Arther Raney's Disposition Theory

For my final theory paper I decided to investigate further the disposition theory. Disposition theory “predicts that enjoyment increases when liked characters experience positive outcomes or when disliked characters experience negative ones.” (Raney, 2004) I looked at the reading provided at the bottom of the paper prompt by Arther Raney. Raney is a professor at Florida State University teaching classes on mass media, media and society, and media theory and effect. He graduated from University of Alabama in 1990 with a bachelors in Communication. Raney got his masters in Theology at Southwestern Seminary before returning to his alma mater to get a Ph.D. in Mass Communication in 1998. All this can be found on his biography on the Florida State University (link in the bibliography). Raney 's interest in morality in media has lead him to be a leader in the field of disposition theory, with a multitude of papers published on the topic. Disposition theory originates from Zillmann and Cantor in 1972 as a way to explain why audiences found humor in jokes …show more content…
According to traditional teachings, disposition happens when the audience acts as a moral monitor; taking in the actions of characters and judging them as being morality right or wrong. The audience is said to have an empathic reaction to characters biased on those moral judgments. If the character is doing something the audience see as moral the reaction is positive and if the character preforms an immoral act the empathic reaction in negative. The reason that different individuals in the audience view characters differently is because each individual has a different scale being used to determine moral right and wrong. Disposition theory also talks about how audience members will then make predictions on how a characters future will unfold biased on their moral judgment. When these proditions are correct the audiences gets more enjoyment from the