THE EMOTIONAL (AFFECTIVE) SIDE OF EXPERIENCING MEDIA

THE EMOTIONAL (AFFECTIVE) SIDE OF EXPERIENCING MEDIA

What Is Emotion?

We cannot observe emotion directly; we do not see anger or hear happiness. We see violent behavior and feel angry; we hear laughter and feel happy, Emotions themselves are internal states and must be inferred from behavior. This can be tricky because sometimes the obvious inference is not the correct one. We may see someone crying over a TV movie and infer that they feel

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sad, when in fact they might be crying for joy or in anger, or for that matter, they might have an allergic condition where the crying does not reflect emotion at all. The behavior we observe is not the emotion felt inside by the person behaving.

Emotions are an integral part of the appreciation of media, especially radio and television. Perhaps no kind of programming hooks into emotions more strongly than music and sports, but many other genres of shows do so as well, including action-adventure shows, soap operas, game shows, and comedies. What we feel while watching or listening is a central part of the whole psychological experience. If the emotional aspect is absent, we miss an important dimension of the experience. Consider the unsatisfying experience of watching a ball game between two teams when you have little knowledge of the teams and no interest in who wins.

There are two components of emotion: the physiological and the cognitive. When we are aroused, there are certain changes in our bodies, such as increased heart rate, sweating, and changes in electrodermal (skin) measures. We also think about our feelings and attribute causes and interpretations to them. For example, if you feel very hyped up just after being offered a new job, you would interpret the same state of bodily arousal differently than you would if you had just consumed 10 cups of coffee or had just escaped from the clutches of a crazed killer. Thus, the emotions we feel are a product of both our bodily state and our cognitive appraisal of that state (Schachter & Singer, 1962; Zillmann, 1983, 1991a).

Media as Vicarious Emotional Experience

Watching a crime show on TV allows us to experience some of the emotion felt by the characters without putting ourselves in any physical danger. Thus we can become aroused safely through this vicarious experience, that is, experiencing the emotion through someone else’s experience. This indirectness allows us to focus on the excitement of a police show or the humor of a sitcom. If we actually experienced those situations in real life, the danger or embarrassment might overpower the positive aspects and they would not be nearly as much fun as they are on TV (Tannenbaum, 1980).

Many emotions are enjoyable to experience vicariously. Many comedies show people in embarrassing situations that are more humorous when happening to someone else. TV characters may do things we would like to do but have moral or ethical proscriptions against. We can, however, with a clear conscience, watch others have extramarital affairs, verbally insult their boss, or drive recklessly. One programming genre where participants are particularly encouraged to be highly expressive emotionally is the game show. In fact, a major screening characteristic for participants is high

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emotional expressiveness. The producers want bubbly, emotive, expressive contestants who yell, scream, and hug.

Occasionally, a particular live media event is so emotionally compelling as to make a lasting impact, for example the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center after the Sept. 2001 terrorist attacks. When the U.S. space shuttle Challenger exploded in January 1986, this event was seen live at the time on TV or later that day by 95% of the population of the country (J.C.Wright, Kunkel, Pinon, & Huston, 1989). In a study of the reactions of schoolchildren to the event, Wright et al. found strong evidence of emotion evoked by the tragedy, especially among girls, reflecting the gender stereotyping of girls admitting to feeling more emotion.

Emotional Expression and Media

Mainstream North American and Northern European societies often discourage direct expression of intense emotions. Television, however, sets some new rules that are more flexible. It is more acceptable to yell and shake your fist at a referee in a ball game on TV than to do the same at your boss. Although sports is probably the only arena in some societies where adult men may show physical affection toward other men without intimations of homosexuality, some of the same license is transferred to viewing sports on television. Thus, two men may playfully slap each other or even embrace after watching a spectacular play in a televised ball game.

The social situation of watching TV also makes a difference in our cognitions and experience. Watching a ball game or scary movie might be very different by yourself versus at a party with friends. There might be more expression of emotion in the group. The scary movie might be scarier alone and funnier with the group. Even though the stimulus of the TV show is the same in both cases, the experience, especially the emotional experience, may be quite different. The social experience of teenagers going to a horror film together is often very different than one might predict purely from considering the content of the film; for example, they may laugh at graphic horror (Oliver, 1993; Tamborini, 1991; Zillmann, Weaver, Mundorf, & Aust, 1986).

Children may learn from TV, helpfully or otherwise, how to deal with and express emotions they feel in various situations. Some years ago, young children learning to play tennis cursed and threw their racquets in imitation of John McEnroe, whose antics on the court were carried on TV as a model for dealing with frustration in sports. In an even more serious case, if TV regularly portrays men who feel frustrated with women as expressing such feelings through violence (battering or rape), children may learn that these antisocial ways of dealing with those feelings are acceptable.

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There is ample evidence of emotional contagion, whereby we unconsciously mimic and synchronize our language and behavior to those of someone around us (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1992, 1993). This mimicking and synchronicity then leads to an emotional convergence with the person being mimicked. Such persons may be from the media as well as in real life. Sometimes some TV and radio take advantage of this process by intentionally eliciting and manipulating negative emotions for their own ends of entertaining and promoting a particular agenda. See Box 6.1 for some of the most egregious and outrageous examples of this emotional manipulation.

BOX 6.1