Experimental Evidence for Differences in the Prosocial Effects of Binge-Watched Versus Appointment-Viewed Television Programs

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of television consumption patterns on changes in attitudes toward depicted social out-groups. Participants were randomly assigned to view six episodes of Amazon’s Transparent, a comedy-drama program about a family whose father comes out as a transgender woman, in either one 3-hr (“binge-watching”) session or six weekly half-hour (“appointment-viewing”) sessions. Across both groups, we found exposure to the narrative reduced anti-transgender prejudice. Counter to the predictions of the extended elaboration likelihood model and the entertainment overcoming resistance model, however, improvement in prejudice toward transgender people was not predicted by narrative or character involvement. Rather, reduction in prejudice was an outcome of viewing condition, such that those who viewed the program on a schedule of one episode per week exhibited lower levels of postexposure prejudice than those who binge-watched, and their attitudinal changes were more persistent 3 weeks later. Results are discussed in the context of the original elaboration likelihood model, proposing mechanisms for further testing.

Characterizing the Influence of Television Health Entertainment Narratives in Lay Populations: A Scoping Review

“…Among studies that involved exposure in a lab setting, one assigned participants to binge or appointment watch a program. 32 Three studies (1.8%) involved exposure in a classroom setting, 33-35 and three studies assessed exposure by having participants watch clips from an episode during a focus group (Table 1). 36-38…”

“…Likewise, no studies in this review examined the potential influence of time of viewing programs with health storylines (eg live-airing of a program vs streaming at a later date), and only two examined the potential influence of binge-watching as compared to watching one episode at a time. 31,32 Findings from both studies suggest binge-watching may dilute the influence of the health-related content. Given the increased frequency with which viewers are choosing to binge-watch programming on streaming services, 75 it would be valuable to further investigate this association.…”

“…Among studies that involved exposure in a lab setting, one assigned participants to binge or appointment watch a program. 32 Three studies (1.8%) involved exposure in a classroom setting, [33][34][35] and three studies assessed exposure by having participants watch clips from an episode during a focus group (Table 1). [36][37][38] Approximately 1/3 of studies (n = 64) assessed exposure to fictional medical programs; ER was the most frequently assessed medical program (n = 22) followed by Grey's Anatomy (n = 20).…”

“…Of studies involving participants viewing an episode or clips from an episode(s) in a controlled environment as the exposure, approximately half (n=30) assessed perceptions only (Appendix Table 4). Four of these studies (13.3%) found a positive influence of the exposure on perceptions/ attitudes, 32,[43][44][45] and nine (30.0%) found an unsure influence. Three studies assessed knowledge only, with all finding that exposure was associated with increased knowledge (Appendix Table 4).…”

La plataforma Dark.Netflix como ejemplo de estrategia de amplificación de la transficcionalidad transmedia

“…De esta manera se produce un cambio significativo respecto al modelo televisivo tradicional, que queda todavía más evidenciado cuando se trata de contenido de video serializado (Merikivi et al 2019). El consumo programado o appointed viewing implica que el espectador debía esperar a la emisión del siguiente capítulo, pero los servicios de suscripción bajo demanda conceden al usuario la libertad de decidir cuándo quiere ver el episodio o la temporada de la serie al completo una vez que está accesible en la plataforma (Billard, 2019;Susanno, Phedra y Murwani, 2019). Si bien es cierto, mientras que algunas series se pueden visualizar de manera íntegra (todos los capítulos de una temporada), otras en cambio ofrecen a sus suscriptores el estreno de un capítulo cada semana, como así sucede en el modelo televisivo (generalmente son aquellas producciones que se distribuyen por un sistema multiplataforma).…”