People and “Their” Television Shows: an Overview of Television Connectedness
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PEOPLE AND “THEIR” TELEVISION SHOWS: AN OVERVIEW OF TELEVISION CONNECTEDNESS Forthcoming In L. J. Shrum (ed.), Blurring The Lines: The Psychology of Entertainment Media. Cristel A. Russell, Andrew T. Norman, and Susan E. Heckler Contact Information: Cristel Antonia Russell Department of Marketing San Diego State University 5500 Campanile Drive San Diego, CA 92182-8239 619-594-0209 [email protected] 2 Introduction Recently, the realization that individual variations exist among audience members has prompted a more in-depth consideration of the television experience. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, researchers have started to explore how television viewers build relationships, loyalty, and connections with “their” shows, with the characters portrayed in the storylines, and with fellow audience members. In this chapter, we review the existing work on these more complex conceptualizations of television consumption and provide an overview of Television Connectedness. We present a conceptual model illustrating the types of relationships represented by Connectedness and propose a series of theoretical propositions relating Connectedness to various aspects of the psychology of the consumption of television programming. Television audience measurement began many years ago to support the sale of advertising space and to determine the success of programming strategy. For more than three decades now, Nielsen has dominated television ratings at the national and local levels with its measures of the audience size of network shows via its people meters - electronic set- top boxes that are placed in 5,000 homes around the country (Nielsen Media 2002). This and other traditional audience measures are often limited to “bulky”, global TV watching frequency that only consider sizes of audience segments and measure an audience as a homogenous sample in terms of viewing intensity (Beville, 1988). However, empirical evidence shows that people define “watching” as everything from “eating a snack while looking at the TV” or “sitting in a room where the TV set is on, but not looking at the screen or listening” (Clancey, 1994, 4) to instances when they might be intensely connected with the programs and the characters in it (Russell & Puto, 1999). Although these 3 consumption experiences are clearly different, such differences are not captured by quantity audience measures. We believe that viewers of current and popular television series such as Friends, ER, or The Drew Carey Show actually vary greatly in the ways in which and the extent to which they feel any relationship with the television programs they watch. Some viewers may become very connected to a program - visiting The Drew Carey Show’s website to see how they fare as a fan by playing the Drew or False trivia game, asking their hair stylist to recreate Friends Rachel’s latest hair color and style, or spending all of their extra cash to dress like the characters on The Practice. Others may be regular viewers, enjoying the entertainment of the show, but not noticing or remembering many specifics about the characters or the show’s storylines. Still others viewers may watch a program “just because it’s on” or simply to “pass the time away…when I’m bored” (Rubin & Perse, 1987, 258). Given this potential variation across audience members, the traditional reliance on the overall amount of television watching or audience size as a measure of television consumption seems to ignore important qualitative distinctions in the experience. Specifically, such measures do not account for the fact that audience size is not necessarily related to audience evaluation (Barwise & Ehrenberg, 1987). Additionally, the quantity of television watching does not account for variances in 1) how people watch and the motivations for watching television (Clancey, 1994), 2) emotional/affective responses to television programs (Pavelcheck, Antil, & Munch, 1988), and 3) the nature and strength of the overall individual-show relationships (Russell & Puto, 1999). 4 Conceptualizing Television Consumption Existing literature, particularly in the mass communications discipline, provides insights into the different facets of the consumption of TV programming. The uses and gratifications paradigm of communications research, for instance, has identified many benefits that viewers might seek from their television experience. In their research on the consumption of television news, Levy and Windhal (1984) stressed the need for entertainment/parasocial interaction, surveillance, and interpersonal utility. Rubin and Perse’s (1987) research on soap operas identified five viewing motives: exciting entertainment, pass time, voyeurism, escapist relaxation, information, and social utility. Lee and Lee (1995) also identified commitment to viewing, mood improvement, informational benefit, social learning, and social grease, as some of the key descriptors of viewers’ motivations for consumption of TV programs. While these approaches have been instrumental in identifying the motivations behind television consumption, they have yet to effectively demonstrate the effects of television on viewers beyond those explained by measures of overall television viewing. Important insights on television consumption also emerged with the advent of qualitative research methods in the fields of media and cultural studies. Ethnographic researchers like Morley (1980) and Livingstone (1990) offered rich accounts of television audiences, by exploring how viewers interpret and interact with television programs. Qualitative methods also served to understand how subcultures of consumption develop around television programs, with their rituals, paraphernalia, and participation in collective activities such as fan groups, conventions, and on the Internet (Kozinets 2001). Collectively, existing research suggests that when conceptualizing the consumption of television programs we should recognize that the experience of television extends beyond 5 the actual viewing experience and involves pre- as well as post-exposure phases (Levy & Windhal, 1984). Indeed, in addition to addressing responses that occur during the viewing of a program such as the emotional arousal or the informational benefits (Lee & Lee, 1995) or even active interactions with the program (Whetmore & Kielwasser, 1983), television consumption involves key activities that take place before watching a program such as selection and anticipation (Perse, 1990) as well as ways that viewers might use a program after they watch it, such as for its social utility (Morley, 1980). Therefore, it is more important to think of viewers’ interactions with television along more complex dimensions than “quantity” or “regularity” and to recognize that viewers’ relationships with television programs may vary in type and intensity. The contributions of the research serve as the basis for our efforts to define and measure Connectedness and its implications. What is Connectedness? In an attempt to provide a complex and qualitatively rich view of television audience experiences, Connectedness research has identified different types of relationships that develop between viewers and their programs. Russell and Puto (1999) initially introduced “Connectedness” as a multidimensional construct that captures the extent to which a television program influences the personal and social aspects of the viewer’s life. Through a qualitative assessment of focus groups, in-depth interviews, and Internet fan forums, they demonstrated that Connectedness captured a TV program’s contribution to a viewer’s self and social identity, beyond the mere watching experience. In more recent research, a Scale of Connectedness has been developed and validated (Russell, Norman, & Heckler, 2002) that focuses on the relationships that individual viewers develop with TV shows and the characters in those shows. Their instrument measures the intensity of the relationships that 6 individuals develop with “their” television show and thus concentrates on the relationships between the viewer, the program itself, and the characters portrayed in the program.1 Overall, this research on Connectedness proposes that several types of connections develop around television programs. Russell, Norman and Heckler (2002) established that Connectedness can involve connections drawn from self-show relationships as well as those developed with the characters in the show. Russell and Puto (1999) also emphasized the social embeddedness of the television experience and the importance of relationships within the community of viewers. Figure 1 (see Appendix) captures these different types of connections and provides a model of the connections that exist within the realm of television consumption. In this model, vertical connections reflect the relationships between viewers and their programs, para-social (or vertizontal) connections are those that emerge between viewers and the characters in the show, and horizontal connections are those that represent the social relationships between viewers (Frenzen & Davis, 1990). We discuss each dimension in more detail in the following sections. Vertical Connections: Viewer-Program Vertical connections are established between an individual viewer and the program itself. Such relationships may be facilitated in various ways. For example, it is common for dedicated viewers of a program to view each and every episode that airs. People typically rearrange their schedules or record episodes of “their show” to ensure