User:Guinevereramsey/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Parasocial interaction

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I choose this article to evaluate because I think it is relevant to the intersection between media, popular culture, celebrity culture and social psychology. I think this topic matters because it helps to form an understanding of the role media plays in creating these types of (albeit, one-sided) relationships. Additionally, the intersection of these different disciplines offers and opportunity to dig deeper into the interconnectedness of people, the media they consume and the formation of relationships.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

The lead of this article provides a concise, yet descriptive overview of what parasocial interaction refers to and the major elements/people involved, providing both a solid definition and attribution to the founders of the term David Horton and Richard Wohl. The lead does not contain any information that is not included or referred to in the rest of the article.

The tone of the article is relatively neutral, it uses descriptive language instead of persuasive language when describing all interpretations of parasocial relationships. In some areas of the article, editors have even made note of contrasting views. For example, in the subheading 'Evolution of the term', it is explicitly written that another set of researchers (Perse & Rubin) disputed a claim about the nature of parasocial interaction made by David Horton and Richard Wohl. The article also discusses the topic in connection to a variety of different fields (psychology, business, popular culture) to explain parasocial interactions and relationships in different contexts.

An issue with this article is a lack of citations, leaving some claims within the article unsubstantiated by reliable and relevant sources. This issue is severe in the areas of 'Identity Formation' and 'Body Image' and also noticed in other areas of the article. The majority of sources come from recognized peer-reviewed journals, such as 'Human Communication Research' and 'Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media'. As well, the sources range across decades and include relevant sources from the past five years.

In most areas of the article information is described clearly and concisely, however parts of this article do become convoluted when discussing the theoretical frameworks of the topic. I think that the article is outlined well, considering the topic is connected to a variety of fields and contexts. However, I think it would make more sense to include the limitations and future research sections after the 'Focus on relationships' section to provide better flow to the development of the topic. The article begins with the 'Evolution of the term' heading and carries into scientific research and then specific areas of study in relation to the topic, so it would make the most sense to discuss the limitations and future research once all the other information has been presented as a conclusion to the topic and article.

Much of the conversations in the talk-page include adding more up-to-date and relevant information to the article, such as parasocial interactions and live-streaming, which seems to have been added as a heading and sub-heading in two separate sections. The talk section also indicates a proposal to merge the parasocial interaction article with parasocial relationships as research suggestions the connection and similarities with these terms (and much of the research overlaps). The article is part of three WikiProjects: WikiProject Psychology (start-class, low-importance), WikiProject Sociology (C-class, mid-importance), and WikiProject Media (start-class, mid-importance). Overall, it seems that there is still room to improve and develop the content surrounding this topic on Wikipedia.

The article does a good job at highlighting the different fields of study that the topic relates to, but the depth in which each is discussed is somewhat unbalanced (which could be because some fields of study have less significant research relating to the topic). The article could be improved by fixing the lack of citations throughout the article, to ensure that all information and all claims are from a reliable source and not extrapolation of research made by wikipedia contributors.