Mood Management Theory
As we are coming to the end of this semester and this being my last journal entry I believe, the last theory that I will be talking about from this week’s readings is Mood Management Theory. Mood management theory is based on the fact that we selected certain genres or types of media based on how we are feeling. In doing so, that creates a balance into our emotions so we don’t feel too stressed or to bored
Seeing how this theory is focused on mood and media, I do see in my own personal life and how when I select certain types or genres of media my mood differs depending on how I am feeling. For instance, when I get stressed out about school or finish a long day of homework I will result in just scrolling on my phone or watching TV shows that I enjoy to calm me down and decompress to get rid of the stressful feeling. On the other hand, when I’m bored at home I seek out certain songs or movies that have action and suspense to raise my mood.
After reading the article from Reinecke and the lesson from Professor Davis on Disposition Theory, the artifact that I wanted to talk about today is the movie saga Hunger Games. If you haven’t seen the movie or read the book yet, it is set in a futuristic dystopian society where people are separated into 13 different districts that send two people from each district to fight to the death so that there is only one survivor. Once selected, the tributs go to the Capital where they are trained, interviewed, and prepped to gain favoritism/sponsorships from the rich people living in the Capital and learning how to survive since it is just one big game. In the end Katniss and Peeta both win which makes a lot of people happy, but also upsets President Snow.
The reason why I selected this artifact is because it correlates with both the characters in the movie and real life audience members watching as well because according to the readings section of “Emotional Utility”, media users hope for positive endings for the characters they like and negative ones to the characters they don’t like. In the movie, the people cheer for Katniss since she volunteered as tribute for her sister and does some bold actions that grabs the attention of the viewer and want what’s best for her, whereas when you see President snow altering the game for her to loose you want bad things to happen to him or other tributs trying to kill her because of the moods that were developed. So, when we see Katniss and Peeta winning together it releases positive moods both for us and characters in the movie because we learned to appreciate them.
In an article written by Professor Yassa from the University of Tilburg, she highlights the same concepts from Zilliman on how our selection of TV and movies are influenced by our mood. If we are feeling sad then we gravitate towards something that will make us happy again or if we are already in a good mood then watching a sad movie might appeal to our emotions. She also mentions how we might not always be aware of the content we are watching to be influenced by our mood, so if we decided to watch “The Hunger Games” our mood could be telling us to watch something that makes you cheer for your favorite character and create the mood balance as mentioned before.
This theory doesn’t just apply to this one movie, it can be applied to many variations of media such as certain news programs, a song, TV character, talk-show host, and so on because we pick and choose to watch these certain things depending on our mood. If you are sad and playing a video game makes you happy, then you might not put much thought into why you selected that game you just know that it can change your mood. I see this all the time in myself as well as my friends and I believe that this theory can provide a lot of explanation as to why we feel the way we do.
Reinecke, L. (2016). Mood management theory. The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects, 1–13. doi:10.1002/9781118783764.wbieme0085
Yassa, D. (n.d.). Mood Management through music and TV consumption.
