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In recent years, online video blogs (vlogs) have become a highly popular form of media content, especially among younger audiences. While public interest has invoked a strong commercialization of vlog culture, research suggests that the concurrent loss of performer authenticity might pose a problem for the genre's appeal. Preparing the same vlog content in unedited ("amateur") and heavily produced ("professional") versions for an online experiment, we compare the viewing experience of 154 participants in terms of identification, parasocial responses, immersion, and enjoyment. Regarding most of these variables, we observe that the evaluations for the professionally produced vlog turn out much more favorable. Interestingly, the uncovered effects remain independent of the vlog's thematic focus, which is explored as an additional factor in our experiment. Concluding our statistical analyses, we report the results of an exploratory mediation analysis connecting the measured media psychological constructs.

Recent research suggests that social networks have replaced traditional media as the main channel by which beauty ideals are conveyed-often resulting in body dissatisfaction and reduced self-esteem among users. Although social comparison theory provides an empirically sound approach to these effects, we argue that additional insight may be offered by cultivation theory and its structured exploration of cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral outcome variables. Thus, the present study scrutinizes the social network Instagram as a potential cultivation system for young adults' body image. Recruiting 228 participants aged 18 to 34 years, we systematically explore 3 orders of cultivation, that is, changes in weight-related knowledge, attitudes, and self-reported dietary restraint. As we differentiate between Instagram use quantity and quality, we observe that mere usage time cannot predict the assumed outcomes; instead, only participants' tendency to browse Instagram's public content emerges as a relevant predictor, connecting to biased views on the physical appearance of strangers as well as more disordered eating behavior. Considering the fact that Instagram use relates more to other-focused than to self-focused perceptions in our study, we argue that cultivation theory can indeed complement social comparison theory in the current understanding of media-transmitted body images. Public Policy Relevance StatementThis article lends both a theoretical foundation as well as empirical support to the argument that highly visual social media constitute a meaningful cultivation system for body-related attitudes and behaviors among young adults. Our research illustrates how the frequent exposure to the virtual self-presentation of others may affect the way people look at strangers' bodies or indulge in disordered eating-even if their own body esteem remains intact.

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