Manipulation

In addition to measuring transportation responses that naturally occur in response to narratives, researchers have created experimental manipulations designed to increase or decrease transportation. Such manipulations are important for theory testing, enabling researchers to examine the effects of transportation while controlling for other variables, such as the content of the story. In some cases, these manipulations may also have practical value for helping to increase or decrease transportation in more naturalistic settings.

For example, transportation can be affected by the instructions given to readers or viewers. Instructions to focus on the surface aspects of the story, such as difficulty and grammar, produce lower transportation than instructions to simply read the story normally. Transportation can also be manipulated by changing aspects of the story; changing a story to nonchronological order or reducing the quality of writing (poorer word choice, digressions) produces lower transportation. Further, manipulating narrative suspense (providing general information to suggest a forthcoming dramatic event in the narrative) can increase transportation (Tal-Or & Cohen, 2010).

Although these manipulations have primarily been used in experimental contexts to help understand the processes and effects of transportation, these manipulations may also relate to message design (e.g., messages that avoid digressions and have a clear chronological structure are more likely to be transporting).

Transportation vs. Cognitive Elaboration

Transportation vs. Identification

As mentioned, character identification is an important element in narrative persuasion. Identification and transportation are both mechanisms through which a narrative can alter a person’s attitudes and beliefs. However, identification in particular occurs when people are able to experience the narrative through the perspective of the story character (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2008; Cohen, 2001), whereas transportation is a more general immersion in the story world. Identification and transportation are often highly correlated, and current research shows mixed results about whether one is more important than the other in terms of attitude change.

The experience of identification can be conceptualized as the individual adopting the goals and motivations of the character. When a person identifies with a story character, he or she is able to experience the emotions of the character as if they were his or her own. When the character achieves goals, individuals experience the emotions of achieving that goal, but when the character fails to achieve those goals, individuals experience the emotions relating to this failure (Oatley, 1994). Identification may not be constant throughout the course of a narrative; individuals may experience different intensities of identification or identify with more than one character. Like transportation, identification may alter a person’s attitudes and beliefs to be more consistent with those in the story. When people identify with a character, a connection with that character is created. Through this connection, individuals may accept the characters’ perceptions and implications of experiences in the story. By vicariously sharing those experiences with the character, people may shift their attitudes to be more consistent with those of the character (Mar & Oatley, 2008).

Transportation vs. Flow and Presence

Transportation is conceptually related to flow and presence, although both flow and presence pertain more to being immersed in an experience, rather than specifically in a narrative. Flow refers to a mental state that occurs while an individual is performing some activity in which they are fully absorbed, causing feelings of energized focus, involvement, and enjoyment. Flow shares several characteristics of transportation (e.g., losing track of time, failing to notice changes in the environment, etc.); however, transportation differs because it applies specifically to experiences with narratives.

Similarly, presence describes a perceptual illusion, or state of consciousness in which a person may perceive physical presence in a mediated world (Klimmt & Vorderer, 2003). This concept is most frequently used in studies of virtual reality (e.g., Slater & Wilbur, 1997). Like transportation, presence involves a feeling of experiencing a world outside of reality. However, transportation refers specifically to experience the world of a narrative. For example, individuals may feel present in virtual environments such as a roller coaster or a narrow bridge across a chasm; this experience may be quite vivid and affect individuals both psychologically and physiologically, but this form of presence does not require a storyline or narrative. Ultimately, transportation is distinct from these related concepts of flow or presence (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Engeser, 2012) because transportation is particularly focused on the experience of stories or narratives.

Reduced Counterarguing

Transportation-based attitude change can result from reduced counterarguing. In some cases, transported individuals may not be aware that a narrative is persuasive. Due to the entertaining nature of some narratives, individuals may not expect to be influenced and thus spend less time actively considering the imbedded message of the story. Attitudes and behaviors depicted in the narrative may thus be accepted by the person without much attention. (However, such lack of awareness is not a necessary prerequisite of either transportation or persuasion; for example, some stories used in health communication have an obvious message—for example, promoting cancer screening—but are nonetheless engaging and effective.) Furthermore, transportation may reduce the motivation to counterargue. When people are transported in an entertaining narrative they may also become unwilling to interrupt their enjoyment to argue with the story (i.e., the story’s events, claims, or overall message). (For additional discussion of the concept of prerequisites and consequences of enjoyment, see Vorderer, Klimmt, & Ritterfeld, 2004). In order to not disrupt their own transportation by breaking from certain points of the narrative, individuals reduce counterarguing. Transportation may also reduce individuals’ ability to counterargue. If all of a person’s mental resources are devoted to imagining a story, they may not have the cognitive capacity to generate counterarguments while reading or watching the narrative. Reduced counterarguing can lead to greater persuasion.

Connections with Characters

Readers or viewers may also change their attitudes and beliefs in accordance with those of a narrative character. Identification with, and liking of, story characters has been shown to increase the adoption of beliefs advocated by the character (Cohen, 2001, 2006). Although identification and transportation are separate processes, individuals who are transported are more likely to identify with characters. Putting oneself in the place of the character and adopting the character’s goals may facilitate attitude change. For example, if people identify with a character who was able to quit smoking, they may feel more positive toward quitting. (These ideas are related to Bandura’s social cognitive theory, which focuses on vicarious learning through observing role models.) People may even alter their self-concept to see themselves more similar to characters they liked or identified with, at least temporarily (Sestir & Green, 2010). Other forms of connection with characters, such as parasocial interaction (seeing the narrative character as a friend), may also be sparked by transportation and may contribute to attitude change.

One way in which a narrative might prompt self-examination and change is by reminding individuals of experiences in their own lives that relate to those in the narrative. Strange and Leung (1999) highlighted the role of “remindings”—links between story content and the person’s past personal or media-based experiences—in narrative impact. Individuals who were more immersed in a story showed greater generalization of the beliefs implied by the story. Whether or not the story brought to mind events from the individuals’ real lives seemed to be important in determining narrative impact. Strange and Leung suggest that having exemplars both from one’s real life and from the media presentation strengthen the impact on later judgments (a process that has also been referred to as resonance).

Heightened perceptions of realism. Heightened perceived realism has also been demonstrated as an effective mechanism in transportation-based belief change. Realism in this instance is not the same as the real-world truth value of a story (whether it is fictional or nonfictional). In fact, research suggests that real-world truth value has little impact on the extent that individuals are transported (fictional stories may be just as or more transporting than nonfictional stories). Instead, perceived realism here refers to an individual’s subjective evaluation of the story’s plausibility. In other words, the plausibility of a narrative relates to its ability to realistically portray attributes that are representative of real people (Hall, 2003). Research has shown transportation and perceived realism to be positively correlated. Transported readers believed narrative situations to be realistic or the perception of realism led to greater transportation (Green, 2004).

It may also be more difficult to discount narratives because stories tend to be concrete, presenting the experience of particular (real or fictional) others, rather than abstractions. That is, a person may disagree with the implications of a particular story or argue that the story is unrealistic or atypical, but at least in the case of nonfiction stories, a person cannot completely reject the storyteller’s experience. Although concreteness is a general characteristic of narratives, transportation may enhance such effects because transporting stories may seem more vivid and realistic.

Mental Imagery

The transportation-imagery model (Green & Brock, 2002) highlights the role of visual imagery in transportation-based belief change. According to the model, images take on meaning from their role in a story. The transportation experience links the vivid images with beliefs implied by the story (e.g., the image of a person suffering from skin cancer may be linked with beliefs about the importance of sun protection). This connection between images and beliefs may be one basis for the power of narrative persuasion. It may be difficult for verbal or statistical arguments to overcome the power of a mental image; even though a person may know rationally that airplane travel is quite safe, she may not be able to shake the mental picture of a plane crash (similar to the availability heuristic). Images can affect beliefs even in the absence of a story, but the theory suggests that when individuals are transported, they are more likely to form mental images from texts, and those images are likely to be more impactful.

Additionally, the transportation-imagery model suggests that over time, recalling the image may re-evoke large parts of the original communication, thus reinforcing the story-relevant beliefs. An implication of this perspective is that individuals’ imagery ability and situations that allow for the formation of rich mental images increase the persuasive power of a story, and such influence may persist over time.

Emotional Engagement

Finally, narratives are particularly powerful when they evoke strong emotions. Powerful affective responses to narratives may make them more impactful and be especially influential for attitudes. Emotions here should be understood to mean those evoked by the characters and events in the story, rather than by pure aesthetics (e.g., appreciation of the artistic value of the narrative). Emotional engagement differs among fictional and nonfictional narrative in terms of action tendency (viewers of an alien film do not fear being abducted from their seat) and duration of the emotional experience. However, the immediate experience of the emotion appears to have the same qualities regardless of real-world truth value. Individuals who are transported are more likely to experience strong emotions in response to a narrative than those who are not.

Narrative Quality

The extent to which a person becomes transported into a narrative may vary depending on characteristics like narrative quality (e.g., coherence, production value, etc.), and the development of plot and characters.

Narratives that lack verisimilitude (i.e., realism, or the appearance of being true) tend to be less transporting. Realism in this sense does not refer to the literal similarity of the story world to the real world; recipients can be just as easily transported to fantasy worlds. Rather, a more important element is psychological realism or believability. That is, even in a clearly fictional setting (e.g., science fiction, fantasy), characters should act like real people. Additionally, written narratives that are difficult to read, understand, or imagine also tend to be less transporting. The same is true for other types of narrative (e.g., video or film): if the quality of production is poor, the audience member will be less likely to become immersed in the narrative world. (See Kreuter et al., 2007, for further discussion of elements of narrative quality.)

Familiarity/Similarity

The more familiar a person is with the material in a narrative, the easier it is for him or her to be transported in it. For example, in one study, readers who were members of fraternities or sororities were more transported into a story that was set at a fraternity (Green, 2004). Similarly, the more a story character resembles the reader (or the story events resemble the life events of the reader), the more transporting the story may be.

Co-viewing

The presence of other people may also influence the transportation experience. Readers are often experiencing the narrative world alone, but television, movie, or theater viewers may be in the presence of friends or strangers while watching. Recent research on co-viewing by Tal-Or and colleagues suggests that the reactions of others can affect the attitudinal impact of a program (e.g., Tal-Or, 2016; Tal-Or & Tsfati, 2015, 2016). Watching a video with a person who responds enthusiastically increased acceptance of the video’s message, while watching with a person who acted bored decreased acceptance of the message. These effects were mediated by transportation. Thus, health communication research and interventions should take into account the social setting as well as the content of the narrative.

Narrative Perspective

Although high levels of transportation have been demonstrated with stories using third-person perspective (“he” or “she”), there is some evidence that stories using the first-person perspective (“I” or “me”) might be especially effective at encouraging identification and perhaps transportation as well (CITE). (Second-person perspective [“you”] is more rarely used and has received less research attention.)

Entertainment-Education

More evidence of transportation in the persuasiveness of health messages is found in the communication strategy known as Entertainment-Education (EE). In EE, a media message (often a health message) is designed and implemented to increase viewers’ knowledge about the issue and change their behavior, but the message is conveyed through an entertainment program such as a television or radio drama. (Entertainment-education may also take other forms, such as songs, which are less closely related to transportation or narrative persuasion.) Entertainment-education is grounded in drama theory and partially in social cognitive theory, which focuses on characters as role models for behavior (Sabido, 2004). However, recent EE research has incorporated transportation. The effectiveness of EE messages fundamentally depends on the viewers’ character identification and their level of transportation. That is, without transportation, successful persuasion of the message is unlikely (Slater, 2002). EE has been used in the prevention of HIV and unplanned teen pregnancy, and in the reduction of drunk driving, among a wide range of other issues.

Entertainment Overcoming Resistance Model

One recent model that attempts to explain the effectiveness of EE is the entertainment overcoming resistance model (EORM; Moyer-Gusé, 2008). This model links different narrative processes with different forms of resistance. EORM contends that narratives may be successful in changing attitudes and behavior particularly through their ability to overcome reactance. Reactance can be defined as a form of arousal in which a person feels as if his or her freedom to choose his or her own attitudes and behaviors is being threatened (Brehm, 1966). An example of this may be of a college student reading a passage on the benefits of wearing sunscreen. If the student perceives the passage as trying to convince him of or “sell” him the behavior, he may react against the message. Alternatively, if the student is entertained or transported by the passage, reactance may be reduced and he may become more likely to change his attitude about sunscreen in accordance with the message. According to the model, reactance may also be reduced when individuals form parasocial interactions (PSI) with characters, or develop a liking of narrative characters. PSI refers to the relationship between media users and media figures (e.g., characters, actors, celebrities), in which the user responds as if they had an existing social relationship with the media figure; that is, they come to see the media character as a friend (see Giles, 2002 for an overview). PSI also reduces other forms of resistance such as counterarguing, selective avoidance due to inertia, and perceived norms.

In addition to reactance, EORM helps to explain the reduction of other forms of resistance including counterarguing, selective avoidance, perceived invulnerability, and perceived norms. EORM posits that because narratives are entertaining, they reduce cognitive resistance by the perception that the message is meant to entertain instead of persuade (Moyer-Gusé & Nabi, 2010). According to the EORM, transportation is most effective at reducing counterarguing, while other related narrative processes address other forms of resistance. While the EORM provides a theoretical framework for understanding narrative effects, there have been relatively few empirical tests of this model.

Theory and Measurement

The current self-report measures of transportation have provided valuable insights, and the development of a short-form measure is likely to be particularly beneficial for field settings or other circumstances where long measures are not feasible. However, self-report measures also have their limitations. For example, the current measures assess an overall experience of transportation that individuals report retrospectively; measuring moment-by-moment transportation could provide additional advances for theory and practice. Such measures might help answer the conceptual question of whether transportation is a continuous state (e.g., people experience a range of levels of transportation) or a binary one (e.g., people are either transported or not, but may be transported during more or less of the story), for instance. Assessing the experience of transportation without interrupting or distracting from it is a challenge for developing such measures. However, techniques such as eye tracking, the use of dials to capture continuous reactions to stimuli, or even facial recognition software may be promising directions for future study.

Additionally, although transportation studies have been conducted in various countries and with participants of different ages (primarily adults), there has been little systematic attention to possible cultural or age differences in the causes, outcomes, or experience of transportation. These areas, as well as explorations of developmental aspects of transportation, are useful directions for future research.

Neuroscience of Narrative

Although the research on the neuroscience of story immersion is still relatively rare, Mar (2011) provides a summary of related findings on narrative comprehension and production. Mar (2011) also provides several examples of new directions linking stories and the brain, including studying differences in brain activity when the text is a rich sensory experience compared to when the text is an abstract representation. Research by Zak and colleagues has also suggested that stories can lead to the release of oxytocin, a hormone that appears to be related to interpersonal trust. The physiological effects of narrative transportation remain an exciting area for future research.

Narrative Content

Current research is also exploring the effect of different kinds of narrative content on both transportation and persuasive outcomes. Dahlstrom (2012) has found that within a story, narrative information that is part of the causal chain of the story, rather than simply incidental information, is better remembered. Furthermore, health communicators often have the choice to share positive, inspiring stories or more tragic cautionary tales (analogous to gain or loss framing for traditional messages). Is it more transporting or impactful to have a story of a patient who survived a disease or one who did not? Similarly, stories can focus on groups (e.g., a particular community) versus individuals; one of these approaches may be more effective than the other for some issues.

Niederdeppe and colleagues have also been exploring the effect of narratives that focus on individual versus societal attributions for obesity. The obesity issue can be viewed as a personal problem (an individual’s poor eating choices or lack of willpower), or a societal issue (the availability of fresh food in a person’s neighborhood, safe areas in which to exercise). The effects of highlighting one aspect of this problem or another are complex, and may interact with political ideology. This research highlights the point that even if a story is transporting, it may have different effects on individuals depending on both the content of the story and relevant individual factors, and the interaction of story content with prior relevant beliefs or positions.

Future research may also consider transportation in the context of a new type of emerging narrative. Restorative narratives are stories that depict how people and communities learn to rebuild and recover following trauma and tragedy (Tenore, 2014). Often when news media report disasters and national tragedies, the stories are portrayed in a way that may leave readers or viewers feeling distraught and unable to cope. Restorative narratives shift the focus from tragedy to recovery. According to Images and Voices of Hope, a nonprofit dedicated to the use of media in creating a better world, a restorative narrative should capture hard truths, highlight a meaningful progression of an individual, and reveal universal truths that awaken a sense of human connection. They should also involve sustained inquiries (because recovery is a process that takes time), and be both authentic and strength based. Because these narratives focus on resilience, restorative narratives have a more beneficial effect on mental and physical health compared to traditional problem-focused narratives. Although the concept of restorative narrative originated in the context of journalism, restorative narratives may also be found in other forms, including documentaries or possibly even fictional accounts (such as inspiring films).

Individuals who read or watch restorative narratives may experience moral elevation, a warm and uplifted feeling that occurs after watching an individual act with compassion or courage. This feeling supports people’s belief in the goodness of humanity, induces positive emotions, and inspires people to act more altruistically (Aquino et al., 2011).

Narratives vs. Statistics

Additionally, research continues to investigate the question of when and for whom narratives will be more or less effective than other forms of communication (e.g., statistics or didactic presentations). Narratives typically tell the story of particular individuals, whereas statistics typically present summaries of group outcomes; stories tend to be more concrete and specific, whereas statistics or didactic presentations may be more abstract. The degree of transportation into a particular narrative may help determine its relative effectiveness compared to other types of messages. That is, a transporting narrative may be more effective than a matched statistical message, whereas a less-transporting narrative may be less effective than the statistical message (although this hypothesis remains to be tested).

Multi-media or Interactive Narratives

The increasing prominence of electronic media in individuals’ lives has opened the door to different types of narratives. For instance, interactive narratives allow individuals to determine the direction of the plot at key points in the story. Such narratives might be primarily text-based, similar to “Choose your own Adventure” books, or might be narrative-based video games with sophisticated graphics and sound. An exciting future direction for research is to determine how transportation affects belief and behavior change in these new narrative contexts. Initial research suggests that interactive narratives may be most effective for individuals who are willing and able to put mental effort into these stories, and that such stories may have the added benefit of increasing the sense of personal responsibility for the events that occur in the narrative (Green & Jenkins, 2014). This sense of responsibility may translate to increased real-world attitude and behavior change.

Furthermore, individuals today may engage with narratives in multiple ways and on multiple platforms. For example, a person viewing an entertainment-education program may also discuss that program on social networking sites or may use the Internet to find out more about the actors and about topics illustrated in the show. This type of transmedia engagement with narratives is a fertile ground for future inquiry. It is possible that these increased avenues for engagement may increase transportation into the story and thus may increase the story’s impact. (However, it is also possible that such engagement may reduce or change transportation; if an online discussion leads a viewer to focus on plot inconsistencies or to a greater focus on the actor than on the story, transportation may be reduced.)