Parasocial interaction is the name that Horton & Wohl coined to describe a viewer's attachmentent toward onscreen persona that they had never physically interacted with (1956). A. Rubin, Perse, & Powell (1985) continued the research and created the Parasocial Interaction Scale. The scale has become the standard in gauging parasocial interaction in various forms of media from soap operas to newscasts. The purpose of this study was top examine parasocial interaction and see if the concept could be applied to the current television trend of reality television. Simultaneously, the study also examined parasocial interaction and its possible connections to loneliness, interpersonal functional alternatives, television viewing motives, exposure, gender, age, and spokesperson selection. The data for this study was collected on the Internet website www.Survivorthesis.com. More than 450 respondents attempted the survey, but only 444 were viable due to incomplete data, repetition, and lack of proof of age. The results of the study found that there was a link between parasocial interaction and loneliness, exposure, spokesperson selection, and television viewing motives. There was no correlation found between parasocial interaction and interpersonal functional alternatives, age, gender.

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News agencies' ratings often hinge on the relationships their anchors build with viewers. Strong feelings of parasocial interaction, or these on-sided "relationships" audiences feel with on-screen media figures, have been found to be a strong predictor of media use. Local news stations have long been challenged with ways to encourage these feelings of parasocial interaction. With local news ratings consistently falling, news agencies must consider new ways to gain untapped markets and have begun reaching out to young adults. One way news agencies are attempting to do so is by utilizing social media websites like Facebook. The current study aims to explore the effects of Facebook on college-aged participants (N = 143) viewing a local newscast. Specifically, this study examines whether a brief exposure to a news anchor's Facebook profile can increase feelings of parasocial interaction with the anchor. Results indicate that while brief exposure to an anchor's Facebook page does not influence feelings of parasocial interaction, strong feelings of interpersonal attraction play a significant role in developing parasocial relationships. Future research and implications are also discussed. / Master of Arts

The current study aims to fill a deficiency in the literature on the effects of watching television, particularly “happy” and “not happy” shows, on social needs. Participants will first take a survey to report their loneliness and need for social interaction. Then, they will be randomly assigned into one of four television-viewing conditions (two involving the participants watching “happy” shows and two involving participants watching “not happy” shows). After viewing three episodes, participants will be re-tested on their loneliness and need for social interaction. It is hypothesized that after watching television, participants will report feeling less lonely and less likely to seek out social interaction with a larger effect for those watching happier shows than those watching less happy shows. If the study shows a reduction in loneliness and desire for social interaction after watching television, it could suggest that television is an outlet to offer those who are lonely or lacking in social support and can ease some of their discomfort and sadness.

The present study examined whether the exposure to likeable characters and educational content would affect the attitudes and behaviors of children after playing an educational children's game. The parasocial interaction (PSI) experienced by children was measured between children playing an educational game with interactive characters and those children who watched videos with the same character. This study also investigated the presence of mediated scaffolding provided by the interactive character in the educational game. A three group between subjects experimental design was employed. Subjects were randomly assigned to play an educational game, watch a video, or color on a tablet for 10 minutes. They were asked a series of questions about their experience on the tablet and the interaction with the character and then offered an educational prize or non-educational prize at the end. This study found that children in both the educational game and video condition reported experiencing a PSI with the character Alpha-Pig. Additionally, it was found that when kindergarteners were exposed to the educational game and the educational video, they chose an educational reward more often than the control group. This study also found that with this particular age group and the use of tablets, there were many findings that were impacted by a ceiling effect: children in all groups scored high on the educational worksheet and showed high levels of motivation for current and future learning. These findings support past PSI research, showing that children are experiencing a PSI while interacting with a likeable character in an educational game. Additionally, this study adds to the understanding of scaffolding, extending its effects from only personal interactions to mediated interactions. Ultimately, this study helps parents and teachers to understand the importance of likeable characters in educational games for children.

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Title: Robot or Human? The Marketing Phenomenon of Virtual Influencers: A Case Study About Virtual Influencers’ Parasocial Interaction on Instagram. Purpose: As it is already established that human influencers can create parasocial interaction with their followers, the purpose of this study is to explore parasocial interaction with virtual influencers through their perceived source credibility. Research Questions: How are consumers responding to interaction with virtual influencers on Instagram? What factors in source credibility facilitate parasocial interaction between the actors?  Method: This case study has conducted semi-structured interviews with Swedish consumers along with information collected on two virtual fashion influencers: LilMiquela and Noonoouri. Before the interviews, a pretest in interacting with the virtual influencers on Instagram was conducted. Afterwards, the transcripts have been analyzed in accordance to the presented operationalization and led to subcategories found to be relevant for the facilitation of PSI.  Conclusion: It was shown that consumers responded better to interaction with humanlike virtual influencers regarding their appearance and lifelike activities. Although, consumers also perceive their appearance and behavior as unpleasant and unrealistic when being too close to reality. Their perceived humanness affected the level of attractiveness, similarity and trustworthiness. As such, these are the factors that affect the degree of source credibility and thus facilitate PSI with them. Virtual influencers stand in front of a problem with both authenticity and transparency, as they are created and owned by companies. This has implications for their overall attractiveness, as authenticity is shown to be important for consumers on Instagram. However, lack of authenticity and transparency mostly implicates the trustworthiness of them, as the communicator is unknown. Virtual influencers are perceived to have a superior ability of being available online and personal in interaction. Therefore, it is shown to have a positive effect on the facilitation of PSI as it increases their attractiveness. However, it also indicates that they are controlled by a company which has a negative effect as it decreases the trustworthiness of them. To conclude, consumers’ virtual robot acceptance is proposed to be a precursor for developing PSI with virtual influencers in conjunction with the three factors in source credibility: trustworthiness, attractiveness and similarity.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Major Professor Not Listed / Based on the Uses and Gratifications (U&G) approach and Parasocial Interaction (PSI) theory, this study examined how people use live streaming platforms in China. Uniquely, it sought to understand the effect of romantic relationships on how and why people watch Host Live Shows (HLSs) and explored the relationships between Chinese audiences and live- streamers. Through an online survey, four viewing motivations were identified: Community Building, Ego-boost, Escape, and Bandwagon. Ego-boost is a relatively new motivation of media use, which means audiences watch and interact with HLSs to get compliments, self-confidence, self- validation, and ego-boosts. This study found audiences’ perceived realism and PSI were both very neutral. However, emotion projection of audiences onto streamers was observed – most viewers highly agree that streamers are their friends. Moreover, this study found the quality of interpersonal communication is affecting audiences’ HLS dependence and the degree of PSI, while the quantity of interpersonal communication might not be – the more satisfied a person is about his/her interpersonal communication, the heavier he/she depends on HLSs and the stronger his/her PSI is. As expected, the degrees of both romantic relationship status and romantic relationship satisfaction influence people’s HLS use. While compared with females, males are affected by romantic relationships more, both the status and satisfaction level. Lastly, when it comes to people’s romantic lives and social lives, HLSs are more likely to be used as alternatives to meet their unsatisfied needs from their “real partners.”

In this study, 248 university students completed questionnaires measuring their perceptions of and responses to their favorite and least desired characters in their favorite TV serial. Firstly, the respondents named their favorite serial character and then rated their favorite character on several attributes (physical attractiveness, positive social behavior, strength and humor) and indicated their level of agreement to the items of the parasocial interaction scale. Secondly, the participants named the character they desired the least in their favorite TV serial, rated that character on several attributes (physical repulsiveness, negative social behavior, weakness) and responded to the items of the negative parasocial interaction scale. Regression analyses predicting the sub-dimensions of parasocial interaction, namely companionship, empathic involvement and interest, and negative parasocial interaction, namely, boredom, anger, disturbance and amazement were performed. Different attributes of the characters were found to be important in predicting different dimensions of parasocial and negative parasocial interaction. The predictors of the sub-dimensions of parasocial interaction were determined. Significant predictors of companionship sub-scale were found as the positive social behavior, humor and strength of the character. In terms of empathic involvement, the perceived attributes of positive social behavior, physical attractiveness, strength and humor were found as significant predictors. For the interest sub-scale, the significant predictors were found as humor, strength and physical attractiveness. The newly-formed scale named as Negative Parasocial Interaction Scale was factor analyzed and interpretable factors were determined. The predictors of these factors were also examined. Significant predictors of boredom sub-scale were found to be the perceived weakness and physical repulsiveness of the character. Negative social behavior of the character was found to be a significant negative predictor of boredom sub-scale. In terms of anger sub-scale, only negative social behavior was found to be a significant predictor. For the disturbance sub-scale, significant predictors were found as negative social behavior, physical repulsiveness and weakness. Finally, the amazement sub-scale was significantly predicted only by the physical repulsiveness of the character. The implications of the findings, the strengths and weaknesses of the study are discussed.

This study examines the relationships between celebrities and their followers through social networking sites (SNS). A total of 239 participants completed the survey through MTurk. The results show that celebrities’ self-disclosure on SNS increases their Parasocial Interaction (PI) with fans. In addition, when a celebrity is perceived as trustworthy, s/he would have a higher PI with fans. Meanwhile, celebrities’ self-disclosure was not associated with trustworthiness. Furthermore, time spent on SNS was also not associated with PI. This study also found that type of celebrity does not determine the degree of influence they have on the followers. People have almost same parasocial interaction with their favorite celebrity whether the celebrity is a singer, athlete, actor, or any other. Additionally, there is no specific social networking site on which people have a stronger PI with celebrities. PI with celebrities on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and the other platforms is almost the same.