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The Phenomenological Experience Of Narrative Transportation, William Buchanan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has attempted to identify consequences of mental transportation into narrative worlds. While scales have been developed and validated to measure readers' levels of transportation, the objective quantification has left researchers at a descriptive disadvantage for the full range of qualitative responses to this phenomenon. This study presents a qualitative method of inquiry designed to get at the experience of narrative transportation as it is lived: the phenomenological interview. Interview transcripts were inductively analyzed for common themes that indicate intersubjective features of narrative experience. Four main themes were identified, which were composed of 22 base-level experiences reported by participants. …