The attraction of evil. An investigation of factors explaining women's romantic parasocial relationships with bad guys in movies and series.

The attractiveness of bad boys can be seen as a cultural phenomenon that can be found in different areas of society and art. In the media, too, the bad boy fulfills social expectations in terms of masculinity and is often portrayed as dominant, violent, hard, unemotional and aggressive. Women may feel attracted to this male dominance under certain conditions.

The involvement concept-replaceable or irreplaceable? A case for a conceptual analysis of a core concept of media psychological communication research.

The concept of involvement has enriched media psychological communication studies for more than three quarters of a century. The original concept of Sherif and colleagues-the so-called ego-involvement-has been extended piece by piece by various researchers over the decades, so that already in the 1980s voices were raised questioning the usefulness of such a broad meta-concept. In this article, we try to answer the question whether the involvement concept has become obsolete in the meantime by taking a more differentiated look at three different central understandings of the involvement concept (involvement as ego-involvement, as personal relevance and as mode of reception) and discussing their explanatory value.

Research trends on parasocial interactions and relationships with media characters. A review of 281 English and German-language studies from 2016 to 2020.

Parasocial phenomena are among the most popular and best-researched topics in media reception and effects research. The research can now look back on a history of over 65 years and has experienced another significant boom in recent years. Between 2016 and 2020, more studies were published than in the entire previous 60 years.