Thesis
The dark side of narrative empathy : a narrative persuasion perspective on whether fiction reading can lead to antisocial beliefs and attitudes.
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2023
- Thesis identifier
- T16795
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 201969047
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- Studies about the narrative impact of fiction reading often focus on the benefits of thisentertainment experience. These accounts of benefits often involve a mostly positiveassociation of fiction reading with the ethical development of readers through the cultivationof their empathic skills (Nussbaum, 1990). However, the history of novel reading offers acontrary view that emphasises the ‘corrupting powers’ of narrative engagement. While theproposal of benefits has attracted empirical attention, the second is not as equally andsystematically assessed. Thereby, the question of whether fiction reading can influenceantisocial outcomes on readers remains weakly investigated (Igartua & Barrios, 2012). It istherefore the objective of this dissertation to identify the working mechanisms that mayinfluence beliefs and attitudes such as prejudicial radicalisation and cynicism in readers. Bydrawing on recent evidence and theories from media psychology and narrative persuasionresearch, a qualitative analysis based on close reading of three novels was applied. Thisapplication offers a new method that is based on literary analysis, new because most studiesassess narrative persuasion following quantitative measures. The approach involves applyingtheories of narrative transportation (Green & Brock, 2000), empathic identification (Keen,2007; Cohen, 2001), and moral disengagement (Raney, 2004) to demonstrate how theselected novels can reduce readers’ critical and moral scrutiny to minimise resistance to theirpersuasiveness (Moyer-Gusé, 2008; Ratcliff & Sun, 2020). The main finding that may facilitatethe occurrence of antisocial attitudes via these mechanism involves directing readers’empathy towards immoral protagonists who internally focalize their narratives, obscuringtheir moral transgressions, and depersonalizing their victims. This also involves themanipulation of textual techniques such as point of view, imagery, and foregrounding style.With these findings, the thesis contributes to the scholarly literature on narrative impact byforegrounding the negative aspects of empathic identification and narrative transportationthat are sometimes acknowledged, but not as extensively examined.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Jajdelska, Elspeth
- Fabb, Nigel
- Resource Type
- DOI
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PDF of thesis T16795 | 2023-12-20 | Público | Descargar |