ABSTRACT
Thirty-something women like ‘Sex and the City,’ but men go for sports. Youngsters watch MTV, whereas the older generation tunes in for the ‘Golden Girls’ (Cassata & Irwin, 2003). Germans, Mexicans, and South-Koreans have something in common: They all prefer television produced in their home country over international programming (Waisbord, 2004). Although perhaps intuitive, ratings and shares clearly show that media consumers prefer entertainment that refers to the social groups they belong to—be it gender (Oliver, 2000; Oliver, Weaver & Sargent, 2000; Trepte, 2004), age (Haarwood, 1999) or culture (Greenberg & Atkin, 1982; Zillmann et al., 1995). In particular, they seek out entertainment that favors their ‘in-group,’ sometimes even drawing a sharp line to distinguish them from other ‘out-group’ people. We can assume that social identity influences the selection of media entertainment, because people are creating their personal media profile to support their own identity. Also, it is likely that processes of social identity come into play during the reception process and that they determine the effects of watching entertaining fare.
