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In this work, the idea of transportation via advertising is explored, specifically, transportation by means of print advertising. Transportation has been demonstrated to occur when one is observing some form of traditional media and becomes “carried away” by the narrative. The concept of transportation itself, an explanation of the idea of grotesque, and the manner and extent to which transportation takes place when viewing certain print ads will be analyzed. Transportation is described as one of three styles (modes) of engagement observed in this study, the other two being identity based and what is termed “immersion”. First, a review of relevant literature on narrative transportation an the use of grotesque imagery (defined below) to facilitate tr3ansportation, or at least a more powerful brand experience in high-end print advertising is provided; then the author develops the research question. Next, a series of depth interviews a survey considers the effects of narrative imagery in drugstore cosmetics print advertising. Findings are discussed, and theoretical explanations are provided. The report concludes with managerial implications and suggestions for future research. / text

Master of Science / Department of Hospitality Management and Dietetics / Kevin L. Sauer / Understanding what motivates food handlers is important for developing effective interventions to increase compliance with food safety guidelines. Traditional food safety training techniques improve knowledge, but do not always result in improved performance in the workplace. Studies have consistently demonstrated the persuasive power of stories to influence beliefs and behavior. Transportation into a narrative world is a state of immersion into a story. When individuals are transported into the world of a story, they integrate story information into their real-world beliefs and behavior. In this study, foodservice employees were shown a brief video dramatizing a foodborne illness outbreak. Behavioral intent to comply with food safety guidelines was measured both before and after watching the video. Transportation into the story and story-specific beliefs were measured as well. Study results confirmed previous findings involving narrative transportation. Participants who were highly transported into the story of Glenda’s Horrible Day reported stronger food safety behavioral intent, specifically in areas highlighted by the story, after viewing the video. Highly transported participants also reported stronger agreement with food safety messages after viewing the video. For participants who experienced low transportation into the story, there were no significant increases in behavioral intent or story-specific beliefs after viewing the video. Highly transported participants were those who (a) were familiar with the story topic, (b) were mentally engaged with the story, (c) responded emotionally to the story, and (d) identified with and felt empathy for the story characters.

Conversations concerning the missional posture of 1 Peter have been dictated largely by the now (in)famous debate between David Balch’s assimilationist position over and against John Elliott’s more sectarian position. More recent work has sought to bridge the gap between Balch and Elliott with a variety of more nuanced positions such as Miroslav Volf’s “Soft Difference”. Most of the discussion revolves around the practicalities of cultural engagement and what it might mean for church members to interact with the world as “Christians” in an increasingly hostile environment. The present thesis takes a step back from the coal face of missional engagement to focus on how that mission is shaped. More particularly, I am concerned with how 1 Peter utilises the language of divine calling (καλέω) that appears in five specific instances (1:13–21; 2:4–10; 2:18–25; 3:8–17; 5:6–14), alongside central events and motifs from the Old Testament, to cultivate a narrative that forges a distinct Christian identity and mission, that has its basis in Israel’s history and the life of Christ. Our concern with narrative and cultural interaction leads us to consider the relevant Petrine texts, through the dual lenses of Social Identity and Narrative Transportation theories which reveal how various groups interact, and how narratives shape actions and beliefs respectively. I argue that through the language of calling, and with the assistance of key OT motifs, 1 Peter seeks to develop a Christian identity that might be best described as “elect sojourners”; that believers are those who are elect of God and yet rejected by the world. This identity manifests itself in a life of “resident-alien-ness”—in the world, yet no longer of the world—that consequently leads to various forms of suffering. Amid such suffering, 1 Peter calls the church to a priestly ministry—representing God to the people, and the people to God—through a life geared towards blessing, even when such a life leads to suffering. This is the life to which the Anatolian believers have been called: a life of holiness as a priestly community, committed to the gracious endurance of suffering, and of blessing those who would oppose them.

The video game is, as we know, one of the most popular and quickly growing mediums in the United States and the world in whole. Because of its success, the video game industry has been able to use their resources to advance technology of many kinds. Two very important technologies which have been advanced by the game industry are artificial intelligence and graphic design. With advances in the videogame industry constantly increasing the realism of gaming, those who game are finding themselves rapidly transported into new worlds. The Combination of the elements of narrative transportation, character identification, a videogames ability to enable mediated experience create a situation in which players may be able to rapidly learn very complex concepts. This project begins with a classification of videogame moral systems, both on a theoretical and logistic level. Given this understanding of how videogames themselves define moral involvement, the project then seeks to answer how the players understand their own moral involvement in the game by directly involving player/participants in the conversation. The data produced strongly suggests that videogames have great potential to teach even the most complex concepts of right and wrong to players.

The video game is, as we know, one of the most popular and quickly growing mediums in the United States and the world in whole. Because of its success, the video game industry has been able to use their resources to advance technology of many kinds. Two very important technologies which have been advanced by the game industry are artificial intelligence and graphic design. With advances in the videogame industry constantly increasing the realism of gaming, those who game are finding themselves rapidly transported into new worlds. The Combination of the elements of narrative transportation, character identification, a videogames ability to enable mediated experience create a situation in which players may be able to rapidly learn very complex concepts. This project begins with a classification of videogame moral systems, both on a theoretical and logistic level. Given this understanding of how videogames themselves define moral involvement, the project then seeks to answer how the players understand their own moral involvement in the game by directly involving player/participants in the conversation. The data produced strongly suggests that videogames have great potential to teach even the most complex concepts of right and wrong to players.

Since the time humans have developed speech, storytelling has been a crucial part of society. Its values lie in the ability to communicate potential dangers about the world to generating laughter and tears as a form of entertainment. A central theme in stories that continues to reoccur over the course of history is the story of the hero. Carl Jung theorizes that the hero is an archetype in the collective unconscious, which explains humans’ innate inclinations towards heroes. Throughout history, the forms of storytelling have evolved due to technological and intellectual advancements. In modern times, film has risen as the leading modality for storytelling. The central theme of heroes continues to reoccur in this modality and is testified by the dominance of action hero movies in the box office. The purpose of this paper is to develop a model that details how to craft a compelling action hero movie based on empirical psychological research. The paper defines a compelling action hero movie as a movie with an action hero protagonist that maximizes narrative transportation, persuasion and enjoyment. By dissecting the construction of the film into its plot, character/diction, theme, melody and spectacle, the paper develops the PCTMS-NTPE Model that maximizes narrative transportation, persuasion and enjoyment in each aforementioned components. The beneficiaries of this paper are filmmakers and individuals who want to understand the inner psychological mechanics of a compelling action hero movie.

When healthcare professionals perceive patients’ symptoms through media or media technologies, how do they respond to them? Many studies have explored the effects of the film, novels, music on empathy and recently a few studies started focusing on the virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) that visualize patients’ invisible symptoms and their effects on the empathy of medical students as future healthcare professionals; however, their psychological processes are not fully elaborated yet. This dissertation was designed to detail the psychological processes evoked by AR that visually mimics migraine symptoms and uses presence and narrative transportation to increase empathy. A mixed-method study was conducted to untangle the psychological processes of presence, narrative transportation, and empathy by exploring their existence, nature, strength, and meanings. Two treatment conditions were created: a head-mounted display (HMD) as a high immersive condition and a handheld display as a low immersive condition with a focus on media immersiveness as the degree to which AR submerges its users’ perceptual system. The study participants were a small (n=27), but motivated group of medical student learners. In the quantitative results, AR was not visually immersive enough to evoke presence as a perceptual illusion of non-mediation directly since there were systematic effects of media immersiveness of AR on presence, but there were no significant effects of media immersiveness on presence when controlling for medical students’ tendencies and abilities. It was assumed that presence occurred as a constructive perceptual process indirectly mediated through medical students’ tendencies and abilities. In a canonical correlation and stepwise regression, the maximal correlation among immediate sense of presence and narrative transportation and situational empathy revealed an optimal degree of perceptual involvement that leads to sympathy as a positive state of situational empathy. Another canonical correlation and stepwise regression among the traits of immersive tendency and physician empathy and situational empathy showed that there is also an optimal degree of medical students’ sensitivity trait that leads to sympathy as a relatively stable situational empathy. Since, as interview results showed, medical students’ motives were prosocial, it is possible to interpret distress or sadness as another type of situational empathy entailing caring about others. In the qualitative results, there were close relationships between media environment and presence. An immersive virtual environment (IVE) via AR, which affords users the perceptual or embodied feeling of physically being surrounded by its represented environment, was closely related to sensorimotor perceptual processing of presence. A continuous immersive mixed environment (IME) via AR, which affords users the imaginatively situated feeling by mixed reality, extended presence in the actual environment through the process of narrative transportation and affect. The contributions of the findings to the theory and research literature regarding presence are discussed along with recommendations regarding practical contributions to ongoing efforts to enhance healthcare professionals’ empathy and thereby effectiveness in treating patients with migraines and other conditions and illnesses. / Media & Communication

Nearly every element of human life has a strong narrative component, from music (Kramer, 1991, McClary, 1997) to psychology (McAdams, 2008; Sarbin, 1986) to museums (Austin, 2010) and beyond. In the marketing of products, particularly products online, narratives may be a severely underutilized resource. As the global pandemic has shifted consumption increasingly online (Ecola et al., 2020, Melton, 2020), marketers are challenged to find new ways to make their product appealing to consumers without the ability of physical experiences that help connect a consumer to a product (Thaler, 1980; Peck and Shu, 2009). One way in which product attachment and differentiation may be generated is through product-level narratives. The influence of narratives at a product level, particularly in online product descriptions, has yet to be explored. In this dissertation, I use the theoretical framework of Narrative Transportation Theory to examine the impact of narrative-based product descriptions on consumers’ responses to products. Specifically, I show that product-level narratives can positively influence consumer’s attitudes toward a product and can even create the impression that a product is customized to an individual. Through these effects, I show that product-level narratives may increase consumers’ attachment to products and their willingness to pay a premium price for these products. I also demonstrate that product-level narratives may be used to create perceptions of product personality types. In particular, I look at whether the personality of the main character in a narrative may be imprinted onto the product in the narrative. Furthermore, I seek to extend the bounds of Narrative Transportation Theory by examining product names and images that are evocative of narrative thought. I show that while product names may not be enough to stimulate consumer transportation among readers, product images may stimulate consumer transportation into a narrative and influence consumers’ willingness to pay a premium price for a product through the same mechanisms as a textual narrative product description. Lastly, implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The aim of this study is to compare how transmedia narrative transportation theory (TNT) can be used on social plattform by influencers to how they are doing it. Social platforms are a relatively new phenomenon that is constant evolving both technical and how it´s used by the society. It therefore needs more and deeper research on the subject for increased and broader understanding. Our study investigates solely social platforms where the TNT theory has not previously been implemented.  During the studies we used a netnographic approach to observe two influencers who uses different types of social media platforms to connect with stakeholders in different ways. Our aim of this study is to answer the question “How do influencers use social platforms and can it compare to TNT in their interactions with stakeholders and what value this generate?”.  What our study reveals is that social platforms with their design and several functions creates a space for communication and interaction, which is a basis for influencers to achieve stakeholder engagement and co-creation of meaning. Both influencers who we observed during the study, works with social platforms in a way that can be compared to how TNT is used. Our study also shows that an influencer with a storyworld that share stories with a clearer start, climax and ending, generate more stakeholder engagement.