Film involvement and narrative persuasion: the role of identification with the characters

Resumen

This paper presents three studies examining the role of the identification with the characters in research on media entertainment and film reception. In Study 1 it was found that identification with characters was associated with the degree of enjoyment of the spectators of feature-length films of different genres. Study 2 showed that identification with characters predicts the affective impact of a dramatic film. It was also found that identification with characters was associated with greater cognitive elaboration and a better quality or more complex reflexive process during the viewing of a dramatic feature-length film. Finally, in Study 3 it was observed that identification with characters was an explanatory variable of narrative persuasion. These results support the centrality of the construct of identification with characters in analyzing the effects of media entertainment, and narrative persuasion in particular