Transportation into a narrative world refers to the feeling of being lost in the world of a narrative, of being completely immersed in a story and leaving the real world behind. This experience is a key mechanism underlying the influence of stories or narratives on individuals’ attitudes and beliefs, and is also associated with media
Film theory is a form of speculative thought that aims to make visible the underlying structures and absent causes that confer order and intelligibility upon films. These structures and causes, while not observable in themselves, are made visible by theory. The ultimate objective of film theory is to construct models of film’s nonobservable underlying structures.
While social sciences of the twentieth century could be characterized by endeavors to “debiologize” human nature, evolutionary thinking has become increasingly presentable in scientific rationale. The most influential approach utilizing evolutionary theory to answer questions in respect of communication is evolutionary psychology (EP). EP (or Darwinian psychology) is focused on how evolution has shaped human
The excellence theory is a general theory of public relations that resulted from a 15-year study of best practices in communication management funded by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation. Three books were published from the research (J. E. Grunig 1992; Dozier et al. 1995; L. A. Grunig et al. 2002). This
The spatial concentration of crime and victimization at geographic locations is a well known and robust empirical finding within criminology. Several studies have indicated that crime is concentrated at micro places such as street addresses, segments, and block groups (Sherman, Gartin, and Buerger 1989; Weisburd et al. 2004), and evaluations of place-based policing tactics at micro
Empathy is a social emotion. It comes in response to bearing witness to the emotions of others, usually persons but also other beings thought capable of experiencing emotions. Prototypically, an empathic reaction is evoked by the immediate observation of others’ acute emotions, and it manifests itself in an emotional experience that the witness believes to
Family theory consists of sets of propositions that attempt to explain some aspect of family life. Theorizing involves making general statements about some phenomenon, and an important characteristic of family theory, therefore, is that it involves a degree of abstraction from reality. Theoretical statements are abstract statements employing concepts that refer to things in the
Ecological theory is a global perspective or meta-theory, because the broad heading represents several scientific approaches that view human behavior as the result of the relationship between individuals and their environments. Ernest Haeckel, German zoologist and evolutionist, coined the term oekology in 1866 to define a field of study that examined organisms in their living
Hedonic theory, or theory of psychological hedonism, is the idea that human behavior is motivated by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain (or, more accurately, displeasure). Its origins can be traced to the beginnings of Western philosophy. Although its prominence within psychology waned during the 20th century, updated versions of hedonic theory
Positioning is an essential concept in communication management, public relations, and marketing communication. The process of positioning includes identifying, defining, and managing the perception relevant audiences have of a particular organization, product, person, or idea. Three lines of thought relevant to communication theory have emerged during the last decades: strategic positioning, positioning strategies, and discursive