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Full-Text Articles in Communication
Spiritual Media Experiences, Trait Transcendence, And Enjoyment Of Popular Films, Sophie Janicke, Srividya Ramasubramanian
Spiritual Media Experiences, Trait Transcendence, And Enjoyment Of Popular Films, Sophie Janicke, Srividya Ramasubramanian
Communication Faculty Articles and Research
Recent scholarship on media psychology acknowledges that media entertainment offers not only purely hedonistic enjoyment but also meaningful experiences. This study expands our understanding of media enjoyment by exploring the role of media entertainment in evoking spiritual emotions and beliefs, such as those related to connectedness, blessedness, and transcendence. Results from an online survey (N=220) indicate that media entertainment elicits meaningful as well as spiritual emotions and increases the saliency of spiritual beliefs as related to self-actualization and spiritual experiences in everyday life. Furthermore, trait transcendence and eudaimonic media motivations add to the explanation of audiences’ mediated spiritual experiences. Open-ended …
Searching For The Divine: An Autoethnographic Account Of Religious/Spiritual And Academic Influences On The Journey To Professor, E. James Baesler
Searching For The Divine: An Autoethnographic Account Of Religious/Spiritual And Academic Influences On The Journey To Professor, E. James Baesler
Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications
This autoethnographic account chronicles my academic and religious/spiritual path to becoming a professor of Communication. Spiritual influences and significant life events related to prayer, education, teaching, and research serve as sign posts marking the way. The journey begins with a child scientist experimenting with life—and an adolescent discovering the joy of reading through an illness. The journey continues with a crisis in undergraduate years followed by indoctrination stories of graduate school. Securing and retaining an academic position in Communication reveals the complexities of negotiating research and teaching in higher education. After tenure and promotion, a concurrent spiritual awakening begins a …