Media Psychology

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Exploring the Role of Emotion in Media Effects: An

Introduction to the Special Issue

Robin L. Nabi & Werner Wirth

To cite this article: Robin L. Nabi & Werner Wirth (2008) Exploring the Role of Emotion
in Media Effects: An Introduction to the Special Issue, Media Psychology, 11:1, 1-6, DOI:
10.1080/15213260701852940

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Published online: 19 Mar 2008.

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Media Psychology, 11:1–6, 2008
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1521-3269 print/1532-785X online
DOI: 10.1080/15213260701852940

Exploring the Role of Emotion in Media

Effects: An Introduction to the Special Issue

ROBIN L. NABI
University of California, Santa Barbara

WERNER WIRTH
University of Zurich

The role of emotion in media processes and effects is without question a

very broad and exciting line of inquiry within the domain of media psy-
chology, holding promise for a vast array of communicative contexts, such
as health, politics, advertising, entertainment, educational programming, on-
line communication, etc. Thus, it should not be too surprising that the study
of emotion and media dates back to some of the earliest research on media
effects. Münsterberg’s (1916) film research, which distinguished among em-
pathic sympathy for protagonists, audience projection of feelings onto film
characters, and audience reactions to the protagonists’ emotions, is seminal
to research on media and empathy. Cantril and Allport’s (1935) consideration
of the psychology of radio and the emotional aspects of reception, emotional
gratifications, and impacts of radio usage denotes some of the earliest inquiry
into media selection and enjoyment research. Further, Hovland, Janis, and
Kelley’s (1953) seminal fear appeal research is at the foundation of the more
current programs of media-based emotion and persuasion research.
Despite the cognitive shift in the discipline of psychology during the
1960s and 1970s, investigation into emotion-related constructs in media re-
search continued to develop, largely through the impressive efforts of Dolf
Zillmann. Based on his three-factor theory of emotion, Zillmann laid out the
foundation for several models of effects that continue to inspire research
endeavors today (e.g., excitation transfer theory, Zillmann, 1983; and mood
management theory, Zillmann, 1988), and his contributions in this domain
cannot be understated (see Bryant, Roskos-Ewoldsen, & Cantor, 2003, for a
festschrift in his honor). Through the 1980s and 1990s, as emotion became
an increasingly ‘‘hot topic’’ in psychology, media researchers seemed to
take greater interest in emotion-related constructs and effects. The extensive

Address correspondence to Robin L. Nabi, Department of Communication, University of

California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. E-mail: nabi@comm.ucsb.edu

1
2 R. Nabi and W. Wirth

literature on fright reactions (Cantor, 2002), the introduction and growing

literature on the role of emotion in limited capacity message processing (see
Lang, 2000), and increasing attention to emotion and persuasion (Nabi, 1999)
are examples of domains of research inspired by these early scholarly efforts.
As we reflect on the state of the literature, it is evident that there are
abundant opportunities to develop and extend the ways in which we think
about how emotion functions in media effects contexts, and there has been
no better intellectual climate in which to undertake such efforts than the one
that currently exists. It was this recognition that served as the motivation for
this special issue.
To make significant advances in this area, however, requires a solid
conceptual understanding of what emotion is and thoughtful consideration
as to how such a construct might play a role in the various stages of effects
processes, from selection and attention, to comprehension and recall, and
to judgments and action. Although there is no single agreed upon definition
of emotion, one can nevertheless specify five components generally agreed
to underlie emotional states. That is, emotions can be considered complex
interactive entities encompassing affective, cognitive, conative, physiological,
and motivational components (e.g., Scherer, 1984). The affective compo-
nent includes the subjective experience of situations, which is connected
to feelings of arousal, pleasure, or dissatisfaction. The cognitive component
refers to how situations relevant to emotions are perceived and evaluated.
The conative component is related to expressive behavior, including facial
expression, vocal expression, gestures as well as the bearing of head and
body. The physiological component encompasses peripheral reactions of
the body which are mediated by the autonomic nervous system. Finally, the
motivational component refers to action readiness or behavioral intention.
Building from this foundation, there are two basic models of emotion
in the literature that guide the vast majority of the related research: dimen-
sional and discrete. Dimensional views focus on emotion as a motivational
state characterized by valence and degree of arousal. Discrete emotion per-
spectives consider individual emotional states delineated by the cognitive
appraisals, or thought patterns, underlying them. Both views lend themselves
well to the range of ways in which we can consider how emotions factor
into media effects processes. We might consider the emotion(s) audiences
bring to the media experience and how those emotions influence message
engagement. We might explore the emotions aroused as a result of media
exposure and their subsequent effects on message processing, and of course,
we can investigate the interactions between the two. Once we factor in
individual traits, message characteristics, and various consumptive contexts—
well—the research possibilities seem unlimited.
This special issue contains a series of articles—three theoretical and
four empirical—that capture just a taste of the types of cutting edge thinking
and research in the domain of emotion and media effects. We hope that in
 Exploring Emotion and Media Effects 3

reading this volume, researchers will not only gain a greater appreciation
for the richness of this rapidly growing field, but also will be inspired to
undertake their own investigations that will meaningfully advance this body
of research.
Bartsch, Vorderer, Mangold, and Viehoff, in their article ‘‘Appraisal of
Emotions in Media Use: Towards a Process Model of Meta-Emotion and
Emotion Regulation,’’ offer a very cogent summary of the at times fuzzy
concept of meta-emotion. Then, drawing from appraisal emotion theories,
they develop a model to understand how feelings about emotions influence
media selection. By integrating these two literatures—meta-emotion and
appraisal theories—Bartsch et al. provide coherence to an area greatly in
need of unification and offer a framework to help stimulate and guide
research on emotion and message selection in the coming years.
Tan, in his work ‘‘Entertainment is Emotion: The Functional Architecture
of the Entertainment Experience,’’ brings us into the domain of media enter-
tainment specifically, tackling the functional role of emotions in the enter-
tainment experience. Tan argues that entertainment is, at its core, a series of
emotional experiences in response to ongoing guided imagination. Further,
he asserts that interest is critical to initiate the entertainment experience, and
the subsequent emotional responses shape the experience to allow not only
for enjoyment but also for learning or training in circumstances that could
be functional or adaptive. This work touches on the adaptive function of
emotions and, together with careful consideration of both the surprisingly
complex concept of entertainment and appraisal emotion theories, helps
us understand some of the conundrums documented in the extant literature,
like the enjoyment of seemingly unpleasant media fare (e.g., tragedy, horror,
etc.).
This sort of integrative thinking is also captured in Dunlop, Wakefield,
and Kashima’s article ‘‘Can You Feel It: Negative Emotion, Risk, and Narrative
in Health Communication,’’ though this time in the domain of health and
persuasion. In this work, the authors propose that the emotions evoked by
health-based public service announcements can fall into one of three cat-
egories: imagery-referent, character-referent, and/or self-referent. Based on
this premise, they argue not only that each category of emotion might have
different effects on risk perceptions, interpersonal discussion, and behavior
change, but that narrative might be a particularly effective message structure
to initiate health behavior influence. This article is particularly interesting for
both its emphasis on the importance of an emotion’s source and target but
also its integration of emotion, media, and interpersonal influence.
As we shift to the empirical works, we see two of the papers consider the
mediating role of emotion between message exposure and critical outcomes
associated with media effects, and in doing so offer important advances in
theoretical development. Hwang, Pan, and Sun’s ‘‘Influence of Hostile Media
Perception on Willingness to Engage in Discursive Activities: An Examination
4 R. Nabi and W. Wirth

of the Mediating Role of Media Indignation’’ documents how partisan bias

leads to stronger perceptions of indignation which, in turn, associates with
greater willingness to engage in discursive activities for three political issues.
By documenting the mediating effect of indignation, Hwang et al. demon-
strate not only the importance of the affective pathway of influence but also
that the affective pathway has greater explanatory power in this context
than a cognitive one (i.e., opinion incongruity). By examining the emotional
response likely engendered in this domain, this paper offers unique insights
that enrich the hostile media bias literature.
Similarly, Holbert and Hansen, in their piece ‘‘Stepping Beyond Mes-
sage Specificity in the Study of Emotion as Mediator and Inter-Emotion
Associations Across Attitude Objects: Fahrenheit 9/11, Anger, and Debate
Superiority,’’ consider the mediating role of anger between exposure to
a political documentary and perception of candidate debate performance.
Their work extends prior research conceptually by examining emotional
response generated toward an attitude object, despite the absence of direct
discussion of that object (John Kerry) in the film, as well as the relationship
among the emotions associated with the multiple attitude objects under
consideration. Given emotion-focused research generally considers only one
attitude object at a time, this research encourages a broader lens through
which to consider the generation and impact of media-motivated emotional
response.
Also in a political context, Young’s ‘‘The Privileged Role of the Late-Night
Joke: Exploring Humor’s Role in Disrupting Argument Scrutiny,’’ considers
the role of emotion on influencing judgments, but in this case the focus is
on the positive affective state of humor as it relates to political satire, with
particular emphasis on issues related to message processing. Conceptually,
this work offers a very careful consideration of the cognitive processes likely
involved in processing humor, asserting multiple paths through which humor
might disrupt message scrutiny. By helping to disentangle these processes,
Young sheds light on what has been an interesting conundrum in the humor
and persuasion literature, that is, humor’s boosts to message attention and
recall yet its general lack of persuasive advantage relative to non-humorous
messages.
Finally, Dillman Carpentier, Brown, Bertocci, Silk, Forbes, and Dahl’s
‘‘Sad Kids, Sad Media? Applying Mood Management Theory to Depressed
Adolescents’ Use of Media’’ takes a well-established theory and extends
it by examining the relationship between emotional feelings and media
use (a) over time, (b) in real setting, (c) among adolescents, (d) with or
without mood disturbances. This research is particularly appealing for its
unique consideration of how different audiences (i.e., those in different
developmental stages or with different mental health profiles) might have
different degrees of skill in terms of emotional regulation and the implications
for media use and effects. Their collection of data in naturalistic settings
 Exploring Emotion and Media Effects 5

serves as an excellent reminder that our theory building based on laboratory

experiments should also be tested in more ecologically valid contexts.
These articles by no means capture the full array of interesting work
being conducted in the area of emotion and media effects. Indeed, research
related to some of the bigger trends in recent years (e.g., limited capacity,
children and fright) do not appear in this volume. This is not to suggest that
they do not continue to be important. Rather, the included works simply
represent a small sampling of the exciting directions that research on emotion
and media effects is taking. We have only begun to explore the myriad of
ways in which emotion may be meaningful in media contexts. We hope
that this volume serves to inspire media scholars to expand their efforts
to examine how emotions—from whatever perspective—might shed light
on the processes of media selection, consumption, and effects in ways that
continue to be conceptually sound and creative, methodologically rigorous,
and practically meaningful.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We wish to offer our sincerest thanks to Peter Vorderer, Mary Beth Oliver,
and Michael Shapiro for allowing us to devote valuable space in Media
Psychology to this very worthwhile topic. We further wish to express our
gratitude not only to the many reviewers who gave generously of their time
and energy to help make this issue possible, but also to the many authors
who submitted their work, and in so doing allowed us to see the range of
exciting and innovative research that is ongoing in this area from all corners
of the globe.

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Cantril, H., & Allport, G. W. (1935). The psychology of radio. New York, London:
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