The cogntive bases and social consequences of communication involvement

The concept of communication involvement is invoked in many forms of communication research. With this research, we explore the possibility that different treatments of involvement (within both interpersonal and mass communication research) reflect relatively stable tendencies in message processing. We report a study with three goals: 1) Identify the basic cognitive processes that constitute a state of communication involvement, 2) reveal how prevailing treatments of media involvement and interaction involvement are related to each other empirically, and 3) examine how both media involvement and interaction involvement are related to social loneliness and the development of parasocial relationships. Findings indicate that media involvement and interpersonal involvement have distinct cognitive bases. Common operationalizations of the two forms of involvement are unrelated and both forms of involvement are related to important social tendencies. Findings are discussed in terms of how researchers might integrate theory in interpersonal communication and mass communication.