In this foundational piece on media effects, Horton and Wohl argue that advancements in mass communication technologies—radio, television, and movies—facilitate a psychological phenomenon they term parasocial interaction. Unlike traditional social relationships, parasocial interactions are one‑sided: media audiences engage with performers or broadcasters as though in dialogue, yet the media figure neither knows nor interacts directly with the individual viewer or listener. The authors detail how this illusion of intimacy and familiarity arises from the conventions of mediated performance and address how individuals personalize and emotionally invest in these mediated relationships, laying the groundwork for decades of research on parasocial relationships and media engagement.
From Taylor and Francis and ResearchGate