UPDATE: Audience Fragmentation and Media Content: Understanding Appeal in the New Media Environment

This past weekend, I was invited to give a short presentation at the 2012 Southern States Communication Association conference on a line of research looking at the role of morality in understanding the appeal of media entertainment to different audience segments. Much of this research should be credited to my contemporaries Dr. Ron Tamborini (Michigan State U) and Dr. Dana Mastro (U of Arizona) as well as my eternal co-authors Dr. Allison Eden (Frije University of Amsterdam) and Dr. Sven Joeckel (Universitat Erfurt - Germany).

The lecture notes might lose a bit of their context without having the dialogue - in fact, our panel was incredibly interactive (Ed. Note: panelist and lovable Dr. Bryce McNeil, Georgia State University, is working to load a podcast of our discussion soon) - but the abstract and slides below should provide a cursory context for the discussion. All emerging concepts, but I'm eager to engage more discussion!

Abstract (from SSCA 2012 program):Popular entertainment media is often lambasted by some for its portrayal of anti-social and immoral content, yet the typical Hollywood blockbuster often serves to reinforce rather than violate social mores (cf. Klapper, 1960). For better or worse, popular tends to serve as a mirror of the culture from which it stems, and producers craft message to appease the needs and tastes of that culture (Gans, 1954; Straabhaur, 1991). Indeed, newer theorizing on media production (Tamborini, 2011) has suggested that aggregate audience moral foundations can influence the production process, and early research has found morally-based content differences between content designed for specific cultures (Mastro et al., 2011). At the same time, if we consider the increased fragmentation of today’s media audience in which media content is produced to appeal to smaller, more well-defined fan bases, we wonder about the portability of this media to other audiences. In short, can increasingly-niche media be expected to survive out of its niche, or will it be seen as at least distasteful or at most immoral?

UPDATE: Dr. McNeil uploaded an audio file from the presentation: http://brycejmcneil.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/ssca-2012-full-panel1.mp3

Immoral, or distasteful?: Audience fragmentation and media content

View more presentations from West Virginia University - Department of Communication Studies

Morality in video games: Gut or Game?

Over the last week, we've posted a few commentaries on potential pro-social influences of otherwise anti-social media content - including the notions of Appreciation and Disinterest. Today's post will focus on the role of moral intuitions in the processing and playing of video games. 

A scene from Heavy Rain for the PS3 (Sony)

Morality. Historically, the concept of morality has been a central focus of media research. In the early 20th century, the Payne Fund’s studies on children and movie content examined the moral lessons adolescents took from the cinema (cf. Lowery & DeFleur, 1995). Later, Wertham (1954) argued that comic books of the time were full of misogyny, sexual perversion, and graphic violence that had the potential to corrupt the pliable morality of children. Indeed, these views are not inventions of the modern era, as history is rife with examples of book burnings and other censure at the hands of governments, monarchs, and religious orders alike. In short, the belief that morally-questionable content serves only to corrupt individual moral codes has persisted. Indeed, considerations of morality has been the center of many of our classic theories in entertainment research, from understanding specific-level individual character judgments (Zillmann & Cantor, 1976) to broader audience patterns of media consumption (Gans, 1974; Zillmann, 2000).

Likewise, morality has been a focal point for video game theory and research. As interactive spaces, games are thought to be particularly adept at allowing gamers to encounter, learn and even rehearse reactions to a variety of different emotional states, including those concerned with morality (Grodal, 2000; Johnson, 2010). But how does an individual’s morality explain their motivation to enact (or not) the models of morally-questionable behaviors experienced in video games? Emerging research applying moral foundations theory (Haidt & Joseph, 2004) suggest that innate moral judgments may be key to this process. For example, Tamborini and colleagues report that variance in individual moral intuitions is predictive of how they appraise and eventually react to violent media content (Tamborini, Eden, Bowman, Grizzard, & Lachlan, 2012). Extending this research to video games, Bowman and colleagues found initial evidence to suggest that moral intuitions are not only predictive of gamers’ appraisals of content as moral or immoral, but also predictive of in-game responses to this content. Specifically, their research found that when a video game presented gamers with a choice to commit a moral violation, gamers who felt strongly about the particular situation (i.e. inflicting harm on an innocent) would go to great lengths to avoid the violation. Conversely, gamers who did not feel particularly strong about the situation – that is, gamers who did not have a strong intuitive reaction to the moral presentation – were inclined to make seemingly-random decisions to violate or not in an effort to play with different outcome scenarios (Joeckel, Bowman, & Dogruel, in press - see presentation below). This observed “gut” (moral intuition-based) or “game” (experience-based) reaction is in line with current theorizing on the function of morality in entertainment media, specifically Raney’s (2010) notion of moral disengagement – that we actively suspend our moral code in order to maximize media enjoyment. Indeed, the research expands this line of reasoning further to suggest that while we initially suspend morality in favor of enjoyment, there are aspects of our moral codes that are likely non-negotiable.

Adolescents, Morality and Interactive Entertainment: The influence of moral salience on actions and entertainment experience in interactive media.

Of course, it can be argued that repeated exposure to moral violations might weaken our resolve, particularly if games reward us for committing moral violations. In his model of moral intuitions and media entertainment, or MIME, Tamborini (2011) argues that moral intuitions are initially fostered from our non-mediated cultural environment and reinforced or manipulated through long-term exposure to media content. While popular media generally adheres to rather than violates societal-level moral standards (cf. Klapper, 1960), producers will occasionally break these expectations to surprise audiences; this is particularly common in video games, where production norms associated with what is an is not acceptable content are different than in more traditional forms of media. As Tamborini and colleagues have found evidence suggesting that entertaining media content can result in shifts in moral judgment (Tamborini, Weber, Eden, Bowman, & Grizzard, 2010), a logical extension of this research may be to examine long-term influences on moral intuition stemming from video game play. The popularity of “M”-rated content is apparent, and as result we might consider the dominant narratives in games such as Grand Theft Auto to be particularly rewarding of anti-social over pro-social behavior (Bowman, in press). From this, an area of research ripe for investigation  the role of repeated exposure to scripts shifting witnessed decisions form the “game” category to the “gut” category. Assuming moral intuitions to play an important role in how we  evaluate, enjoy, and respond to anti-social models in video games, such an approach should provide a more robust explanation as to the mechanism behind the connection between morally-questionable content and observed media effect.

Disinterest as a Media Effect?

Last week, I posted about the potential for anti-social media content to have a pro-social effect on individuals in the form of eliciting feelings of appreciation and meaningfulness - that is, such content could led to moral pause rather than moral panic. Today, I consider how anti-social content can elicit feelings of disinterest; that is, virtual experiences with morally abhorring content might drive us to be disgusted by rather than engrossed in the content. These passages are excerpts from an upcoming essay on video game theory and research - rough pages here, so please feel free to comment and challenge! 


Disinterest. As entertainment software, we commonly assume video games to be inherently engaging and interesting. Yet, an often-overlooked effect of game content on individuals is that of disinterest – simply, the notion that we can become less interested or attracted towards a thought, feeling, or behavior after experiencing its mediated version. Bogost (2011) argued that gaming experiences are not inherently enjoyable, and that they can be just as include to licit shock as well as awe; that is, we can be repulsed by gaming content just as much as we can be engrossed by it. Notably, this is not a cathartic argument, as catharsis would assume individuals to have some affinity toward the content so as to expunge it in advance of real-world consequences (a concept that has been heavily critiqued in the literature; cf. Bushman, 2002). Rather, disinterest argues that video game portrayals can create or reinforce our negative gut reactions to anti-social content.

Figure 1. Screenshot from The Torture Game

An example of such disinterest can be found in the browser-based casual game The Torture Game (Figure 1), a game that invites players to take turns “tortur[ing] the poor guy using different objects” (ArcadeCabin.com, para. 2). In the game, players select from a series of brutal – nooses, guns, straight razors, chainsaws, and pikes to name a few – and are invited to use them in an effort to inflict varying amounts of damage onto the zombie-like figure (Figure 1). While the figure appears to be in a catatonic state, his health status is displayed as a smear of blood in the bottom-left portion of the screen and once depleted, the figure collapses into a bloody mess, bellows a desperate groan and is proclaimed “dead.”  Gameplay is simple, violent, and graphic, and is not justified by any narrative element. Rather, it is clearly and blatantly labeled as torture. Furthermore, gamers are given the option to replace the figure’s head with any image from their computer or the Internet, serving as a digital voodoo doll. In short, if any video game could be considered a true torture and murder simulator, The Torture Game most closely fits the bill. Reaction to the game was (and continues to be) very intense, with even avid video gamers questioning the role of such content in the general panacea of gaming. Popular video game forum Kongregate hosted a debate about the “evil or stress-relieving” qualities of this game, and a general theme of the discussion can best be summarized by user @kingbilly, who writes:

“To be honest, the concept of having torture in a flash game is sick. I’ve never played it and never will…” (Kongregate, 2008).

Yet, such repulsion is precisely what Bogost (2011) argues is both (a) a potential media effect and (b) a decidedly pro-social one. In being repulsed, gamers are reminded of their own humanistic limits, and by vicariously experiencing the role of executioner, are left with a feeling of guilt and even disgust from bearing witness to their own actions. Moreover, the real-world implications of this process are not trivial. Consider the current debate in the US regarding proper interrogation techniques of suspected terrorists. Proponents of the practice contest that such “enhanced interrogation techniques” (Nordgren, 2011) allow intelligence agents to ascertain valuable information regarding future terrorist activities against US targets. Yet, these individuals rarely have experienced the practice themselves. In fact, US human rights activist Steve Powers has already hosted public events simulating water boarding in real life, finding individuals who experience the treatment firsthand almost instantaneously reverse their support of the practice (cf. Nordgren, 2011). Video games may play an even more compelling role in this process, allowing for the simulation of similar actions and forcing individuals to cope with the consequences of their own actions. The concept of disinterest moves beyond the catharsis perspective and argues that the learning of anti-social models of cognition, affect, or behavior can result in the internalization and eventual rejection of the same – yet this claim has yet to be tested empirically.

Read more about the notion of disinterest in Ian Bogost's book "How To Do Things With Video Games" (Chapter 19), and read my review of the same in the International Journal of Communication. 

Appreciation, video games, and media effects: Playing, or Pondering?

Video Games Worth Pondering? By Kyle Francis   

Working with a few colleagues on an upcoming literature review/theoretical synthesis article, I started thinking about newer perspectives in video game research - in short, how to move past the "Media Content --> Media Effect" paradigm. [Note: As far back as Schramm, we've been pushing social science research into understanding more importantly the role of mediation and moderation in media effect, but *sigh* we rarely seem to move past it]

In this discussion, I started thinking about the potential for anti-social media content to elicit pro-social media effects. Ian Bogost has a great (albeit short) chapter on "Disinterest" in his book "How To Do Things with Video Games" where he argues that video game content can be every much repulsive as they can be engrossing (he uses The Torture Game as an example; I'll write more on this later. update 03.10.12 - more on this here). From this, I began thinking about Mary Beth Oliver's discussions of appreciation and meaningfulness as media effect and how these constructs explain the paradox of "enjoying" sad or otherwise negatively-valenced media...

And the gears started to spin.

Give this a read - I'm trying to implicate appreciation in the Stimulus --> Response connection. Rough, but a start?

Appreciation. The dominant paradigm in media effect research hinges on the rewards associated with the experience of enjoyment as reinforcing the retention of anti-social models of behavior. Yet, recent theorizing by Oliver and colleagues suggests this to be a myopic view of the entertainment experience that masks an equally prevalent and powerful media effect: appreciation. Understood as truth-seeking behaviors aimed at helping individuals reflect upon truth and purpose in their own life (Oliver & Raney, 2011), such an effect seems plausible in explaining the apparent paradox of experiencing enjoyment from sad or tragic media, such as Schindler’s List or Old Yeller (cf, Oliver, 1993). In short, Oliver argues that a powerful motivation for consuming media is to seek out meaningfulness, and that this experience is orthogonal from the more basal hedonic motivation.

In this vein, video game research might investigate the way in which the interactivity afforded by the virtual environment might encourage or inhibit feelings of appreciation. On one hand, video game technologies are particularly well-suited at increasing feelings of social presence, a known predictor of narrative processing and feelings of connectedness with game characters (Tamborini & Bowman, 2010) that is likely associated with feelings of meaningfulness. Bowman, Schultheiss, and Schumann (2012) found that increased feelings of responsibility for and control over character actions – both dimensions of character attachment (Lewis, Weber, & Bowman, 2008) – were predictive of playing games for pro-social motivations, and this line of argumentation might be extended further to suggest that increased pro-social involvement with a virtual narrative might elicit more powerful meanings of meaningfulness. On the other hand, it could be argued that video games as a form of popular entertainment have been long-established as simple challenge and competition games (Sherry, Lucas, Greenberg, & Lachlan, 2006) that the learned expectations associated with their consumption are firmly rooted in the hedonic model. Atkin (1985) argues that learned expectations are a robust indicator of selective exposure, as they guide the types of media we seek as well as the gratifications sought in them.

From this, it may simply be the case that gamer audiences do not seek meaningfulness in their gaming experience, thus mitigating any potential for the medium to provide reflection and introspection. Moreover, one might wonder whether or not the gameplay elements of a video game might be counter-productive to the reflection elements of the same, as they might compete for the limited cognitive resources of the gamer (cf. Schneider, Lang, Shin, & Bradley, 2004). For example, the highly-regarded first-person shooter Medal of Honor: Allied Assault begins by placing gamers on the beaches of Normandy as part of the Allied invasion forces, but the game quickly shifts from its dramatic, panoramic and retrospective presentation of the invasion to a more narrow, fast-paced and isolated perspective in order to allow the gamer to concentrate on getting from checkpoint to checkpoint; this shift in perspective also brings with it a focus on murdering your opponent rather than reflecting on the historic gravity of the event itself. Related to this, video game play is known to be significantly more cognitively taxing than other forms of media (Bowman & Tamborini, in press; Reinecke, Tamborini, Grizzard, Lewis, Eden, & Bowman, in press), and this increased task demand may interfere with our ability to process more introspective narrative elements, as suggested to some extent by Schneider et al. (2004). To date, no known research has examined the potential for video games to elicit feelings of meaningfulness in players, and as media psychologists continue to focus their attention on the dual outcomes of enjoyment and appreciation, this research should prove to be particularly relevant.

[references forthcoming; still working on getting electronic versions so I can link them into the blog post]

Developing an online version of Popnvics PICS for understanding digital relationships (COMM MIL research note)

In my recent research, I've been trying to get more into understanding the psychological dimensions of online relationships - particularly in terms of perceived closeness. I have a great respect for network analysis research that provides insight into the density of social networks, but I feel that this data at times is a bit 'cold' and assumes rather mechanistically and deterministically that we can understand the Gestalt of an interpersonal relationship merely by examining connections and communication frequency. While of course much social media research (including my own) is often more interested in connections over people, I'm trying to come up with novel ways in which to understand perceived closeness - that is, irrespective of one's location in my social media network (i.e. being proximal or more distal to myself as a node) or my communication frequency with another, what is my perception of your closeness to me?*

In looking for metrics, I came across the Perceived Interpersonal Closeness Scale developed by Popovics et al (2003) (.pdf here). They present an assessment of a graphical measure of perceived interpersonal closeness, conceptualized as (taken from the introduction of their publication):

During recent decades researchers and clinicians have shown an interest in studying and measuring closeness-related constructs, some of it in this journal (e.g. Timmerman, Emanuels-Zuurveen, & Emmelkamp, 2000). Sarason, Shearin, Pierce and Sarason (1987) defined the common factor underlying measures of perceived social support as ‘the extent to which an individual is accepted, loved and involved in relationships in which communication is open’ (p. 830). It is suggested that this core factor is interpersonal, socio-emotional closeness, a basic component and function of social support. Closeness, explicitly linked with a closeness–distance model of relationship is a richer and broader term than intimacy (Marks & Floyd, 1996).

Their paper outlines a (rather elegant) argument in defense of their graphical measure of this construct, which essentially asks respondents to place relational partners onto a "bulls-eye" style map, with those individuals placed closer to the center as being more (perceptually) close to the respondent. Their data support and validate this measure, and while I haven't seen it's application much in other areas of research, I find it both inspiring and parsimonious.

So, how do we get this measure online? My first attempt (context, this is a study on brand propinquity hence the "brand name" in parentheses):

Before we move to the next section of the survey, we want to ask you one more question about your relationship with (brand name). Below you will see an image of a target that represents how close you are with different individuals in your daily life. Using this target, we’d like you to tell us how close you currently feel to them by marking the relevant answer from the bulls-eye below. To select an answer, choose the red number in the ring of the bulls-eye that best represents how close you feel to (brand name). You can make your selection by using the drop-down list provided.

Thoughts? I need to work on the presentation quality a bit - looking into coding a Flash-based version in which respondents could 'click and drag' from a list of friends, entities, or any other individual units of analysis and snap them to the bulls-eye graphic. I'm also considering a second layer of interaction where individuals might draw perceptions of the connected-ness between the entities on the map (but that's for another time); in effect, a perceived network density map that could be compared with the more objective measures of network density gleaned from social media data.

Reference:

Popovics, M., Milne, D., & Barrett, P. (2003). The scale of perceived interpersonal closeness (PICS). Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 10, 286-301. [.pdf]

*Of course, I recognize that perceived closeness is likely strongly correlated with actual closeness from a network analysis standpoint, but I also wish to propose for the consideration that these two dimensions do not share a perfect correlation. In fact, the extent to which there is any lack of concordance between these measures becomes an interesting scientific question!

COMM MIL is the Media and Interaction Lab housed in West Virginia University's Department of Communication Studies. More information about the lab can be found here.