Impact of Films: Changes in Young People’s Attitudes after Watching a Movie

Abstract

Nowadays films occupy a significant portion of the media products consumed by people. In Russia, cinema is being considered as a means of individual and social transformation, which makes a contribution to the formation of the Russian audience’s outlook, including their attitudes towards topical social issues. At the same time, the question of the effectiveness of films’ impact remains an open question in psychological science. According to the empirical orientation of our approach to the study of mass media influence, our goal was to obtain new data on the positive impact of films based on specific experimental research. The task was to identify changes in the attitudes of young people, as the most active viewers, towards topical social issues after watching a specifically selected film. Using a psychosemantic technique that included 25 scales designed to identify attitudes towards elderly people, respondents evaluated their various characteristics before and after watching the film. Using a number of characteristics related to the motivational, emotional and cognitive spheres, significant changes were revealed. At the same time, significant differences were found in assessments of the elderly between undergraduate students and postgraduate students. After watching the film, postgraduate students’ attitudes towards elderly people changed in a positive way, while undergraduate students’ negative assessments only worsened. The revealed opposite trends can be explained by individual differences of respondents, which include age, educational status as an indicator of individual psychological characteristics, the experience of interaction with elderly people and, as a result, attitudes towards elderly people at the time before watching the movie. The finding that previous attitudes mediate the impact of the film complements the ideas of the contribution of individual differences to media effects. Most of the changes detected immediately after watching the movie did not remain over time. A single movie viewing did not have a lasting effect on viewers’ attitudes, and it suggests the further task of identifying mechanisms of the sustainability of changes.

Cultural Entertainment Consumption and Empathy Communication Mechanism

“…The film community belongs to the human relationship formed under the virtual boundary. It is a collection of human beings gathered due to the interest in watching films, implying a unified relationship between the space of discourse practice and the space of spiritual interaction (Nikolaeva et al, 2018 ; Ayikoru and Park, 2019 ; Kubrak, 2020 ). Therefore, most existing studies have carried out related explorations from the perspective of community discourse texts and spiritual expression.…”

Bollywood, Popular Visual Media, and Sexism in India: A Critical Glance Back

“…There are theories of minimal effects, theory of a strong effect, cultivation theory, and so on. 11,12 Gender role stereotypes and sexism shown in the popular visual media may impact public opinion formation and beliefs and attitude wherein imitation, idolization, normalization, and sensitization to gender inequality play a role. The attempt at the real-life application of the shown attributes by the youth and older adults is a behavioral manifestation of the same.…”

Misrepresenting Nurses: An Overview of Some Selected Nollywood Movies

“…It should be noted that people are influenced by what they see, and in a similar vein, movies can influence its audiences' beliefs and opinions on various issues (Kubrak, 2020). Therefore, it is, safe to admit that this erroneous portrayal might have an adverse effect on people's opinions and beliefs about nurses, which is likely to linger for long in their minds.…”