Perceived Realism

This entry defines and describes the concept of perceived realism of media content and the various criteria readers, listeners, and viewers may use to judge the realism of a portrayal. Perceived realism is an audience member's evaluation of how accurately a narrative portrayal represents people and events as would be expected if they were to exist or occur in the actual world, or in some hypothetical world. The concept originated in the assumptions that media portrayals are either real or fictional depending on the portrayal's correspondence to the actual world. However, research has demonstrated that realism is determined largely by individuals' perceptions of the content rather than by the content itself, and that individuals may use criteria other than correspondence to the actual world as a basis for evaluating a portrayal's realism. In this entry, three types of realism judgments are described: absolute realism, relative realism, and narrative consistency.