Following the viewers: Investigating television drama engagement through skin conductance measurements

TY - JOUR

T1 - Following the viewers

T2 - Investigating television drama engagement through skin conductance measurements

AU - Gregersen, Andreas Lindegaard

AU - Langkjær, Birger

AU - Heiselberg, Lene

AU - Lyng Wieland, Jacob

PY - 2017/10

Y1 - 2017/10

N2 - This article describes an empirical study of viewer emotional engagement with the first episode of the television fiction series Follow the Money (DR, 2015), a crime melodrama. The study combines applied and academic audience research and investigates real-time viewer responses by measuring and analysing skin conductance (SC) responses as an indicator of emotional arousal. The article outlines a framework for analysing emotion and arousal in television viewer engagement. It then describes SC measurements and the difference between tonic and phasic measurements. Two primary SC measures that indicate emotional engagement are derived, i.e. average phasic skin conductance response and the average number of emotionally arousing events pr. second. In our findings, both of these measures indicate a slight linear upwards trend and qualitative data is brought in to contextualize the quantitative findings. The study demonstrates how SC measures, formal analysis, and qualitative methods can be combined and the article ends with an outline of how future studies might adopt parts of the research design to further integrate applied audience research, audience research in media psychology, and cognitive film theory.

AB - This article describes an empirical study of viewer emotional engagement with the first episode of the television fiction series Follow the Money (DR, 2015), a crime melodrama. The study combines applied and academic audience research and investigates real-time viewer responses by measuring and analysing skin conductance (SC) responses as an indicator of emotional arousal. The article outlines a framework for analysing emotion and arousal in television viewer engagement. It then describes SC measurements and the difference between tonic and phasic measurements. Two primary SC measures that indicate emotional engagement are derived, i.e. average phasic skin conductance response and the average number of emotionally arousing events pr. second. In our findings, both of these measures indicate a slight linear upwards trend and qualitative data is brought in to contextualize the quantitative findings. The study demonstrates how SC measures, formal analysis, and qualitative methods can be combined and the article ends with an outline of how future studies might adopt parts of the research design to further integrate applied audience research, audience research in media psychology, and cognitive film theory.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - Television fiction

KW - Emotions

KW - Arousal

KW - Skin conductance measurements

KW - Audience research

KW - Cognitive film theory

U2 - 10.1016/j.poetic.2017.06.002

DO - 10.1016/j.poetic.2017.06.002

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0304-422X

VL - 64

SP - 1

EP - 13

JO - Poetics

JF - Poetics

ER -