A model of social interaction: Phase III: Tests in varying media situations

Abstract

This programmatic research tests a model of social interaction. Six elements: content, interpretation, emotion, transference, selection, and relationships, abstracted from the literature, are said to constitute the domain of social interaction. In the model the substances exchanged in the interaction are posited to determine their form of expression, and variables at deeper phenomenal levels are hypothesized to determine those at more surface levels. Phase I examined three alternative models based on this perspective of social interaction and identified the superior of the three, which is also tested here. Phase II corrected some methodological problems detected in the first phase and further confirmed the utility of the model examined here. The current phase of this research, Phase III, extends the model to the context of non‐enduring interactions. It uses respondent self‐reports to test the model in the following experimental situations: interacting in the presence of radio news, radio entertainment, television news, and television entertainment. The results, as in the previous phases, are quite supportive of this perspective of social interaction and demonstrate that it can be extended to the context of initial interactions.

Notes

J. David Johnson is Assistant Professor of Communication, Arizona State University. This research was funded in part by a grant from the National Association of Broadcasters. The author wishes to thank Edward L. Fink for his methodological assistance and Erwin P. Bettinghaus, Bradley S. Greenberg, and Gerald R. Miller for the resources they provided to support this research.