Schramm Holger, Liebers Nicole, Biniak Laurenz, Dettmar Franca
Department of Media and Business Communication, Institute Human-Computer-Media, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2024 Sep 26;15:1418564. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1418564. eCollection 2024.
Parasocial phenomena are among the most popular and best-researched topics in media reception and effects research. The research can now look back on a history of over 65 years and has experienced another significant boom in recent years. Between 2016 and 2020, more studies were published than in the entire previous 60 years. This descriptive review builds directly on the seminal review by Liebers and Schramm for the years 1956 to 2015 and is based on 281 English-and German-language studies published from 2016 to 2020. The following three research questions guided the review: How are the studies from 2016 to 2020 positioned in terms of the media contexts examined, the parasocial phenomena investigated, the methods and measurements used and the samples? (RQ1) What has changed in the studies from 2016 to 2020 compared to the studies from 1956 to 2015 in terms of the media contexts investigated, the parasocial phenomena studied, the methods and measurements used and the samples? (RQ2) What substantive perspectives and key insights can be gained from the studies conducted between 2016 and 2020 and what gaps in research can still be observed? (RQ3). The results show, for instance, that the largest proportion of studies from 2016 to 2020 focused on the area of social and new media, on non-fictional characters and amicable forms of parasocial relationships, using surveys and existing measurement instruments or adapted versions of them (RQ1). Compared to the studies from 1956 to 2015, parasocial phenomena are increasingly being researched experimentally, as mediating and moderating factors and using established scales, with a slight increase in the proportion of studies specifically investigating parasocial relationships or relationship breakups (RQ2). The research focus has evolved from film and television to social media and cross-media settings. Most empirical studies of parasocial phenomena still rely on young and predominantly female samples (RQ2). The neglect of negatively valenced parasocial phenomena, comparative cultural perspectives, comparative media perspectives, long-term effects and less educated and older people as samples can still be identified as major research gaps (RQ3) and opens up numerous opportunities for future research.
准社会现象是媒介接受与效果研究中最热门且研究充分的主题之一。这项研究如今已有超过65年的历史，并且在近年来又经历了一次显著的繁荣。2016年至2020年期间发表的研究比此前整个60年都要多。本描述性综述直接建立在利伯斯和施拉姆对1956年至2015年的开创性综述基础之上，基于2016年至2020年发表的281篇英文和德文研究。以下三个研究问题指导了本次综述：2016年至2020年的研究在所考察的媒介背景、所研究的准社会现象、所使用的方法和测量手段以及样本方面处于何种定位？（研究问题1）与1956年至2015年的研究相比，2016年至2020年的研究在所考察的媒介背景、所研究的准社会现象、所使用的方法和测量手段以及样本方面有哪些变化？（研究问题2）从2016年至2020年进行的研究中可以获得哪些实质性观点和关键见解，并且仍然可以观察到哪些研究空白？（研究问题3）例如，结果表明，2016年至2020年的研究中最大比例的研究聚焦于社交和新媒体领域、非虚构人物以及准社会关系的友好形式，使用调查和现有的测量工具或其改编版本（研究问题1）。与1956年至2015年的研究相比，准社会现象越来越多地通过实验进行研究，作为中介和调节因素并使用既定量表，专门研究准社会关系或关系破裂的研究比例略有增加（研究问题2）。研究重点已从电影和电视转向社交媒体和跨媒体环境。大多数关于准社会现象的实证研究仍然依赖年轻且主要为女性的样本（研究问题2）。对准社会现象中负价现象、比较文化视角、比较媒介视角、长期影响以及较少受教育和年长者作为样本的忽视仍然可以被确定为主要研究空白（研究问题3），并为未来研究开辟了众多机会。
