Political Communication at the Interface of Entertainment and Information. The Impact of Eudaimonic Entertainment Experiences on the Processing and Effects of Political Information

多年来，娱乐和政治沟通之间的关系一直存在争议。娱乐性的政治交流形式对于接触对政治不太感兴趣的受众群体有用吗？或者，它们是否会分散观众对政治问题严肃思考的注意力？该项目旨在通过测试政治信息在娱乐背景下的使用和影响的双进程模型，对这一争议提供差异化的重新评估。提出的模型假设，一方面，娱乐可以起到享乐功能，因为它帮助个人改善情绪，分散自己对负面想法的注意力。在这种情况下，不太可能仔细考虑政治信息，因为享乐情绪管理促进了一种肤浅的、启发式的信息处理模式。另一方面，最近娱乐研究的证据表明，娱乐消费也可以用来满足追求真理、意义、自我发展和认知挑战等幸福需要。例如，被电影或电视节目感动的观众经常需要思考内容，与其他人讨论它，或者寻求关于这个问题的进一步信息。在政治交流方面，这种幸福式的娱乐体验具有特殊的前景，因为它可以刺激对内容的认知阐述和交流。基于实验研究和有代表性的受众调查相结合，该项目检验了该模型对享乐娱乐因素(个人相关性、低吸入度、适度唤醒、负面或混合情感)对政治相关结果变量(认知阐述、信息寻求、知识获取和政治参与)的影响的预测。这一模式的测试重点是电视主题之夜-一种娱乐性的政治交流形式，结合了虚构娱乐和基于事实的信息的优势，从而为广受批评的混合形式提供了一种选择，如“信息娱乐”或“政治”。

The relationship between entertainment and political communication has been a matter of controversy for many years. Can entertaining forms of political communication be useful to reach audience groups who are less interested in politics? Or do they rather distract audiences from serious consideration of political issues? This project aims to provide a differentiated reassessment of this controversy by testing a dual-process model of the uses and effects of political information in an entertainment context. The proposed model assumes that, on the one hand, entertainment can serve hedonic functions in that it helps individuals to improve their mood and to distract themselves from negative thoughts. In this case, careful consideration of political information is unlikely, because hedonic mood management promotes a superficial, heuristic mode of information processing. On the other hand, recent evidence in entertainment research shows that entertainment consumption can also serve to satisfy eudaimonic needs such as the seeking of truth, meaning, self-development, and cognitive challenge. For example, viewers who feel moved by a movie or a TV program often experience a need to think about the content, to discuss about it with others, or to seek further information about the issue. With regard to political communication, this eudaimonic type of entertainment experience holds particular promise, because it can stimulate cognitive elaboration and communication about the content. Based on a combination of experimental studies and representative audience surveys, the project examines the model's predictions concerning the impact of eudaimonic entertainment factors (personal relevance, low absorption, moderate arousal, negative or mixed affect) on politically relevant outcome variables (cognitive elaboration, information seeking, knowledge acquisition, and political participation). The model is tested with a special focus on TV theme nights---a form of entertaining political communication that combines the advantages of fictional entertainment and fact-based information, thus providing an alternative to widely criticized hybrid formats such as "infotainment" or "politainment."