Enjoyment: At the Heart of Media

This article suggests an integrated view of media entertainment that is capable of covering more of the dimensional complexity and dynamics of entertain-ment experiences than existing theories do. Based on a description of what is meant by complexity and dynamics, the authors outline a conceptual model that is centered around enjoyment as the core of entertainment, and that ad-dresses prerequisites of enjoyment which have to be met by the individual me-dia user and by the given media product. The theoretical foundation is used to explain why people display strong preferences for being entertained (motiva-tional perspective) and what kind of consequences entertaining media consump-tion may have (effects perspective, e.g., facilitation of learning processes). Strong empirical evidence indicates that the motivational basis of hu-man activity relies on two rather independent systems: a so-called ap-proach system and an avoidance system (Elliot & Thrash, 2002). Acti-vation of the approach system results in pleasure, whereas activation of the avoidance system leads to pain (Berridge, 2003). Research in psy-chology and neuroscience most often uses the term “pleasure ” to de-scribe agreeable reactions to experiences in general. With the exception of Bosshart and Macconi’s (1998) elaboration of the construct enter-tainment as a “reception phenomenon ” (that includes various forms of pleasures), most communication researchers have used the term enjoy-ment to describe and explain such positive reactions toward the medi