The Protagonist, My Facebook Friend: How Cross-Media Extensions Are Changing the Concept of Parasocial Interaction

More and more TV series are using cross-media extensions like smartphone applications and social networking sites to connect with the audience. Because these features facilitate the recipient’s interaction with a media persona, they can be assumed to influence the perceived parasocial interaction (PSI; Horton & Wohl, 1956). The goal of the present paper was to investigate the connection between cross-media extensions of a social TV series and the PSI with its protagonist. To this aim, a social TV series was used in which the viewer even had the possibility to add the fictitious protagonist as a Facebook friend, enabling the fictitious character to actively communicate with the audience. An online survey with 218 participants showed that, in particular, the Facebook friendship and thus the communication with a protagonist has an impact on the degree of PSI.