Artists and Attributions: How Music Platform Implementation Affects Parasocial Experiences and Support Intentions

We expand the experience of mediated relationships to include not only audience members’ perceptions of cognitive and emotional investments toward media figures, but also investment they believe these figures orient toward them in return (i.e., parasocial perception). This concept demonstrates how consumers experience a parasocial relationship more closely in line with interpersonal relationships. Expectations are examined in the context of artist-audience relationships and the communicative decisions made by media figures. The decisions artists make about the distribution of their music can affect audience attributions about how bands feel toward them and subsequent intentions to support these figures.