Frank M. Schneider

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz | JGU

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...

In times of being always online and connected, cyberostracism—the feeling of being ignored or excluded over the Internet—is a serious threat to fundamental human needs: belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence. According to the temporal need-threat model, responses to ostracism lead to immediate and universal experiences of negativ...

Mobile phones, television, internet services, games, and social media offer diverse and numerous opportunities for coping with stress in everyday life. Different disciplines have contributed to answering how these media are used for coping. Consequently, fragmented and disconnected research perspectives have evolved. To improve integration, we cond...

Using mobile media can be both detrimental and beneficial for well-being. Thus, explaining how and when they elicit such effects is of crucial importance. To explicate boundary conditions and processes for digital well-being, this article introduces the Integrative Model of Mobile Media Use and Need Experiences (IM³UNE). Instead of assuming mobile...

Audiences’ movie evaluations have often been explored as effects of experiencing movies. However, little attention has been paid to the criteria viewers use when they evaluate a movie or its specific features. Adding to this, the present research introduces the idea of subjective movie evaluation criteria (SMEC), conceptualizes SMEC as the mental r...

The functioning of representative democracy depends on a “responsible electorate” that rewards and punishes parties according to their promises. Holding representatives accountable is the only way for voters to keep control over the government. This article draws on the normative assumption of accountability theory to investigate the impact of info...

People increasingly use large language model (LLM)-based conversational agents to obtain information. However, the information these models provide is not always factually accurate. Thus, it is critical to understand what helps users adequately assess the credibility of the provided information. Here, we report the results of two preregistered expe...

Can entertainment serve as a gateway to political interest and participation? In this paper, we examine the specific case of eudaimonic entertainment experiences (i.e., meaningful, moving, and thought-provoking entertainment experiences). To systematically analyze the influence of experiential and contextual factors associated with eudaimonic enter...

Being socially excluded seriously threatens individuals’ need to belong and emotional well-being. This article investigates to what extent different coping strategies help overcome these detrimental effects: thinking about real-life friends/enemies (i.e., orthosocial relationships, OSRs) and thinking about (dis)liked media characters (i.e., parasoc...

People increasingly use large language model (LLM)-based conversational agents to obtain information. However, the information these models provide is not always factually accurate. Thus, it is critical to understand what helps users adequately assess the credibility of the provided information. Here, we report the results of two preregistered expe...

Socially excluded individuals often use media to cope with their feelings of loneliness, restore threatened needs, and regulate their emotions. However, social exclusion experiences have often been studied from a social-psychological perspective, with little consideration of media-specific characteristics. Thus, this paper aims to identify which di...

In light of the controversial relationship and blurred lines between information and entertainment media, the current study’s goal aimed at qualitatively exploring media entertainment’s role in emerging adults’ political identity formation and engagement. By analyzing 55 semistructured interviews from Germany, Croatia, Turkey, South Korea, and the...

Introduction to the Special Section Democracies around the world are struggling with the decline of civic and political engagement. At the same time, new forms of engagement such as lifestyle politics, Internet activism, and political consumerism are on the rise. In this introduction to the Special Section, we argue that citizens are increasingly...

Feeling ostracised, that is, feeling ignored and excluded, in a social media environment causes negative affect and threatens fundamental human needs. Socially anxious people are especially fearful of social exclusion and may—if they feel ostracised—suffer even more when they do not have low-risk coping options such as using the Like button. Using...

When people feel socially threatened and excluded, they could use their mobile phones to reconnect with others and feel better. We assumed that such positive results can occur even if mobile phones are not actively used. Rather, it may suffice if users believe that carrying a mobile phone ensures social connection. This mindset may help users recov...

Highlights  Smartphones as physical devices and symbols represent social bonds and affiliation  Beyond mere use, they can help users deal with feeling ostracized  With smartphones in the pocket, users felt less socially threatened than without  Social app cues reduced feeling ostracized better than information app cues  Social app cues reduced...

The TEBOTS model predicts that narratives are sought after more often in times of depletion. The present study aimed at expanding this idea by testing whether engagement with narratives is also intensified under self-threatening conditions. Further, we examined whether narratives can serve coping functions. In a 3(Threat: mortality salience vs. ost...

When posting content in social media, users can feel excluded due to lacking (cyber-ostracism) or negative (cyber-rejection) feedback. Referring to the temporal need-threat model, this study examined the impact that both exclusion experiences have on social media users’ need threat and on their online coping behavior to fortify threatened needs. Fo...

Dieses Kapitel beleuchtet die Ziele interner Organisationskommunikation. Nach einer kurzen Einführung in psychologische Perspektiven über die Wirkung interner Kommunikation werden die gängigsten mitarbeiter- und organisationbezogenen Ziele ausführlich erläutert und die Ergebnisse empirischer Forschung zum Zusammenhang zwischen interner Kommunikatio...

Using mobile media can be both detrimental and beneficial for well-being. Thus, explaining how and when they elicit such effects is of crucial importance. To explicate boundary conditions and processes for digital well-being, this article introduces the Integrative Model of Mobile Media Use and Need Experiences (IM³UNE). Instead of assuming mobile...

Cross-cutting exposure (i.e., the exposure to dissonant views) is a central component of political discussion among citizens. Although political discussion is a crucial form of political engagement and a well-known source of dissonance, little is known about the impact of cross-cuttingness (vs. like-mindedness; CCLM) elicited by media news on polit...

Research on parasocial interaction (PSI) has a long tradition in noninteractive environments such as watching TV or listening to radio speakers. In the past years, researchers have started to apply PSI on videogame streaming environments, where the audience can interact with the observed media persona and get immediate feedback on their messages an...

In the last 10 years, many canonical findings in the social sciences appear unreliable. This so-called “replication crisis” has spurred calls for open science practices, which aim to increase the reproducibility, replicability, and generalizability of findings. Communication research is subject to many of the same challenges that have caused low re...

Most people have one or more favorite pieces of media entertainment (e.g., movies, TV shows, novels, video games), and some personal candidates for the worst of them ever. But how exactly are such evaluative judgments formed? What are the underlying psychological processes of media entertainment evaluations? And why do we sometimes feel that the he...

This chapter reviews the controversial relationship of entertainment and political communication and presents a theoretical framework to integrate seemingly contradicting concepts and research findings. On the one hand, concerns have been raised about the decay of news quality and political culture due to the growing influence of entertainment medi...

Research on parasocial interaction (PSI) has a long tradition in non-interactive environments such as watching TV or listening to radio speakers. In the last years, researchers have started to apply PSI on videogame streaming environments, where the audience can interact with the observed media persona and get immediate feedback on their messages a...

Smartphones are ubiquitous and frequently used in copresent interactions. This behavior is often seen as inappropriate and thus has been termed phubbing, compromising the words "phone" and "snubbing." Although being a worldwide phenomenon, little is known about what predicts phubbing behavior in the first place. Drawing on injunctive norms (i.e., w...

Given that news stories feature many morally-laden topics, this study investigated the effect of moral conflict in news stories on entertainment experiences and learning outcomes. We propose that a reader’s perception of moral conflict in a non-fictional news story will lead to the cognitively engaging experience of appreciation, which is character...

When posting content in social media, users can feel excluded due to lacking (cyber-ostracism) or negative (cyber-rejection) feedback. Referring to the temporal need-threat model, this study examined the impact that both exclusion experiences have on social media users’ need threat and on their online coping behavior to fortify threatened needs. Fo...

The question of what is important when we evaluate movies is crucial for understanding how lay audiences experience and evaluate entertainment products such as films. In line with this, subjective movie evaluation criteria (SMEC) have been conceptualized as mental representations of important attitudes toward specific film features. Based on explor...

Video game streaming platforms have reached high popularity within the last years. As one of these popular platforms, Twitch provides users with the opportunity to participate in several gaming situations: They can simultaneously watch in-game actions, the streamer playing the game, and additionally, they can interact with the streamer and other vi...

In times of permanent connectedness via mobile devices, availability demands often occur even across the boundaries between work and private life. Based on work–family border theory, this study examined how so-called setting-inconsistent pressure to be available influences employees' emotional well-being. For this purpose, an experimental 2 × 2 bet...

The journal's correct name is: "International Journal of Business Communication" This article deals with the question of how agreement or disagreement in the perception of leadership communication from the perspective of both leader and subordinate is related to subordinates’ job satisfaction. Employees of a department in a large, globally operati...

Most people have one or more favorite pieces of media entertainment (e.g., movies, TV shows, novels, video games), and some personal candidates for the worst of them ever. But how exactly are such evaluative judgments formed? What are the underlying psychological processes of media entertainment evaluations? And why do we sometimes feel that the he...

This chapter reviews the controversial relationship of entertainment and political communication and presents a theoretical framework to integrate seemingly contradicting concepts and research findings. On the one hand, concerns have been raised about the decay of news quality and political culture due to the growing influence of entertainment medi...

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 in...

In Zeiten, in denen wir über Mobilgeräte permanent online und mit anderen verbunden sein können, stellt sich die Frage, ob das permanente Online-Sein ein gutes Leben fördert oder erschwert. Der Fokus liegt hierbei auf den gesundheitsfördernden und vorbeugenden Aspekten der Salutogenese und auf der achtsamen, selbstkontrollierten und sinnstiftenden...

In Zeiten, in denen wir über Mobilgeräte permanent online und mit anderen verbunden sein können, stellt sich die Frage, ob das permanente Online-Sein ein gutes Leben fördert oder erschwert. Um dies zu erörtern, greifen wir auf die Idee der Salutogenese (Antonovsky, 1979, 1987) zurück: nicht das zu fokussieren, was uns krankmacht, sondern den Blick...

The goal of this chapter is to describe how the POPC environment operates in tandem with personal characteristics to influence people’s exposure to and processing of political information. In describing the political consequences of the POPC phenomenon we take a social-psychological perspective and focus on the individual level (for a more sociolog...

In times of being permanently online and permanently connected (POPC) via ubiquitous mobile devices, it is a pressing question if such a POPC lifestyle benefits or impairs a good life. To elaborate on this notion, we cast light on the general idea of salutogenesis (Antonovsky, 1979, 1987): not focusing on what makes us ill but on how we stay health...

Vertreter/innen der Programme-to-Policy-Linkage-Forschung konnten zeigen, dass die Kongruenz von in Wahlprogrammen gegebenen und tatsächlich zu Regierungszeiten umgesetzten Wahlversprechen im Langzeitvergleich und systemunabhängig hoch ausfällt. Die Bevölkerung etablierter demokratischer Staaten nimmt dagegen mehrheitlich an, dass Wahlversprechen i...

This article presents an extended dual-process model of entertainment effects on political information processing and engagement. We suggest that entertainment consumption can either be driven by hedonic, escapist motivations that are associated with a superficial mode of information processing, or by eudaimonic, truth-seeking motivations that prom...

The same computer games are played by youths all over the world, and worldwide games become matters of concern in relation to children: worries rise about addiction, violence, education, time, and economy. Yet, these concerns vary depending upon where they are situated: in families, legal contexts, industry or science. They also play out differentl...

Contrary to the popular notion of the pledge-breaking politician, research has revealed that governing political parties fulfill most of their pre-election pledges. This discrepancy between public perception and scientific findings could be the result of citizens’ looser definition of election pledges. Thus, as citizens’ assessment of pledge fulfil...

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...

Across all areas of communication research, the most popular approach to generating insights about communication is the classical significance test (also called null hypothesis significance testing, NHST). The predominance of NHST in communication research is in spite of serious concerns about the ability of researchers to properly interpret its re...

Interest in the meaningful sides of media entertainment has blossomed over the last decade, with numerous scholars examining how certain media content can enhance social good and well-being. Because social scientific work in this area is relatively new and is rapidly evolving, numerous conceptualizations of meaningful media experiences have been in...

In times of being permanently online and permanently connected (POPC) via ubiquitous mobile devices, it is a pressing question if such a POPC lifestyle benefits or impairs a good life. To elaborate on this notion, we cast light on the general idea of salutogenesis (Antonovsky, 1979, 1987): not focusing on what makes us ill but on how we stay healt...

Recent approaches in entertainment research have extended the scope from hedonic gratifications (fun, suspense) to meaningful and thought-provoking entertainment experiences (appreciation). The present research examines the cross-national measurement validity of these theoretical constructs by testing the factorial structure of the German version o...

The paper looks at the symbolic interactions on social networking sites, such as Likes on Facebook, and their role in users' sense of social in- or exclusion. In an online experiment, users of Facebook were asked to write a possible status update and then received note about the numbers of hypothetical Likes they received (zero, two, or thirty) and...

How can we operationalize the new phenomenon of being permanently online, permanently connected (POPC)? In this chapter, we highlight established and innovative methods of data collection in POPC research with a focus on smartphones. After identifying conceptual as well as methodological obstacles and opportunities when measuring POPC, we synthesiz...

Drawing on the affect infusion model and on affective disposition theory, this study aims to explain the influence of viewers’ affective disposition toward the guests of political TV talk shows on their information processing and judgments. The affective disposition was manipulated in an experiment. Results suggest that this affective disposition r...

The number of smartphone users surpassed two billion in 2016; the most popular applications are instant messengers. However, research about benefits and risks for users has yielded contradictory findings and indicates that the relation between smartphone use and well-being depends on many conditions. We propose mindfulness as a predictor of well-be...

As the Internet provides massive amounts of heterogeneous information, people may perceive this medium as challenging. The difficulty to evaluate and select relevant information increases as more and more diverse sources and content are available. Information overload (IO) may be the consequence. The research presented here gives a first comprehens...

Die Latent-State-Trait-Theorie (LSTT) spielt seit vielen Jahren eine wichtige Rolle für die Modellierung und Unterscheidung von temporären Zuständen (States) und relativ stabilen Eigenschaften (Traits) sowohl im Rahmen von Veränderungsmessungen als auch bei der Konstruktvalidierung und Reliabilitätsschätzung. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt auf, dass...

Die Latent-State-Trait-Theorie (LSTT) spielt seit vielen Jahren eine wichtige Rolle für die Modellierung und Unterscheidung von temporären Zuständen (States) und relativ stabilen Eigenschaften (Traits) sowohl im Rahmen von Veränderungsmessungen als auch bei der Konstruktvalidierung und Reliabilitätsschätzung. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt auf, dass...

Background With the availability of mobile smart devices, many adolescents have developed the habit of being online and connected with other users almost all the time. Objective The aim of this paper is to provide a definition of being permanently online (PO) and permanently connected (PC) and to explore students' current PO/PC behaviors. Methods A...

In drei experimentellen Studien wurde untersucht, inwiefern Instrumente, die im Rahmen nicht-teilnehmender Beobachtungen eingesetzt werden, das Rezeptionserleben beeinträchtigen. Ausgangspunkt ist die Theorie der objektiven Selbstaufmerksamkeit nach Duval und Wicklund (1972) und die damit verbundene Annahme, dass Beobachtungsinstrumente wie Kameras...

Free download link (up to 50 copies): http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Z9t6GuRWkjgH9ZrkKvT3/full 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 study takes an interest in the reflexive responses and coping mechanisms of socially anxious individuals if threatened by ostracizing signals in the online world, for example, non-responsiveness. Cyberostracism – feeling ignored or excluded online – is a serious threat to fundamental human needs (i.e., belongingness, self-esteem, contro...

Election pledges are a fundamental part of election campaigns. However, it remains unclear if citizens believe such pledges, which could be relevant for an effect of election pledges on the voter’s choice. We argue that trust in the party making the promise and general trust in politicians are crucial for perceiving election pledges as trustworthy....

Within Hofstede’s framework of individualistic and collectivistic cultures, this contribution examines measurement equivalence of hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment motivations in two different cultures, namely Germany representing a more individualistic culture (N = 180) and Turkey representing a more collectivistic culture (N = 97). By means of...

An online survey (N = 207) investigated how the seen-function influences users’ answering behavior in Facebook chatting. The seen-function is a chat-feature that provides more transparency over the course of a chat conversation and thus may also intensify the mutual awareness of chat partners. Based on the need to belong and fear of ostracism as mo...

Based on the distinction between hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment experiences, the present paper focuses on (1) the differential contribution of these gratifications to the evaluation of the German political talk show Absolute Mehrheit hosted by Stefan Raab, and (2) on their relationship with politically relevant outcome variables such as infor...

The Need Inventory of Sensation Seeking (NISS) by Roth and Hammelstein (2012) conceptualizes sensation seeking as a motivational trait, a need for stimulation that can provoke different behaviors. Extending the area of application to the field of sexuality, the results of an online survey with a convenience sample (N = 368) provided evidence that t...

German Version of the Perceived Leadership Communication Questionnaire (PLCQ), see https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2013.864251

The Perceived Leadership Communication Questionnaire (PLCQ) is a short, reliable, and valid instrument for measuring leadership communication from both perspectives of the leader and the follower. Drawing on a communication-based approach to leadership and following a theoretical framework of interpersonal communication processes in organizations,...

Based on the distinction between hedonic and eudaimonic entertainment experiences, the present paper focuses on (1) the differential contribution of these gratifications to the evaluation of the German political talk show Absolute Mehrheit hosted by Stefan Raab, and (2) on their relationship with politically relevant outcome variables such as infor...

Bringen uns TV-Sendungen die neusten Erkenntnisse aus der Wissenschaft näher? Lernen wir in Computerspielen etwas über den Völkermord in Darfur? Verändern Radioserien unser Gesundheitsverhalten? Die unterhaltsame, mediale Vermittlung von Informationen, Einstellungen, Werten und Verhaltensweisen hält Einzug in sämtliche Bereiche unseres Alltags. Der...

This article revisits the controversial relationship of entertainment and political communication. On the basis of a theoretical integration of entertainment theory with theories of motivated information processing, we suggest that entertainment consumption can either be driven by hedonic, escapist motivations that are associated with a superficial...

Über den Erfolg der Unternehmenskommunikation entscheiden neben der Struktur und den Rahmenbedingungen einer Organisation sowie der Qualität und Form von Kommunikationsmaßnahmen auch individuelle psychologische Faktoren der Rezipienten. Dieser Beitrag beleuchtet dies am Beispiel der internen Organisationskommunikation. Zunächst werden die Relevanz...

This study's purpose is twofold: to introduce a new format into existing political entertainment research (‘serious’ political talk shows) and to establish a more specific definition of entertainment in a political context. To do so, the authors rely on a two-process-model of entertainment experiences. A telephone survey (N = 230) was conducted to...

Latent state–trait theory (LSTT) considers the fact that measurement does not take place in a situational vacuum. LSTT decomposes any observed variable into a latent state component and a measurement error component, and any latent state into a latent trait component and a latent state residual representing situational influence and/or interactiona...

see http://de.inmind-magazine.org/article/entertainment-that-matters-unterhaltung-in-und-mit-politischen-themen Please cite as: Schneider, F. M., Bartsch, A., & Otto, L. (2013). Entertainment that matters: Unterhaltung in und mit politischen Themen. In-Mind Magazin, 4(3). Retrieved from http://de.inmind-magazine.org/article/entertainment-that-mat...

Interne Kommunikation ist ein wichtiger Faktor für den Erfolg von Organisationen und für das Wohlbefinden ihrer Mitglieder. Das Buch beleuchtet dieses interdisziplinäre Forschungs- und Anwendungsfeld aus einer bisher vernachlässigten, psychologischen Perspektive. Im Vordergrund stehen dabei die Fragen, welche Organisationsziele mit interner Kommuni...

s wird der Frage nachgegangen, wer sich beruflich mit interner Organisationskommunikation