Media Interaction

Abstract

In order to analyse "person-to-person" involvement in mass media content between an audience member and a "media personality," the concept of media interaction, which implies that the audience member experiences "interaction" with, and in many cases identifies with persons in the media content, was defined, operationalized and used in an empirical study. Guiding the empirical analysis was a model of individual mass media use which brings together: (1) those social/psychological structures that affect need fulfillment possibilities, relating these to (2) mass media exposure, and (3) media interaction, and ending with (4) some consequences of the latter. The results shown how media interaction can be related to certain characteristics of the audience member's individual and social situation as well as to certain patterns regarding consumption of various types of media fare. The results also indicate that media interaction may possibly lead to increased dependency on the mass media as well as to tendencies to use the media, as opposed to other sources of "company," at times of loneliness.