Entertainment Studies 2014 Abstracts
Da Ali G Show: A Critique on Identity in Times of Satiric Infotainment • Paul Alonso, Georgia Tech • This article explores how British comedian Baron Cohen used the journalistic and marginalized configuration of his characters (Ali G, a white, wannabe gangster from the middle-class London suburb of Staines who hosted a TV show; Bruno, an exhibitionist, gay Austrian fashion reporter obsessed with celebrity culture; and Borat, an anti-Semitic, sexist correspondent from Kazakhstan who violated social taboos with his outrageous viewpoints and behavior) to develop a postmodern structural critique on media spectacle, mediated-reality and identity in today’s western societies. This article goes beyond the notion of “satiric infotainment” as “fake news” to show how the “journalistic” component of Baron Cohen’s characters becomes an initial (but essential) departure to develop a complex, multilayered social critique.
Emotional Responses to Savior Films: Concealing Privilege or Appealing to our Better Selves? • Erin Ash, Clemson University • This research explores the effects of “White savior” films, best described as films in which a White character displays extraordinary acts of kindness and selflessness towards one or more minority characters. The study employed an experimental design (N = 149) to test which of two competing perspectives best explains how exposure to White savior narratives influences racial attitudes and perceptions of racial inequality. Specifically, it proposes a set of hypotheses that reflect critical arguments in which savior films produce negative effects by representing Black communities as morally deficient and by implying a state of racial harmony in our society. By contrast, a set of hypotheses representing the perspective of moral psychologists in which elevation elicits prosocial outcomes that may counter racism is tested. Finally, this study compares films portraying White saviors to those that feature Black saviors to explore (a) whether White privilege can be maintained even in the absence of White characters, and (b) how responses to these films may differ.
The Myth and Ritual of “The Room”: The birth of a cult classic • Jesse Benn • This paper traces the history of the film “The Room,” in an effort to understand how cult classics and movies that draw communal ritual participation come to be a part of pop culture. After this history, from its initial failure to its current status as a cult classic, an autoethnographic observation of the author’s attendance of a participatory ritualistic viewing of the film is presented. Finally, the film is considered in light of digital bullying.
How body, heterosexuality and patriarchal entanglements mark non-human characters as male in CGI-animated children’s films • Jessica Birthisel, Bridgewater State University • The lead characters in the CGI-animated children’s films produced by Pixar and DreamWorks Animation are overwhelming male, and more often than not, they are not human. This simultaneously reflects a long history of anthropomorphization in animated storytelling and a breakaway from Disney’s princess-centric female focus. Given these characters’ non-human status, how do animators map biological maleness and masculine gender norms onto these characters? This qualitative textual analysis of the studios’ films produced between roughly 2000 – 2010 suggests that these anthropomorphized characters were constructed as male and masculine through three simultaneous textual strategies: codes of bodily masculinity, sexual masculinity and social masculinity. The project considers the implication of these constructions of hegemonic masculinity for audiences of children, building on the premise that major global companies such as Pixar, Disney, and DreamWorks are “teaching machines” (Giroux, 1996) and “agents of socialization” that teach children the “right” way to conceptualize the self and others (Lugo-Lugo & Bloodsworth-Lugo, 2009).
The Princess: Heterosexism in Animated Films • Nichole Bogarosh, Whitworth University • Women are othered in current animated films in such a way that exhibits a sort of backlash or counter-narrative to gains made by the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s to early 1980s. Instead, a retro ideology is presented while non-substantiated nods to feminism are present. This paper explores the patriarchal ideology regarding the heterosexual romance-marriage-family priority for women that is presented in a sampling of the top-grossing animated films from 2000 to 2012 and how these messages work to continue the subordination and oppression of women.
Scandal and Sharknado Are Not Alike: Individual Factors Differentiating Social Media Opinion Sharers • Joseph Cabosky • Entertainment research has attempted to predict consumer behavior from the volume and sentiment of social media activity. Yet, real world examples imply that not all sharers are alike. After surveying four large Southeastern Universities (N= 3,079), this study found significant differences in sharing habits when considering valence, gender, race, platform, and relationship to an entertainment product, indicating a need for more nuanced measures that take individual and community factors into account.
Binge-Watching: Transportation into Narrative TV Content • Lindsey Conlin, The University of Alabama; Adam Sharples, The University of Alabama • The relatively new ability of viewers to choose to continuously consume episodes of TV shows changes the experience of watching TV narratives. The act of watching several consecutive episodes of a TV show is known as binge-watching, and the current study sought to investigate how binge-watching affected viewers. Using transportation theory, this study demonstrated that binge-watching increased transportation into a narrative; increased transportation results in increased enjoyment. Additionally, results indicate that different methods of watching a TV show also affects transportation, as viewers who binge-watched to catch up on old episodes of a TV show before watching new episodes week-by-week experienced more transportation than any other kind of TV watching experience.
Sand Dunes, Sajats, and CBS: Analysis of The Amazing Race in the Middle East • Tanner Cooke • This paper analyzes the popular factual entertainment television show The Amazing Race. Through a textual analysis of episodes that took place in the Middle East and North Africa, this study highlights problems of representation within the factual entertainment genre of television production. While previous publications have extolled the program for its ability to represent local people authentically, this paper argues that the Middle East and North Africa fall into the classic Orientalist tropes of representation through a supposed non-scripted reality television portrayal. Thus, this paper uses a framework of postcolonial studies and mimics previous research by Muspratt and Steeves (2012), which addresses issues of representation through the categories of erasure, agency, and hybrid encounters, and concludes with findings contradictory to the previous authors and attempts to argue that The Amazing Race problematically represents the Middle Eastern and North African regions, cultures, and peoples.
The Need to Achieve: Players’ Perceptions and Uses of Meta-Game Rewards for Video Game Consoles • Carlos Cruz; Michael Hanus; Jesse Fox, Ohio State University • Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation overlay meta-game reward systems on their video games. Little research has examined how players use these systems. Gamers participated in focus groups to discuss meta-game reward systems. Participants indicated meta-game reward systems succeed in giving positive feedback about game play and boosting self-esteem and social status. Though some research (e.g., self-determination theory) suggests that extrinsic rewards weaken players’ intrinsic motivation, our findings suggest players see these systems as intrinsically motivating.
What’s love got to do with it? Analyzing moral evaluations about love and relationships in Gossip Girl • Merel van Ommen; Serena Daalmans, Radboud University Nijmegen; Addy Weijers; Rebecca de Leeuw • The current study is based on qualitative interviews (N = 48), that aimed to provide insight in the grounds of moral evaluations of various types of mediated romantic relationships in an episode of Gossip Girl. The results demonstrate that the romantic ideal, even though almost all viewers formulated critical nuances, proved to be the most appealing for the majority of the viewers, regardless if their moral evaluation was primarily text driven or driven by personal characteristics.
Political Culture, Critique and the Girl Reporter in Netflix’s House of Cards • Trevor Diehl, The University of Texas at Austin • Netflix’s adaption of Michael Dobb’s political thriller, House of Cards (HOC) represents a contemporary incarnation of the paranoid-conspiracy style of politics in film. This paper shows how the fictional relationship between female political reporter Zoe Barnes and Congressman Francis Underwood appeals to the audience’s cynicism and distrust of politics and the news media. Through a narrative analysis of key settings, characters and themes, this paper finds that while HOC offers a dramatic critique of the political culture in Washington DC, its use of Hollywood cliché undermines any serious critique of the role of the press in politics. The series also offers a post-feminist orientation toward the role of women in journalism.
Media Genre Preferences Predicted by Current Mood and Salient Media Uses • Elise Stevens; Francesca Dillman Carpentier, University of North Carolina • This study combines the hedonic motivations argued in mood management theory with the needs-oriented motivations argued in uses-and-gratifications approaches to explain self-reported media genre preferences. A survey of young adults (N=216) reported their current mood, their motivations for using media, and their liking of various media genres. People in depressed moods indicated little affinity for action/adventure. People feeling hostile were particularly favorable toward animation; liking animation also related to using media as a means of escape. People in positive moods indicated a liking of drama, as well as sports. Liking of comedy was related to using media for entertainment and relaxation, irrespective of mood state. Using media for social interaction was positively related to liking romance. Using media for arousal was related to liking sports. Findings are discussed in terms of preference formation, experience with media in fulfilling needs, and methodological considerations regarding bias in self-reports due to activation of current affect.
Market matters: How market-driven is The Newsroom? • Patrick Ferrucci, Bradley University; Chad Painter, Eastern New Mexico University • This study examines whether the news show depicted on HBO’s award-winning The Newsroom practices what McManus defined as market-driven journalism. McManus posited that organizations practicing market-driven journalism compete in the four markets he describes in his market theory for news production. This study found that The Newsroom depicts an organization that does indeed practice market-driven journalism, but journalists constantly fight to stop. These results are then interpreted through the lens of market theory for news production.
Postmodern Hybrid Identities: A Longitudinal Content Analysis of U.S. Top-Chart Hip-Hop Song Lyrics, 1980–2013 • Shawn Gadley, University of North Texas; Koji Fuse, University of North Texas • A longitudinal content analysis of top-chart hip-hop songs’ lyrics produced between 1980 and 2013 was conducted to investigate the degree and progression of the paradoxical juxtaposition, or postmodern hybridity, of oppositional modernist identities in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, sexuality, and economic lifestyle. Although hybrid oppositional identities related to race/ethnicity and gender did not increase over time, those of sexual orientation, sexuality, and economic lifestyle increased over time. In addition, materialist identities positively affected the hybridity of identities related to sexual orientation and sexuality, but not that of gender- and race/ethnicity-related identities. Overall, the present research found increasing sexualization of hip-hop songs along with intensified materialism.
Increasingly Violent but Still Sexy: An Analysis of Female Protagonists in U.S. and Hindi Films • Jannath Ghaznavi; Katherine Grasso • The present study examined the depiction of female protagonists in promotional posters and trailers from top-grossing U.S. and Hindi films from 2004-2013, focusing on stereotypes, sexualization, and aggressive behavior. Hindi film protagonists tended to be more sexualized, physically fit, and less prominently featured compared to protagonists in U.S. films with no systematic changes in stereotypical portrayals over time. Female protagonists were similar in their roles as attractive love interests and increasingly aggressive behavior over time.
The Professional Fan Fiction of Chuck • Timothy R. Gleason, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh • Chuck was an action-comedy show with science fiction influences and the product of a Generation X upbringing that represents media influences and social conditions. Movies like Tron, WarGames, Weird Science and Gotcha serve as the foundation for Chuck’s cool geek/spy main character. Influenced by the work of James W. Carey and Henry Jenkins, this study uses the concepts of ritual communication from American Studies and participatory fan culture of cultural studies to explain these influences.
Binge Watching Alone Together?: An exploratory study of college students’ motivations for marathon TV viewing • Geoffrey Graybeal, Texas Tech University; Nicholas Doherty, University of Hartford; Lynne Kelly, University of Hartford • This exploratory study, grounded in the Uses and Gratifications perspective, conducted focus groups with college communication students about binge viewing. We examined individual motivations for binge viewing, their binge viewing practices, and how they affectively experience binge viewing. Findings indicate binge viewing fulfills several key gratifications for college students, that genre and mechanism play important roles in determining what and how to binge watch, and that subjects engaged in binge viewing have mixed emotions.
‘Time Ladies’ and female fandom: User-Generated Content in the Doctor Who Universe • Jin Kim; Megan Readey • Over this past half-century, Doctor Who, a BBC’s hit drama has grown from a small, family oriented television series to an industry of its own. The most amazing aspect of this show however, is the fandom. While the show went through a 16-year hiatus, it was User-Generated Content (UGC) created by the fans that kept the stories and interest in Doctor Who alive. With the 2005 reboot of the show, it is the first time since 1963 that lifelong members of the fandom hold power as show runners, writers, and characters. This study aims to develop theoretical concerns in fandom study by exploring historical-cultural meanings of Doctor Who from contemporary cultural contexts. More specifically, with a survey of more than 100 Doctor Who fans and a textual analysis of UGC by the fans, we explore how seemingly marginalized fan group, women are participating and self-expressing in Doctor Who fandom.
Political Cynicism and the Shows around the News: Examining News Satire and Partisan Talk and their Relationship to Political Cynicism • Kate Renner, University of Central Florida; Rene Naranjo, University of Central Florida; Joseph Raditch, University of Central Florida; Jessica Hoffman, University of Central Florida; William Kinnally, University of Central Florida • During the past decade, researchers have been exploring the effects of political satire on the attitudes of viewers in the U.S. The purpose of this study was to use the theory of cultivation as a framework for comparing exposure to satirical news shows like The Daily Show with exposure to cable opinion (partisan) talk shows like The O’Reilly Factor and examine their relationships to political affiliation, political cynicism, and attitudes toward government and media. This survey-based project involved a convenience sample of 404 college students who completed measures of media exposure, attitudes toward the federal government, perceptions of media credibility, and political cynicism. Results suggest that exposure to satirical news programs like The Daily Show were not related to negative attitudes toward the federal government or political cynicism. However, they were negatively correlated to perceptions of national media credibility. Conservative partisan talk program exposure was associated with negative attitudes toward the federal government but not media credibility or political cynicism. Independents were observed to report greater political cynicism than Democrats or Republicans. Implications are discussed.
The dual role of morally ambiguous characters: Examining the effect of morality salience on narrative responses • K. Maja Krakowiak, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs; Mina Tsay-Vogel, Boston University • Using social comparison theory as a framework, two 2×2 experiments examined the effects of a person’s self-perception on responses to characters with varying levels of morality. Study 1 found that individuals whose vices were made salient felt more positive affect and enjoyment after reading a narrative featuring a morally ambiguous character (MAC) than one featuring a bad character. Study 2 found that individuals whose virtues were made salient felt more positive affect and enjoyment after reading a narrative featuring a good character than one featuring a MAC. Findings thus indicate that morality salience is an important factor determining responses to different character types. Avenues for future research and theoretical implications of the dual role of MACs are discussed.
Active Viewing: Chinese Audiences’ Interpretation of American Television Dramas • Yang Liu • The cross-border flow of television programs has enriched audience reception research with integrating the active audience paradigm, which believes that the audience has the capability of interpreting foreign media contents in an active way. Two main theoretical approaches have been utilized by television studies of active audience paradigm. Audience-privileging approach focuses on television viewing through placing audience on the center. Text-centered approach pays attention to semiotic analysis of television texts. With more and more American television dramas having been introduced to China, Chinese audiences have initiated their active reception and interpretation of these exotic cultural products. Focusing on this phenomenon, this study explored Chinese audiences’ interpretation of American television dramas based on Roland Barthes’ elaboration on myth-making.
An analysis of femininity: How popular female characters in the media portray contemporary womanhood • Stephanie Roussell, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center; Lisa Lundy • The impact of the media on adolescent girls has received greater theoretical, legal and societal focus over the last few decades. Several studies link the development of female gender identities, healthy sexual activity and self-efficacy to how the media portray women. Restrictive or unrealistic themes of womanhood or femininity in the media can impact a young girl’s social construction of identity and provide limited examples of what it means to be a woman in today’s society. This study qualitatively examines femininity in contemporary media by analyzing—via textual analysis—how popular female characters embody, portray and promote different conceptualizations of femininity. Do these characters portray more traditional styles of femininity? Or do they embrace the gains of Third Wave feminism and promote more contemporary versions of femininity? Results suggest a shift toward contemporary femininity, but also reveal lingering stereotypes in a character’s emotional and cultural behaviors.
Man without a country: How character complexity primes racial stereotypes • Ben Miller, University of Minnesota • This study examined the role character complexity plays in racial attitudes of television viewers. Previous research suggests that stereotypes and counter-stereotypes play vastly different roles in how people process information. Stereotypes act as automatic cues that call up pre-made judgments upon exposure to them. Meanwhile, counter-stereotypes actually work on a conscious processing level, forcing viewers to think more deeply about individuals when presented with them, skipping the automatic recall mechanism all together. By layering counter-stereotypes and stereotypes together in the same stimulus, this study examined whether the existence of there would be an appreciable difference between viewers exposed to solely stereotypes or both using both implicit and explicit measures. To investigate the relationships between character complexity and racial attitudes, this study used a 2 x 2 factorial experimental design featuring 99 students and the data was analyzed using factorial ANOVAs. In addition to the character complexity variable, an additional exposure variable measured differences between single or repeated exposures of the stimulus videos. This experiment used an Implicit Association Test, a Positive Attitudes Towards Blacks scale and a Black Stereotypes scale to measure racial attitudes. Findings show there was no difference in positive, negative or implicit attitudes between the two complexity conditions. And furthermore, there was also no demonstrated difference between the single- and repeated-exposure conditions.
First Listen: Discovering New Music through Online Social Networks • Adam Monk, The Ohio State University; John Dimmick, The Ohio State University • This study examines the diffusion of new music through online social networks. Given the lack of theoretical research involving diffusion theory applied to online social networks, a research study was designed. A 32-question survey was administered to 460 undergraduate students enrolled in Communication courses at a large, Midwestern university. Results from data analysis provided evidence that individuals scoring higher on a new music opinion leadership scale will be more likely to listen to new music, discover new music, use electronic recommendation agents, acquire new music that is evaluated positively after sampling and give recommendations about new music.
The Caste of the Cast: The South Asian “Model Minority” on Broadcast Television Sitcoms • Jane O’Boyle, University of South Carolina • In the world of television entertainment, Americans of African, Hispanic and East Asian heritage have endured decades of representations that were marginalized or nonexistent. While minority characters are in overall decline on American broadcast networks, the South Asian immigrant from India is emerging as the most visible ethnic culture in television shows, at the expense of Hispanics, African Americans, and other Asian immigrants. There has been an increase in the number of South Asian characters on situation comedies, such The Office, Parks and Recreation, The Big Bang Theory, The New Girl and How I Met Your Mother. These representations provide new racist material for American entertainment purposes. This study examines the shift in minority characters in prime time television through textual analysis of three characters in current highly rated network comedy programs. These characters are well-educated and hard-working, but their “otherness” still keeps them from attaining the levels of class afforded white characters in these shows. These elements combine to make South Asians in the United States the “model minority:” successful enough to poke fun at their culture, but sufficiently alien to use these qualities against their achieving class parity. The way we frame this ethnic group may also deepen perspectives of all minorities in our society, as entertainment media is a prime source of information about other cultures and has proved to have effects on racist stereotypes in the real world.
He Said, She Laughed: Sex Differences in Joke Telling and Humor Appreciation • Patrice Oppliger • Past research has shown shifting trends in gender differences in the creation and appreciation of humor. We revisited the issue in light of women’s advancement in society and changes in the culture of female comedy. We conducted an experiment in which we manipulated the sex of the joke teller and in some cases the joke target. Overall, outcomes of the data analysis were much nuanced, rather than demonstrating straight forward sex differences. The content of the jokes (e.g., sexual tone, aggression level, and sexist stereotyping) appeared to have the most influence in terms of sex differences in humor appreciation. While males still prefer aggressive and disgust joke more than females, it appears in some cases, female comedians have gained ground on being rewarded for telling jokes beyond clever stories or self-disparaging jokes.
Getting My “V” Fix: Developing PSRs with HBO’s “True Blood” through Emerging Social Media Platforms • Harkeet Pannu; Lance Porter • Through this study, we attempt to discover how social media platforms increase parasocial interactions – a one-way interaction characterized by non-reciprocation of interactions – among viewers and television show characters. Specifically, we examined Twitter usage and the intensity of parasocial relationships between the viewer and characters of HBO’s vampire drama “True Blood.” A total of 169 social media users, predominantly females between the ages 18 and 32, answered questions through an online survey discussing their Twitter and viewing habits, the outlets with which these viewers engage to discuss the television show and how they feel about the show itself. The results show that those viewers who do engage in discussions online tend to have more intense parasocial relationships with the show and characters than those who use viewers who use Twitter less.
Law & Disorder: The Portrayal of Mental Illness in American Crime Dramas • M. Scott Parrott, The University of Alabama; Caroline Titcomb Parrott, The University of Alabama • A quantitative content analysis examined stereotypes and counter-stereotypes concerning mental illness in fictional crime-based dramas that aired on American television between 2010 and 2013. Reinforcing stereotypes, characters labeled mentally ill were significantly more likely to be perpetrators of crime and of violence toward themselves or others. Nevertheless, the analysis also found evidence of counter-stereotypes concerning physical appearance, socioeconomic status, and general behavior.
Dissolving the Other: Orientalism, consumption, and Katy Perry’s insatiable “Dark Horse” • Rosemary Pennington, Indiana University School of Journalism • Pop star Katy Perry is increasingly under fire for performance choices she makes. Most recently Perry stirred up controversy when she destroyed a necklace with “Allah” – the Arabic word for god – on it in her “Dark Horse” video. What received less attention was her destruction of Orientalized men of color. This qualitative textual analysis examines how Orientalism manifests in Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” video as well as what kind of imaginary Perry attempts to create.
A Cosmic Flop Revisited: Battlestar Galactica 1978 • Camille Reyes • In 1978, the original Battlestar Galactica was the most expensive show ever produced for television. It only lasted one season on ABC. This essay offers some explanations for its failure through cultural and industrial histories of American television. Using popular and trade publications of the period, the author first argues that an ill-timed business decision, coupled with the departure of programming legend Fred Silverman from the network, resulted in serious problems for the nascent series. The author critiques the executive decisions around special effects. Various narrative and genre expectations are also addressed. The essay also explores the tensions between censors and the networks, tracing influences on television content during the period. Television failures are common, yet this particular story has enjoyed a rich life after cancellation. In a self-reflexive passage, the author presents a portrait of the show’s popularity with children and offers cultural and economic reasons why the newly re-imagined series, airing from 2004 – 2009, fared so much better than the original.
Kaun Banega Crorepati: The Indian Gameshow and its Glocalization • Enakshi Roy, Ohio University • The game show Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) changed the entertainment scene in India. Using Textual Analysis in the context of “glocalization,” the study examines how cultural signifiers were used to localize the British gameshow Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? for India. Analyzing a sample of episodes through four seasons, the study identifies specific cultural references such as cricket, Bollywood, Indian history and mythology or religion; presence of famous movie stars as hosts, focus on contestants’ stories, and preaching, and examines how each of these elements made the show uniquely Indian.
Collaborative Starvation and the Invisible Podium: Using Twitter as a “How To” Guide to Eating Disorders • Stephanie Hovis, Kennesaw State University; Erin Ryan, Kennesaw State University • This thematic analysis is an exploration of one anonymous Twitter user’s documentation of her struggles with eating disorder(s) over the course of eight months. Examining the language and images in @Anaforlife55’s tweets, as well as her interactions with other anonymous Twitter users also battling food demons, the goal of this paper is to determine whether the notion that eating disorders can be considered a contagious disease has merit. Whereas eating disorders are not developed quickly through a sharing of germs in the classical sense of contagion, the ways in which the media, communication scholars, and the infected discuss the “whys” and, more importantly, the “hows” can spread just as easily. This paper examines the romanticized and competitive, yet simultaneously tight-knit, support system that encourages and enables eating disordered brothers and sisters to feed their disease via social media. @Anaforlife55 is quickly approaching her tenth year with an eating disorder, but this eight-month snapshot of her journey before and after entering rehabilitation provides support for the “contagious disease” argument. Themes are discussed in terms of language, relationships, and visual elements such as photos of various body parts.
Demographic Congruency, Advertisement, and Television Shows: The Effect of Advertisement Viewing on Television Show Evaluation • Jeremy Saks, Ohio University • This thesis examines demographic congruency between television shows and advertisements and the effects that it has on program evaluation. Two groups of college- aged participants watched the same popular television show for their age group but some saw commercials targeted at them while others saw advertisements for products and services for elderly people. Theoretically based on Mandler’s discrepancy/evaluation theory, results showed that individuals exposed to demographically incongruent advertisements explicitly evaluated the television show less favorably than those that saw congruent commercials. Additionally, an implicit associations test found marginally significant and contrasting results where the demographically incongruent advertisements led to a higher liking among those who viewed them along with the show. The results, as well as potential explanations, are discussed.
Is Grey’s Anatomy on the Wave? A Feminist Textual Analysis of Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang • Lauren Wilks, Trinity University • The traditional portrayal of women in the media concerns feminist scholars because of the repeated sexualization, subordination, and underrepresentation of females (Collins, 2011). This feminist textual analysis seeks to determine whether Grey’s Anatomy portrays female characters with more complex gender roles than those typically portrayed in media. This study finds that while there were more instances of third wave feminism overall, in crisis situations a post-feminist reversion to traditional feminine roles sometimes occurred.
Exploring the Interplay of Flow, Psychological Transportation and Presence in Narrative Advergaming • Lu Zheng • As one of the fastest-growing formats of branded entertainment, advergaming has been increasingly embraced by international marketers in their brand building endeavors. The current study seeks to simultaneously gauge the impacts of flow, narrative transportation and presence on one’s game attitude, brand attitude, and purchase intention in the narrative advergaming context. The findings indicated that among the three psychological processes, transportation tends to play a decisive role in determining one’s affective and conative responses.
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