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Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae:

Transportation, Parasocial Interaction, Identification, and Worship

Article  in  Communication Theory · March 2015

DOI: 10.1111/comt.12053

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 Communication Theory ISSN 1050-3293

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Examining Four Processes of Audience

Involvement With Media Personae:
Transportation, Parasocial Interaction,
Identification, and Worship
William J. Brown
School of Communication and the Arts, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA, USA

The proliferation of visual media worldwide during the past 50 years has made mediated
personalities, both real people and fictional characters, powerful agents of social change.
Communication theorists have explored various forms of involvement with these personal-
ities, generally referred to as media personae. The current academic literature that explores
various forms of audience involvement with media personae lacks conceptual clarity. The
present article discusses distinctions among four processes of involvement—transportation,
parasocial interaction, identification, and worship—and provides an integrated theoretical
model for assessing these powerful forms of social influence.

Keywords: Media and Social Change, Identification, Mass Media Effects, Psychological
Processes, Social Influence.

doi:10.1111/comt.12053

During the past 60 years, the influence of mediated personalities on audiences has
substantially increased. Whether they are gifted athletes, popular political leaders,
trusted news anchors, performing artists, seasoned actors, or even fictional charac-
ters, becoming emotionally and psychologically attached to such personalities, also
referred to as personae, is common. This is particularly true of young people’s attach-
ment to celebrities (Chia & Poo, 2009). Many scholars have contended that the rise
of celebrity culture in the late 20th century has given media personae a privileged
position of social influence that can shape, reinforce, and inculcate values and beliefs
and promote specific social practices within diverse audiences across socioeconomic,
geographic, and national boundaries (Boorstin, 1961; Braudy, 1986; Cashmore, 2006;
Gamson, 1994; Giles, 2000; Marshall, 1997; Schickel, 2000).
The purpose of this article is to synthesize four specific areas of communication
theory and research that examine four processes through which audiences become

Corresponding author: William J. Brown; e-mail: willbro@regent.edu

Communication Theory 25 (2015) 259–283 © 2015 International Communication Association 259

Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae W. J. Brown

involved with and affected by media personae. These four processes are identified in
the academic literature as transportation, parasocial interaction (PSI), identification
and worship. In order to more effectively understand these four processes with respect
to each other, I will first review them and examine meaningful comparisons. Second, I
will explore how these processes can be conceptually integrated. Third, I will consider
a proposed path model that predicts an order to the flow of social influence through
these four processes. Finally, I will recommend future research to further advance our
understanding of these important theoretical traditions.

Conceptualizing audience involvement

Despite the increased study of audience involvement with mediated personae, to
date, there is no comprehensive model for understanding how different processes of
involvement are interrelated. In addition, the term involvement, with its rich history
in communication research, is often interchanged with other theoretical descriptions
such as engagement, absorption, and presence. Involvement is one of the most endur-
ing concepts in communication study and is a multidimensional concept (Salmon,
1986). Definitions of involvement are understandably numerous, most focusing on
cognitive responses to a message but some also encompassing emotional responses
to both mediated messages and personalities. Involvement, broadly defined, is the
degree of psychological response of a person to a mediated message or persona.
Involvement is a dynamic process that incorporates both consuming media and
coproducing media through mediated interactions.
In recent years there has been a greater exploration of psychological and emo-
tional forms of involvement (Nabi & Wirth, 2008). The growth of entertainment
media theory is generating increased focus on high levels of audience involvement
(Klimmt & Vorderer, 2003; Moyer-Gusé, Chung, & Jain, 2011). Tan (2008) argues
that emotion lies at the heart of the entertainment experience and is central to most
media consumption. Thus, involvement with personae through mediated narratives
produces media enjoyment.
The concept of involvement in communication research, with its strong roots
in the social sciences, primarily focuses on individual experience and does not
adequately account for the collective experiences of consuming media. Rubin and
Perse (1987) define involvement as “cognitive, affective, and behavioral participation
during, and because of, media exposure” (p. 246). Media consumers now partic-
ipate collectively in media consumption, often accentuating their media use with
simultaneous text messaging and use of social media websites like Facebook and
Twitter (Stever & Lawson, 2013). Theoretical models spawned from the uses and
gratifications’ approach regard media consumers as having ongoing involvement
with mediated personae both during and after media consumption (Ruggiero, 2000),
during which social media may play an important role.
Despite its bias on individual experiences, audience involvement provides a
useful conceptual domain of media research that scholars have used to study the four

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W. J. Brown Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae

involvement processes discussed here (Klimmt & Vorderer, 2003; Tal-Or & Cohen,
2010). Although there is widespread support for identifying distinct processes of
audience involvement, current academic research of different types of involvement is
filled with conceptual inconsistencies, inadequate theoretical integration, and a lack
of shared definitions (Klimmt, Hartmann, & Schramm, 2006; Murphy, Frank, Moran,
& Patnoe-Woodley, 2011). Before discussing these challenges, I will first consider the
nature of media personae.

Defining media personae

One of the earliest and most cited studies of media personae was published by Horton
and Wohl (1956) in a psychiatry journal on the illusion of intimacy that is created
between television viewers and television personalities. The word “persona,” traced in
some dictionaries to the work of C. G. Jung, is defined in part as “a person’s perceived
or evident personality, as that of a well-known official, actor, or celebrity; personal
image; public role” (Random House, 2006). Horton and Wohl (1956) used the term
“personae” as the plural form of persona to refer to the television personalities with
whom viewers related, and both personae and the Anglicized word personas are used
interchangeably in the academic literature, along with other common terms such as
media figures and media personalities.
Research on how media consumers develop relationships with media personae
through illusions of intimacy has expanded beyond the medium of television. A per-
sona can be a real person or a fictional character encountered through any form of
mediated interaction. Scholars in information studies describe personae as “hypothet-
ical archetypes” who “are not real people but they represent real people” (Head, 2003),
an important task of video game producers. This conceptualization is particularly use-
ful for digital game research. Any fictional character or constructed personality can
be regarded as a persona.

Audience involvement with personae

There are a plethora of academic publications on audience involvement with per-
sonae through transportation, PSI, identification and worship. In order to consider
these four processes collectively, it is not possible in a single article to discuss the
many detailed complexities and nuances of each type of involvement as they have
been presented in the academic literature during the past 6 decades. However, I
will consider important similarities and differences that have not been sufficiently
discussed in research of these processes. Many studies cited in the present article
demonstrate that these four processes are closely related and that some involvement
processes regularly predict other involvement processes. In the present article, I
conceptualize each process as theoretically and empirically distinct, as have other
scholars (Moyer-Gusé, 2008; Moyer-Gusé & Nabi, 2010; Moyer-Gusé et al., 2011;
Murphy et al., 2011), differing according to the psychological intensity and duration
of their effects on audiences, and that there is an order to which these processes

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Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae W. J. Brown

typically occur. By examining four closely related but distinct processes of audience
involvement collectively, I hope that the demarcations between these processes,
which are often blurred in the academic literature, might become clearer. First, a
summary of each involvement process is provided.

Transportation
In her description of how audiences become involved in narratives, Green (2004,
p. 247) states that “a highly transported individual is cognitively and emotionally
involved in the story.” Green and Brock (2000) argue that transportation describes
both involvement in a story and involvement with the characters of a story, noting that
“attachment to characters may play a critical role in narrative-based belief change” (p.
702). Media consumers continually encounter media personae in narrative worlds,
whether they are the worlds of real people or of fictional characters. Green and Brock
(2000, 2002) use the phrase “transportation into a narrative world” to describe the
power of narratives to totally immerse audiences into a story, such as when a reader
is “lost in a book” (Green, 2004, p. 248). Although originally focused on written
fiction, the study of transportation into narrative worlds has evolved beyond audience
involvement with novels and now encompasses all forms of media in which narrative
worlds are created.
Green (2004) explains that transportation cannot occur without characters and
settings created in a narrative because “character is the driving force” of fictional
narratives (Surmelian, 1969, p. 139) and “transported individuals may identify
with those characters” they grow to like as friends (Green, 2006, p. s165). During
the process of transportation, audiences become emotionally and psychologically
involved in both the narrative and with the characters in the narrative, and audiences
often imagine themselves in the presence of a persona. By drawing upon a travel
metaphor of visiting another place, transportation theorists predict that when audi-
ences imagine themselves in another world they derive media enjoyment (Green,
Brock, & Kaufman, 2004).

Parasocial interaction
Robert Merton was one of the first scholars to study the formation of pseudorelation-
ships with media figures through his research of Kate Smith and her radio listeners
during her epic War Bond Drive in 1943 (Merton, 1946). Smith generated a remark-
able $39 million of purchases and pledges for U.S. War Bonds during an 18-h radio
marathon, evidence of listeners’ strong involvement with her (McGranahan, 1947).
Sood and Rogers (2000) note that Merton found Smith’s audiences had responded
to her appeals as if someone they knew personally had asked them to purchase war
bonds.
A decade after Merton’s study was published, Horton and Wohl (1956) published
their seminal study of PSI. They described PSI as imaginary interaction between a
television viewer and a television personality, which over time may develop into a
self-defined one-way relationship called a parasocial relationship (Horton & Wohl,

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W. J. Brown Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae

1956). Levy (1979) later described a parasocial relationship (PSR) as a pseudorelation-

ship that results from a false sense of intimacy created during media consumption,
which strongly developed between Kate Smith and her radio audiences. Even more
powerful than radio, visual communication technologies like television, film and the
Internet provide a rich media landscape for PSRs to develop (Gumpert & Cathcart,
1986). PSRs have been studied between television viewers and newscasters, talk show
hosts, shopping hosts and soap opera characters (Brown & Cody, 1991; Cohen, 2003;
Levy, 1979; Rubin & McHugh, 1987; Rubin, Perse, & Powell, 1985; Shefner-Rogers,
Rogers, & Singhal, 1998). Both interpersonal and mass communication theories have
been used to study PSI and PSRs (Eyal & Rubin, 2003; Schramm & Wirth, 2010;
Turner, 1993).
During the past several decades, communication scholars have studied PSI and
PSRs in a broader context beyond the medium of television, demonstrating that peo-
ple form imaginary relationships with media personae through a variety of media and
mediated events (Basil, 1996; Brown, 2009, 2010; Brown, Basil, & Bocarnea, 2003a).
For example, sports fans develop PSRs with athletes through their attendance at sport-
ing events and consumption of televised sports, movies, talk show interviews, and
commercials featuring sports celebrities (Basil & Brown, 2004; Brown & Basil, 1995;
Brown, Basil, & Bocarnea, 2003b; Brown & de Matviuk, 2010).
An important dimension of PSRs is attachment, a process studied by psycholo-
gists since the late 1960s (see Bowlby, 1969; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2009). Stever (2013)
notes that theory and research of parasocial attachment (PSA) should be integrated
with the study of PSRs. A number of studies of PSA have focused on how media
personae influence adolescents’ development of their self-concept (Adams-Price &
Greene, 1990; Greenwood & Long, 2010). In addition, research shows that PSA and
PSRs can extend beyond imaginary friendships and also become imaginary romantic
relationships (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007; Stever, 2013).
Media consumers now have new ways of interacting with media personae through
Facebook, Twitter, weblogs, fan sites, and other interactive media, making the dyadic
one-dimensional description of PSI incomplete. Audience involvement is not merely a
lone psychological enterprise; it involves interaction with others, including discussing
favorite personae, reading their tweets, sending them text messages, watching them
through media with friends, and personally attending their events with others.

Identification
The concept of identification dates back to the work of Freud (1922, 1940/1989) and
Lasswell (1931, 1935/1965) and has recently gained renewed interest by communica-
tion scholars. Because the word “identification” is a commonly used word, it is difficult
to promote a specialized academic use of the word. Nevertheless, since Freud, Lass-
well, Kelman, Burke, and other influential scholars established identification as an
important variable of communication study decades ago, many media scholars have
re-energized the concept and are seeking to understand how it best integrates with
other processes of audience involvement.

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Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae W. J. Brown

Kelman (1958, 1961) conceptualized identification as a process of social influ-

ence. He believed identification involves the internalization of the attitudes, beliefs
and values of the object of identification by the person who is being influenced. Iden-
tification occurs from this perspective when an individual adopts the attitudes, values,
beliefs or behavior of another individual or group based on a “self-defining” relation-
ship (Kelman, 1961, p. 63). He observed that the internalization of attitudes, values,
and beliefs that served to maintain a desired connection to the object of identification
also led to adopting the behavior of others. He explained: “by saying what the other
says, doing what he does, believing what he believes, the individual maintains this
relationship and the satisfying self-definition that it provides him” (Kelman, 1961, p.
63). It is important to note that the object of identification may be completely unaware
of this process; thus, the “self-defining” relationship described by Kelman is consistent
with the conceptualization of a self-defined PSR.
Kelman’s (1958) concept of identification is especially applicable to studying
involvement with media personae, since most people who identify with media per-
sonae are influenced by them without ever having face-to-face interaction. Kelman’s
focus on internalizing and adopting the attitudes, values, and beliefs of others during
the identification process, which can lead to behavior change, also is consistent with
the concepts of identification discussed by Freud (1922) (children’s identification
with parents), Lasswell, 1935/1965 (individuals’ identification with groups), and
Oatley (1994) (adopting the goals of the object of identification).
Kenneth Burke’s (1969) extensive theorizing about identification from a rhetori-
cal perspective puts more emphasis on the initiator of the identification seeking out
common ground with the object of identification (Rosenfeld, 1969). Although Burke
did not approach the process of identification from a social scientific perspective, his
contributions to communication study are extensive and many social scientists uti-
lize his theoretical work. Burke (1969) theorized that “identification occurs when one
individual shares the interests of another individual or believes that he or she shares
the interests of another” (p. 180). He noted that two individuals could be joined and
still be distinct. From a Burkean perspective, media consumers search for personae
with whom they want to identify and when they find them, they adopt the attitudes,
values, beliefs and behavior of these personae that are already similar to their own or
that they are already predisposed to adopt.
Livingstone’s (1998) and Igartua’s (2010) conception of identification as a media
consumer’s empathy for a media persona and taking on that persona’s perspective
incorporates the thinking of both Burke and Kelman. Media consumers empathize
with and put themselves in the place of a persona and then adopt the persona’s beliefs
and goals, thus positing perceived homophily as an important attribute of identifica-
tion. Igartua and Barrios (2012) study and Moyer-Gusé et al. (2011) study of media
consumers indicates identification enhances the adoption of a persuasive message
promoted or modeled by a persona.
Cohen (2001) states that “identification requires that we forget ourselves and
become the other,” emphasizing how media consumers take on the identity of the

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W. J. Brown Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae

object of identification (Cohen, 2001, p. 247). Initially, he describes this process as a

temporary one that occurs during media consumption. However, he also states that
the “repetitive internalization of powerful and seductive images and alternative iden-
tities of media characters” likely produces “long-term effects” (Cohen, 2001, p. 249).
Cohen (2001) further explains that “identification focuses on sharing the perspective
of the character” and “feeling with the character” (p. 251) when audiences “imagine
being one of the characters” in the text or narrative (p. 252). Finally, Cohen (2001, p.
261) concludes that “identification involves the merging of self and other” as opposed
to the interaction between self and other as in PSRs. Thus Cohen (2001, 2006, 2014)
believes that a person who identifies with a media persona takes on the identity of
the persona during media consumption; but he also implies that repeatedly taking
on the identity of another may lead to long-term behavioral changes, consistent with
Kelman’s (1961) theory of social influence.
Applying the concept of identification to video game research, Klimmt, Hefner,
and Vorderer (2009) conceptualize identification as a “temporary alteration of media
users’ self-concept through adoption of perceived characteristics of a media person”
(p. 356). This definition is consistent with Cohen’s idea of becoming one with a char-
acter during media consumption. It also is consistent with Burke’s (1969) concepts of
identification and consubstantiality, which describe how a person can be both joined
with another and yet separate (Rosenfeld, 1969). Klimmt et al. (2009) suggest that
interactive game players engage in “identity management” by taking on the identities
of video game characters as a form of play and media enjoyment (p. 368); yet they
and others (see Boon & Lomore, 2001) also consider the possibility that taking on
such identities may result in long-term identity change with potential beneficial or
detrimental consequences.

Worship
The most recently conceptualized and most intense form of involvement with media
personae is identified as worship. Focusing on audience involvement with celebrities,
John Maltby and his colleagues have explored how media consumers tend to idolize
celebrity personae, even to degree that they consider such involvement to emulate
worship (Giles & Maltby, 2004; Maltby, Giles, Barber, & McCutcheon, 2005; Maltby,
Houran, Lange, Ashe, & McCutcheon, 2002; Maltby, Houran, & McCutcheon, 2003;
Maltby et al., 2004; McCutcheon, Ashe, Houran, & Maltby, 2003; McCutcheon,
Lange, & Houran, 2002). Their conceptualization and measurement of celebrity
worship encompasses the broad experiences of fandom and overlaps considerably
with other forms of persona involvement. However, the concept of worship offers an
additional dimension of audience involvement with media personae that is not fully
explained by transportation, PSI/PSRs, or identification.
Building upon the observations of Giles (2000), celebrity worship can be described
as relegating to celebrities the attention and status normally given to God, a god, or
some other form of deity (Maltby et al., 2002). Maltby et al. (2003) describe the phe-
nomenon of celebrity worship as “an abnormal type of PSR, driven by absorption

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Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae W. J. Brown

and addictive elements and which potentially has significant clinical sequelae” (p. 25).
McCutcheon et al. (2003) define celebrity worship similarly, indicating it is “a form of
PSI in which individuals become obsessed with one or more celebrities, similar to
erotomanic type of delusional disorder” (p. 309).
Maltby et al. (2005) divide celebrity worship into three levels. Low-level worship
focuses on the entertainment-social values of celebrities, such as following the lives of
celebrities through media, talking with friends about celebrities, and enjoying others
who share in following their favorite celebrities. The medium level of worship focuses
on the intense personal feelings that audiences have toward celebrities, such as think-
ing of a celebrity as a “soulmate” or being “obsessed by details” of a favorite celebrity’s
life (Maltby et al., 2005, p. 1163). The third and most intense level of celebrity wor-
ship is referred to as the “mild pathological” dimension (Maltby et al., 2005, p. 1166).
They imply that celebrity worship at this third level is both abnormal and harmful,
resulting in the willingness of audience members to do almost anything to please the
celebrity.
As indicated by these characterizations of celebrity worship, some worship is
regarded by these scholars as an extreme and unhealthy type of PSI. These descrip-
tions characterize the practice of worship as abnormal and imply that venerating
personae is an uncommon experience. Yet this is not the case as Maltby and his
colleagues have discovered (Maltby et al., 2002, 2005). Although the religious con-
notations are likely overdrawn, as Heinich (2014) argues, celebrity culture produces
celebrity cults, and involvement in celebrity cults manifests a psychological intensity
greater than PSI/PSRs. Worship should be defined as distinct from PSI because of the
qualitative differences that suggest worship is a much stronger psychological tie than
PSI/PSRs.
A broader contextualization of spirituality and worship, as Zinnbauer, Pargament,
and Scott (1999) advocate, can provide a way forward in developing a conception of
worship that is much more intense that water cooler discussions about celebrities but
does not require pathological behavior. Smith’s (2009) conception of worship as the
ordering of our loves, for example, is a more useful way to consider how we relate
to personae. He states that “our ultimate love is what we worship” because what we
desire and love is what forms our passion and shapes our life (Smith, 2009, p. 51).
Worship of a persona is simply making one’s relationship with a media figure the
primary focus of one’s time and attention that evolves out of a strong love for that
persona.
Worshipping of media personae is taking place in many societies, as Giles (2000)
and others have observed. Fraser and Brown’s (2002) study of Elvis Presley imper-
sonators indicated one of the Elvis fans perceived Elvis as a god-like deity. Although
Maltby, Houran, and McCutcheon (2003, p. 25) report that “celebrity worship is not
an uncommon phenomena” as they have measured it, they may have actually found
that the borderline pathological dimension of celebrity worship affects only a small
percentage (5% or less) of media consumers (Maltby et al., 2004).

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W. J. Brown Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae

In summary, the concept of worship is useful for studying intense manifestations

of involvement with media personae but should not be defined as a type of PSR.
Although fandom also incorporates the concept of worship, fandom is a broader
term that spans many types of audience involvement; whereas worship can denote
an intense form of involvement that is less common than transportation, PSI, and
identification, but not extraordinary.
Provided in Table 1 is a summary of some of the key studies, definitions and
attributes, and research findings associated with the processes of transportation, PSI,
identification, and worship.

Distinguishing and integrating audience involvement processes

When considering how audiences respond to media personae, cognitive, emotional
and behavioral forms of involvement are closely intertwined and cannot easily be con-
sidered in isolation without respect to one another. Given the substantial conceptual
interrelatedness of existing definitions of these four processes, I will first examine their
similarities and differences; then I will consider a model for conceptualizing how they
can be integrated.

Similarities and differences

The processes of transportation, PSI, identification and worship all encompass the
cognitions, emotions, and imaginations of media consumers. Transportation means
getting lost in a story and all stories have characters. A good plot can captivate one’s
attention and so can well developed interesting characters. Thus transportation can
be stimulated by either a narrative plot or story characters or both. If one already
knows the characters, like when reading the seventh book in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles
of Narnia series, then transportation will be induced through one’s knowledge of the
characters. If one doesn’t know the characters, then transportation may be induced
by the plot or attraction to one or more characters of the story. However one gets into
a narrative requires the exercise of one’s imagination, or what Nussbaum (2006) refers
to as narrative imagination, defined as “the ability to think what it might be like to be
in the shoes of a person different from oneself, to be an intelligent reader of that per-
son’s story, and to understand the emotions and wishes that someone so placed might
have” (p. 390).
Once a person is transported into a narrative, it is natural to respond to the per-
sonae in the narrative and to form imaginary relationships with them. Now we have
moved from transportation to PSI and to the formation of PSRs. Both transportation
and PSI must begin with exposure to a narrative and to one or more personae. Both
transportation and PSI may lead to each other or develop simultaneously, mutually
influencing each other.
Theoretically, transportation has no valence in that there is not positive or neg-
ative transportation. However, PSI and PSRs can be with a persona who is liked or
with one who is not liked. Thus, PSI and PSRs can have a positive or negative valence,

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268
Table 1 Theories of Audience Involvement Processes

Involvement Process Key Studies Definitions/Attributes Important Findings

Transportation Green and Brock “absorbed in a story” promotes story-consistent beliefs; fictional
(2000, 2002) “an immersion into a text” stories are persuasive.
Green (2004, “melding of attention, imagery, and feelings” personal experience increases
2006) “engage the narrative world” transportation; transportation increases
perceived realism and reduces
counter-arguing.
Green et al. (2004) “pleasurable state that contributes to media enables mood management;
enjoyment” produces enjoyment
Parasocial Interaction Horton and Wohl “seeming face-to-face relationship between persona and the “personality” programs are
(1956) spectator and performer a parasocial part of the lives of millions of people
relationship”
Rubin et al. (1985) “interpersonal involvement of the media user” loneliness linked to parasocial interaction
with personas
Sood and Rogers “affective, cognitive and behavioral letter-writers displayed affective, cognitive
(2000) involvement of audience members” and behavioral interaction
Giles (2002) “parasocial interactions are integrated into the parasocial relationships are normal and may
Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae

matrix of usual social activity” lead to more involvement

Identification Kelman (1961) defined “classical identification” as “attempts to identification involves internalizing beliefs
be like or actually be the other person” of others, leads to persuasion
Cohen (2001) “identification requires that we forget ourselves identification contributes to self-identity;
and become the other” identification is used to persuade

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W. J. Brown
 W. J. Brown

Table 1 Continued

Involvement Process Key Studies Definitions/Attributes Important Findings

Fraser and Brown “identification is a fundamental process of identification leads to role modeling beliefs
(2002) social change” and behavior of personas
Klimmt et al. “identification is marked by internalizing a identification with video game personas
(2009) point of view” affects self-concept
Worship Maltby et al. “attitudes and beliefs characteristic of celebrity worship influences body image
(2002, 2005) religiosity” reflected in celebrity worship
“attitude and behaviors”
McCutcheon et al. “it is socially desirable to be a celebrity worshippers favorably view other
(2002, 2003) celebrity-worshipper in England” celebrity worshippers
Maltby et al. celebrities viewed with “devotion, bordering on celebrity worship events resemble religious
(2004) reverence” gatherings

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Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae W. J. Brown

as Schramm & Hartmann (2008) note. Likewise, identification can be with a positive
character or a negative one. To date, the vast majority of research on PSI and identifi-
cation has explored personae that are liked and perceived as friends, consistent with
the early studies of PSRs (Giles, 2002). Yet, it is possible to form a PSR with a persona
one dislikes or even grows to hate (Ophir & Weimann, 2012).
Consider a morally ambivalent character like the fictional Dr. Gregory House of
the television series House, M.D. Is it possible to relate to and identify with a doctor
with reprehensible bedside manors, who continually lies, pits his colleagues against
one another, ignores hospital procedures, is interpersonally antisocial, and is addicted
to Vicodin? Yes, because a viewer may want to emulate other characteristics of Dr.
House like his frugal lifestyle, his brilliant diagnostics, his political incorrectness, and
his commitment to do what he thinks is right to help save his patients from great harm
or death. Dr. House has all the qualifications of an enticing anti-hero, a flawed human
being who rejects traditional authority and who grates against the expectations of a
socially acceptable person.
Regardless of whether media consumers form PSRs with personae they like or
dislike, strong PSRs often lead to identification. The relationship between these two
variables has been explored in several studies. Research of audience involvement with
NBA star Earvin “Magic” Johnson and with MLB star Mark McGuire suggests that
PSI/PSR precedes identification (Basil & Brown, 2004; Brown & Basil, 2010). Those
who exhibited stronger PSRs with Pope John Paul II were more likely to identify with
him (Brown, 2009). Argentinians’ PSR with Diego Maradona preceded identification
with him (Brown & de Matviuk, 2010) and Koreans’ PSR with Cardinal Stephen Kim
Sou-hwan led to identification with him (Bae, Brown, & Kang, 2011).
Engaging in identification with a persona before forming a PSR with that persona
seems highly unlikely. A review of the measures for PSI/PSRs shows that knowing
a persona is a core attribute of this form of involvement. Audiences would not be
expected to identify with a persona who was unknown. Relating to a persona as a
friend or as an enemy implies that one knows that persona’s attitudes, values, beliefs
or behavior.
Both Kelman’s seminal research (1958, 1961) and Cohen’s (2001, 2006, 2014)
subsequent conceptualizations of identification most fully capture the process. Cohen
(2014) suggests that identification consists of “a merging of identities” which can
involve “taking on new roles” and “adopting new perspectives” (p. 145). Thus Cohen
recognizes that media consumers who believe that they already share some attitudes,
values, beliefs, and/or behavior with media personae will likely identify with them;
but also recognizes that other media consumers may want to role model media
personae by adopting their attitudes, values, beliefs, behavior, and/or identity that
they (the consumers) do not yet possess.
Although Kelman (1958, 1961) did not develop his theory within the highly
mediated world of today, his conception of identification as a process of social influ-
ence is consistent with Cohen’s conception of the merging of one’s identity with a
persona’s identity by taking on the persona’s attitudes, values, beliefs, or behavior. The

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W. J. Brown Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae

context of much of Kelman’s research was on how political prisoners identified with
their captors, indicating he theorized that a person can identify with a person he or
she loathes. In this context prisoners conformed their behavior through identification
to reduce their punishment or to stay alive.
As noted earlier, both PSI/PSRs and identification with a persona can be
short-term or long-term, depending upon the amount of repeated exposure to the
persona and the longevity of the imaginary relationship, since PSRs can be terminated
(Cohen, 2003; Eyal & Cohen, 2006). Identification can be a reinforcement of existing
cognitions, emotions, and behavior shared with the persona or the adoption of new
cognitions, emotions and behavior modeled by the persona.
Finally, there is worship of personae. Despite the conceptual and methodological
problems with the construct of worship, researchers of celebrity worship consistently
characterize it as an intense form of involvement with media personae (Maltby et al.,
2002, 2004; Stever, 2009). The concept of celebrity worship should be further devel-
oped, more carefully defined as a distinct process, and made more useful rather than
jettisoned for another conceptual variable. There is simply too much observational
data in popular culture to deny that media consumers deeply love, adore, and even
highly venerate media figures, which can readily be regarded as worship within the
broad cultural milieu of fandom.
Identification ends and worship begins when a persona becomes the primary
focus of a media consumer’s time and attention and object of his or her love. As noted
earlier, some identification occurs when media consumers merge their identity or
temporarily take on the identity of a persona, as in the case of immersion in a video
game. Intense identification as in the case of Elvis impersonator Dennis Wise, who
obtained plastic surgery so he would look like Elvis (Fraser & Brown, 2002), may lead
to worship.
Persona worship is exemplified by the veneration of famous icons like Elvis Pres-
ley and soccer legend Diego Maradona, characterized by the places of worship built
for the two men, one near Bangalore, India, for Elvis (David, 1996) and the other in
Rosario, Argentina, for Maradona (Yebra, 2011). Consider another legend, the late
Nelson Mandela. In the days following his death, I collected 525 completed survey
questionnaires from respondents in 50 countries to assess peoples’ involvement with
Mandela. The majority of our respondents had grown to like him and even love him.
Few of the respondents ever met him or heard him speak in person, but they felt they
knew him as a friend, evidence of a PSR. Among those who answered our questions
about Mandela’s Foundation, 14.4% reported that they had given a donation to the
foundation and an amazing 70% of the respondents said they expected to give a finan-
cial gift to the Nelson Mandela Foundation in the future, which is a predictable con-
sequence of identification with him. Recall how those who identified with Steve Irwin
donated to his non-profit organization (Brown, 2010). Yet, only six people expressed
worship of Mandela because it is a more intense form of psychological involvement
(Spitzberg & Cupach, 2008).

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Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae W. J. Brown

Familiarity/
Prior Transportation
into the
Persona’s

Perceived
Realism
Identification Worship
with the of the
Persona Persona

Liking/
Attraction
Parasocial
Interaction/
Relationships
with the
Persona

Homophily
/
Similarity

Figure 1 Processes of Audience Involvement With Mediated Personae Through Narratives.

Integration of involvement processes into a social influence model

Much of the research cited in this article concerns the social influence of media
personae through narratives. Within that context, a theoretical model is offered for
assessing the flow of social influence in narrative forms of communication through
transportation, PSI/PSRs, identification and worship, illustrated in Figure 1.

Exogenous variables
Four exogenous variables are posited as important elements of any media environ-
ment. Green (2004) explains that prior knowledge and perceived realism of mediated
narratives are important predictors of transportation into a narrative world. Through
repeated exposure to narrative communication, audiences become familiar with
certain stories and evaluate some stories as more likely to occur than other stories.
Greater familiarity and perceived realism in narrative communication produces
greater levels of transportation.
Liking of or social attraction to media personae and perceived similarity to or
homophily with media personae have been found to be important predictors of PSI
(Moyer-Gusé, 2008; Rubin & McHugh, 1987; Schmid & Klimmt, 2011; Turner, 1993).
Audiences are more likely to form PSRs with personae they are attracted to and who
they perceive are similar to themselves. Thus, these two variables are posited as pre-
dictors of PSI in Figure 1.

Endogenous variables
Transportation into a narrative and the development of PSI/PSRs with the personae
within a narrative are posited as consequences of prior knowledge and perceived

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W. J. Brown Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae

realism of narrative communication and attraction to media personae and perceived

similarity or homophily with media personae. When media consumers are trans-
ported into a narrative, whether it be the journey of a celebrity’s battle with breast
cancer, as in the case of Angelina Jolie, or the narrative of a famous athlete living with
HIV, as in the case of Magic Johnson, or the narrative of a fictional character fighting
for her life in a fallen world, as in the life of Katniss Everdeen of Hunger Games, or the
narrative world of Private Joey Martin in Call of Duty: Ghosts, one of the bestselling
video games of 2014, they become immersed in the narrative and involved in the
lives of its characters.
In the proposed model in Figure 1, transportation can lead to PSI/PSRs with the
personae, and vice versa, PSI/PSRs can lead to transportation, or both processes can
develop concurrently. The bidirectional arrow in Figure 1 indicates the two variables
may mutually influence each other. PSI/PSRs can manifest a positive valence, as when
audiences develop imaginary friendships with media personae, but also can manifest a
negative valence, as when audiences develop a strong negative relationship with media
personae that they feel ambivalent toward, dislike or even hate.
The third level of effects depicted in the path model shows transportation and
PSI/PSRs can lead to identification, theorized as a more powerful form of audience
involvement with personae because it is more intense psychologically and is charac-
terized by attitude, value, belief or behavior reinforcement or change. Identification
also can have a positive or negative valence, in that audiences identify with both heroes
and anti-heroes in narratives and may merge their identities with very good or very
bad characters in both their actual and fictional worlds.
Finally, strong identification with media personae can lead to worshipping them.
Worship is theorized as the strongest form of involvement among the four involve-
ment processes discussed here because it is predicted to produce the most intense
form of psychological attachment and demands the greatest expenditure of time and
resources from audiences.

Qualitative differences and variable linkages

The flow of social influence theorized in the model presented in Figure 1 needs to
be tested in future research. Throughout this article, the processes of transportation,
PSI and PSRs, identification and worship are conceptualized as qualitatively distinct
processes that differ according to their psychological intensity and the duration of
their effects on media consumers. However, the distinctions do not infer that these
processes do not have much in common. The model offered here requires empirical
support, as some of the arguments for the postulated order of influence processes are
debated by scholars who suggest alternate viewpoints.
One debate concerns the difference between PSI/PSRs and identification. One
fundamental difference is that identification engages self-identity. Caughey (1994)
places identity at the center of social and cultural dimensions of media consumers’
relationships with media personae. Singhal & Rogers’ (1999, pp. 1–7) story of
the powerful impact of a radio soap opera on the village of Lutsan, India, which

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Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae W. J. Brown

motivated the village men to reject the dowry system that their families had practiced
for centuries, is one of many documented examples of the far-reaching behavioral
changes brought about through identification. In contrast, PSI/PSRs do not require
any long-term effects on audiences’ attitudes, values, beliefs or behavior.
A second debate concerns positing worship as the most psychologically intense
form of audience involvement in the proposed model. Worship involves strong
displays of emotion and manifestations of celebrity worship are common. Andsager’s
(2005) study of webshrines shows the strong devotion and reverence that fans express
toward celebrities who have died. Music fans regularly flock around the motorcades
of performing artists seeking to see them up close or even touch them. Beatles’ fans
and Elvis’ fans feinted at their live performances due to overwhelming emotion. Avid
sports fans commonly express blind devotion, intense love, and uncompromising
commitment to athletes.

Definitions of involvement processes

Based on the distinctions discussed here, the following refined definitions for the pro-
cesses of transportation, PSI, identification, and worship are offered.

Transportation
The published definitions for transportation appear to have no conceptual overlap
with PSI, identification and worship. However, there is some overlap with Rosengren,
Windahl, Hakansson, and Johnsson-Smaragdi’s (1976) capture scale (“When I watch
this programme I nearly feel as if I were one of the people taking part”) in their study
of three kinds of audience involvement. Thus, transportation as now defined shares
some conceptual ground with Rosengren’s conceptualization of capture.
An additional problem is the conceptualization of transportation as containing
events of a narrative that are relevant to a person’s everyday life seems to be incon-
sistent with the idea of getting lost in a story. The degree of perceived realism of a
story is something different than getting so absorbed in a narrative that one forgets
about your everyday life because one is completely captivated by the world of the
narrative.
There also are measurement items of transportation scales that assess behavior
change. Yet change in a person’s life is inconsistent with the definition of transporta-
tion as “an integrative melding of attention, imagery and feelings” that results from
“immersion into a text” (Green & Brock, 2000, pp. 701–704). In none of the defini-
tions of transportation is there a reference to substantive behavior change. To over-
come these conceptual issues, the following definition of transportation is offered:

Transportation is the process of becoming wholly absorbed into a narrative

during media consumption or through participation in a mediated event, which
begins when media consumers think and feel like a person in a narrative world,
and is characterized by having vivid images of that world and its personae.

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W. J. Brown Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae

Parasocial interaction
The process of PSI and resulting PSRs have been studied from multiple perspectives,
somewhat hindering their theoretical development (Klimmt et al., 2006; Schuh,
2010). PSI is seen by some scholars as a special type of interpersonal involvement
(Rubin, 1985) and as motivation for selective exposure (Palmgreen, Wenner, &
Rayburn, 1980). What initially was theorized as a “pseudorelationship” has been
expanded by some scholars to encompass processes that extend beyond relational
development (Sood, 2002; Sood & Rogers, 2000). Many expanded dimensions of PSI
include other distinct variables.
Conceptual clarity would be strengthened if communication scholars confined
their definition and measurement of PSI and PSRs to the original concept of estab-
lishing a “pseudorelationship” as proposed by Horton and Wohl (1956). By staying
conceptually close to their definition, much of the conceptual overlap of PSI with
other involvement processes will be eliminated. Therefore, the following definition
of PSI is offered:
Parasocial interaction is the process of developing an imaginary relationship
with a mediated persona both during and after media consumption, which
begins with spending time with the persona through media or participation in
mediated events, and is characterized by perceived relational development with
the persona and knowing the persona well.
An important distinction from Horton and Wohl’s (1956) definition and many
others that have followed is that PSRs can be formed with both liked and disliked
personae or perceived heroes and perceived anti-heroes in narratives.

Identification
Cohen (2001, 2006, 2014) has made substantial contributions to distinguishing the
concept of identification from other forms of audience involvement; but more clari-
fication is needed. Liking a media persona is included in many conceptualizations of
identification (Basil, 1996; Liebes & Katz, 1990; Slater & Rouner, 2002) as is perceived
similarity with the media persona (Liebes & Katz, 1990), adopting the attitudes, val-
ues, beliefs and behaviors of a media persona (Brown, 2010; Fraser & Brown, 2002;
Kelman, 1961), temporarily thinking you are the same as a media persona (Cohen,
2001), or taking on the actual identity of the persona to become that person (Klimmt
et al., 2009). In order to more comprehensively define identification, the following
definition is offered:
Identification is the process of conforming to the perceived identity of a
mediated persona both during and after media consumption or through
participation in a mediated event, which commences when media consumers
begin to assume the identity of the persona by sharing or adopting the persona’s
attitudes, values, beliefs or behavior.
According to this definition, imitation or role modeling are attributes of iden-
tification but they are not necessary conditions, since audiences can take on the

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Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae W. J. Brown

attitudes, values and beliefs of others without experiencing behavior change. In

addition, conforming to the identity of a persona includes taking on his or her
perspective. The definition also allows for identification with morally ambivalent
characters and anti-heroes.

Worship
As discussed earlier, Maltby et al.’s (2002, 2005) conceptualization of celebrity worship
should be redefined so as to distinguish this process from other forms of involvement.
The following new definition is offered:
Worship is the process of expressing devotion, commitment and love to a
mediated persona both during and after media consumption or participation in
a media event, which begins with the development of intense devotional feelings
toward the persona and is characterized by a strong loyalty to the persona and
willingness to give one’s time, finances and personal freedoms to venerate the
persona.
It is expected that among the many media consumers exposed to media personae,
a smaller percentage will experience transportation and PSI and an even smaller per-
centage will experience identification with them. Only a very small number of people
are expected to worship media personae. Similarly, it is expected that short-term influ-
ences of involvement with media personae will be common; moderate influences will
occur less common; and long-term influences will be much less common.

Conclusion
The study of emotional and psychological processes of involvement with media
personae is a growing area of communication theory and research. It is a compara-
tively less developed area of study than research of cognitive forms of involvement.
Existing theories of involvement processes with media personae have developed with
insufficient integration with respect to each other, leading to conceptual inconsis-
tencies and weak epistemic operationalization of conceptual variables. Thus, when
one scholar presents findings of a study of an involvement process, he or she might
mean something substantively different from another scholar who is studying the
same process. The review and discussion of four involvement processes and model
presented here are intended to move the field of communication study forward by
offering increased conceptual clarity of how these processes can be distinguished
from each other. In addition, it is hoped that the proposed theoretical frame-
work and refined definitions offered here might invigorate more cross-disciplinary
integration when exploring how audiences relate to media personae in future
research.
The path model offered here can be used to test predicted relationships among
these four processes. Studies should explore the mutual development of transporta-
tion and PSI and test the conditions when PSI leads to identification and when it

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W. J. Brown Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae

does not. Comparisons should be made of the propensity to engage in identification

with personae after strong PSRs are formed. The link between identification and
worship also needs much more investigation for future theory building. Additional
research should explore what other variables might lead to worship in addition to
strong identification. Also, more effective measures of these involvement processes
are needed. A measurement model should follow the theoretical model proposed
here to test the paths of predicted effects.
The proliferation of entertainment media worldwide shows no signs of abating.
As more people develop strong psychological bonds with media personae, both real
people and fictional characters, the need to understand their social influence becomes
more important among communication scholars and media practitioners.

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