TV THAT TALKS BACK - AN EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF A PARASOCIAL INTERACTION SCALE

This experiment was designed to assess the construct validity of the Rubin, Perse, and Powell (1985) Parasocial Interaction Scale. One group of subjects viewed a situation comedy which "breaks the fourth wall." The fourth wall is "broken" when characters recognize the existence of the audience by speaking directly to them. A second group viewed the same program with "breaks" edited out. Respondents then filled out an adapted version of the PSI Scale. As hypothesized, subjects viewing the more interactive programming scored significantly higher on the PSI Scale, thus supporting the case for construct validity.