Para-social interaction


Details:

The definitions under this heading explicitly involve technology; the phenomenon is a subjective property of an individual person; the source of the stimuli in the experience is only external (outside the body); and there is an inaccurate perceptioon that technology is not involved in the experience when it is; and the aspect of the phenonenon that is of primary interest is related to social entitites (human, electronic and otherwise), specifically para-social interaction in which one-way communication via media seems to be two-way.

Sample defintion(s):

Horton & Wohl (1956):
"One of the striking characteristics of the new mass media--radio, television, and the movies--is that they give the illusion of face-to-face relationship with the performer. The conditions of response to the performer are analogous to those in a primary group. ... We propose to call this seeming face-to-face relationship between spectator and performer a para-social relationship." (abstract); "The more the performer seems to adjust his performance to the supposed response of the audience, the more the audience tends to make the response anticipated. This simulacrum of conversational give and take may be called para-social interaction" (p. 215) (cited in Lombard & Ditton, 1997)