AD+PR Ph.D. Student, Faith Delle, Explores Emotional Intensity Within Media Consumption
By: Zafira Lubis
In today’s media landscape, social justice movements have become a dominant force, capturing the attention of audiences worldwide. From impactful campaigns to viral hashtags, these movements resonate deeply with individuals, sparking conversations, debates and often inciting widespread societal change. However, activism is driven by a mix of emotions and psychological factors that make it prominent in the media. Among these factors, grief, trauma and loss emerge as pivotal catalysts, shaping the narrative and driving the urgency of social justice causes.
Faith Delle earned her undergraduate degree in psychology as well as a master’s degree in integrated marketing communication at Florida State University. She is now at Michigan State University, where she is pursuing her Ph.D. in information and media. Delle’s research focuses on grief, trauma and loss from a media psychology perspective. Moreover, she aims to examine how health information and other contents are conveyed in the media, and how individuals emotionally interpret these messages.
Delle participated in a study where she compared if people would have the same emotional intensity to watching TV in a normal living room environment opposed to watching TV through a virtual reality headset mimicking a virtual style living room. To measure the emotional intensity felt by the participants, Delle had provided three different movie scenes each of which consisted of different emotions: funny, scary and sad.
“All participants significantly felt the most emotional intensity during the sad films compared to the funny and scary,” said Delle.
During this case study, Delle further analyzed her research through exploring the distinct representations of death that all depicted sadness. Among the three movie clips, death and loss was portrayed verbally, actively and visibly on screen.
Delle also saw a lowered heart rate and increased sweating by the participants when watching the scene showing a verbal depiction of death. The other clips that provided an active and visible sign of death seemed too distressing and the audience were simply avoiding the message. A leading factor as to why people often feel a deeper emotional connection toward a certain selection of media could be that they feel more inclined and related to it. However, this theory also caters to people who wish to avoid certain media that relate to their own traumas.
“We are only able to be influenced by media that we select… someone who is experiencing that trauma will not want to watch a movie on that (trauma) even though the narratives can impact them,” said Delle.
Due to this, it is difficult to heal the traumas of those affected. Social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter and the MeToo movement gave power to the silenced however also strike various emotional intensity within many.
“While violent actions and traumas seen on screen ignited a fire in me it can do the opposite for other groups. The same messages need to be delivered in a different way based on the audience.” said Delle.
For those interested in furthering their studies, or wish to explore certain aspects of their study, Delle recommends aligning with a specific faculty to build relations and experience.
“Find your role model or exemplar in order to know what you want to do. Do everything you can to meet them and learn from them…that’s what got me into this program,” said Delle.