Franziska S. Roth

Forecasting the Experience of Future Entertainment Technology “Interactive Storytelling” and Media Enjoyment

Advances in gaming and other entertainment technologies are evolving rapidly and create new conceptual challenges for understanding and explaining the user experiences they can facilitate. The present article reports a prospective study on a particularly promising entertainment technology of the future: Interactive storytelling (IS). Integrating various streams of computing technology, such as advanced visualization, natural speech processing, and autonomous agents, IS systems are envisioned to offer new, personalized and thus unique kinds of entertainment to mass audiences of the future. The authors refer to existing models of media entertainment for a theoretical analysis and analyze expert interviews with members of the international IS development community to lay out the foundations for a forecast model of the entertainment experience of future IS systems. The resulting model organizes fundamental requirements, modes of users’ information processing, and specific types of (pleasant) experiences, which holds implications for (future) entertainment theory and research that accompanies further development of IS media.

Political Learning Through Entertainment – Only an Illusion?

The purpose of this study is to explain viewers’ entertainment and feelings of being informed when watching political talk shows on German TV, depending on their viewing motivations. First, an exploratory survey (N = 189) aims to identify the motivation. Results show that some participants had a strong interest in gaining political information by following such shows, while others simply watch them for entertainment purposes. Drawing on the concept of infotainment as well as on the elaboration likelihood model as a basis for entertainment and the feeling of being informed, four hypotheses are then tested in a 2 × 2 (focus on entertaining features versus focus on information × talk show containing a video clip versus talk show containing no video clip) experiment with 63 subjects. The results suggest that people felt better informed and were more entertained through political talk shows when watching them with a focus on entertaining features rather than with a focus on information. However, whether a talk...

Learning from entertaining online video clips? Enjoyment and appreciation and their differential relationships with knowledge and behavioral intentions

Based on assumptions from entertainment theory, an online-study (N?=?419) was conducted to investigate the differential relationships between enjoyment and appreciation of a video clip that dealt with the features of natural gas as fuel for cars, objective and subjective knowledge about the content of that clip, and behavioral intentions of dealing with the topic of natural gas. Structural equation modeling revealed that enjoyment was directly positively related to objective and subjective knowledge. However, objective knowledge did not predict and subjective knowledge was only weakly associated with behavioral intentions. Appreciation, in contrast, was directly negatively related to knowledge acquisition and not related to subjective knowledge, but was the best predictor for behavioral intentions. These results point to the distinct processes and relationships of different entertainment experiences. Implications for entertainment-education and online video portals are discussed. We analyzed responses to an educational, entertaining online video about natural gas.We examined how entertainment experiences are related to knowledge and behavioral intentions.Enjoyment was positively associated with objective and subjective knowledge.Appreciation was the best direct predictor of behavioral intentions.We discuss implications for entertainment-education and online video portals.

Testing Measurement Invariance of Hedonic and Eudaimonic Entertainment Experiences Across Media Formats

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to investigate the measurement invariance of media users’ entertainment experiences as conceptualized by two-process models of entertainment (i.e., enjoyment and appreciation) across different media formats. With this purpose, the present research relates to the recent rise of entertainment research, embracing more and more media types and formats with which entertainment experiences may occur. At the same time, it addresses a methodological issue that has rarely been addressed in communication research. Focusing on one of the most often used measurement instruments in entertainment research, on three different media formats (political talk shows, comedies, and dramas), the study finds evidence for configural, metric, and scalar invariance for the scale. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Curving Entertainment: The Curvilinear Relationship Between Hedonic and Eudaimonic Entertainment Experiences While Watching a Political Talk Show and Its Implications for Information Processing.

Two studies were conducted to test the relation between hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment experiences as well as their respective influence on information processing while watching a political talk show on TV. Assumptions from entertainment theory and positive psychology served as theoretical basis. A curvilinear relationship between hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment experiences was found through an online survey (N = 675). The second study (N = 132) was an experiment in which hedonic entertainment experiences were manipulated. Again, a curvilinear relationship between both entertainment experiences was detected. Furthermore, entertainment experiences were associated with information processing in a meaningful pattern. These results point to the distinct relationships and effects of different forms of entertainment experiences. Implications for political media and entertainment education are discussed.

Saving Tiger, Orangutan & Co: how subjective knowledge and text complexity influence online information seeking and behavior

ABSTRACT Besides others, subjective knowledge ‒ the feeling of being knowledgeable ‒ as well as the complexity of a communicated content have been shown to have an impact on different behavioral outcomes ‒ also in the field of consumer choices. However, it remains open how both factors influence subsequent outcomes such as information seeking, behavioral intentions, or actual choice behavior ‒ especially related to environmental issues. With a 2 (high/low subjective knowledge) × 2 (high/low complex information) between-subjects design (N = 87), we investigated the effects of subjective knowledge and complexity of an online news text about a specific environmental topic (i.e., palm oil) on behavioral intentions, online information seeking as well as on behavioral choices. Higher subjective knowledge raised the probability to volunteer for an NGO and the duration of time spent on a palm oil-related webpage. Environmental attitudes determined the general likelihood to engage in palm oil-related web search and the number of webpages visited. Text complexity did not influence the target variables.