ABSTRACT
There can be no question that exposure to drama plays an important role in media users’ everyday entertainment. A large number of TV and radio programs, books, movies, and even parts of the Internet provide what drama has to offer: “a state, situation, or series of events involving … intense conflict of forces” (Merriam-Webster, 1995, p. 351). To put it in media-related terms, drama dwells on conflict and its resolution by depicting events that impact the welfare of persons, animals, and animated things. At the core of each drama are characters, the protagonists and antagonists, who are affected by these events and who are witnessed by readers, viewers, and other media users. The characters may be shown as improving their lot in life or as experiencing a deterioration of their fortunes. As long as their actions can be observed and their intentions can be inferred, the audience is ready to morally evaluate the characters and to develop dispositions toward them (cf. Zillmann, 1996). Depending on these dispositions as well as on the depicted fate of the characters, drama may be enjoyed or deplored. Protagonists sometimes succeed and sometimes fail. They are loved by some and hated by others. The viewers, as a consequence of what they can see and hear, may be jubilant or they may suffer.
