Transportation

Transportation, or the state of mental absorption into a narrative, is a common outcome of engaging with narrative material. Transported readers are cognitively and emotionally engaged, and may have vivid mental images of the narrative events. Transportation can be manipulated experimentally and is reliably measured by instruments such as the transportation scale. Transportation occurs across multiple media modalities (e.g., text, audio, film) and can be affected by narrative elements such as emotional content and narrative coherence. In addition to situational variation, individual trait differences can be seen in transportability, the tendency to be easily transported into a narrative. Individuals higher in need for affect tend to experience higher transportation, and temporary or contextual internal factors such as distraction and familiarity with content can also affect transportation. Higher transportation tends to lead to stronger media effects, including attitude change, most often in the form of story‐consistent beliefs, as well as behavior related to those beliefs. Narrative transportation can also influence self‐concept and self‐image, primarily by allowing the exploration of alternate identities and contexts. Transportive states frequently co‐occur with other experiential states such as identification and flow, and share some characteristics with similar concepts such as narrative engagement, presence, and immersion.