UC Davis

The ways individuals engage with entertainment media narratives depend on the media content itself, external factors such as the setting in which media exposure occurs, and internal factors related to the state in which an individual is when engaging with the narrative. This dissertation explores how engaging with entertainment media narratives in a state of self-objectification affects individuals’ comprehension of the narrative, transportation into the narrative, identification with the narrative characters, and enjoyment of the narrative.In Study 1, an online experiment (N = 255) was conducted to investigate how inducing self-objectification prior to engagement with an entertainment video influences four modes of participants’ engagement with the video. Results showed that participants in the self-objectifying condition subsequently experienced increased comprehension, transportation, and enjoyment, and that this was mediated by state self-objectification; there were no significant effects on identification. After accounting for the positive indirect effect of the self-objectifying condition on transportation, there remained a significant negative main effect of condition on transportation. Study 2 was designed as an online experiment (N = 297) aimed to explore whether the relationships found in Study 1 were likely to remain significant when participants’ state self-objectification is induced by the entertainment video itself rather than by an action preceding participants’ exposure to the video. Given the prevalence of ideal-looking bodies in entertainment media, the effects of exposure to an ideal-body narrative on narrative engagement warranted exploration. Although the relationships found in Study 1 were not observed in Study 2, the results of correlation analyses suggested that participants’ engagement with the narrative was likely led by the same goal as was the case in Study 1. v Study 3 replicated Study 2, but employed written entertainment media narratives in an attempt to establish true experimental control and internal validity – a task that proved to be challenging in Study 2. Participants (N = 294) were exposed to an objectifying or non-objectifying short online story, accompanied by an adjacent objectifying or non-objectifying visual ad, given that written narratives posted online are usually accompanied by advertisements. In addition to the relationships explored in the previous two studies, Study 3 also looked at the potential effects of ad-story congruity on participants’ narrative engagement. Participants’ relationship status was identified as a moderator of the link between exposure to an objectifying online ad and participants’ enjoyment of an adjacent short story. Overall, these studies shed light on the ways in which being in a state of self-objectification is likely to influence individuals’ engagement with entertainment media narratives; the results point toward the possibility of seeing entertainment media as an avenue for an escape from the self. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.