User:Hop23/Parasocial interaction

Lead
Parasocial Relationships During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Parasocial relationships have been studied in various contexts, but the COVID-19 pandemic created a unique environment in which to study them. Due to the global pandemic, people’s social routines were abruptly interrupted; with the beginning of social-distancing and isolation protocols, people forcibly experienced a decrease in their face-to-face (FtF) interactions. To maintain communication with others, people turned to screens and media such as Zoom and FaceTime (“mediated” communication). This shift to mediated communication “blurred” the differences that existed between social and parasocial interactions and relationships. People would interact with their friends in similar ways as they would with media personas who they had parasocial relationships with. For example, one could like and comment on someone’s Instagram posts in the same way in both scenarios.

This environment presented a unique environment to study the parasocial compensation hypothesis, which suggests that parasocial relationships can function as an alternative to typical social relationships. One study found that individuals in a certain identity domain who lacked friends in real life made up for this deficiency by forming intense parasocial relationships (Bond, 2018), supporting this hypothesis. During the pandemic, studies found that parasocial relationships strengthened during the social distancing phase of COVID-19, further demonstrating how parasocial relationships may in fact have a compensation function.

The individuals who reported the strongest growth in their parasocial relationships were those who decreased their face-to-face social interactions; this supports the parasocial compensation hypothesis. However, these weren’t the only individuals who experienced an increase in strength in their parasocial relationships. Those who used increased their use of mediated communication to communicate with friends also demonstrated growth. Overall, we saw a strengthening of parasocial relationships during the beginning phases of the pandemic.

Article body
Explaining Increases in Growth:

One potential explanation for the growth in parasocial relationships is the cognitive distinctions between social and parasocial interactions which were no longer as well-defined. There were likely greater similarities in processing the social engagement of friends and media persona. When the only way to interact with others is through a screen, social engagement becomes much more similar to parasocial engagement. When utilizing these mediated communications, users can perceive greater distance (as compared to real-life interactions), leading them to cognitively process their actual friends in a similar manner as liked media persona. This could lead to processing parasocial interactions with greater intention, which could develop into greater and stronger parasocial relationships.

Another explanation would be that individuals who need higher amounts social connection increased their parasocial relationships, while still maintaining their social relationships online. Individuals who spent more time in mediated communication with real-life friends were likely to experience growth in their parasocial relationships, especially if the media persona would perform behaviors that increase their parasocial interaction potential. Parasocial interaction potential is how likely a media persona is to “engage” their audience in interactions.

This explanation would appear to refute the parasocial compensation hypothesis, suggesting that parasocial relationship cannot function as an alternative to social relationships, rather as an accompaniment. However, this explanation is weakened when considering how parasocial interaction potential should have had moderating influence, which was not seen. When people experienced a decrease in face-to-face interactions, they experienced a growth in their parasocial relationships, regardless of the parasocial interaction potential of the media persona with whom they experienced growth. Therefore, the parasocial compensation hypothesis is still supported; during a time when options and alternatives were limited, when individuals experienced less face-to-face interactions with friends, they may have attempted to replace it with parasocial interactions, regardless of the parasocial interaction potential of their liked media persona.

During this time, people spent more time in their parasocial interactions than they did in face-to-face social interactions. Parasocial relationships grew, especially if people were spending less time in their real-life social relationships, supporting the compensation function of parasocial relationships. Parasocial relationships could be particularly important for social connection during critical times such as the global pandemic. There may be other cases where individuals are experiencing “social deficiencies” with their real-life friends, or when they are not able to be around many “like-others” where parasocial relationships may function in similar capacities. The parasocial compensation hypothesis highlights how much value these type of relationships could have.

Conclusion:

Overall, parasocial relationships with media personae grew during the global pandemic, especially for those who may have used these types of interactions to make up for the “social deficiencies” that were caused by COVID-19. Our parasocial relationships began to look like our social relationships, which could have increased how much value we place on parasocial relationships, viewing them as important parts of people’s social networks during the pandemic.

Future research

Parasocial relationships are typically seen as a relationship with a media persona whom the individual views positively. More research should be done surround parasocial relationships with media personas who the individual views in a negative sense. There are many instances on social media where negative interactions exist (negative sentiments expressed towards politicians, athletes, etc.). It would be interesting to understand how these negative interactions and relationships can affect us, and our other relationships. Additionally, more research should be done on the well-being consequences of parasocial relationships with media persona who may inspire hate or other negative emotions, such as towards a particular group of people.

The role that mediated communication and engagement played during the pandemic may have led to media personas being evaluated with similar (or the same) cognitive processes we use when interacting with real-life friends. This may continue to influence our parasocial relationships, and more should be learned regarding the long-term effects of COVID-19 on the functioning of parasocial relationships.