Generally, perceived realism refers to the degree to which the portrayals of life in media narratives are deemed to resemble real life. Although earlier research considered that a “real” story is a “factual” story, various scholars have questioned this assumption. Furthermore, scholars believe that the audience will evaluate media narratives with divergent facets. They argue that, just as the real world is multifaceted, the judgment of realism of a media narrative will be multidimensional.

On the basis of a synthesis of a range of conceptualizations of perceived realism advanced over the years, Alice Hall proposed that perceived realism would comprise dimensions including plausibility, typicality, factuality, narrative consistency, and perceptual quality. Hyunyi Cho, Lijiang Shen, and Kari M. Wilson empirically examined these dimensions and found that these ...