Semi-real communication with semi-real people: Parasocial interaction with participants of reality television shows

This study investigates the parasocial relationships between television viewers and reality show participants. Parasocial relationships have been described as the one-sided relationships between TV recipients and the personalities they view on the screen. The relationships take place in the minds of viewers and consist of multiple dimensions, including friendship, similarity and attraction. Previous studies have used the parasocial interaction scale (PSI-scale) to capture those dimensions. This study used a questionnaire based on the PSI-scale to measure parasocial interaction with fictional series characters as well as reality show participants. Respondents named their favorite series character and reality show participant and rated PSI-scale items for each TV personality. Mean scores were compared for overall parasocial interaction, similarity to peers, attractiveness, similarity to real friends, reliability, and parasocial interaction outside the typical program context. For variables attractiveness and reliability, higher scores were expected for series characters; for all others, this study assumed higher scores for the reality show participants. None of the hypotheses could be supported. The results suggest that viewers do not engage in parasocial relationships with reality show participants because they consider them to be regular people like themselves, who could be friends in real life. Instead, they seek out reality show participants who are more attractive than fictional characters and different from their peers.