Processing TV Commercials
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attention may be the message content being shown. The structural features may alter the
messages or how the messages are perceived.
Numerous factors may influence attention holding with varying degrees. For
instance, viewers would remain attended if they like the messages, if the messages are
interesting, and/or if the messages are personally relevant. This study argues viewers
would like narrative messages more than non-narrative messages. People like to tell and
hear stories by nature. Movies, novels, dramas, and sitcoms are, in general, telling stories.
Studies on narrative structure suggest that narrative messages, compared to non-narrative
messages, are also remembered better because it is the way people process and store
information, making a story. This paper investigates how narrative messages produced
with different pacing are processed and stored. It looks at television commercials because
commercials vary on the continuum of narrative structure. Some commercials have more
elaborated stories while other commercials do not.
The limited capacity model
The limited capacity model conceptualizes television viewing as being under the
joint control of the viewer and the medium (Lang, 2000). The model assumes that human
beings are information processors with limited capacity. Information processing is a
process of allocating mental resources and resources can be allocated voluntarily
(controlled processing) and/or involuntarily (automatic processing). Automatic
processing is driven by stimuli whereas controlled processing is driven by the viewers
(goals, intentions, interests and so on). According to Lang (1999, 2000), the voluntary
(controlled) allocation of processing resources is a relatively long term process occurring
over minutes or hours. On the other hand, television controls the automatic allocation of
processing resources by eliciting orienting responses in viewers. The orienting responses
are induced by structural features in television such as cuts, edits, movement, flashes of
light, and sound, and occur over seconds (short-term responses) (Lang, 1990; Lang,
Geiger, Strickwerda, & Sumner, 1993; Reeves et al., 1985; Thorson & Lang, 1992).
The processing consists of three sub-processes, encoding, storage and retrieval
which occur simultaneously (Lang, 2000). Encoding is a process of getting information
Convention