Film Preferences in the Pandemic: Psychological Resilience or an Escape from the Pandemic Reality?

Abstract

During the last year, the one of COVID-19 pandemic, the lives of many people have changed in many ways, one of them is media consumption. We wanted to verify whether “stay at home” recommendations influenced viewers’ preferences concerning films, their watching habits, motivation to choose a specific film and how media use is related to some psychological variables, mainly a sense of loneliness, self-esteem and pandemic psychological resilience. Results of the online survey showed that participants watch more films or series during the pandemic than before and that they prefer various genres. They more often use streaming platforms and go to the cinema less frequently compared to the period before the pandemic. Participants watch films more for both entertainment and as a way to get away from everyday reality than before. Cast, film topic and recommendations became less important when choosing a film. There was also found a weak, however significant correlation between describing oneself as a fan of a specific film genre and the pandemic psychological resilience. Results show that the pandemic psychological resilience is moderately, negatively related to loneliness. A positive, however weak, relation of pandemic psychological resilience to self-esteem was also found.