Investigating the experience of narrative engagement: relations among on-line measures of interest and post-exposure engagement and enjoyment of a narrative movie segment

Jennifer Marie Safreno

The purpose of this study is to explore whether post-exposure, self-report measures of engagement and enjoyment are related to a continuous, on-line measure of interest in a filmic narrative. The theoretical premise is that more engaged viewers focus more attention on processing the narrative and therefore have less cognitive energy available to perform an additional task while viewing. Literature on narrative processing is introduced first, followed by the concept of narrative engagement. The scale for measuring two types of media enjoyment is included in order to assess concurrent validity with the engagement scale. Multitasking and related processes are discussed last in the literature review. The research questions and hypotheses all feature the concept of multitasking between a continuous task device and engagement with a narrative. The research question and hypotheses were: how will the presence of an additional task device affect engagement? (RQ1), engagement will be negatively related to frequency of attending to an additional task (H1), what will the relationship be between attention to an additional task device and each dimension of engagement? (RQ2), engagement will be positively related to a continuous judgment of narrative interest through an additional task device (H2), what will the relationship be between a continuous judgment of narrative interest through an additional task device and each dimension of engagement? (RQ3). Two dimensions of enjoyment were also measured in order to further understand the relationship between engagement, enjoyment, and the additional task: what will the relationship be between engagement and hedonistic enjoyment? (RQ4) what will the relationship be between each dimension of engagement and hedonistic enjoyment? (RQ5) engagement will be positively related to meaningful enjoyment (H3), what will the relationship be between each dimension of engagement and meaningful enjoyment? (RQ6). Research questions involving the relationship between gender or previous viewing and engagement, enjoyment, frequency of adjustment, and continuous interest evaluation were asked. Results indicated positive relations among engagement, enjoyment, and evaluations of how interesting the segment would be to the average movie goer. The continuous measure was not related to post-exposure engagement. Additional analyses explored other potential relationships between the continuous measure and engagement.

Investigating the experience of narrative engagement: relations among on-line measures of interest and post-exposure engagement and enjoyment of a narrative movie segment

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