Parasocial Communication

Defining Parasocial Communication

Parasocial communication leads to a variety of parasocial responses in the same way that interpersonal communication leads to a variety of interpersonal responses. People may want to get to know a character better or may want to spend more time with them by watching a show. Over time, these parasocial responses create a parasocial relationship as audiences get to know the character or persona and feel intimately connected to them or close emotionally. Audiences come to feel like they know the character personally. They may think of the character or persona as a friend. Some viewers might even try to get in touch with the persona through letters or social media. Audience members take on particular roles in the relationship, just as in interpersonal relationships. They feel like confidantes or allies, they have the opportunity to learn about others or see things from another perspective, or they may enjoy the opportunity to experience things they would not otherwise be able to experience.

Parasocial interaction and other parasocial responses happen regardless of whether the personality is a “real” person like a news presenter or celebrity or a “fictional” person like a character on a sitcom. The evolutionary theory of parasocial responses suggests that since our minds evolved long before the advent of electronic media, our brains process visual and audio information of mediated experiences like television shows in the same way they process similar stimuli in a face-to-face experience. In other words, the human brain processes media experiences similarly to the ways it processes real-life direct experience.

As a result, humans do not completely separate parasocial human contact with face-to-face contact in their minds. When talking with another person, people try to figure out what the other person is thinking. People make quick judgments about what a person is like, whether or not they like them, and what biases they may have regarding the other person, based on very little exposure and with very little information. The same holds true for moments of parasocial communication. Just like there are many factors that go into why we may like or dislike a person we meet in person, there are many dimensions that influence why we feel the way we do about a media persona. The things that affect how we feel and think about a person we meet in everyday life are active when we “meet” a character parasocially. These feelings and thoughts can result in many different effects or consequences. Scholars have argued that since there is a human instinct to form attachments with other humans,[Page 1180] we perceive mediated contact as functionally similar to interpersonal contact. As a result, we form attachments with mediated personalities.

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