Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Model Of Inspiring Media, Mary Beth Oliver, Arthur A. Raney, Anne Bartsch, Sophie Janicke-Bowles, Markus Appel, Katherine R. Dale

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Scholars have increasingly explored the ways that media content can touch, move, and inspire audiences, leading to numerous beneficial outcomes including increased feelings of connectedness to and heightened motivations for doing good for others. Although this line of inquiry is relatively new, sufficient evidence and patterns of results have emerged such that a clearer picture of the inspiring media experience is coming into focus. This article has two primary goals. First, we seek to synthesize the existing research into a working and evolving model of inspiring media experiences reflecting five interrelated and symbiotic elements: exposure, message factors, responses, outcomes, and …