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Parasocial Relationships

NOTE: I am revising the parasocial relationships page by adding new sections. It is limited on the information that is included about social media and parasocial relationships, which is what I wanted to focus on.

Parasocial relationships are a version of a one-sided relationship. In this type of relationship one person exerts more time, energy, interest and sometimes money than the other person. Often times, the other person is unaware of the other’s existence and infatuation. These relationships are most commonly exercised with public figures, celebrities, athletes, fictional characters, television and movie stars. Parasocial relationships have become increasingly more common in the modern technology age. This can be attributed to the rise in social media as a form of connecting and relating to other people in an extended network.

Background

The concept of parasocial relationships made its debut in a 1956 paper written by Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl. In their article they discuss how the interaction between mass media users and humans that appear in the media, such as celebrities or public figures, creates what they coined parasocial relationships. Horton and Wohl describe the face to face "illusion" that media performers bring to those who are watching and they describe this illusion as a "striking characteristic." In its beginnings the concept was largely considered a communication based concept. In the early days of its creation, Horton and Wohl specifically focused on how television shows, like late night television, connected the viewer to personas that they had not previously had exposure to. The format of these shows encourage the viewer to "interact" with the television host and guest in a simulated conversation where the viewer had a sense of belonging. However, it is profoundly a psychological topic. In the early days, this topic was not wildly accepted in psychology and received almost no consideration from professionals in the psychology realm. It wasn't until the 1980s, trailblazers like psychologist Alan Rubin along with other researchers, began to study this theory and its implication for social life.

One of the most important aspects of this concept is the idea of a persona. According to Horton and Wohl, the persona offers a continuing and dependable relationship to the viewer. It is something they can count on, because the TV show they appear in is regularly scheduled for example. Therefore, this occurrence can be built into the daily life of the viewer, and it becomes routine. For the viewer, they believe that they are sharing small aspects of the "persona's" life with them and that they truly "know" them. This illusion is created because of the devout loyalty that is brought about by the feeling that the viewer truly understands the character.

Parasocial relationships have continued to evolve since first conceptualized by Horton and Wohl in 1956. As previously mentioned, the pair mostly studied these type of relationships in regard to television personalities, more specifically evening talk shows. The focused on how the host conducted informal conversations with the guests they brought in that particular night. Since the study of parasocial interactions in 1956, other concepts have been created to piggyback on the phenomenon of this one-sided relationship. Parasocial interactions eventually led to the concept of parasocial relationships, which is the continuation of the feeling of knowing the person long after the program had ended. Parasocial relationships are similar to face-to-face friendships in their development, maintenance, and function.

How They Happen

Parasocial relationships originate from Psychology, but have been researched by many other disciplines in order to showcase the various dimensions of the phenomenon. Some of these dimensions include intimacy, friendship, companionship, interaction and understanding. All of these are highly sought after by humans to fulfill the biological need for interaction. Relationships may arise from the instinctive desire for social relationships. People are able to satisfy the need for social interaction through their real-life relationships, but can also be fulfilled by interacting with media personalities. Media users grow to depend on these persona. They plan to interact with them, count on them much like a close friend, create memories that involve them and believe they know the persona better than others. Media users are free to partake in the benefits of real relations with no responsibility or effort. They can control their experience or walk away from parasocial relationships freely.

A relationship with a celebrity or social media personality allows for the individual to create a strong emotional bond with someone they don’t necessarily know but admire. Once initial attraction is developed, these relationships can grow as the person chooses to research more in depth about the person’s life. When it comes to celebrities, athletes, and television personalities, it is easy to find information, especially with today’s advanced technology, through mediums like magazines articles, YouTube videos, social media profiles and simply typing a name into the Google search bar.

These relationships happen extremely often and can be similar to real world relationships and friendships. With social media, people are able to keep up to date on their chosen celebrity or influencers life in real-time, similarly, to keeping up to date with your family. The only difference is that it isn’t reciprocal. Celebrities and other media personalities are not aware of these relationships.

Social Media Influence

Today parasocial relationships are still prevalent. Social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube have made it possible for those who aren't extremely skilled with technology to set up online profiles and begin searching. Our world is consumed with technology, which has only allowed for more access to "personas" and their everyday lives. Celebrities have made their lives easily accessible to their fans. At any moment, you could look up your favorite celebrity and know what they are eating for dinner if they will allow it. The rise in internet use has allowed for parasocial relationships to be studied in more detail. When a media persona posts to social media, they provide audiences with intimate, behind the scene peeks into their everyday lifes

More media personas are using social media platforms for personal communication, revealing their personal lives and thoughts to consumers. The more frequent and conversational that the media persona self discloses via social media results in media users feeling high levels of intimacy, loyalty, and friendship.

Communication can take various forms, it can be both physical and nonverbal in nature. Additionally, it can be electronically transmitted both directly and indirectly through social media websites. An example of direct would be a personal message between the user and the persona, and indirect would be posting on a profile page or a blog. Media users know that the chances of receiving a direct message or getting a retweet from a celebrity are highly unlikely, but the possibility gives fans a sense of intimacy and adds authenticity to one-sided parasocial relationships with their favorite persona. Social media is considered to be the perfect platform for promoting and fostering parasocial relationships. Websites such as Twitter allow for both a direct and indirect connection to media personas. In this social media era, media users are able to have interactions with the media persona that are more intimate, open, reciprocal, and frequent.

Teenagers in today's society spend at least one hour a day connected via social media, and almost 90 percent of US teens have at least one social media profile. With almost constant engagement from 24 percent of America's teenagers, social media is a main driver for parasocial relationships. This form of technology can influence identities of users, allows for extensive access to information 24/7, and can impact both real-life and parasocial relationships. Researchers are working to under stand the influence of social media on parasocial relationships, because it is likely altering the way that adolescents experience a parasocial relationship.

Celebrity Endorsement

A sense of knowing and a bond are formed from parasocial relationships. This allows for users to trust the opinions of the persona's they are following. This opens numerous opportunities to company's and brands to utilize the fame of the celebrity to showcase their product. Parasocial relationships is beneficially for purchase intention because of the bond that is created with the celebrity by the user. The acceptance and trustworthiness that the media user feels towards the media persona is carried over into the brand that is being promoted. This accumulation of time and knowledge acquired of the media persona translates into feelings of loyalty, which can then influence their attitudes, voting decisions, prejudices, change their ideas about reality, willingness to donate, and purchasing advertised products. Celebrities and popular social media personalities who engage in social media endorsements are referred to as influencers. However, the term influencer is being extended to more media personalities than just celebrities.

Rise of Social Media "Influencers"

A social media influencer is is someone who has the power to effect the decisions of others when it comes to how to spend their money, how to dress, how to eat, and how to act. They are able to shape public opinion and attitude through a single blog post or tweet. Since 2010, there has been a rise in influencers because of the rapid development of social media websites. Influencers are social media users, most times starting off as normal people, who have established a reputation because of their vast knowledge about a topic. Popular topics include food, fashion, beauty, travel, do it yourself projects, music, etc. Influencers make regular posts promoting their knowledge to grow a fan base and establish trust with their users. Eventually the influencer creates a large enough following, that companies pay them to promote different products to their fan base. Since their fans trust their expertise, they will purchase the product to be more like them. These companies love influencers because they can create new trends and convince their followers to buy products that wouldn't necessarily be known without them.

There are different types of influencers, usually determined by follower count, which are grouped into different categories. These categories can include mega, macro, and micro influencers and all have a completely different scope. Mega influencers tend to be celebrities that gained their fame offline, like in movies or sports for example and they are the most expensive for companies to utilize. These type of influencers usually charge up to one million dollars per post and tend to be extremely selective with who they chose to work with. Macro influencers tend to be successful online experts who are successful in building an online presence and following. Instagram influencers and YouTubers would fall into this category. Micro influencers have less followers and tend to appeal to a certain niche.

Along with there being different levels of influencers there are also different types of content to which these personas choose to connect with their followers. YouTube and Instagram are very well known, but blogs, podcasts, and twitter are also very useful when appealing to followers. Often times, influencers have more than one social media platform.

Individual Connection to Social Media "Influencers"

According to the definition provided by Horton and Wohl, people can have a parasocial interaction with an influencer without ever developing a parasocial relationship from it. Social media influence especially affects adolescents. Young people make up a majority of the following for these influencers. Young people are more likely to learn and listen to a media persona that they perceive as a close friend. For example, a study was done that uncovered the fact that adolescents that reported to have a parasocial relationships with a cast member of the Jersey Shore, portrayed sexual attitudes that mirrored those of the cast more so than those who did not watch the show. Through the previous example, as well as many others, t has been concluded that a positive relationships with exist between parasocial relationships strength and exposure to favorite media persona on social media.

Theoretical Connections

Uncertainty reduction theory plays a large role when the discussion of relationships development is occurring. Many researchers have analyzed the process of parasocial relationship development by applying principles of uncertainty reduction theory, which states that uncertainty about others is reduced over time through communication, allowing for increased attraction and relationship growth. When applying both the uncertainty reduction theory and parasocial relationship theory to social media users, it can be easier to understand the increase of parasocial relationships. This is because influencers and personas are sharing information at an increased rate, making it easier for users to feel more comfortable about them quicker.

Some results indicate that parasocial relationships with media personas increase because the media user is lonely, dissatisfied, emotionally unstable, and/or has unattractive relationship alternatives. Some can use these parasocial relationships as a substitute for real social contact. A media user's personality affects how they use social media and may also vary an individual's pursuit of intimacy and approach to relationships, i.e. extroverts may prefer to seek social gratification through face-to-face interactions as opposed to mediated ones.Media users use mediated communication to gratify their personal needs, such as to relax, seek pleasure, boredom, or out of habit. In this era of social media and the internet media users have constant access to on demand viewing, constant interactions on hand held mobile devices, and widespread Internet access.