A term or concept · 1940 · Early theory
Wishful thinking
The long-standing explanation that parasocial feeling is a projection - people attach to a figure because the figure is available to be shaped by whoever is looking.
Still the most intuitive theory and the least satisfying one, because it makes the relationship entirely internal to the viewer. The research moved away from it, not because projection is wrong, but because it cannot explain why a specific figure reaches a specific person and nobody else does.
Consideration. The part where somebody stops and thinks. The research, the diagnosis, the ethics, the lawsuits, the regulators. Roughly fifty years of arguing with itself about whether this is a relationship.
Same story, 2 other entries
The face he painted for the army was his own1917 → The most widely known citizen1935
Where it sits
1900 1900-1949 · 1940 1949
Connected · 3 out, 6 in
It sits in