THE MEDIAPERSON’S IMAGE ATTRACTIVENESS WITHIN PARASOCIAL THEORY

This article reveals the topic of the media persona's image attractiveness for media consumers within parasocial theory framework. Based on reference material analysis, the author identifies three main areas in which scientific developments were conducted on the stated topic, namely: child psychology, consumer behaviour psychology and political psychology. The author presents the world research potential in terms of characteristics and requirements towards media persona's image attractiveness, as well as a universal model based on synthesis and information generalization and worked out by the author himself. According to this model the attractiveness of a media persona depends on two key parameters subjective and parasocial. The subjective parameter bridges internal, external and behavioural-communication characteristics. The internal ones consist of the intelligence, sense of humor, benevolence, sincerity, reliability, honesty, respectfulness, positivity, extraversion, and aggression (violence) to some extent. The external ones are: demonstrating success and wealth attributes (expensive brands and valuables, luxury real estate); regular check-in locations change; and expressive sexuality and appearance attractiveness. The behavioural-communication characteristics include: discussing “acute” topics; personal information disclosure to the public; regular updating social networks personal pages; brightness, curiosity, novelty, reliability, clarity and information consistency provided to media consumers; initiating various actions on social networks, creating new hashtags. The parasocial parameter combines the formation of a sense of friendliness, the presence of a sense of intimacy, creating the sense of belonging, willingness to be imitated and identified, sharing values with the media persona. This research is useful for various media communities, it forms a universal basis for shaping public image management strategies. The author uncovers the prospects for further research in the field of political psychology, namely the parasocial communication influence on the electoral behavior.