Influence of Perceived Media Support on Negative Experiences of LGBTQ+ Individuals

Abstract

Few studies have scrutinized the use of popular media as a practical tool for reducing homophobia and providing services for LGBTQ+ people. This survey study sought to gauge the association of LGBTQ+ individuals’ subjective judgment that social support is available through media (Perceived Media Support; PMS) with their identity and psychological status. We turn to Cultivation Theory and the Parasocial Contact Hypothesis as guiding frameworks to develop the Perceived Media Support Inventory (PMSI), capturing the emotional, instrumental, informational and esteem support that LGBTQ+ individuals perceive from popular media. We collected data from 200 self-identified participants in Iran. Factor and item analyses verified the robustness of the PSMI. PMS was revealed as associated with identity certainty in gays, lesbians and transgender people, identity affirmation in bisexuals, decreased acceptance concerns in transgender people, reduced anxiety in gays, and elevated resilience to stressful circumstances in LGBTQ+s. Besides, surprisingly, PMS was linked to several ramifications, such as identity uncertainty in bisexuals, identity superiority and concealment motivation in gays, internalized homonegativity in transgender people, difficult orientation/identity development process in gays, anxiety in LGBTQ+s in general, a feeling of psychological distance from the community in lesbians and feeling of hatred toward the community in gays. Findings suggest that perceived media support has positive and negative psychological consequences on Iranian LGBTQ+ people, leading us to theorize the dialectics of cultivated media support.