Heroes, Identity, and Parasocial Interaction

Children today are exposed to a global repertoire of heroes and champions that can be accessed in a multisensorious, almost omnipresent way across a various of media. The heroes seen on television and in computer and online games are part of children's everyday life. The ambivalence of strengths and weaknesses, greatness and littleness, omnipotence and impotence with which heroes are labeled is gaining more and more importance as far as children's social development is concerned. Dieter Czaja even suggests that children need heroes. Children are reported to use these heroes and champions in their own identity formation, especially within the context of their individual, favorite identity themes. Children choose their personal favorites among these heroes and champions and use them in their own identity formation.

The extent to which children apply such parasocially interactive behavior in order to cope with their developmental tasks and everyday experiences depends on their cognitive, emotional, and social development. According to the principles of symbolic interactionism, watching TV is considered an active process of role playing with fictional characters on the screen. Hence, Donald Horton and Robert R. Wohl refer to TV perception as distanced intimacy; one must, however, distinguish between this dissociated intimacy and the identification that implies a partly subconscious perception and a strong adoption of the actor's role. Children may sometimes act only as observers of the interactions between media characters, yet at other times may allow themselves to be drawn into the events on screen. The latter may lead to an adaptation of the role model in the sense of what Cynthia Hoffner calls wishful identification, that is, a strong desire of the child to become like the admired hero—a process that occurs mostly with fiction or fantasy programs—or to what Julie M. Duck refers to as similarity identification, which may occur when the child watches programs with realistic content.

Duck shows in her research survey that young children greatly identify with cartoon characters and fantasy superheroes, whereas teenagers tend to model themselves on media celebrities outside their immediate environment (e.g., supermodels, pop stars, film stars, and famous athletes) as well as on “realistic” television characters who are older, more successful, or more popular than they are.

Gender is a major issue here. In general, boys tend to identify themselves with strong male heroes from faraway worlds, whereas girls model themselves after heroines who represent beauty and social virtues. Girls seem to be more “adaptable” in that sometimes they also identify with male characters, whereas boys do not want to—or cannot—orient themselves to female characters. The probability of an identification with a character does not necessarily increase when the child and the media character resemble each other, because wishful identification plays an important role here. The amount of media exposure is also relevant. As early as 1975, Cecilia von Feilitzen and Olga Linne pointed out in their survey that children who watch a lot of television show a stronger tendency to identify with TV characters and heroes than do those who watch less.

[Page 376]Research by Ingrid Paus-Hasebrink (formerly Paus-Haase) shows that TV heroes help children to cope with various role-induced expectations. These heroes provide a virtual space within which children can live out fantasies and desires using characters similar to their own social backgrounds. Children choose from the media according to the individual needs, experiences, desires, and fears that stem from their gender roles and their status in the family. The peer group, as the first group chosen by oneself and relatively uninfluenced by adults, serves the child for the purpose of playful ranking and role modeling. Media favorites can help them adapt to their social surroundings, back a superior status, or make friends with dominant peers. In a friendship, children use knowledge gained from media experiences to create equality and stability. Shared admiration for a media character and the swapping of merchandise toys vouch for mutual affection and create a sense of solidarity.

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