Feeling Connected via Television Viewing: Exploring the Scale and Its Correlates

Abstract

Contextualized in television program viewing, the current study seeks to develop a new scale that captures individuals' feelings of being connected to others via media consumption. Literature on general human motivation and media consumption motivation sheds light on social relatedness in television experiences. Data suggest a three-factor structure of the focal concept of feeling connected via television viewing (FCTV): (1) a perception of shared viewing among one's immediate social circle and anticipation of subsequent communication as aided by television programs, (2) a sense of global community enhanced by shared television experiences, and (3) communication with distant unknown others. A stronger sense of FCTV predicts a greater tendency for an individual to watch a program when it is first released, and to watch it together with one's friends, as well as a higher level of general involvement with television. Further, we differentiate the focal concept of feeling connected to other television viewers via television viewing from the related concept of parasocial interaction with television characters. Relative to parasocial interaction, FCTV better predicts collective viewing and first-run viewing.

Keywords:

• Consumer Communication
• Social Connection
• Television

Notes

Note. Loadings <.2 are suppressed in the pattern matrix.

Note. Refer to Table 1 for the content of each scale item.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

This is the only reversely coded item among all measures in this research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Huimin Xu

Huimin Xu is Assistant Professor of Marketing at SUNY Oneonta.

Ruoh-Nan Yan

Ruoh-Nan Yan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Design & Merchandising at Colorado State University.