Today, due to rapidly changing broadcasting environments, program genres hosted by announcers have begun to change. Until now, according to perceptions of announcers among the TV audience, the announcers have been characterized as information delivere...
Today, due to rapidly changing broadcasting environments, program genres hosted by announcers have begun to change. Until now, according to perceptions of announcers among the TV audience, the announcers have been characterized as information deliverers with expertness, while recent announcers have perceived as hosts of popular programs, displaying various talents in such as show, entertainment, comedy, and variety programs. Perceptions of announcers among the TV audience have started changing due to the announcers' showing of natural images breaking from conventional stiff images, as we can see from what they are now called, 'annatainers (announcer + entertainer)'.
Preexisting studies of announcers were mainly focused on announcers as new anchors, and were conducted on public trust to them based on expertness and trustworthiness. However in terms of such a fact that today announcers may have characteristics of 'annatainers', and positive evaluation of TV entertainment programs hosted by announcers has become an important factor influencing TV audience ratings, this study tried to examine perceptions of characteristics of announcers hosting TV entertainment programs and their influence on the effect of watching TV.
In light of this, this study investigated characteristics of announcers hosting TV entertainment programs, and verified the relation of parasocial interaction with announcers and program evaluation. In addition, it examined the influence of characteristics of announcers and parasocial interaction with them and program evaluation on TV-watching effects (satisfaction, satisfying motives to watch TV, and program-loyalty). In order to examine diverse characteristics of announcers hosting TV entertainment programs, the researcher employed items of characteristics of public trust to anchorpersons and items of characteristics of characters on TV designed by Park Ung-gi (2003a) using measures of personal characteristics established by Hoffner & Buchanan (1998). As a result, it was revealed that 8 characteristics in total such as trustworthiness, success/respect, expertness, funny, quality, negative images, intelligence, and attractiveness reflect characteristics of announcers. This tells that in perceiving characteristics of announcers, the audience watching TV entertainment programs lays emphasis on characteristics of professional communicators, and in light of other characteristics appeared, the announcers have differentiated characteristics from news anchors.
Similarly, there were significant findings from examining the correlation between the 8 characteristics of announcers hosting TV entertainment programs and parasocial interaction. It was found that the more parasocial interaction indicating personal relationships where one feels similar familiarity with characters on media as with actual friends, existed between the audience and announcers, the more positively the audience accepts characteristics of them. It was revealed that there are differences in perceptions of characteristics of announcers hosting TV entertainment programs among the TV audience depending on the extent to which the audience forms parasocial interaction with the announcers. In detail, there are positive relations between the characteristics such as trustworthiness, success/respect, expertness, funny, and quality, and parasocial interaction, while the characteristic such as negative images showed the negative correlation. As a result of analyzing the correlation between characteristics of announcers and program evaluation which reflects interactions as information-processing activities of program messages, it was revealed that positive and negative evaluation of programs has the significant correlation with each characteristic factor of announcers. This is meaningful in terms of indicating that perceptions of announcers hosting TV entertainment programs among the TV audience are an important factor in evaluation of overall programs.
As a result of analyzing the ultimate influence of characteristics of announcers hosting TV entertainment programs, parasocial interaction, and program evaluation on the effect of watch TV, it was found that experiences in watching TV entertainment programs among the TV audience have the relation with the effect, and the analysis also empirically demonstrated the relation of the active interaction between responses to media contents among the audience and information processing, with the effect of watching TV. These findings indicated that positive perceptions of announcers, higher parasocial interaction, and positive evaluation of programs have significant effects on the effect of watching TV, and also perceptions of announcers and positive evaluation of programs have an important role in forming the effect of watching TV entertainment programs.
What is important in this study is to have revealed to which characteristics of announcers the TV audience pays attention in not news or informative programs but TV entertainment programs. In addition, the study indicated preferred characteristics of announcers by the audience through correlation analysis of characteristics of announcers and parasocial interaction, and program evaluation, and ascertained the fact that programs are evaluated positively or negatively depending on characteristics of announcers. Though this, by conducting systematic analysis on the ultimate influence of characteristics of announcers, parasocial interaction and program evaluation on the effect of watching TV, this study revealed that the more announcers give feelings of familiarity, the more the audience pays attention to programs concerned and also the more program-loyalty occurs. This study has implications in terms of the point that it can help understand a matter of preferred hosts of programs concerned, audience ratings of current TV entertainment programs hosted by announcers, and the effect of watching TV.