Model of Inspiring Media

Abstract

Abstract. Scholars have increasingly explored the ways that media content can touch, move, and inspire audiences, leading to numerous beneficial outcomes including increased feelings of connectedness to and heightened motivations for doing good for others. Although this line of inquiry is relatively new, sufficient evidence and patterns of results have emerged such that a clearer picture of the inspiring media experience is coming into focus. This article has two primary goals. First, we seek to synthesize the existing research into a working and evolving model of inspiring media experiences reflecting five interrelated and symbiotic elements: exposure, message factors, responses, outcomes, and personal/situational factors. The model also identifies theoretical mechanisms underlying the previously observed positive effects. Secondly, the article explores situations in which, and precipitating factors present, when these hoped-for outcomes either fail to materialize or result in negative or maladaptive responses and outcomes. Ultimately, the model is proposed as a heuristic roadmap for future scholarship and as an invitation for critique and collaboration in the emerging field of positive media psychology.

Exploring the impact of media use on wellbeing following a natural disaster

“…Eden et al (2020) offered a more hopeful-though still complicated-picture of the latter in a recent study of media use among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such work further offers support to emerging theories and models of the salutary effects of media use (e.g., Oliver et al, 2021;Reinecke and Rieger, 2021), in particular over time and in response to life stressors. Despite these contributions, the current study has its limitations.…”

“…They are further typified by the experience of self-transcendent emotions (e.g., moral elevation, awe, gratitude, hope, admiration). As a result, they are considered a particular type of eudaimonic media experiences, ones that fall at the far end of a continuum ranging from self-related and inner-focused to others-related and outwardly focused (see Oliver et al, 2021).…”

“…The frequency of self-transcendent media use was measured with three items: how often respondents encountered inspiring content in television/streaming services, film, and social media/other internet outlets since the hurricane [The more colloquial term "inspiring" was used for these items for the sake of clarity among participants; scholars in this area routinely use the terms "self-transcendent" and "inspirational" interchangeably; e.g., Oliver et al, 2018Oliver et al, , 2021. Responses were recorded on a 5-point scale (1 = Never; 5 = Always) and summed to yield a single factor, with higher scores reflecting greater post-hurricane inspiring media use (M = 6.83, SD = 2.86; α = 0.73).…”

Innovating the Media Psychology of Interpretation, Identity, Interactivity, and Intersectionality

“…This call led to several submissions and from there, our editorial staff selected 12 total manuscripts for further development and publication. Six of those manuscripts were presented in late 2021 (Klimmt & Bowman, 2021) manuscripts that focused on identity shift (Carr et al, 2021), formal modeling and media selection (Fisher & Hamilton, 2021), inspirational media (Oliver et al, 2021), self-regulation and online engagement (Ozimek & Förster, 2021), and media multitasking (Wiradhany et al, 2021;Zamanzadeh & Rice, 2021). Although it is too soon to see the impact of those manuscripts in our system via downloads and citation metrics, papers under review with JMP have already begun working these ideas into theorizing and discussion sections.…”

Inspiring, Regulating, Multitasking, Modeling, and Shifting

“…Each of these manuscripts was further curated by one editor based on their own unique expertise areas, and that handling editor consulted with the authors (and with external editors) co-constructively arrive at the strongest possible final articles. Of that selected list of 12, six of them are presented to readers in this current issue of JMP (Carr et al, 2021;Fisher & Hamilton, 2021;Oliver et al, 2021;Ozimek & Förster, 2021;Zamanzadeh & Rice, 2021;Wiradhany, 2021) and the remaining will be published in a future issue. The sorting and ordering has no bearing on the quality of the papers, and was mostly influenced by the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic in which our authors as well as editors are affected in systematic and inequitable ways (King & Frederickson, 2021;Staniscuaski et al, 2021) to this end, we extend our most sincere gratitude for everyone's patience and understanding.…”