Parasocial relationships in the age of social media

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Ananya Bhargava: We live in a world where it’s possible to feel deeply connected to people we’ve never actually met, from celebrities to influencers, on our feeds. These one-sided connections, known as parasocial relationships, have evolved alongside media, becoming more interactive and more influential than ever before. 

I’m joined by Dr. Lauren Auverset, Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication at the University of Louisiana. Her work sits at the intersection of media effects and social psychology, with a focus on how social media shapes the way we communicate and consume media.

In this episode, we’ll explore the historical context and evolution of parasocial relationships, the rise of influencer culture across new media platforms, and influencer responsibility and ethical standards in an online world.

Lauren Auverset: My name is Lauren Auverset van Gerwen. I’m a professor here at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in the Communication Department. Public relations is the umbrella, and then within that, my specific research area is social media and basically the intersection of social psychology and social media. So, how we use social media, and how that changes how we communicate, and how it influences it. And one of my favorite things that I research is parasocial relationships.

So, think about a celebrity, a television character, a book character, an athlete, maybe a politician, if you dare, or an influencer on social media. Think of someone who you really, really, really like. Do you feel like you know that person? Like you could imagine how they might act in any given situation? That’s a parasocial relationship. 

Bhargava: People often compare parasocial relationships with the actual relationships we have in real life. So, how would you say it’s different? 

Auverset: If you actually got to meet, let’s say, Tom Cruise. You are a fan of Tom Cruise. You’ve watched all of his movies. You’ve written him emails, letters, and social media DMs, but he’s never interacted with you. You’ve never actually met him. That’s a parasocial relationship. But then, let’s say you do get to meet him and have a conversation with him. It’s not really a parasocial relationship anymore. It’s something different because it becomes real. So, real relationships are very different.

Bhargava: With the rise of social media and this many-to-many communication, we’re seeing the rise of influencers, where technically consumers are interacting with those influencers, but it’s still not in the same capacity as, let’s say, my classmate. So, where do we exactly draw the line? Because it looks like it’s getting more and more blurred.

Auverset: You’re right. It does change things. The engagement changes things. So, let’s say, think of your favorite TikTok influencer. If you make comments, whether it’s live-streamed or asynchronous, and they respond to you, and then you respond back, that then becomes like a conversation, and this is really where the research is right now. So, how does that change things? I don’t have a real answer for you. I just know it does. It’s different than before, where we had the one-way mass media. We had television. You would watch it and then go talk to your friend about it. And it’s changed. So, it opens up this whole world of possibilities, and we are only just beginning to scratch the surface of this new realm.

Bhargava: So, do you have any thoughts on what that research used to focus on and what researchers were trying to understand at that time versus what you’re trying to understand now?

Auverset: If we go all the way back to Horton and Wohl, we’re in the fifties, that’s, to my memory, the first establishment of parasocial relationships. In the fifties, what was the newest medium? Television. So, they focused on parasocial relationships: people watching television, this brand-new picture box in your living room medium, and how that affected which media they chose to consume. Then it kind of geared toward news anchors. So, you’re watching the news. Do you choose Channel 3 or Channel 4 to watch your news? So they found, a lot of scholars during that time tended to find, well yeah it was your liking of, so how much do you like them? How much do you feel like them? Do you feel like you can relate to them? And it would influence your choice.

As different technology that we consume, media progressed, we got the internet, then social media, and it all kind of bleeds into one another. It’s really fascinating because we could tie this all back to Marshall McLuhan and “the medium is the message.” But the message and how we consume it stays the same, because people are still people. No matter how much technology comes and goes, no matter how many different types of things we can choose from, people are still people. And that’s the part that fascinates me.

Bhargava: Yeah, and I know we briefly touched on this, but would you like to talk more about the rise of influencer culture and how platforms like TikTok and Instagram have now changed those interactions between people?

Auverset: It’s the sheer magnitude and the ease of access, the magnitude of different influencers that we can choose from, and then it’s in our pockets. So, if you don’t like one person, well then there are thousands, possibly, to choose from. There’s even other professors who have podcasts or TikTok channels, Instagram, etc., on our profession. There’s just no lack of voices that you can hear. In a sense, it’s not much different than it ever has been. Celebrities have always been paid to promote this product over the other product. The difference is that with the rise of influencer culture, it feels like it’s accessible to anyone and not just celebrities. That’s the part that’s new. 

I mean, looking into, just different aspects of new mediums as they arise, because there’s the metaverse, there’s other types of media that we can’t even imagine now that we will, in fact, use. Just like 22 years ago, we couldn’t imagine that social media would be what it is today. There just is no limit to what this type of research can study, because we’re going to continue to produce new, fun toys to play with. 

I have a study that I’m a co-author on, on looking at Twitch and parasocial relationships. So, the interesting thing about Twitch is that it’s always live-streamed. You can watch a Twitch stream after the fact, and some people do, but it’s different to experience it live, to be part of the chat live. And so, that interaction, whether you’re interacting with other audience members or getting a shout-out from the streamer, that is huge and new and different. So, technically should we still call that a parasocial relationship? Or is it something new, or is it a new subtype of parasocial relationship?

Bhargava: How do you see parasocial media progressing in the next five to ten years? What do you expect to see, or even hope to see?

Auverset: I think you’re spot on in influencers and marketing. The more that this type of idea is brought to the collective unconscious, so to speak, the more we’ll be aware of it and I don’t want people or marketers to try to use it purposefully, because that kind of defeats the point. I don’t want anyone to get the idea that they can force a parasocial relationship. It’s something that has to happen inside each individual’s head organically.

Bhargava: What should consumers look out for? What should be the warning signs?

Auverset: Trying to make a connection or force a connection with potential audience members where there’s not one. Let’s say I have a social media following and it’s based on me as a professor. So if I were then to say, “Okay prospective undergraduate students,” who are like 17 or 18 years old, “I’m just like you,” that would be disingenuous. I’m not just like them. When I was their age, it was a very different world.

Bhargava: The distinction between what a healthy and a good parasocial relationship looks like versus a more negative, unhealthy one? 

Auverset: A healthy parasocial relationship might be, well I’ll use Hermione Granger. I identify with her. Watching her struggle makes me feel better about my struggles. Watching her succeed makes me feel like, “Okay, great. If Hermione can do it, I can do it.” An unhealthy parasocial relationship might look a little bit like obsession. So if you have an unbalanced and unhealthy parasocial relationship with someone, you could be unduly and unrealistically influenced by them potentially.

Bhargava: Your paper talked about self-efficacy and how forming parasocial relationships with YouTubers, especially lifestyle YouTubers, I believe, can actually increase self-efficacy. Could you talk about what self-efficacy even is and how that correlation works?

Auverset: This is my favorite part about the paper. Self-efficacy is one’s own belief in your ability to do something. So, that’s why we chose lifestyle YouTubers, we needed to pick a type of category. So lifestyle being a makeup tutorial or a cooking video, someone showing their audience how they do something. And our results showed that the higher the parasocial relationship with their chosen YouTuber was, the higher their level of self-efficacy was in a specific task. They learn it from watching the lifestyle YouTuber, and then they felt more empowered to be able to go do it themselves.

Bhargava: Amazing. So, it looks like educational content is another factor that can really foster the development of parasocial relationships.

Auverset: Absolutely.

Bhargava: I read a brief article about your book Parasocial Media. The article talked about how that book is going to address a lot of the ethical concerns associated with the use of parasocial relationships. And so my question to you is what role should platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram play in regulating, or addressing, possible negative effects of parasocial relationships?

Auverset: So when we’re talking about a parasocial relationship, it’s not something that like a company can really control, not like they can say hate speech or something typed out, or a video that’s recorded because they can find it and then take it away, delete it, shut it down. But when we’re talking about a parasocial relationship, we’re talking about something that’s not tangible, that exists inside one individual’s self. To ask, how could social media companies or platforms ethically control that? I don’t know that they can. Now, parasocial-like influencers, on the other hand, possibly could have some control, not necessarily, over how an individual experiences a parasocial relationship with them, but they can set their own ethical standards. I think in the years to come, people with a far reaching voice, like an influencer, will have a higher social responsibility to be honest, to stand up for what they believe in, to not mislead people. Not accidentally misinform or disinform people. There’s no standards for this that are set by anyone, but there are consequences.

Bhargava: In practice, do you have any ideas of what that could look like from the influencer side, like how they can set certain boundaries and make sure that they’re not fostering more unhealthy parasocial relationships with their audience?

Auverset: Check their facts first. So, an example: Joe Rogan’s podcast. So this was a few years ago, just a little bit after the pandemic happened, he had an episode where he picked this one medical study. I actually pulled the paper up and I was looking for the one point, because Joe Rogan had a single point about the vaccine. And I looked at the entire paper, and I said, okay, so there’s this one point here, but then if you actually read the rest of the paper, it counterpoints it. So there was some cherry picking, what we call cherry picking the data, going on. And Joe Rogan was being irresponsible. This went so far that the actual author of the study became aware of this and was interviewed by a few major media about Joe Rogan getting the point of his paper wrong. So yes, I think that influencers should really think, once you reach a point of virality, you have an ethical responsibility, just the same as a journalist or a broadcast media person, to report as fairly and honestly and ethically as you can.

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