Parasocial interaction (or para-social relationship) is a term used by a social scientist

Social Scientist

Social Scientist is a New Delhi based journal in social sciences and humanities published since 1972....

 to describe one-sided, "parasocial" interpersonal relationship

Interpersonal relationship

An interpersonal relationship is an association between two or more people that may range from fleeting to enduring. This association may be based on limerence, love, solidarity, regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment. Interpersonal relationships are formed in the...

s in which one party knows a great deal about the other, but the other does not. The most common form of such relationships are one-sided relations between celebrities

Celebrity

A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...

 and audience

Audience

An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature , theatre, music or academics in any medium...

 or fans.

Evolution of the term

The term was first introduced by Donald Horton and Richard Wohl

Richard Wohl

Richard Wohl was a sociologist known for coining the term "parasocial interactions" defined as a sense of friendship or relationship that viewers form with media personae. His influential paper, co-authored with Donald Horton, was published in 1956. He died of cancer in 1957.-References:...

 in their widely cited 1956 academic paper, "Mass Communication and Para-social Interaction: Observations on Intimacy at a Distance", published in the Psychiatry journal.

Parasocial interaction has become an increasingly common phenomenon during the latter half of the 20th century, as it is coupled with the growth in popularity of television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 and film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

. They involve a real person on one end, but on the other end can have a real celebrity (talkshow host or famous sport

Sport

A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...

 player

Player (game)

A player of a game is a participant therein. The term 'player' is used with this same meaning both in game theory and in ordinary recreational games....

), an organization (sports team) and/or an entirely fictional character

Fictional character

A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

.

Even though such one-way friendships are based on illusion of interaction via television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 or radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 rather than actual social interaction, a bond of intimacy is created and the viewers feel they really know the media character. The viewer is made to believe that the person on the screen is communicating directly to them, even though the other participants—actors or players—have no knowledge or attachment to fans, other than as an aggregation of numbers comprising an audience and their income

Income

Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...

.

Television executives have actively promoted parasocial relationships, and the celebrities will often engage in the illusion of 'one-on-one' interaction with the audience, for example by addressing them directly. Talkshows for example are a type of a media programme that heavily relies on parasocial interaction. The talk show is such a popular format because of the actual methods used in the program. In particular, the host seeks to establish a sense of "togetherness" with the viewer. Moreover, shows like Rikki Lake have as their goal a sense of reconciliation, contributing to a feeling of solvency and contentment within the viewer. Soap opera

Soap opera

A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

s are another popular genre. In many ways, the plots of soap operas involved overly romanticized versions of everyday interpersonal activity. Thus, the genre appeals to many as a way to realize a sense of excitement which may be lacking in the interpersonal relationships of the viewer.

Parasocial interaction has been linked to psychological attachment theory

Attachment theory

Attachment theory describes the dynamics of long-term relationships between humans. Its most important tenet is that an infant needs to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for social and emotional development to occur normally. Attachment theory is an interdisciplinary study...

 and it's consequences have seen the same dramatic effects as real Relationship breakup

Relationship breakup

A relationship breakup, often referred to simply as a breakup, is the termination of a usually intimate relationship by any means other than death. The act is commonly termed "dumping [someone]" in slang when it is initiated by one partner...

.

In parasocial interaction there is no "normal" social interaction; it is a very one-sided relation. The knowledgeable side has no direct control over the actions of the side it observes, and it is very difficult for it to contact and influence it.

Parasocial Interaction on the Internet

Though most literature has focused on parasocial interaction as a television and film phenomenon, new technologies, namely the Internet, have necessitated a closer look at such interactions.

In 1998, John Eighmey, from Iowa State University

Iowa State University

Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...

, and Lola McCord, from the University of Alabama

University of Alabama

The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....

, published a study titled “Adding Value in the Information Age: Uses and Gratifications of Sites on the World Wide Web.” In the study, they observed that the presence of parasocial relationships constituted an important determinant of website visitation rates. “It appears,” the study states, “that websites projecting a strong sense of personality may also encourage the development of a kind of parasocial relationship with website visitors.”

In 1999, John Hoerner, from the University of Alabama

University of Alabama

The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....

, published a study titled “Scaling the Web: A Parasocial Interaction Scale for World Wide Web Sites,” in which he proposed a method for measuring the effects of parasocial interaction on the Internet. The study explained that websites may feature “personae” that host to the visitors to the sites in order to generate public interest. Personae, in some cases, are nothing more than the online representations of the actual people, often prominent public figures, but sometimes, according to the study, will be the fictional creations of the sites' webmasters . Personae “take on many of the characteristics of a [real-life] companion, including regular and frequent appearances, a sense of immediacy…and the feeling of a face-to-face meeting.” Additionally, the study makes the point that, even when no such personae have been created, parasocial relationships might still develop. Webmasters might foster parasocial interactions through a conversational writing style, extensive character development and opportunities for email exchange with the website’s persona.

Hoerner used the Parasocial Interaction (PSI) scale, developed by Rubin, Perse, and Powell (1985), and modified the scale to more accurately assess parasocial interactions on the Internet. They used the scale to gauge participants' reactions to a number of different websites, and, more generally, to determine whether or not parasocial interaction theory could be linked to Internet use. The study concluded, first, that parasocial interaction is not dependent on the presence of a traditional persona on a website; data showed that websites with described "strong personae" did not attract significantly more hits than other websites selected by the study conductors. "The literal, mediated personality from the newscast or soap opera of the past [around which the original PSI-scale was framed] is gone. The design metaphor, flow of the web experience, and styles of textual and graphic presentations of the information all become elements of a website persona and encourage parasocial interaction by the visitor/user with that persona."

The study also confirmed the accuracy of the "PSI web scale" as a way to gauge consumer parasocial interaction with websites.