Parasocial contact hypothesis

[1] Developed by Edward Schiappa, Peter B. Gregg, and Dean E. Hewes in a series of studies conducted at the University of Minnesota, the theory is now widely cited.

Schiappa, et al. build on the contact hypothesis by integrating research on Parasocial Interaction (PSI), that is, the perceived relationship that audiences develop through mediated encounters with real and fictional characters.

[5] The concept of parasocial interaction became increasingly attractive to mass communication scholars as more active views of the audience emerged in the second half of the 20th century—especially uses and gratification theory—and numerous empirical studies have utilized the idea to explore PSI’s antecedents, correlates, and consequences.

[14] Since the introduction of the concept of parasocial interaction, researchers have argued that the original conceptualization of PSI as holistic or unidimensional is flawed and urged a multi-dimensional approach to account for the wide range of responses that media consumers have with mediated characters.

[15] Sood and Rogers (2000) performed content analysis of letters written to a popular “edutainment” program in India and identified five different kinds of audience responses, described as cognitive, affective, and behavioral engagement, and critical and referential involvement.

[16] Christoph Klimmt, Tilo Hartmann, Holger Schramm proposed a model in which not only is PSI conceptually multidimensional, but there are distinct “levels” of involvement with media personae that need to be measured.

[18][19] A dissertation by Peter B. Gregg provided factor analysis of several studies focusing on parasocial responses and concluded that the specific variables and measures that should be used in future research depend on the aims of particular research projects, and that there is no reason to think that the range of measurable parasocial responses is any less diverse than those resulting from interpersonal contact.

In this regard, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials [39] showed that there are several interventions to reduce stigma towards this population, such as video games, audiovisual simulation of hallucinations, virtual reality and electronic contact with mental health service users.

The meta-analysis (n=1832 participants) demonstrated that these interventions had a consistent medium effect on reducing the level of public stigma (d=–0.64; 95% CI 0.31-0.96; p<.001).