WINTER 2017 COMMUNICATION & MEDIA SPEAKER SERIES Perceived Realism, Narrative Persuasion, and the Beholder’s Eye

Much, but not all, research conducted since the late 1970s has demonstrated a relationship between people’s judgments of media content realism and the potential impact of that content. The same research has struggled to identify the conceptual dimensions people use to make judgments about realism. This talk will briefly present the results of two experiments that look at the thoughts people report having while consuming written and filmic narratives and how those thoughts relate to their scores on perceived realism and narrative engagement scales. Then the thoughts reported will be used as a basis to discuss alternative or additional ways to conceptualize the concepts of perceived realism and unrealism, and how those concepts could be operationalized.

Rick Busselle’s research and teaching focuses on how mediated stories influence our perceptions and understandings of social issues related to poverty, crime, addiction, and mental illness. His research focuses specifically on engagement with narratives, perceived realism of stories, and the social construction of reality through media. His work has been published in Communication Theory, Communication Research, and The Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, among other scholarly journals and academic proceedings.