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Media Consumption Choices Impact Content Meaning and Experience
Consumption choices influence story meaning by creating a context that frames the content of any media experience. It should seem obvious. Screen size affects perception. Location affects social influence and distraction. But media content is seldom designed to cope with the range of choices available to consumers today.
Even the most robust and well-developed storyworlds with the most compelling and relatable characters are consumed across a technology that literally and psychologically frames the experience. Technology dictates much of the sensory experience — such as screen size, quality of sound, clarity of image, the intensity of color — that moderate emotional experience and cognitive processing. Social viewing, whether synchronous and in-person or digital and asynchronous provides a secondary context of social influence, attribution, and cognitive biases such as ‘mind-reading,’ that can amplify or skew perceptions, needs and expectations. Just like we share Facebook posts in anticipation of how that reflects back on our ‘social self,’ we also process and connect with stories and characters in the context of our social environment, salient social norms and cultural interpretations. Beyond that, the consumer’s ability to control consumption through on-demand and streaming also means we can visit good stories anytime we want.
