence viewer’s behavior toward them and it was conceptualized that audiences’ would engage in both affective (pleasure-based) and cognitive (meaningful) processing of fictional entertainment. As expected, the audiences developed more favorable dispositions toward female protagonists in the experimental condition (Commander-in-Chief). The viewers in the comparison condition (24) scored higher than the viewers in the control condition. This pattern was observed on other dependent variables as well, except for political self-efficacy that remained unchanged. Study two testified that eudaimonic motives to use primetime drama for entertainment were a stronger predictor of viewers’ attitude toward characters. Roth et al (2014) also found similar results in their study examining the effects of entertaining political talk shows. The effect sizes were small (explaining 2% to 13% of variance in the dependent variables), but these were significant and called for a meticulous and continued empirical to gauge the effects of fictional entertainment on attitudinal change in different settings and with representative samples. A somewhat surprising finding of study two dealt with a negative causal relationship between hedonic motives to use primetime drama and narrative transportation. Extant research asserted that narrative transportation worked because audiences used peripheral route to process information, which reduced reactance to messages enshrined in the narrative (Appel & Richter, 2007, 2010; de Graaf, 2014; Sestir & Green, 2010). Transportation worked when audiences identified with the characters and established a comfortable level of perceived similarity with the character under question (de Graaf, 2014). However, hedonic processing of fictional entertainment might engage viewers in the superficial processing of messages for extracting pleasure; they might not be able to delve deep on the actions and motivations of the characters, which were necessary for developing favorable dispositions and establishing identification. At the same time, Lewis, Tamborini, and Weber (2014) cautioned that hedonic and eudaimonic processing depended on a host of situational factors, and the results obtained in a study should be carefully interpreted. The study two also involved political self-efficacy and political ideology in explaining the causal relationship between exposure and attitudinal change. Hoffman and Thomson (2009) found political ideology a significant variable affecting political involvement in their study of viewing entertainment television. Likewise, political self-efficacy was used as a moderator and mediator in several studies mapping the effects of entertainment programs on television (Holbert
120 et al., 2007; Newhagen, 1994; Sweetser & Kaid, 2008). Study two found that political self- efficacy was a positive predictor of attitude toward female politicians and mediated the relationship between enjoyment and attitude toward female politicians; however, no significant differences across experimental conditions were found. The reason might be a relatively homogenous sample notorious for espousing liberal values, albeit a little less interested in political processes (Van Zoonen, 2005). Differences across political ideologies were examined and the viewers adhering to liberal and center/moderate ideologies scored higher than conservative viewers. By and large, audiences’ espousing liberal ideology experienced greater levels of identification, narrative transportation, enjoyment, and attitude toward female politicians. However, mean difference between three groups was small on political self-efficacy, but liberals scored slightly higher on political self-efficacy as well. Another crucial objective pursued by study two was conceptualization and exploration of a hypothesized SEM model that could shed light on causal links between different variables explaining the effectiveness of fictional political entertainment. In agreement with the results obtained in the tests of mean difference, hedonic motives were unrelated to attitude toward female politicians and did not predict identification and narrative transportation. In consonance with extant literature in entertainment psychology and political communication, the similar relationships and advanced research by finding significant paths between enjoyment and political self-efficacy, and subsequently, between political self-efficacy and attitude toward female politicians. Following Holbert and Stephenson’s (2003) assertions, study two focused on the mediational analysis and examined total indirect and specific indirect effects between various endogenous and exogenous variables. The study used a relatively liberal α value and compromised power, but all indirect effects between eudaimonic motives, identification, transportation, enjoyment, and attitude toward female politicians were found significant. Since SEM is a large sample technique (Kline, 2009), these effects might be more pronounced with larger and representative samples. To conclude, both studies found insightful results and paved the way for future inquiry into the effects of fictional entertainment as was argued by Holbert (2005) in his “typology for the study of entertainment television and politics”. Exposure motives with meaningful intentions proved to be a significant exogenous variable due to their potential to elicit cognitive and elaborative processing of entertainment narratives. Thus, political narratives in fictional media
121 not only entertain, but also influence opinion of the viewers toward characters in the narrative, and in case of this dissertation, mediated female politicians.
Implications for future research and conclusion
The findings discussed in this dissertation stimulate the need to explore the effects of assorted fictional entertainment narratives on the attitudes of the viewers. The findings are insightful and explicate the processes by which political entertainment influences viewers’ perceptions of the characters actions and motivations. This dissertation specifically explored the reactions of audiences toward counterstereotypical female role models and their representation in semi-fictional and fictional media. A few researchers (Campbell & Wolbrecht, 2006; Simon & Hoyt, 2008, 2013) reflected on the effects of representation of powerful role models in various genres of media and argued that viable and competent role models introduced a positive change in the attitudes of citizens toward these leaders. Since women leaders are conventionally portrayed in hackneyed roles in the entertainment media, preexisting gender role expectations and stereotypes are strengthened. These stereotypes constrain the role of women in the public sphere and discourage them to vie for powerful political positions. Female politicians are victims of a “sexist media” that follows Hollywood conventions (Van Zoonen, 2007), through which only a male, educated, and middle-class person could be the head of state. These conventions were epitomized in The West Wing, which represented a capable and fatherly-figure as the president of the country (Holbert et al., 2005; Parry Giles & Parry-Giles, 2006). Contrariwise, female politicians are presented in supporting roles (the first lady role), and they are supposed to assist their male counterparts achieve their ambitions in style (Goren, 2009). As gender perception are largely shaped by media in an entertainment world in which democracy has become “democratainment”, the findings reported by the studies in this dissertation how two different genres of fictional media can reshape conventionally held gender perceptions and gender role expectations. This dissertation also peripherally discussed the repercussions of applying affective disposition theory in explicating the effects of entertainment television on enjoyment of the narratives and its subsequent effects (Holbert, 2005). The results strengthen the link between development of affective dispositions and actions and motivations of unconventional female
122 leaders. However, affective processing of messages and favorable dispositions toward characters may not be the sole mechanism that addresses the prognostic power of fictional political entertainment. This was evidenced by the results reported by study two in which hedonic motives to use fictional drama did not predict identification with the characters and narrative transportation. Although the entertainment research predominantly focused on individual hedonic or affective responses to entertainment narratives and it was mainly enjoyment driven (Oliver & Raney, 2014; Roth et al., 2014), there are other conceptions of enjoyment associated with the consumption of entertainment, which consider it as satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs of viewers. Recent research, however, also focused on the meaningfulness of the entertainment experience, which is likely to engender greater appreciation of the deep meanings of the narratives and makes the entertainment experience purposeful (Bartsch & Schneider, 2014; Lewis et al., 2014; Oliver & Bartsch, 2012; Oliver & Raney, 2011). This stream of research influenced the current studies and as Oliver and Raney (2014) pointed out that now was the time when entertainment research should focus more on cognitive processing of the fictional entertainment narratives. The results indicated that viewers exposed to primetime drama processed actions of the characters cognitively and developed affectional relationship with characters. Thus, political entertainment should not be considered as a hedonic pursuit of superficial pleasure, but it has deeper meanings and could affect attitudes in a perceptible manner. As this study set out to examine if pleasure-seeking enjoyment and purposeful appreciation influenced attitude toward character, the limitations stemming from the conceptual definitions of the constructs used in this study should also be considered. Lewis et al. (2014) aptly pointed out that in order to avoid conceptual confusion, delight and enlightenment could be used instead of enjoyment and appreciation in the dual process model that resonates Vorderer and Ritterfeld’s (2009) conception two-level model of entertainment. Nevertheless, the findings of the second study in this research relied heavily on the model developed by Oliver and Raney (2011) to explore how audiences’ media choice motives interact with other significant variables and cause an attitudinal change. Future research could focus on various genres of political entertainment to examine if hedonic and eudaimonic motives to use media interact differently with other significant variables in entertainment psychology such as identification, narrative transportation, and enjoyment as the ultimate goal of entertainment experience that, in turn,
123 exerts its influence on other attitudes. This research agrees with Krakowiak (2008) that entertainment should not be limited to enjoyable experiences alone. Thus, there is greater need to study different genres and various aspects of fictional political entertainment in order to efficiently bond or differentiate between affective and cognitive processing of fictional entertainment and its subsequent effects. The findings of the two studies also offer significant repercussions for transportation research. In agreement with identification theory, it was expected that audiences, especially girls, would identify with the lead characters in the stimulus material. Identification leads to narrative transportation that adopts a peripheral route to process information and reduces critical consideration of messages (Appel & Richter, 2007). In study two, hedonic motives, which are closely related to peripheral route, were negatively related to narrative transportation. Inversely, eudaimonic motives that adopt a central processing route were significantly associated with narrative transportation. These paradoxical results indicate that transportation experience might also differ across entertainment genres and audiences might espouse a few preconceived schemas about a specific genre and respond to the narratives accordingly. In their dual process model of entertainment experience, Bartsch and Schneider (2014) differentiated between hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment experiences, which used superficial and elaborate modes of cognitive processing respectively, and found that eudaimonic motives were related to greater interest in politics. Green and Brock (2000) suggested that transportation worked because viewers experienced greater cognitive absorption and developed story-consistent attitudes without counter arguing. Thus, a new field of research is developing and determining how narrative transportation fits into this field would be academically significant. Other factors such as age, education, income-levels, and entertainment experience settings (whether watched alone or with a group of friends) might also affect narrative transportation and processing of messages that would change peripheral route conceptions of narrative transportation. However, narrative transportation was a strong predictor of enjoyment in accordance with previous research (Green, Brock, & Kaufman, 2004; Rasul & Raney, 2013) and there is heuristic need to include narrative transportation in conceptual models explaining the effects of political entertainment. Another issue highlighted in this research gender differences. Study one that explored effect of biographical political movies found gender differences, while in study two that examined the influence of political dram failed to detect any gender differences. Although
124 addressing gender differences is not the central objective of this study, it is important to figure out why ingroup identity was salient and important in one entertainment experience compared to the other. Since biographical movies were based on the lives of real-life politicians, and precisely for that reason, study one termed them as a semi-fictional genre, it was easier for the viewers to develop in-group association and appreciation across gender lines. However, this was not the case in fictional political drama, and the viewers easily figured out that the characters in the narrative were fictional. Thus, compared to a purely fictional character, gender identity was more salient for a real-life character presented through a semi-fictional narrative. There are implications for identification research to explore how and under what circumstances identification across gender lines works well despite the fact that Cohen (2006) has suggested that audiences tended to identify with the characters belonging to their gender. This dissertation also involved political ideology and political self-efficacy to determine if viewers’ political leanings affected the entertainment process. These variables have been used on various entertainment genres in prior research (Hoffman & Thomson, 2009; Holbert et al., 2007) and found that these are powerful mediators and moderators. The results of this research were in line with the previous explorations of these concepts and viewers’ with liberal views were more likely to identify, absorb, enjoy, and finally change their attitude toward characters in the narrative. As expected, viewers in the placebo condition were less likely to score high on the variables mentioned in the above lines. At the same time, political self-efficacy was not different across experimental conditions. A plausible explanation of the “no difference” scenario could be the homogeneity of the sample that consisted of undergraduate students of approximately same age, education, and income levels. Political self-efficacy is also a complex psychological construct, which is affected by a number of factors and could be better explained in studies with large representative samples. Likewise, there is greater space for future research to use other political attitude variables such as political knowledge, political cynicism, and situational political involvement, just to name a few, as mediators to expound the nature and effects of fictional political entertainment. Finally, attitude toward female politicians is a significant construct that determines the role a society ascribes to females. Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) discuss the role of women politicians as role models for young girls who are likely to learn politics, develop political attitudes, and model behavior patterns popularized by the mediated female political leaders. The
125 young viewers exhibit keen interest political processes involving women as their existing attitude toward female leaders is favorably affected after exposure to entertainment content featuring their favorite female political characters. Entertainment psychologists argue that there is a greater harmony between attitudes and subsequent behaviors if the degree of specify between the two is equal (Delamater & Myers, 2011). Thus, the influence of female role models through positive portrayals on entertainment media is likely to generate greater political involvement among young adults, especially uninterested females (Wolbrecht & Campbell, 2007). The “role model effect” contributes significantly toward processes culminating in enhanced levels of political socialization, Campbell and Wolbrecht (2006) attribute this attitudinal change to the positive representation of female leaders in news, and entertainment media, which would spark discussions about viable and competent female politicians and the outcome would be a positive attitudinal change toward female politicians. The more a female politician, whether fictional or real, is discussed, the more adolescent girls learn about politics, develop political attitudes, and express their propensity to politically involve in the campaigns (Ford, 2011). Besides focusing on the theoretical issues encircling research on the effects of fictional political entertainment, future research should also work on methodological improvements, which would generate reliable and generalizable estimation of effects. For example, survey experiments could be used to maximize external validity and by carefully designing the experiment to maintain high levels of internal validity (Mutz, 2011). Likewise, item parceling could be used in full structure SEM models to examine error components in the structural and measurement parts of the model. This technique would definitely address issues related to measurement error, which are a cause of concern in research using causal modeling. Likewise, a valid and reliable scale is needed to measure audiences’ attitude toward female politicians. Hillary Clinton, being the likely candidate for the 2016 presidential elections and with the growing number of powerful women politicians in other societies, a scale to measure attitudes toward these politicians would augment existing research in political communication and entertainment psychology dealing with the cognitive processing of entertainment. In summary, this dissertation addressed significant question surrounding political communication and entertainment research. Causal associations between exposure to fictional media and attitude toward female political characters were examined. The studies conducted for this research offered plausible results and paved the way for continued research on fictional
126 political entertainment and its effects on attitudes. Various SEM models were theorized to understand the functioning of political entertainment and consistent with the previous research, this dissertation was able to design a model that reasonably established causal links between different constructs frequently applied in entertainment research. This research followed and confirmed the results of a relatively new approach based on the dual process model of entertainment experience. It was argued that biographical political movies and primetime drama engender meaningful entertainment experience that subsequently paved the way for a story- consistent attitudinal change. This research also approved the use of entertainment in political process, which was abhorred by a stream of research led by Postman (2006) arguing that entertainment weakened democratic ethos; however, this research and other studies conducted in the past few years (Bartsch, 2012; Bartsch & Schneider, 2014; Becker, 2014; Roth et al., 2012; Van Zoonen & Wring, 2012) confirmed that entertainment was not a negative emotion, and in a postmodern world, entertainment should be effectively used for well-being and ensuring the existence of a healthy public sphere.
127 APPENDIX A
QUESTIONNAIRE STUDY ONE
Thank you very much for your willingness to participate in this study. The main objective of the study is to understand the effects of movies on attitudes of the audiences. After completing a short questionnaire, you will be watching a small movie clip and will be requested to answer a few more questions based on your personal opinions and attitudes. Please feel free to ask me if you have any questions regarding the study. There are no right or wrong answers. Your participation in this study is totally voluntary and I am grateful for your time. THIS STUDY FOCUSES ON THE EFFECTS OF MOVIES ON ATTITUDES OF BOTH MALE AND FEMALE YOUNG ADULTS. Please click on the number given to you when you were signing up.
• One
• Two
• Three FSU Human Subjects Committee approved on 9/12/2012. Void after 9/05/2013. HSC # 2012.9007 INFORMED CONSENT STATEMENT You are being invited to participate in a research study about effects of movies on political attitudes of young adults. This research project is being conducted by Azmat Rasul, PhD student in the School of Communication. The objective of this research project is to attempt to understand the relationship between exposure to entertainment content (MOVIE CLIP) and political attitudes of young female adults. This experimental study is being conducted in the School of Communication (UCC) at FSU and students from the Colleges of Communication and Information, Education, Social Sciences, NURSING, and Department of Political Science are participating in it. By signing the following informed consent statement you agree that: I freely and voluntarily and without element of force or coercion, consent to be a participant in the experimental research project titled as “Politically entertained: The effects of movies on the political attitudes of the
128 young female adults.” I understand that the purpose of the research project is to better understand effects of movies on political attitudes. I understand that this study will approximately consume 50 – 60 minutes, and during this time, I will be watching a movie CLIP and answering close-ended questions in pre and post experimental conditions. I also understand that I will be asked for demographic information and some information about my movie watching behavior. The demographic information will be used for classification purposes only. I understand that my participation in this study is voluntary, and I may decline to participate without penalty at any time. My name will not appear on any of the results. No individual responses will be reported. Only group findings will be reported. The information in the study records will be kept confidential to the extent allowed by law. Data will be stored securely in a password-protected computer and will be made available only to the researcher conducting the study. Data will be destroyed within six years of publication in a research journal. I understand there are benefits for participating in this research project. For participating I will receive either (a) extra credit for my class, the amount of which is determined by the instructor of the course from which I am recruited, or (b) my participation in this study will help fulfill my class’s research requirement. I understand that my participation is voluntary and, I may decline to participate and instead (a) do an alternate assignment for extra course credit or (b) participate in another research project to fulfill my class’s research requirement or discuss another option with my professor. My participation may also be useful to see how research in communication is conducted, and I may have a feel-good experience as a responsible citizens. I understand that there are no known risks if I decide to participate, nor are there any costs for participating in this study. I understand that in order to participate in this study I must be at least 18 years old. If I am under the age of 18, I can discuss an alternate assignment with my professor to either (a) earn extra credit or (b) fulfill my class’s research requirement. I understand that I may contact Azmat Rasul at 850-524-5570 [[email protected], Suite 3100, University Center C] for answers to questions about this research or my rights. Also, if I have any questions about my rights as a participant in this research, or if I feel I have been placed at risk, I can contact the Chair of the Human Subjects Committee, Institutional Review Board, through the Vice President for the Office of Research at (850) 644-8633 or email Julie Haltiwanger ([email protected]), IRB
129 Secretary to Committee, Florida State University. I have read and understand this consent form and confirm that I am at least 18 years old.
• Yes
• No Please answer a few questions about the gratification people seek by watching political movies. Instructions: Here is a list of statements that different people have made when asked why they watch political movies that feature political candidates. For each statement on the list, please tell us whether it applies to you a lot, some, little, or none. To judge what political leaders are like? A lot Some Little None
To see what a candidate would do if elected? A lot Some Little None
To keep up with the main issues of the day? A lot Some Little None
To help make up my mind how to vote in an election? A lot Some Little None
To use as ammunition in arguments with others? A lot Some Little None
To judge who is likely to win an election? A lot Some Little None
To enjoy the excitement of an election race? A lot Some Little None
To remind me of my candidate’s strong points? A lot Some Little None
130 Please answer a few questions about the presumed effects of movies In answering the following questions, think about other movies that have political stories/themes. Over all, how much do you think people of your age, especially females, would learn politics from watching movies with political stories? A great Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 deal
Over all, how much would you say political attitudes of the people of your age, especially females, would be influenced after watching political movies? A great Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 deal
Please watch a 15 minute movie clip. This movie unfolds the presidential race in 2008, which took many interesting turns. Please watch the movie and answer a few questions based on your personal attitudes and behaviors. Click if you have watched the movie.
• I have watched this movie. Please answer a few questions about the enjoyment people experience by watching political movies. Watching the movie clip was fun.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree I liked watching the movie clip.
• Strongly Disagree
131 • Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree The movie clip was enjoyable.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree I am glad the movie clip did not last any longer.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree I enjoyed watching the movie clip.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
132 • Strongly Agree Please answer a few questions about the transportation into the narrative experienced by watching political movies While I was watching the movie, I could easily picture the events in it taking place. Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 Very much
While I was watching the movie narrative, activity going on in the room around me was in my mind. Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 Very much
I could picture myself in the scene of the event described in the movie narrative. Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 Very much
I was mentally involved in the narrative while watching it. Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 Very much
After finishing the movie clip, I found it easy to put it out of my mind. Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 Very much
I wanted to learn how the movie ended. Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 Very much
The movie narrative affected me emotionally. Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 Very much
I found myself thinking of ways the movie narrative could have turned out differently. Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 Very much
I found my mind wandering while watching the movie narrative. Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 Very much
The events in the movie narrative are relevant to my everyday life.
133 Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 Very much
The events in the movie narrative have changed my life. Not at all 2 3 4 5 6 Very much
Please answer a few questions about attitude toward female politicians as viable candidates. A female presidential candidate will be a competent President of the US.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree A female presidential candidate will be an influential President of the US.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree As president a female presidential candidate will handle domestic policy well.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
134 • Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree As president a female presidential candidate will handle national security well.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree I am confident that a female presidential candidate would be a good president.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree I would support a female presidential candidate’s nomination.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
135 • Agree
• Strongly Agree A female presidential candidate should win election for President of the US.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree If nominated, a female presidential candidate will win elections for the president of the US.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree I would vote for a female presidential candidate.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
136 • Strongly Agree I like a female presidential candidate.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree Please answer a few questions about your attitude toward electing a female for president. Americans are ready to elect a woman for president.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree I would prefer to have a man for president.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree
137 I would vote for a qualified woman candidate for president.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree A man would do a better job leading the country than a woman would.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree I would prefer to have a woman for president.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree A woman would do a better job leading the country than a man would.
• Strongly Disagree
138 • Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree If a qualified woman runs for president, Americans would vote for her.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree I would vote for a qualified man over a qualified woman for president.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree Please answer a few questions about your attitude toward women. Swearing and obscenity are more repulsive in the speech of a woman than a man.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
139 • Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree Women should take increasing responsibility for leadership in solving the intellectual and social problems of the day.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree Women should be concerned with their duties of child bearing and house tending rather than with desire for professional or business careers.
• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Somewhat Disagree
• Neither Agree nor Disagree
• Somewhat Agree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree We are almost done. Please answer a few questions about yourself. What is your gender?
• Male
140 • Female What is your age? 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Above 24
How would you describe you ethnicity? African Asian Native White Hispanic Other American Americans American
What is your party affiliation? Democrat Republican Tea Party IndependentOther
What is your school/department at FSU? Political Other CommunicationEducation Medicine/Nursing Social Sciences Science
Please write down your name/section/Instructor’s name for extra credit purposes.
141 APPENDIX B
QUESTIONNAIRE STUDY TWO
Thank you very much for your willingness to participate in this study. The main objective of the study is to understand the effects of entertainment narrative on the attitudes of the audiences. After completing a short questionnaire, you will be watching a small video clip, and will be requested to answer a few more questions based on your personal opinions and attitudes. Please feel free to ask me if you have any questions regarding the study. There are no right or wrong answers. Your participation in this study is totally voluntary and I am grateful for your time. THIS STUDY FOCUSES ON THE EFFECTS OF DRAMAS ON ATTITUDES OF BOTH MALE AND FEMALE YOUNG ADULTS. Please click on the number appearing on the instructions page (one for experiment one, two for experiment two, and three for experiment three) given to you when you were signing up. • One • Two • Three FSU Human Subjects Committee approved on 9/12/2012. Void after 9/05/2013. HSC # 2012.9007 INFORMED CONSENT STATEMENT You are being invited to participate in a research study about effects of dramas on political attitudes of young female adults. This research project is being conducted by Azmat Rasul, PhD student in the School of Communication. The objective of this research project is to attempt to understand the relationship between exposure to entertainment content (VIDEO CLIP) and political attitudes of participants. This experimental study is being conducted in the School of Communication (UCC) at FSU and students from the Colleges of Communication and Information, Education, Social Sciences, NURSING, and Department of Political Science are participating in it. By signing the following informed consent statement you agree that: I freely and voluntarily and without element of force or coercion, consent to be a participant in the experimental research project titled as “Politically entertained: The effects of dramas on the
142 political attitudes of the young female adults.” I understand that the purpose of the research project is to better understand effects of dramas on political attitudes. I understand that this study will approximately consume 30 – 40 minutes, and during this time, I will be watching a video CLIP and answering close-ended questions in pre and post experimental conditions. I also understand that I will be asked for demographic information and some information about my TV watching behavior. The demographic information will be used for classification purposes only. I understand that my participation in this study is voluntary, and I may decline to participate without penalty at any time. My name will not appear on any of the results. No individual responses will be reported. Only group findings will be reported. The information in the study records will be kept confidential to the extent allowed by law. Data will be stored securely in a password-protected computer and will be made available only to the researcher conducting the study. Data will be destroyed within six years of publication in a research journal. I understand there are benefits for participating in this research project. For participating I will receive either (a) extra credit for my class, the amount of which is determined by the instructor of the course from which I am recruited, or (b) my participation in this study will help fulfill my class’s research requirement. I understand that my participation is voluntary and, I may decline to participate and instead (a) do an alternate assignment for extra course credit or (b) participate in another research project to fulfill my class’s research requirement or discuss another option with my professor. My participation may also be useful to see how research in communication is conducted, and I may have a feel-good experience as a responsible citizens. I understand that there are no known risks if I decide to participate, nor are there any costs for participating in this study. I understand that in order to participate in this study I must be at least 18 years old. If I am under the age of 18, I can discuss an alternate assignment with my professor to either (a) earn extra credit or (b) fulfill my class’s research requirement. I understand that I may contact Azmat Rasul at 850-524-5570 [[email protected], Suite 3100, University Center C] for answers to questions about this research or my rights. Also, if I have any questions about my rights as a participant in this research, or if I feel I have been placed at risk, I can contact the Chair of the Human Subjects Committee, Institutional Review Board, through the Vice President for the Office of Research at (850) 644-8633 or email Julie
143 Haltiwanger ([email protected]), IRB Secretary to Committee, Florida State University. I have read and understand this consent form and confirm that I am at least 18 years old. • Yes • No Please respond to a few questions about your political self-efficacy. My vote makes a difference. Strongly Disagree Disagree Somewhat Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree Somewhat Agree Agree Strongly Agree I have a real say in what the government does. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I can make a difference if I participate in the election process. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree Voting gives people an effective way to influence what the government does. ! Strongly Disagree
144 ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree Please respond to a few statements regarding your dram watching behavior. I like dramas that challenge my way of seeing the world. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Disagree nor Agree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I like dramas that make me more reflective. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Disagree nor Agree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I like drams that focus on meaningful human conditions. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree
145 My favorite kind of dramas are the one that make me think. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I am very moved by dramas that are about people’s search for greater understanding in life. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I like dramas that have profound meaning or messages to convey. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree It is important to me that I have fun when watching a drama. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree
146 ! Strongly Agree Dramas that make me laugh are among my favorites. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I find that even simple dramas can be enjoyable as long as they are fun. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I like drams that may be considered “silly” or “shallow” if they can make me laugh and have a good time. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree For me, the best dramas are the ones that are entertaining. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree
147 ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree My favorite kind of dramas are happy and positive. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree Please respond to a few statements regarding your reasons to watch political dramas. I watch political drama to obtain information about current issues in politics. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I watch political drama to find out about issues affecting people like myself. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I watch political drama because it is often entertaining. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree
148 ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I enjoy watching political drama showing strong political lead characters. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree Political drama with strong political lead characters are boring. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I watch political drama to give me interesting things to talk about. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I watch political drama because the lead characters are like people I know. ! Strongly Disagree
149 ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree Please answer a few questions about the presumed effects of primetime drama. In answering the following questions, think about other dramas that have political stories/themes. Over all, how much do you think people of your age would learn politics from watching dramas with political stories? ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! 7 ! 8 ! 9 ! A great deal Over all, how much would you say political attitudes of the people of your age would be influenced after watching political dramas? ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! 7 ! 8
150 ! 9 ! A great deal Over all, how much do you think people of your age would enjoy after watching dramas with political stories? ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! 7 ! 8 ! 9 ! A great deal Please watch a short video clip from a primetime drama. Please watch the video and answer a few questions based on your personal attitudes and behaviors. Click if you have watched the video. ! I have watched this movie. Please respond to a few statements regarding your level of identification with the lead character in the drama clip. I was able to understand the events in the drama in a manner similar to that in which the female lead character understood them. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I think I have a good understanding of the female lead character. ! Strongly Disagree
151 ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I tend to understand the reasons why the female lead character does what she does. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree While viewing the drama clip, I could feel the emotions portrayed by the female lead character. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree During viewing, I felt I could really get inside female lead character's head. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree
152 At key moments in the drama clip, I felt I knew exactly what female lead character was going through. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree While viewing the drama clip, I wanted the female lead character to succeed in achieving her goals. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree When the female lead character succeeded, I felt joy but when she failed, I was sad. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree Sometimes, I would like to be a little bit like the female lead character. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree
153 ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I can put myself in the female lead character’s position very well. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I totally understand female lead character's behavior. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree Please answer a few questions about the transportation into the narrative experienced by watching political dramas. While I was watching the drama, I could easily picture the events in it taking place. ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! Very much While I was watching the narrative, activity going on in the room around me was in my mind. ! Not at all
154 ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! Very much I could picture myself in the scene of the event described in the narrative. ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! Very much I was mentally involved in the narrative while watching it. ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! Very much After finishing the video, I found it easy to put it out of my mind. ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! Very much I wanted to learn how the drama ended.
155 ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! Very much The narrative affected me emotionally. ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! Very much I found myself thinking of ways the narrative could have turned out differently. ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! Very much I found my mind wandering while watching the narrative. ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! Very much
156 The events in the narrative are relevant to my everyday life. ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! Very much The events in the narrative have changed my life. ! Not at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! Very much Please answer a few questions about your enjoyment while watching this political dramas. How much did you enjoy the drama clip? ! Did not enjoy at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! 7 ! 8 ! 9 ! Enjoyed very much How much would you like to see the entire drama? ! Definitely would not like to see ! 2
157 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! 7 ! 8 ! 9 ! Definitely would like to see How much did you enjoy the subject matter of the drama clip? ! Did not enjoy at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! 7 ! 8 ! 9 ! Enjoyed very much How good was the drama clip? ! Not at all good ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! 7 ! 8 ! 9 ! Extremely good How motivating was the drama clip?
158 ! Not at all motivating ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! 7 ! 8 ! 9 ! Extremely motivating How exciting was the drama clip? ! Not at all exciting ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! 7 ! 8 ! 9 ! Very Exciting How much did you like the lead character in the drama clip? ! Did not like at all ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! 7 ! 8 ! 9
159 ! Liked very much Please answer a few questions about your attitude toward electing a competent female as head of the state. Americans are ready to elect a woman for president. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree If an equally competent male and female are running for the elections, Americans would prefer to have a man for president. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree If an equally liberal male and female are running for the elections, Americans would vote for a qualified woman candidate for president. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I think Americans believe that a man would do a better job leading the country than a woman would.
160 ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree If an equally competent male and female are running for the elections, Americans would prefer to have a woman for president. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I think Americans believe that a woman would do a better job leading the country than a man would. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree If a qualified woman runs for president, Americans would vote for her. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree
161 ! Agree ! Strongly Agree If two equally competent candidates are contesting election, Americans would vote for a qualified man over a qualified woman for president. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree If elected, a female presidential candidate will be a competent President of the US. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree If elected, a female presidential candidate will be an influential President of the US. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree If elected, a female presidential candidate will handle domestic policy well as a competent president. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree
162 ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree If elected, a female presidential candidate will handle national security well as a competent president. ! Strongly Agree ! Agree ! Somewhat Agree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Disagree ! Strongly Disagree If elected, I am confident that a female presidential candidate would be a good president. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I would support a female presidential candidate’s nomination. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree
163 I would participate in the election campaign of a female presidential candidate if equally competent male and female candidates are contesting the elections. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I am confident that a female presidential candidate will win elections for the president of the US. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I would vote for a female presidential candidate if equally liberal male and female candidates are contesting the elections. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree If equally competent male and female candidates are contesting the elections, I would like a female presidential candidate. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree
164 ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree Please answer a few questions about your political self-efficacy. Please indicate whether you strongly disagree or strongly agree with each of the following statements. Please check the relevant box. My vote makes a difference. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I have a real say in what the government does. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I can make a difference if I participate in the election process. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree
165 Voting gives people an effective way to influence what the government does. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree Please answer a few questions related to your situational political involvement in this section. Please indicate whether you strongly disagree or strongly agree with each of the following statements. Please check the relevant box. I pay attention to election information. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I like to stay informed about the elections. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I am interested in election information. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree
166 ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree I actively seek out information concerning the elections. ! Strongly Disagree ! Disagree ! Somewhat Disagree ! Neither Agree nor Disagree ! Somewhat Agree ! Agree ! Strongly Agree We are almost done. Please answer a few questions about yourself. What is your gender? ! Male ! Female What is your age? ! 18 ! 19 ! 20 ! 21 ! 22 ! 23 ! 24 ! Above 24 How would you describe you ethnicity? ! White ! African American ! Asian Americans ! Native American ! Hispanic
167 ! Other What is your party affiliation? ! Democrat ! Republican ! Independent ! Other What political ideology describes your political position? ! Left/Liberal ! Center-left ! Center/Neither Liberal nor Conservative ! Center-right ! Right/Conservative What is your school/department at FSU? ! Communication ! Education ! Political Science ! Medicine/Nursing ! Social Sciences ! Other ______THIS IS IMPORTANT: Please type your name with your last name appearing first and your class (e.g., Rasul, Azmat/ COM 2000) Please write down your Instructor’s name and Section No. (if any) for extra credit purposes.
168 APPENDIX C
HUMAN SUBJECTS COMMITTEE APPROVAL LETTERS
Study One
The Florida State University Office of the Vice President For Research Human Subjects Committee Tallahassee, Florida 32306-2742 (850) 644-8673 · FAX (850) 644-4392 RE-APPROVAL MEMORANDUM Date: 9/4/2013 To: Azmat Rasul Address: 181 Moore CT. Apt # 7 Tallahassee FL 32310 Dept.: COMMUNICATION From: Thomas L. Jacobson, Chair Re: Re-approval of Use of Human subjects in Research Politically Entertained: The effects of movies on the political attitudes of the young female adults Your request to continue the research project listed above involving human subjects has been approved by the Human Subjects Committee. If your project has not been completed by 9/3/2014, you must request a renewal of approval for continuation of the project. As a courtesy, a renewal notice will be sent to you prior to your expiration date; however, it is your responsibility as the Principal Investigator to timely request renewal of your approval from the committee. If you submitted a proposed consent form with your renewal request, the approved stamped consent form is attached to this re-approval notice. Only the stamped version of the consent form may be used in recruiting of research subjects. You are reminded that any change in protocol for this project must be reviewed and approved by the Committee prior to implementation of the proposed change in the protocol. A protocol change/amendment form is required to be submitted for approval by the Committee. In addition, federal regulations require that the Principal Investigator promptly report in writing, any unanticipated problems or adverse
169 events involving risks to research subjects or others. By copy of this memorandum, the Chair of your department and/or your major professor are reminded of their responsibility for being informed concerning research projects involving human subjects in their department. They are advised to review the protocols as often as necessary to insure that the project is being conducted in compliance with our institution and with DHHS regulations. Cc: Arthur Raney, Advisor HSC No. 2013.11237 The formal PDF approval letter: http://humansubjects.magnet.fsu.edu/pdf/printapprovalletter.aspx?app_id=11237
Study two
The Florida State University Office of the Vice President For Research Human Subjects Committee Tallahassee, Florida 32306-2742 (850) 644-8673 · FAX (850) 644-4392 RE-APPROVAL MEMORANDUM Date: 9/4/2014 To: Azmat Rasul Address: 181 Moore CT. Apt # 7 Tallahassee FL 32310 Dept.: COMMUNICATION From: Thomas L. Jacobson, Chair Re: Re-approval of Use of Human subjects in Research Your request to continue the research project listed above involving human subjects has been approved by the Human Subjects Committee. If your project has not been completed by 9/3/2015, you must request a renewal of approval for continuation of the project. As a courtesy, a renewal notice will be sent to you prior to your expiration date; however, it is your responsibility as the Principal Investigator to timely request renewal of your approval from the committee. If you submitted a proposed consent form with your renewal request, the approved stamped
170 consent form is attached to this re-approval notice. Only the stamped version of the consent form may be used in recruiting of research subjects. You are reminded that any change in protocol for this project must be reviewed and approved by the Committee prior to implementation of the proposed change in the protocol. A protocol change/amendment form is required to be submitted for approval by the Committee. In addition, federal regulations require that the Principal Investigator promptly report in writing, any unanticipated problems or adverse events involving risks to research subjects or others. By copy of this memorandum, the Chair of your department and/or your major professor are reminded of their responsibility for being informed concerning research projects involving human subjects in their department. They are advised to review the protocols as often as necessary to insure that the project is being conducted in compliance with our institution and with DHHS regulations. Cc: HSC No. 2014.13513 The formal PDF approval letter: http://humansubjects.magnet.fsu.edu/pdf/printapprovalletter.aspx?app_id=13513
171 APPENDIX D
INFORMED CONSENT STATEMENT
Study One
You are being invited to participate in a research study about effects of movies on political attitudes of young female adults. This research project is being conducted by Azmat Rasul, PhD student in the School of Communication. The objective of this research project is to attempt to understand the relationship between exposure to entertainment content (MOVIE CLIP) and political attitudes of young female adults. This experimental study is being conducted in the School of Communication (UCC) at FSU and students from the Colleges of Communication and Information, Education, Social Sciences, NURSING, and Department of Political Science are participating in it. By signing the following informed consent statement you agree that: I freely and voluntarily and without element of force or coercion, consent to be a participant in the experimental research project titled as “Politically entertained: The effects of movies on the political attitudes of the young female adults.” I understand that the purpose of the research project is to better understand effects of movies on political attitudes. I understand that this study will approximately consume 50 – 60 minutes, and during this time, I will be watching a movie CLIP and answering close-ended questions in pre and post experimental conditions. I also understand that I will be asked for demographic information and some information about my movie watching behavior. The demographic information will be used for classification purposes only. I understand that my participation in this study is voluntary, and I may decline to participate without penalty at any time. My name will not appear on any of the results. No individual responses will be reported. Only group findings will be reported. The information in the study records will be kept confidential to the extent allowed by law. Data will be stored securely in a password-protected computer and will be made available only to the researcher conducting the study. Data will be destroyed within six years of publication in a research journal.
172 I understand there are benefits for participating in this research project. For participating I will receive either (a) extra credit for my class, the amount of which is determined by the instructor of the course from which I am recruited, or (b) my participation in this study will help fulfill my class’s research requirement. I understand that my participation is voluntary and, I may decline to participate and instead (a) do an alternate assignment for extra course credit or (b) participate in another research project to fulfill my class’s research requirement or discuss another option with my professor. My participation may also be useful to see how research in communication is conducted, and I may have a feel-good experience as a responsible citizens. I understand that there are no known risks if I decide to participate, nor are there any costs for participating in this study. I understand that in order to participate in this study I must be at least 18 years old. If I am under the age of 18, I can discuss an alternate assignment with my professor to either (a) earn extra credit or (b) fulfill my class’s research requirement. I understand that I may contact Azmat Rasul at 850-524-5570 [[email protected], Suite 3100, University Center C] for answers to questions about this research or my rights. Also, if I have any questions about my rights as a participant in this research, or if I feel I have been placed at risk, I can contact the Chair of the Human Subjects Committee, Institutional Review Board, through the Vice President for the Office of Research at (850) 644-8633 or email Julie Haltiwanger ([email protected]), IRB Secretary to Committee, Florida State University. I have read and understand this consent form and confirm that I am at least 18 years old. (Participant Name): ______(Date): ______
INFORMED CONSENT STATEMENT
Study Two
You are being invited to participate in a research study about effects of dramas on political attitudes of young adults. This research project is being conducted by Azmat Rasul, PhD student in the School of Communication. The objective of this research project is to attempt to understand the relationship between exposure to entertainment content (video clip) and political attitudes of participants. This experimental study is being conducted in the School of
173 Communication (UCC) at FSU and students from the Colleges of Communication and Information, Education, Social Sciences, Nursing, and Department of Political Science are participating in it. By signing the following informed consent statement you agree that: I freely and voluntarily and without element of force or coercion, consent to be a participant in the experimental research project titled as “Politically entertained: The effects of dramas on the political attitudes of the young adults.” I understand that the purpose of the research project is to better understand effects of dramas on political attitudes. I understand that this study will approximately consume 50 – 60 minutes, and during this time, I will be watching a video clip and answering close-ended questions in pre and post experimental conditions. I also understand that I will be asked for demographic information and some information about my TV watching behavior. The demographic information will be used for classification purposes only. I understand that my participation in this study is voluntary, and I may decline to participate without penalty at any time. My name will not appear on any of the results. No individual responses will be reported. Only group findings will be reported. The information in the study records will be kept confidential to the extent allowed by law. Data will be stored securely in a password-protected computer and will be made available only to the researcher conducting the study. Data will be destroyed within six years of publication in a research journal. I understand there are benefits for participating in this research project. For participating I will receive either (a) extra credit for my class, the amount of which is determined by the instructor of the course from which I am recruited, or (b) my participation in this study will help fulfill my class’s research requirement. I understand that my participation is voluntary and, I may decline to participate and instead (a) do an alternate assignment for extra course credit or (b) participate in another research project to fulfill my class’s research requirement or discuss another option with my professor. My participation may also be useful to see how research is conducted in the discipline of Mass communication. I understand that there are no known risks if I decide to participate, nor are there any costs for participating in this study. I understand that in order to participate in this study I must be at least 18 years old. If I am under the age of 18, I can discuss an alternate assignment with my professor to either (a) earn extra credit or (b) fulfill my class’s research requirement. I understand that I may contact Azmat Rasul at 850-524-5570 [[email protected], Suite 3100, University Center C] for answers to
174 questions about this research or my rights. I may contact the major professor of the investigator, Dr. Arthur A. Raney [[email protected], Ph: (850) 644-9485, Suite 3100, University Center C], as well for further information on this study. Also, if I have any questions about my rights as a participant in this research, or if I feel I have been placed at risk, I can contact the Chair of the Human Subjects Committee, Institutional Review Board, through the Vice President for the Office of Research at (850) 644-8633 or email Julie Haltiwanger ([email protected]), IRB Secretary to Committee, Florida State University. I have read and understand this consent form and confirm that I am at least 18 years old. (Yes): ------(No): ------
175 APPENDIX E
POWER ANALYSIS
176
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204 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
As a Fulbright research scholar, Azmat Rasul earned his PhD from the School of Communication at Florida State University (FSU). He has been involved in researching persuasive effects of entertainment media, political and international communication, persuasive/strategic communication, and political economy of entertainment industries. Trained as a critical/cultural scholar in South Asia and Europe, Rasul also specialized in quantitative research designs and pursued an MS degree in Measurement and Statistics in the College of Education at FSU. He was selected to receive several academic awards including the FSU Academic Leadership Award in 2015, the Mathew Grindy Prize in 2014, and the College of Communication and Information Leadership Award in 2013. As a qualified academic and professional, he has been working with large public relations firms and academic institutions in various capacities. Rasul has published 20 papers in refereed and non-refereed research journals, three book chapters, and a book. He has presented his work at more than 50 peer-reviewed national and international conferences in different countries. For the last 15 years, he is teaching courses in research methods, communication theory, media and society, political communication, international and intercultural communication, communication for change, and public relations/advertising at various universities in South Asia and the United States. Rasul has a dynamic and continuing research agenda focusing on the interplay between politics and entertainment, persuasive effects of political entertainment on attitudes, global entertainment industries, and framing of political and cultural issues in international media.
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