Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°1, 755-761
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.102 755
PSYCHOLOGY AND MOTIVATION OF THE AUDIENCE UNDER THE
INTERVENTION OF CONVERGENCE MEDIA
Yingjie Liu
1*, Baopeng Kan
2Abstract
The psychological of the audience is a key influencing factor of media communication. Based on the theory of communication and audience psychology, this paper investigates the psychology and motivation of the audience under the intervention of convergence media. The authors conducted a questionnaire survey on urban residents two universities and in Beijing, with a 7-point scale. Based on the survey results, the audience psychology under the intervention of convergence media was is divided into nine dimensions. The valid survey data were analyzed on SPSS18.0. The results show that, under the intervention of convergence media, the main motivation of the audience is to release pressure and acquire information; mass entertainment is the most favorite program on convergence media; under the intervention of convergence media, male audience had lower scores than female audience in many dimensions, especially in service enjoyment, entertainment relaxation and novelty seeking; the audience with different academic qualifications differed greatly in saving and convenience, enjoying service and seeking knowledge psychology. The research results promote the management strategy and communication effect of media.
Key words: Convergence media, Audience Psychology, Psychological Motivation, Psychological Preference.
Received: 20-03-19 | Accepted: 15-09-19
INTRODUCTION
With the development of Internet technology and the progress of communication technology, the forms of media have changed constantly, the degree of interaction and integration of traditional media and new media has deepened, and the society has entered an era of media convergence. Under the intervention of convergence media environment, the audience has changed greatly both in the media contact habit and in the reception psychology. The audience is the key factor of the success of the media. The psychology of the audience under the intervention of the convergence media will directly influence the management strategy of
1School of Communication, Soochow University, Suzhou
215000, China. 2School of Information Engineering, Suzhou
Industrial Park Institute of Services Outs ourcing, Suzhou 215123 China.
E-Mail: liuyj@suda.edu.cn
the media.
Whether in the era of traditional media, new media or convergence media, high-quality content is the basic requirement for the audience in receiving information. Tama Walker of New Zealand believes that in the era of convergence media, everyone can become information producers, which greatly improves the timeliness, comprehensiveness and diversity of information as well as fails to ensure the quality of news (Larsen, 1999). Unlike in the era of traditional media, in the era of convergence media, the audience have a wide range of information resources, so media people have to look for their own audience (Vogl, Scherndl, & Kühberger, 2018), according to Jenny Gibson. At present, the domestic research on the audience psychology of media involves the audience psychology of media linkage, mobile phones, and Microblog and the contrast in audience psychology between traditional media and new
YINGJIE LIU,BAOPENG KAN 756
media age (Dale & Hanbury, 2010). Jin Xing summarizes the psychological characteristics of the audience in the full media age (Samson & Detenber, 2017). Lin Xuerong summs up the definition of audience psychology (Kim & Rubin, 1997). Shi Yongliang points out that the audience's desire for privacy, curiosity and general functions are the audience's psychological needs for the media. Zhang Tingting studies the reasons why Chinese media ignore audience's psychology (Betz, 1984). David Giles analyzes the definition and methodology of media psychology (Chen & Kirmani, 2015). Through reading the related references at home, it is found that the research results on the audience psychology of media in China are abundant, but the research results on the audience psychology in the era of convergence media are very limited.
Based on the above analysis and the theories of communication and audience psychology, this study briefly summarizes the theories of psychology and motivation of traditional media, new media, convergence media and media audience, and adopts the method of questionnaire to study the psychological motivation and preference of audience under the intervention of convergence media, and makes a comparative analysis of audience's psychology of different gender and educational background under the intervention of convergence media.
RELEVANT THEORETICAL BASES
Convergence media
Traditional media
In contrast to the rise of online media in recent years, the media that regularly publish information to the public or provide educational and entertainment platforms in the form of certain mechanical devices such as radio, television, newspapers and magazines are known as traditional media (Hall, 2005). Among them, the newspaper is the traditional media which the people first came into contact with. Focusing on the letter dissemination, it is limited by the publication time, the layout and the printing. Radio focuses on disseminating sound, but only can be listened to in accordance with the broadcast time and sequence of radio.
What’s worse, it cannot be repeated, and easy to
be remembered and saved. TV is the most popular household appliance at present, but
traditional TV programs cannot be watched repeatedly, with strong immediacy.
New media
The new media, also known as digital new media, uses Internet technology and digital technology to provide personalized communication information via such carriers as digital televisions and computers, which break the time-limited problem of traditional media, and have the characteristics of personalization and communalization, massiveness and sharing, interaction and immediacy.
Convergence media
At present, the academic community does not have a uniform and accurate definition of convergence media, and convergence media is first of all an idea, not an independent media whose functions are limited by itself, but an operation mode that brings the advantages of the traditional media and the new media into full play, and realizes the optimization of the content generation and dissemination effect of the media. It has the characteristics of integration of resources, contents, publicity and mutual benefits.
Psychology of media audience
Media audience
Disseminator, medium and audience constitute the complete communication chain in the media communication process. Without audience, the media will lose the meaning of existence. In communication, the audience represents the accepted population. With the constant change of the media, people's understanding of the audience has expanded from the original TV audience, newspaper readers and so on to the present netizens and mobile phone users.
Psychology of media audience
With the continuous development of media communication, the psychology of media audience changes constantly, hoping to obtain more information through media and better understand the world is the main psychology of the audience in the era of traditional media, and in the era of new media and convergence media, the audience have higher requirements on the form and quality of information dissemination, but also want to be able to participate in the process of information dissemination.
PSYCHOLOGY AND MOTIVATION OF THE AUDIENCE UNDER THE INTERVENTION OF INTEGRATED MEDIA 757
Motivation theory
Maslow founded the theory of need motivation on the basis of his understanding of human needs, which believes that human needs are the psychological driving force of human behaviors, and divides them into two categories: deficiency need and growth needs. The deficiency need is common to both humans and animal and can cause deficient motivation while the growth need is unique to humans and can produce a growth motive, on the basis of which Maslow divided it into five levels in detail (Chung, 1969) and pointed out that only when the lower level needs are satisfied, the higher level needs will be generated, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1
.
Maslow's five major levels of
demand
Self-fulfilling needs
STUDY ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS AND MOTIVATION OF THE AUDIENCE UNDER THE INTERVENTION OF CONVERGENCE MEDIA
On the basis of the previous research results (Wiebe, 1969), this study has compiled the
Questionnaire of Audience Psychology under the Intervention of Convergence media, and adopts the 7-point system, in which 1 to 7 points range from complete non-conformance to complete conformance. Urban residents from two universities and in Beijing are randomly selected to fill in 350 questionnaires, and 321 valid
questionnaires are collected, with an effective rate of 91.7%. An exploratory analysis is made on the audience psychology questionnaire under the intervention of convergence media, and the audience psychology under the intervention of convergence media is divided into nine dimensions, as shown in Figure 2. SPSS18.0 is used to analyze the valid data.
Figure 2
.
Psychological division of audience
under the intervention of media
Audience psychology
Pursuit of new differences
Entertainment and relaxation
Seeking the same Knowledge
Communication
Enjoy service
Convenient saving
Self-expression sharing
Independent sharing
Analysis of audience psychological acceptance motivation under the intervention of convergence media
Analysis of audience psychological acceptance motivation under the intervention of convergence media
Figure 3 shows the survey results of the psychological acceptance motivation of audience groups under the intervention of convergence media. As can be seen from the figure, the respondents who hope to enjoy entertainment to release pressure, and understand the society to obtain information through convergence media account for a large proportion, 46.6% and 45.6% respectively.
YINGJIE LIU,BAOPENG KAN 758
Figure 3
.
Audience psychological acceptance motivation under the intervention of convergence
media
Analysis of audience psychological preference under the intervention of convergence media
Figure 4
.
Analysis of audience psychological
preference
Figure 4 shows the psychological preference analysis of audience groups under the intervention of convergence media. The results show that mass entertainment is the most favorite convergence media program by the audience, followed by the programs related to their own lives, accounting for 49.2% and 22.7% respectively. In addition, the audience also has a certain preference for news programs.
Analysis of audience psychology under the intervention of convergence media
Psychological analysis of different gender audience under the intervention of convergence media
Figure 5 shows the mean and standard deviation of psychological dimensions of different gender audience groups under the intervention of convergence media, and Figure 6 shows the psychological difference test results of different gender audience groups under the intervention of convergence media. Figures 5 and 6 show under the intervention of convergence media, the scores of male audience are lower than that of female in all dimensions, and there is no significant difference between male and female except in the three dimensions of service enjoyment, entertainment relaxation and novelty seeking.
Psychological analysis of audience groups with different academic degrees under the intervention of convergence media
Figure 7 shows the p-value of the independent sample t-test of the psychological dimensions of audience groups with different academic degrees under the intervention of convergence media. It can be seen from the figure that the psychology of audience groups with different academic degrees under the intervention of convergence media has no significant difference among other dimensions except a significant difference in the three dimensions including convenient saving, enjoy service and knowledge (p<0.05).
PSYCHOLOGY AND MOTIVATION OF THE AUDIENCE UNDER THE INTERVENTION OF INTEGRATED MEDIA 759
Figure 5
.
Mean and standard deviation of each dimension of psychology of different gender
audiences
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
sharin g Indepe
ndent
Self-exp ressio
n
saving
Conve
nient Enjoy s
ervice
Commu
nicatio n
same Seekin
g the
and rela xation Entertain
ment
new diffe rences Pursuit o
f
Knowle
dge
Male Female
Figure 6
.
Independent sample t test p value
Figure 7
.
Independent sample t-test p-values for each dimension of different educational
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Table 1.
Significant differences in different dimensions between academic qualifications
Item Category t p
Knowledge
Master's degree and above and junior college Master's degree and above with junior high school and below
Undergraduate and junior high school and below
5.702 5.927 3.645 0.043 0.031 0.023 Enjoy service
Master's degree and above and junior college Master and above with high school
Master's degree and above with junior high school and below Undergraduate and junior college
Undergraduate and high school Undergraduate with junior high school and below
16.788 32.855 22.422 6.213 12.831 9.733 0.000 0.000 0.002 0.000 0.001 0.001 Convenient saving
Master's degree and above and junior college Master and above with high school
Undergraduate and junior college Undergraduate and high school
5.285 15.012 6.745 11.683 0.003 0.001 0.002 0.004
Therefore, this study carries on the independent test for two different degrees in three dimensions, and analyzes the significant differences of different degrees in three dimensions one by one, with the results shown in Table 1.
It can be seen from the table that in the psychological dimension of seeking knowledge, the scores of audiences with master's degree and above are significantly higher than those of senior high school and junior college, and the scores of audiences with bachelor's degree are significantly higher than those of junior high school and below.
In the psychological dimension of convenient saving, the scores of audiences with master's degree and above are significantly higher than those of senior high school and junior college, and the scores of audiences with bachelor's degree are significantly higher than those of senior high school and junior college.
In the psychological dimension of enjoying service, the scores of audiences with master's degree and above are significantly higher than those of junior high school and below, the scores of audiences with senior high school and junior college, and the scores of audiences with bachelor's degree are significantly higher than those of senior high school and junior college.
CONCLUSIONS
Convergence media is the development trend of media in the future, and the audience is the key factor of media success. Therefore, this study relates to the psychological analysis and psychological motivation of the audience under the intervention of convergence media from the
perspective of psychology, and the concrete conclusions are as follows:
(1) This study makes an exploratory analysis on the questionnaires of audience psychology under the intervention of convergence media, and divides the audience psychology under the intervention of convergence media into nine dimensions. The entertainment and relaxation and understanding of the society to obtain information are the main psychological motivations of the audience under the intervention of convergence media. Mass entertainment is the audience's favorite programs of convergence media.
(2) The results of psychological analysis on different gender audience under the intervention of convergence media show that the scores of male audiences are lower than those of female audience, and there are significant differences between male and female in the three dimensions of service enjoyment, entertainment and relaxation and novelty seeking.
(3) The results of psychological analysis of audience groups with different academic degrees under the intervention of convergence media show that there are significant differences in three dimensions: convenience saving, enjoy service and seeking knowledge, and the scores of audience with master's degree and bachelor's degree are generally higher than those of junior high school and senior high school. This suggests that there may be more demands for an audience with a higher degree.
Acknowledgement
PSYCHOLOGY AND MOTIVATION OF THE AUDIENCE UNDER THE INTERVENTION OF INTEGRATED MEDIA 761
Funding Projects of Education Informatization Research in 2017 of Jiangsu Province “Research and Practice of Deep Interactive Learning Model under
the Background of Big Data Fusion Media”
(20172144), The Strategic Project in 2018 of Suzhou
“the Integration and Development of 2018-2019 Famous City and Schools” (MZ33702119).
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