Journal
JOURNAL OF CHILDREN AND MEDIA
Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages 229-240Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/17482798.2017.1304969
Keywords
Parasocial relationships; media characters; child interview; young children; measure development
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [NSF] [0126014, 1251745]
- Georgetown University
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie
- Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci [1251745, 0126014] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Adults and children form one-sided, emotionally tinged relationships with media characters known as parasocial relationships. Studies have measured adult conceptions of their own parasocial relationships and parent perceptions of their children's parasocial relationships, but little is known about how to quantify young children's perceptions of their own parasocial relationships. In this study, a child self-report survey was developed based on prior parental surveys and behavioral measures to operationalize children's parasocial relationships. Results revealed that 2-6 year-old U.S. children can name and report about their favorite media characters, who were the target for assessing parasocial relationships. Factor analyses indicated three components of children's parasocial relationships: attachment and friendship, humanlike needs, and social realism. Although the internal consistency improved with age on attachment and friendship and social realism, only the attachment and friendship subscale reached conventional acceptable levels of internal consistency. This study provides a new method for operationalizing children's parasocial relationships through child interview and describes future research directions for improving the internal consistency of the child subscales.
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