Wallowing in Media-Past: Personal and Collective Triggers of Media-Induced Nostalgia

• In Event: Parasocial Relationships

Abstract

Research found that besides hedonic experiences, eudaimonic experiences crucially contribute to media entertainment. The current paper contextualizes the role of nostalgia as a mixed emotion induced by recipients’ memory of their past into the framework of eudaimonic entertainment experiences.
The present study investigated whether media-induced nostalgia, induced by remembering past time’s media use, is similar to the nostalgic emotion induced by remembering meaningful past events. We further distinguished between different experiences of media-induced nostalgia (individual versus collective). Results demonstrate media-induced nostalgia to be a mixed state containing both affective and cognitive facets. Further, nostalgia was both triggered by parasocial relationships as a personal factor within the entertainment experience and the sheer amount of recognized media content from one’s past as collectively shared experience. Results are discussed in terms of their implications.

Authors

• Tim Wulf, University of Cologne

• Diana Rieger, University of Mannheim

• Lena Frischlich, University of Cologne

• Olivia Cornelia Rutkowski, U of Cologne

• Gary Bente, U of Cologne