Abstract. Some messages have personal meanings for relational partners in both friendships and romantic relationships because the messages arise from shared experiences. Today, shared experiences often include media experiences. A personal idiom developed from a media experience may lead to feelings of interpersonal solidarity and increased positive affect. Over 200 young adults responded to questions querying their use of media-derived personal idioms. In addition to examining the development and function of the idiomatic expressions, the study explored variations within same-sex and cross-sex relationships and between males and females. Friends, family members, and romantic partners indicated that media-derived personal idioms primarily served a pleasure function and secondarily served an affection function. Media-derived personal idioms emerged as everyday, routine interactions that are relational, social, and public in nature.

“Whazz up!?” This phrase, which debuted in a beer commercial as a repeated greeting between television friends, has evolved into regular banter between real-life friends, family members, and other relational partners and has even been appropriated by sportscasters and television personalities. Nearly everyone in America has heard the phrase, either from the commercial or in its repetition in various interpersonal contexts. “Whazz up!?” joins many commercial, movie, and television phrases (e.g., “Party on, dude,” “I love ya, man,” “Oh, behave,” “No soup for you”) as exemplars of the mass media’s influence on interpersonal interaction. In the “Whazz up!?” example, the televised friendship talk was the basis of the media dialogue, and the media dialogue subsequently became a catch phrase among many real-life friends. In other words, conversation is the media effect. The phrase’s popularity in real life relationships suggests that viewers rely on media and perceive their content as relatively true-to-life. It also indicates that the media are drawing on and trying to reflect realistic interpersonal interactions and relationships. A unique conversation ritual, using phrases from media sources in relational conversations, is referred to here as a media-derived personal idiom (MDPI). Personal idioms are ritualized private codes and have been linked to interpersonal solidarity, feelings of closeness, and perceptions of “we-ness” in close relationships (Bell & Healy, 1992; Hopper, Knapp, & Scott, 1981). In this research project, we investigated a specific and possibly new version of personal idioms, the media-derived personal idiom, in order to understand its development and role in close relationships. By further understanding how media content is used in close relationships and with what effect, we may accomplish a secondary goal of bridging two important elements of modern society, mass media and interpersonal relationships.

As Knapp (1978) states, “We learn to talk like those around us” (p. 340). On some occasions, the people around us are media characters. Thus, we may adopt media language and character personalities (Cathcart & Gumpert, 1986) by emulating a character’s conversational style or reiterating lines of dialogue. The effects of this character identification and emulation move from the individual level to the relational level when we interact with others who also relate to the character. Upon interacting, we may make assumptions about the other’s personality traits and similarity to ourselves, and on the basis on these assumptions, we may decide whether to establish and continue the relationship. If repeated with some frequency, the character emulation may become a personal idiom or conversation ritual for the relationship.

In a sense, all relationships can be considered “mini-cultures” (Baxter, 1987), with their own values, meanings, vocabularies, rituals, and traditions. A relational mini-culture is a “system of meaning created and maintained by its partners” (Baxter, p. 262). By analyzing the private codes, vocabularies, or rituals in a relationship, insight may be gained into its idiosyncratic world. Personal idioms have been found to aid in the definition of relational norms and promote cohesiveness between the partners (Bell & Healey, 1992; Hopper et al., 1981). In a survey of over 1000 people, personalized communication was associated with intimacy and increased as the described relationship became more intimate (Parks, 1978, as reported in Hopper et al., 1981). Some messages in close relationships are personal for partners because they arise from their shared experiences (Honeycutt, Knapp, & Powers, 1983). Today, shared experiences often include shared media experiences. A personal idiom that is derived from a media experience may be conceptualized as an extension of role playing, a type of intimate play, and may lead to feelings of interpersonal solidarity, much like other personal idioms do. Furthermore, partners who engage in such ritualistic behavior may be better able to predict responses from each other, which allows them to feel connected even when apart (Honeycutt et al., 1983). Hence, idioms can serve in both relationship growth and maintenance capacities, though they may perform different functions at different stages of the relationship. For instance, they may aid in impression formation during beginning stages and maintain intimacy in later stages.

The above description is a model of a new personal idiom, an idiom that revolves around media character identification and role playing between relational partners. Most personal idiom research has focused on romantic relationships and their use of shared experiences to develop private codes (see Bruess & Pearson, 1993; Honeycutt et al., 1983; Hopper et al., 1981). However, people build on institutionalized social forms when developing and maintaining friendships as well (Bell & Healey, 1992). Moreover, modern day relationships, whether they are romantic or nonromantic, coexist and interact in a media-infiltrated world; hence, for today’s relationships, media serve as shared experiences and occupy a great deal of people’s leisure time. Relational partners have many options when it comes to selecting, viewing, and talking about media content with others. Consequently, the employment of media content in our everyday interpersonal interactions warrants further investigation. As a concept, the media-derived personal idiom finds its roots in many well researched interpersonal and media concepts, yet the concept has never been explicated nor researched specifically.

Below, the MDPI model, outlined above, is expanded upon and supported by a combination of interpersonal and mass media theories.

Mass Media Theoretical Base

Many researchers in mass communication have taken one of two approaches to integrating interpersonal communication into mass media theories. These include examining the effects of the media on perceptions of interpersonal communication and exploring the effects of interpersonal communication on media effects. The first approach evolves from a cultivation theoretical base, while the second approach is often an agenda-setting concern.

Researchers who adopt the cultivation approach view television, film, and other media forms as sources of feedback which reinforce, disconfirm, or confirm an individual’s world, including ideas about relationships and one’s own self-image (Cathcart & Gumpert, 1986; Gerbner, 1969; Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 1994). For instance, television content may serve as the basis for marital expectations or may be used as a referent for understanding marriage and gender roles, including the appropriateness of household labor and occupation (Morgan, 1982; Robinson, Skill, Nussbaum, & Moreland, 1985). Researchers who embrace the second approach are often interested in interpersonal communication’s ability to negate, reinforce, or verify media content (see McCombs & Shaw, 1972). By comparing media content to one’s direct experience and to others' direct experiences, people are able to judge the worth and accuracy of the content. To the extent that these two sources converge, the effect of the media is likely to be stronger (Chaffee, 1986). Studies in the agenda-setting realm have claimed that interpersonal communication both complements and competes with the effects of the media (see Lasorsa & Wanta, 1990; Winter, 1981).

Beyond these two perspectives, we argue that the media are used to produce personal idioms that then create and strengthen interpersonal bonds. Hopper et al. (1981) noted that some idioms stemmed from external sources, such as songs and books; however, the extent of relational partners’ reliance on the media in developing these conversational rituals is not known. To investigate this phenomenon, we relied on two mass communication theoretical perspectives, the functional theories approach and media systems dependency theory, to inform this discussion.

Functional theories. Functional theories of media (see Lasswell, 1948; Wright, 1960) explain people’s uses of media to satisfy needs, such as to play or to connect relationally. The uses and gratifications perspective, a functional theory, assumes an active audience who selects media and content based on the gratifications they expect (Conway & Rubin, 1991; Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974). Mass media and interpersonal communication, according to A. M. Rubin and Rubin (1985), are “used by individuals to gratify needs (e.g., affiliation, dominance), to eliminate deficits (e.g., interpersonal contact, lack of information), and to fulfill pleasure quotas (e.g., entertainment, love)” (p. 45). R. B. Rubin, Perse, and Barbato (1988) drew on the mass media uses and gratifications perspective and interpersonal functional approaches to develop their Interpersonal Communication Motives scale. The resulting six factors of pleasure, affection, inclusion, escape, relaxation, and control closely mirrored motives for media use. For instance, A. M. Rubin and Rubin (1989) found that people are motivated to engage in personal communication and to use their videocassette recorders for similar purposes. Indeed, “communication needs appear to transcend channels or contexts” (p. 107).

Lull’s research on television (1990) contributed social uses to the previously studied media uses typologies. He determined that media, television specifically, may be used structurally as part of the environment (e.g., background noise) or to regulate time and talk and relationally for communication facilitation, affiliation/avoidance, social learning, and competence/dominance. For example, in the case of sports fans, they can extend their position of fan by trading back and forth pieces of information about teams and players (competence/dominance function) (Brummett & Duncan, 1992). Fans are expected to identify with certain teams, and they often encourage others to identify when they yell at the players on television. These behaviors provide an immediate common ground. In terms of the affiliation function, people, while viewing a television program, may discuss issues from the programs as well as issues from their own lives (Cathcart & Gumpert, 1986). This self-disclosure may connect viewers, increase feelings of inclusion, and maintain relationships. For example, sports fans discuss their opinions of Dick Vitale as a sportscaster, and along with others begin to imitate Vitale’s style. Through interaction, people learn others’ interpretations and evaluations of the particular media content, and this information may provide a frame for their perceptions of the content, a social learning function. Brummett and Duncan (1992) noted that fans often get caught up in the sportscaster’s interpretation of the game and behave in ways they could not in other contexts. Television, and other media forms, are utilized as means to enter conversations, reduce anxiety, clarify values, illustrate experience, and provide an agenda for talk (Dobrow, 1990; Lull, 1990). The stimulation of interaction may lead to solidarity, conflict reduction, and relationship maintenance. In addition, values may be transmitted; models provided for behavior; and role relationships enacted or reinforced (Lull, 1990).

Media systems dependency theory. Media systems dependency theory is similar to uses and gratifications in that people have goals (play, orientation, and understanding) that may be attained through the media (Ball-Rokeach, Rokeach, & Grube, 1984). Particularly relevant to the connection between media and interpersonal relationships is the goal of social play. People may use the media as a social event (e.g., coviewing a program together) or as a source of information for a social event (e.g., conversing with a friend about a program at a party). Media systems dependency theory, though, adds the antecedent to media uses and takes a broader systems approach. People’s needs/goals may be shaped by social and cultural forces, as well as by their individual situations. Then, when people ritualistically rely on a medium to fulfill a personal goal, such as understanding others, they tend to develop a dependency relationship over time with the medium. This dependency relationship enhances the effects of the medium and produces extended use of the medium to fulfill other goals (Miller & Reese, 1982; Rayburn, 1996).

While media uses approaches lend insight into why and how friends use media, media systems dependency enhances the salience of the media-derived personal idiom by emphasizing how media may create needs. The theory also partially explains how the idiom initially developed. It suggests that the medium became relied upon to fulfill the goal of social play in interpersonal relationships. If media play is successful and enjoyable, people may continue to rely on the medium for shared experiences, which further enables them to generate communication and to re-connect with relational partners.

Several mass media researchers have used theory to connect their studies to interpersonal phenomena, yet few researchers have attempted the integration from the opposite pole –commencing with an interpersonal theory core and incorporating the media. Nevertheless, Cathcart and Gumpert (1986) assert that people discuss issues from their own lives while viewing television programs: People use programs to discuss themselves, conflicting goals or values, and preferred resolutions for the presented conflict. They may use media content in their discussions to explain their feelings or clarify situations, to serve as low-risk topics with new acquaintances, to clarify values by discussing what happened on the screen, to serve as themes for conflict (Lull, 1986), and to define or negotiate roles and rules. Beyond the functions of the media identified by Lull and others, the media may also fulfill people’s needs for play and entertainment, as well as for relational connection and definition. The media may satisfy these needs directly by providing entertainment programs and a channel for socialization, or the media may indirectly gratify these needs by serving as a resource for role-playing (personal idioms) and interpersonal discussions (relational connection). Although no singular communication theory completely describes the media-derived personal idiom, a combination of mass media and interpersonal relationship concepts explain and support its development.

Interpersonal Relationship Theories

The MDPI is a version of the personal idiom that functions primarily as “conversational” play for relational partners. Research on conversation rituals and play in close relationships suggests that the MDPI may aid in impression formation and relationship maintenance.

Impression formation. In order to stabilize our relational worlds, we often organize our cognitions about the relationship (Honeycutt, 1993). When a person forms an impression of a new acquaintance, that individual is likely to seize whatever information is available (Delia, 1971), and this information may serve to reduce uncertainty about the new partner. Rather than start anew with each person, people possess some information from which to form baseline assessments and predictions. People have sets of expectations for categorizing others into types. These basic personality categories enable the organization of information about others, as well as impression formation (Schneider & Blankenmeyer, 1983).

The expectations or structures that people have for particular relationships are known as relational schemata (Baldwin, 1992). These schemata contain knowledge of what behaviors tend to be followed by what responses and of the rules and scripts for interactions. The scripts are used to generate expectations for the interaction and to plan appropriate behavior. One only needs to determine what type of a person someone is to indicate or limit what types of behaviors to expect. Certain attributes become associated with schemata, and these features form a prototypical example (Baldwin, 1992). Sunnafrank and Miller (1981) suggested that people tend to like others who they expect are similar to themselves. Delia (1971) concurred that when a person is perceived to be of the same general group, the co-occurring assumption is that the person will be likable, enjoyable as an interaction partner, and easy to converse with.

Following the MDPI model presented previously, when two persons interact and discover that they share preferences for certain media characters or programs, they assume some similarity and may attribute additional personality characteristics to each other. In other words, they enact the appropriate prototype and its associated script. Thus, this information serves an uncertainty reduction function in impression formation. Consider John and Tom. They discover that they are both Saturday Night Live fans and know the dialogue from the “Cheerleader” skits. This information leads them to assume that they share other interests and attitudes, such as an appreciation for satire, enjoyment of television, or a critical attitude towards the world. These similarities increase their desire to continue interaction that may result in greater intimacy. If John and Tom continue to exchange this dialogue, it becomes a ritual or personal idiom in their relationship, thus maintaining their bond by establishing a “personal code.” This routine becomes further encoded in their memory structures as a script for their relationship. They also develop a prototype of Saturday Night Live fans based on their positive interaction and the fulfillment of expectations.

Relationship maintenance. Intimate play routines, such as role playing, in relationships contribute significantly to a relationship’s vitality and sustenance (Glenn & Knapp, 1987). The development of these rituals and routines may be especially critical in friendship due to its voluntary nature and few constraints on disengagement (Wiseman, 1986). Play is an important resource for assembling systems of meaning that comprise friendships (Baxter, 1992). Several types of play have been identified, including role-playing or fantasy enactments (Betcher, 1981) and playful behavioral routines and rituals (Baxter, 1987). Baxter (1992) found that role-playing, which involves one party assuming an identity of another (e.g., person, television character, animal), was as frequent as private code play (personal idioms). Hence, MDPIs are a combination of role playing and personal idioms. Baxter (1992) even recognized that intimate play is “probably ‘imported’ from broader societal socialization and then negotiated idiosyncratically within the context of the particular relationship” (p. 351). For instance, friends may emulate their favorite movie characters but select only the dialogue that is particularly relevant to their relationship. They may also modify the original media dialogue to better fit their personal experiences or relationship. Although this type of play has been investigated to a degree, the use of media content as a source of play deserves attention so that a greater understanding of how media content is used in and affects interpersonal interactions may be gained.

Friendships often revolve more around joint activity or shared experiences and less around feelings than romantic relationships do. However, joint activity can influence feelings about the relationship. Baxter (1992) reported that feelings of closeness were related to role-playing and private verbal code play for same-sex relationships. Friendships, in fact, are more likely than romantic partnerships to symbolize their relational identity through behavioral rituals and routines (Baxter, 1987), such as role-playing favorite movie dialogue. This does not mean that romantic partners do not use personal idioms or play in their relationship, for much research has indicated that they do (e.g., Bruess & Pearson, 1993; Hopper et al., 1981). Instead, it merely suggests that it may be more important for friends to use personal idioms and play rituals given the nature and basis of their relationship.

In order for the positive effects of solidarity to be achieved, these borrowed conventions, MDPIs, must be negotiated by the relational partners, modified to their relationship, and then used with some frequency. As Mangam (1981) said, “All shared understandings lack permanence and must be continually reaffirmed or renegotiated through personal means; rules, procedures, structure and order itself are not automatic occurrences but rather must be worked at and sustained by repeated acts by participants in relationships they create and maintain” (p. 200).

Though media-derived personal idioms have not been studied by either mass communication or interpersonal communication researchers up to this point, there is clear theoretical support for the concept. Still, how MDPIs are developed, maintained, modified, and perceived by the relational partners is unknown. The frequency and effects of MDPIs on close relationships are also suggested by the literature but, to date, remain untapped. Hence, we sought to study these interpersonal exchanges by employing a two-phase approach. First, retrospective accounts of these interactions were gathered and analyzed for overall structure, sequence, and source. We also looked at how they developed, how long they were maintained, and what functions that the participants perceived them to fulfill. This qualitative approach allowed for the gathering of rich data and enabled the development of some more targeted hypotheses for phase two. In phase two of the study, the hypotheses that were developed from the descriptive portion of the study were put to the test statistically.

For phase one of this project, we proposed three research questions.
 

RQ1: What do media-derived personal idioms look like in terms of their conversational structure, sequence, and content?
RQ2: How do media-derived personal idioms develop in close relationships?
RQ3: What functions do media-derived personal idioms fulfill for the relational partners?

Participants

The sample consisted of 229 college students enrolled in five communication courses at a large state university; however, five participants were eliminated because they indicated that they never employed MDPIs in their close relationships. Because this study was interested in close relationships and media behavior and no predictions regarding age or education level were advanced, college students served as an appropriate sample. Furthermore, college students frequently meet new people and develop new relationships; therefore, the role of personal idioms in relationship development and maintenance may be readily explored. The final sample was comprised of 91 males (40.6%) and 133 females (59.4%) who averaged 20 years old in age (SD = 2.8, range 17 - 48). When asked to provide examples of MDPIs, males reported conversations with same-sex others (92%) more than opposite-sex others (8%). Females followed the same trend, yet the difference was less stark (58% for same-sex others, 42% for opposite-sex others). Participants were offered extra credit for completing the study.

Instrumentation

This study employed a questionnaire design to investigate individuals’ use of MDPIs in friendships. The questionnaire consisted of two sections. The first section involved recording information about the MDPI interaction. The second part focused on the nature of the interpersonal relationship and basic individual demographics.

Interaction record. Respondents were asked if they had ever engaged in a repeated exchange of dialogue or role-play based on media content with a friend. A brief description was also provided to guide the participant. If participants indicated that they had never had this experience, they were instructed to skip to Section 3 (i.e., demographic and friendship items). If they answered yes, that they had participated in a similar exchange, they were asked to complete the interaction records and the remaining survey items. Participants could list up to two MDPI examples in their questionnaire.

The interaction record asked the respondent to detail a particular media-derived personal idiom, following an “I said, He/she said” sequence. In other words, the participant was asked to lay out the conversational sequence of the MDPI. This format helped to elicit a sequence for the ritual, as well as to gain dialogue versus generalized descriptions of an interaction. The format has been employed by other researchers who were interested in studying messages (see Vangelisti, 1994) and by those who have studied imagined interactions (Honeycutt, 1995). Though reconstructed accounts are always subject to memory failures, people’s memory for personally significant and familiar patterns of behavior is generally high (Sillars, 1991). Questions about the source of the idiom (e.g., television program, character, movie), the initiator of the exchange, initial responses to the message, length of the exchange, and perceived effect of the exchange on the relationship were included.

Media behaviors. Respondents were asked about their television viewing frequency on an average day, alone and with others, and were queried on their movie attendance in an average month. These questions were included to investigate individual differences among the respondents in terms of their media dependency and propensity to use MDPIs. On average, participants watched approximately 2.4 hours of television per day (SD = 1.46), coviewed approximately 1.7 hours of television per day (SD = 1.20), and attended about 2.5 movies per month (SD = 1.75). These averages indicated that the participants, when compared with the broader population, were not abnormally low or high in their media usage.

Phase One: Descriptive Analyses

The first step in considering the MDPI was to conduct an exploration of just what the idioms looked like. This view of the data gave us some information on which to base our hypotheses for phase two.

Relationship characteristics. Of first interest are the relationship characteristics of those people who participate in this type of conversational exchange. Although participants were directed to write about an exchange with a friend, 13% of the participants wrote about interactions with romantic partners, and 11% of them wrote about exchanges with family members, often a sibling. The interactions occurred in male-male relationships 37.5% of the time, in female-female relationships 34.8% of the time, and in male-female relationships 27.7% of the time. Females reported the majority of the opposite sex interactions (55), while males reported very few opposite sex interactions (7). Participants also indicated that the MDPI had subsisted in their relationship as a conversation ritual for 3 years on average (M = 37.4 months, SD = 34.5). Hence, these conversation forms are employed by both men and women in friendships, romantic relationships, and family relationships for a significant period of time.

Conversation characteristics. The conversations described on the interaction records were coded by structure, sequence, content, and uses. Two coders examined the detailed interactions and inductively derived categories. After discussing these initial categories and determining operational definitions, the data was separated equally between the coders and rated. Intercoder reliability, determined by percentage of agreement, was assessed initially, after training, and about half way through the coding to check for coding shifts. Both coders rated the same 20 interaction records. The resulting percentage of agreement between the two coders was acceptably high (exceeding 90%) for all categories.

Structure. Structure of the interaction was determined by channel (verbal, nonverbal, or both) and quantity of dialogue. Interactions that contained several exchanges of different lines between the partners were considered full interactions. These types of interactions comprised 60% of the MDPIs. The following exchanges are examples of full interactions:

Example 1:

I said: Spock. . . . we GOT to do . . . something . . . to stop them. Scotty, give us . . . more . . . power. We need . . . MORE . . . power.
He/she said: (Scottish accent) Captain, I’m giving us all she’s got.

I said: There’s a problem in the cockpit.
He/she said: The cockpit? What is it?
I said: It’s a small room in the front of the plane, but that’s not important right now.

I said: (winking and pointing) Check you later.
He/she said: (winking and pointing) No, check YOU later.

I said: I’m going to go out with my friends more often since you go out with yours all of the time!
He/she said: Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

Finally, a few interactions (3%) contained nonverbal behaviors only; they were shared through gestures, posture, glances, facial expressions, accents, or grunting. (e.g., “I had to leave, so I pointed to my watch and rubbed my fingers through my hair which meant I thought the people we were talking to were boring. He knew I was referring to the clues on the show.”) Another respondent said that “it was more of an accent used in the movie City Slickers by Billy Crystal.” Still another woman reportedly started running like Forrest Gump, which caused her friends to break out in laughter. Most of the verbal exchanges were accompanied by nonverbal behaviors, such as accents, body movements, and facial expressions. One participant noted that he and his friends compete to see who can do the best imitation of the character.

Sequence. The sequence of the conversations was broadly operationalized as monologues and dialogues. Monologues occurred when only the commentary of one partner included the media reference. For example, one partner said “You go, girl” to a friend, but the other partner did not continue the dialogue. Dialogues, on the other hand, were clear exchanges of media content between the partners, such as this example derived from Seinfeld:

I said: Let’s drop the subject.
He/she said: Ha, I have hand.
I said: No, you don’t. I’m controlling this conversation.
He/she said: But you gave up, so I have hand.
I said: Exactly. I made the decision to end our talk, so I have hand.

Content. Content categories were derived from the sources of the media dialogue noted by participants. These sources were then grouped into general categories, including television drama, television situation comedy, television comedy, television commercials, comedic movies, dramatic movies, other movies, compact discs, and videogames. Television dramas were defined as hour-long programs containing mostly serious content; whereas, television situation comedies were considered half-hour programs with comedic content. Television comedies were programs that were entertainment-based, varied in length, and were primarily a version of variety shows (e.g., Saturday Night Live, Beavis and Butthead). A movie was placed into the drama or comedy category only if there was little doubt about its content direction. For instance, Wayne’s World was classified as a comedy, and Terminator 2 was slotted as a drama. The other category was employed when doubt arose about the focus of the movie. For example, Pulp Fiction and Dazed and Confused contained both humorous and violent scenes. Participants reported deriving their personal idioms from movies more than television and from comedic fare more than dramatic fare (see Table 1).
 

Table 1. Relationship Type by Media Source for MDPIs
	Content Category
Relationship	TD	TSC	TC	MC	MD	MO	CM	CD	VG	Total
Friendship	4	30	11	67	34	8	4	12	1	171
Romantic	2	0	4	5	12	0	1	4	0	28
Family	3	1	3	11	4	0	1	1	0	24
Totals	9	31	18	83	50	8	6	17	1	223
Note: One participant did not indicate a content source. The following codes are used for content categories: TD (television drama), TSC (television situation comedy), TC (television comedy), MC (comedic movie), MD (dramatic movie), MO (other movie), CM (commercial), CD (compact disc), and VG (videogame).

Uses. Participants were asked why they continue this media talk with their friend(s). The Interpersonal Communication Motives were imposed as deductive categories; then, uses were added, dropped, and renamed based upon participants’ responses. Six use categories emerged, including for pleasure (54%), affection (28%), remembering significant events (7%), communication facilitation (7%), relaxation (2%), and escape (2%). Some participants indicated more than one use within their explanations. The following comments illustrate many of the perceived uses. The composition of the relationship is indicated along with the comment. The participant’s gender is indicated first, and the relational partner’s gender is indicated second.

• “It’s funny, adds a laugh and often lightens a situation if we’re discussing something serious. Plus it rekindles favorable memories.” (female-male relationship)
• “It’s fun to have an inside joke that only the two of you know about.” (female-male relationship)
• “It’s so stupid that it’s funny. It makes us laugh. It’s a method we use to relieve stress.” (female-male relationship)
• “It is an assurance [about the relationship].” (female-male relationship)
• “It’s funny and it shows that we still have something in common even if we don’t see each other much. It renews the friendship.” (female-female relationship)
• “It is amusing to us and it also allows us to reflect on our childhood. Ironically, we were not even friends in the seventh grade (when the movie came out) but it something we have in common.” (female-female relationship).
• “We like to joke around.” (female-female relationship)
• “It’s a way of bonding and amusing ourselves.” (female-female relationship)
• “It’s a common interest...both enjoy spy thrillers.” (male-male relationship)
• “It’s fun and gives us a special bond.” (male-male relationship)
• “It just makes us laugh and is a lot of fun.” (male-male relationship)
• “It is funny.” (male-male relationship)
• “For the fun.” (male-female relationship)

Development and Continuation of MDPIs

In addition to the above details regarding structure, sequence, content and uses, two more questions were explored which were: (a) “How did the interaction start?” and (b) “How did you know to follow along?” Although two-thirds of the respondents viewed the idiom source (media content) with their conversation partner, another one-third did not. When partners viewed the source together, their interactions tended to be dialogues (82%) over monologues (18%). However, the partners also engaged in more dialogues (68%) than monologues (32%) when they did not view the source together. So what may explain this phenomenon? In cases in which the partners viewed the content apart, uncertainty reduction was required. One partner started the dialogue, taking a chance that the other knew the source since most idioms arose out of unrelated conversations (i.e., they were not discussing the movie or TV program). If the other partner recognized the source and picked up his/her end of the dialogue, an idiom was born. However, if the other partner did not conjure up the source or corresponding dialogue, other steps were necessary to co-construct meaning. In the majority of cases, a simple “remember that movie” or “remember that scene” served as a sufficient trigger. The following comments illustrate the development process of MDPIs:

• “We went to see the movie together and thought it was very sweet...I knew the dialogue from the movie.”
• “We were watching the movie for the first time, and we laughed so hard that we watched it again and again (on different days) and knew every line and just started doing it at school. . . . I would just yell ‘brains’ out loud, and we’d walk along doing it. Then, he goes, ‘If you love me, you must let me eat your brains.’ I just continued from there.”
• “He hated the movie, and I loved it. I always brought it up because I liked it and thought it was cool . . . I started it, but he didn’t know what I was talking about at first until I reminded him.”
• “After seeing the movie, we often would jokingly talk like we were Crips and Bloods from Compton or Watts. Since we can’t really relate to rough neighborhoods, like Compton, we pretend we can. . . . I can remember lines the best...He would often misquote his lines, but he knew where I was headed when I began talking like a gangster.”
• “We were discussing movies that we watched when we were younger, and Sixteen Candles was a must at every slumber party for girls my age. . . . It was a chain reaction. She would say ‘remember when . . . ’ and I would then follow along and say the lines with her.”
• “Vacation is one of my favorite movies and we both had watched it earlier that day. When I was in this particular situation of drinking a beer and just decided to act out this funny scene, I knew Barry would play right along. He knew right away what I was talking about and played right along...I’ve viewed this scene many times and frequently act it out.”
• “Once plethora was mentioned, it triggered the lines from the movie...His voice was like ‘El Guapos’ and I had seen the movie many times.”

My friends rented the movie (Highway 2000) and they got a kick out of it. They explained where they got it [a phrase] from, and it cracked me up. We would pretend to veer towards a cat or dog as if it were in the movie . . . people would respond 80 points.

However, at some point, an idiom, or relationship ritual, implies that one person is not simply mimicking or following the other. Rather, both the communication act and the meaning for that act are co-constructed. The media talk becomes a media-derived personal idiom because the dialogue/behaviors are transformed within the bounds of a unique relationship. Even in the case where the respondent never viewed the movie, the friends developed a media-derived personal idiom that looked like and functioned like the “inside jokes” of those friends who co-viewed media fare. Another interesting scenario emerged when participants used the media dialogue but altered it to fit various situations or to make it more relevant to their relationship. For example, a woman described a scenario where a friend did something that he was not invited to do, so she borrowed lines from Pulp Fiction and altered them to make her point.

I said: Do you see a sign on my couch that says Jason storage?
He/she said: No.
I said: That’s because there’s not one.

Person 1: Do you see a sign on my garage that says dead person storage?
Person 2: No.
Person 1: That’s because there’s not one.

I said: Help me out with this one.
He/she said: No.
I said: C’mon, help me.
He/she said: I’m not going to help you.
I said: Help me! (while shaking my head)

In terms who initiates MDPIs, respondents were the initiators in 49% of the interactions reported on, while their relational partners initiated another 49% of the interactions (2% of the data was missing). MDPIs were uniquely social. Approximately 63% of these exchanges occurred with other people around, and 37% of the exchanges were private conversations. Hence, these media-derived personal idioms appear to be more public in nature than other types of personal idioms and may develop in slightly different ways, yet MDPIs are similar to other personal idioms in their repetition, uses, and idiosyncratic nature. Bell and Healey (1992) argued that private idioms are more likely to have consequences for relationships than public idioms, yet they also found that idioms used in public can still serve to exclude others from the interaction and thus, preserve their private meanings. The data from this portion of the study bear out Bell and Healey’s argument. Although the MDPIs were primarily used in public, many participants perceived positive and strengthening effects on their relationship.

Hypotheses

Contextualizing MDPIs within a specific relationship may help to further ferret out the variations in their use and may increase our understanding of them as a conversation ritual. Based on the suggested trends in phase one of this project, and literature reviewed earlier, post-hoc hypotheses were posited.

Although both friends and romantic relational partners are expected to use MDPIs, the content of their idioms and their perceived uses were expected to differ. For example, it is intuitive that heterosexual romantic relationships are more likely to borrow dialogue from romantic or dramatic media fare than same-sex and opposite-sex friends are. It would be odd to say “Honeybunny” or “At least we had Paris” to a friend, yet it may be more appropriate to call a friend “Numnutts” than a romantic partner. This may be particularly true for male friendships given certain social constraints on their intimacy. As Strikwerda and May (1992) explain, “Men in America are clearly stymied in pursuing intimacy with other males because of fears involving their sexuality” (p.118). Some researchers have argued that women tend to develop intimacy through talking, while men gain intimacy in friendships through shared activities (Rawlins, 1992; Reisman, 1990; Wood & Inman, 1993). However, Floyd and Parks (1995) found that shared activities were equally important to men and women and led to perceptions of intimacy. Moreover, in Bruess and Pearson’s (1997) analysis of friendship rituals, rituals were important in male friendships because they allowed friends to reduce uncertainty and facilitate the friendship without a great deal of conversation. Messner (1992) called this “covert intimacy.” Based on these variations, and the comments provided by our respondents in phase one, the following hypotheses are proposed.

H1: Friendships, family relationships, and romantic relationships will rely on different sources for their MDPIs.

H2: Friendships, family relationships, and romantic relationships will perceive MDPIs as fulfilling different functions.

H3: Women are more likely to use MDPIs for affection, regardless of the conversation partner’s gender, than men. Men are more likely to use MDPIs for pleasure, but function may vary based upon the conversation partner’s gender.
It is likely that heavy media users will be more likely to engage in these idiomatic expressions than light media users. This assumption is based on pure exposure to material and the increased dependency and effects often found for heavy users in media research (Gerbner et al., 1994; Miller & Reese, 1982).

H4: Heavy media users will employ MDPIs differently than light media users.

To increase cell size for the gender by friend’s gender by content cross tabulation, content categories were collapsed into drama, comedy, and other. The Chi-Square Analysis supported the first hypothesis, which predicted that relationship level would influence MDPI source: _² (N = 2) =9.84, p = .007. The 172 participants who wrote about friendships reported relying on comedic fare in their idiomatic conversations (63%) more often than relying on dramatic fare (27%) or other media content (10%). The 28 participants who wrote about romantic relationships reported borrowing dialogue from dramatic fare (50%) more often than comedic fare (32%) and other media content (18%). Much like friendships, the 24 participants who wrote about family relationships used comedies (62.5%) more than dramas (29.2%) and other media content (8.3%). See Table 1 for a breakdown of all content categories.

We used a Chi-Square Analysis for use by relationship type to test the second hypothesis, which predicted that different relationships would be marked by different MDPI functions. Due to a number of empty cells and because the pleasure and affection uses were our primary interests, the other four uses were collapsed into an “other” category (e.g., relaxation, escape, remembering, communication facilitation). This hypothesis was not supported: _² 9N = 2) = 0.32, n.s.). Both friends and romantic partners indicated that MDPIs primarily served an pleasure function (54.8% and 51.9%, respectively) and secondarily served an affection function (29.2% and 37%, respectively). Sixteen percent of the friendships and eleven percent of romantic relationships indicated some other use. For family relationships, MDPIs were employed for pleasure 62.5% of the time; affection 16.7% of the time; and for other purposes 20.8% of the time. See Table 2 for a breakdown of all uses by relationship type.
 

Table 2. Relationship Type by Function of the MDPIs
	MDPI Functions
Relationship	Pleasure	Affection	Relax	Escape	Remember	Communicate	Total
Friendship	92	49	5	4	12	6	168
Romantic	14	10	0	0	1	2	27
Family	15	4	0	0	1	4	24
Totals	121	63	5	4	14	12	219
Note: Five responses were eliminated due to missing data or incomprehensible responses.

Hypothesis 3, which predicted gender differences in MDPI functions, was supported for the bonding function: _² (N = 1) = 7.17, p = .007. Approximately 35% of females reported that they employ media-derived idioms for affection, as compared to 17.6% of males. Moreover, females indicated this function with both female and male partners (42.5% and 57.5% respectively). Interestingly, males reported this outcome with same-sex conversation partners (81%) more than with opposite-sex partners (19%). However, only 8% of male participants wrote about media-related conversations with female partners at all, so this finding is tentative. For the pleasure function, H3 received partial support: _² (N = 1) = 50.345, p < .001. Both males and females employed MDPIs for pleasure more often than affection: 68% of male exchanges served this purpose, and 45% of female exchanges served this purpose. Both males and females predominantly named this function with same-sex conversation partners (64% for male friendships and 30% for female friendships). Though to a lesser extent, women reported that pleasure was their purpose behind their media conversations with males (15%), yet only 3% of males indicated that this function was behind their exchanges with females. For the male data, though, we need to be continuously conscious of the low number of male-female relationships that were reported. See Table 3 for a breakdown of gender and uses.
 

Table 3: The Role of Gender in Media-Derived Personal Idiom Functions
Use	Participant's Gender	Friend's Gender		Total
Pleasure**	Male	58	3	61
	Female	20	40	60
	Total	78	43	121
Affection	Male	13	3	16
	Female	20	27	47
	Total	33	30	63
Relaxation	Male	3	0	3
	Female	2	0	2
	Total	5	0	5
Escape	Male	4	0	4
	Female	0	0	0
	Total	4	0	4
Remembering*	Male	4	0	4
	Female	5	5	10
	Total	9	5	14
Communication Facilitation	Male	2	1	3
	Female	6	3	9
	Total	8	4	12
Note: Five responses were either missing or incomprehensible. ** p < .05 level, * p = .07.

For H4, very few significant relationships emerged for television viewing, television coviewing, and movie attendance with any of the MDPIs variables of interest (e.g., uses, content, structure). The only significant relationship occurred between coviewing and length of idiomatic exchange in the relationship. People who watched more television with others tended to engage in the idiomatic exchange for a longer period of time than those who watch less television with others (r = .14, p < .04). Television viewing and movies attendance failed to relate significantly to the MDPI variables.

The results of this two-part study provide information on what MDPIs look like and how they are developed and used by men and women in their friendships, romantic relationships, and family relationships.

In the preliminary examination of the data, we found that in terms of sequence and structure most of the references to MDPIs were in the form of dialogues and full exchanges. It is logical that an exchange would help to build or maintain a relationship more than a monologue or single sentence reference would. The actual sharing of the dialogue could be expected to affirm a relationship, while the monologue may simply demonstrate one relational partner’s ability to understand the other’s media reference. The participation in the banter, in reconstructing the dialogue, is also more likely to fulfill the function of play in a relationship, which interpersonal research has found to be important to relational development and maintenance (Baxter, 1992). Because play is important to a relationship, it is intuitive that the most common, and possibly salient, MDPIs involve both relational partners.

This investigation also found that comedies were more common sources for MDPIs than were dramas. This may be due to the comedic timing of the dialogue in comedies versus dramas. The scripts tend to be written to include pithy witticism or sharp comebacks that can be easily remembered and repeated. These lines may lend themselves to playful scripts for relational partners more than heavier or more romantic dramatic scripts might. Another explanation is that people tend to humorously deal with new, controversial, or uncomfortable issues before they are accepted as serious elements for public discussion (McGhee & Frueh, 1980); thus, employing humorous MDPIs may be a way to discuss issues in relationships without incurring the risk typically associated with self-disclosures. Lull (1990) pointed out that using media content in conversations can lessen the embarrassment associated with some topics. Moreover, friendship talk in general includes a great deal of social talk about events, jokes, enjoyment of one another’s company, common interests, and gossip about others (Argyle & Henderson, 1985). Research on personal idioms has also noted that teasing insults are a commonly mentioned form of personal idioms that occur both in private and public settings (Hopper et al., 1981). Hence, it may not be surprising that comedies provide a great deal of content for playful conversation rituals, MDPIs.

In the case of romantic relationships, dramas were often employed sources for MDPIs. Couples borrowed from media content to convey their affection and commitment. These interactions were often playful in nature as well but were perceived to serve an important function in the relationship. Respondents suggested in their comments that these shared experiences were significant to them and that using the idiomatic expressions reminded them of those experiences (e.g., a romantic or fun evening). There were many cases of romantic relationships borrowing from comedies as well, for pure amusement or for romance. Friends, on occasion, quoted dramatic dialogue but typically in a humorous way (e.g., “Bond . . . James Bond”). They cited a humorous co-viewing context, bad acting, and ridiculous storylines as catalysts for these MDPIs.

In terms of indicating why media-derived personal idioms were important to their interpersonal relationship, participants responded that the two main uses of the media-derived personal idiom were for pleasure and affection. Pleasure again relates to the concept of play and its role in relational growth, yet playful communication has also been connected to relational closeness and equilibrium (Baxter, 1992). The affection function certainly relates to both relational development and maintenance.

If two individuals are getting to know one another, references to similarity help to develop the relationship (Sunnafrank & Miller, 1981). Everyday talk offers information about a partner (Berger, 1988) and aids in the construction and transformation of the relationship (Duck & Pittman, 1994). Shared media experiences may substitute in the beginning of relationships for deeper or more personal relational experiences. They are relatively risk free ways to connect in relationships, yet they may facilitate further relationship growth in much the same way as small talk (e.g., auditioning the person for a relationship, telling the other about yourself, reducing uncertainty) (see Knapp & Vangelisti, 2000). Moreover, Duck and associates maintain that mundane, routine interactions play a significant role in the maintenance of close relationships; for, routines and rituals convey vital messages about liking, commitment, involvement, and acceptance (Duck, 1988; Leatham & Duck, 1990). The media-derived personal idiom provides a sense of similarity and acceptance, may include affectionate reassurances, and may convey indications about the future of the relationship. Thus, MDPIs function like many other idioms in promoting relational growth and maintenance. Also as a ritual and a type of everyday talk, idioms have been associated with greater relational satisfaction (Bruess & Pearson, 1997). While satisfaction was not assessed in the current study, participants indicated an overwhelming enjoyment of MDPIs (99%) and reported on long-standing relationships (the average length of the MDPIs was over 3 years).

The development of MDPIs, as reported by the participants, painted a picture of a conversational ritual that functioned much like other personal idioms in terms of its ritualized use, mutual participation, and adaptation to the unique relationship. However, MDPIs were distinctive from other idioms in their tendency to be public expressions that functioned mostly for social play purposes. Some MDPIs developed through experiences that were not shared initially. That is, participants discovered shared media experiences through unrelated interaction and then developed an idiom from this discovery; participants brought others into their media experiences and thus, created a shared experience through conversation; and participants took from media experiences what was relevant to their relationship and/or modified media content to fit their relationship at that point in time. In other words, MDPIs are not mimicry of media characters or of one partners’ media-derived behaviors. They are co-constructed within the relationship and throughout the relationship by the participants.

Beyond these basic observations, we wanted to examine whether gender differences in MDPI use were present. The data revealed that females were more likely than males to perceive interpersonal solidarity as an outcome of the idiom with same-sex and opposite-sex partners. Furthermore, they tended to continue their media-derived personal idioms for longer periods of time than males. These findings are supported by research that suggests that men focus on shared activities and women on shared feelings in friendship (Walker, 1994). Particularly for male friendships, the MDPI may be in line with their typical interactions, which often include teasing, insults, and jokes (Ivy & Backlund, 2000). Ivy and Backlund (2000) describe a form of communication that they see as occurring primarily in male friendships, “jocular sparring” (p. 284). This type of sarcasm or teasing does not work the same way with women as it does men, the authors argue. Women may engage in jocular sparring but they do not prefer it as a form indicating closeness and affection. For men, jocular sparring may be a less threatening method for communicating liking (Ivy & Backlund, 2000). Likewise, MDPIs may serve as low risk communication forms that indicate liking, affection, acceptance, and closeness (see Duck, 1988). Floyd (1995) concurred that closeness is often a function of similarity in friendship but that closeness may be performed differently by men and women. In line with these researchers, a few men in this study acknowledged the affection function with same-sex partners, and several women recognized the pleasure function with their same-sex friends.

The major sex difference in MDPI use appears to reside within the opposite-sex relationships. When males described idioms with female partners, they primarily perceived an affection function, while females perceived both affection and pleasure functions of idiomatic conversation with male partners. However, males seldom wrote about MDPIs with females, which may indicate that this conversational form is not as common in opposite-sex relationships as in same-sex relationships. For instance, men and women reported getting together with same-sex friends “just to talk” more often than working on a task or discussing a relational issue in a study conducted by Duck and Wright (1993). The latter activities may occupy much of opposite-sex couples’ time. Other researchers have found that opposite-sex friendships have fewer rituals than same-sex friendships (Bruess & Pearson, 1997), yet rituals and idioms are common occurrences in opposite-sex romantic relationships (Hopper et al., 1981; Honeycutt et al., 1983).

Perhaps another plausible explanation is that males are less likely to identify their romantic, female partners as friends, so they reported fewer MDPIs from their romantic relationships. Yet, research on marriage indicates that husbands tend to identify their wives as their best friends, while wives tend to name another female as their best friends (Aleman, Miller, & Vangelisti, 1993; Gilligan, 1982). Also, men and women have been found to self-disclose more to women than to men (Doyle, 1995). Notwithstanding, this type of communication does not require deep disclosure because using a third party, a media character or source, lessens the personal risk associated with the behavior. In any case, most of these MDPIs function for the purpose of pleasure, so males should not shy away from using them. This leaves the explanation that males are often the initiators of MDPIs and are more likely to engage in media talk than females in both same-sex and opposite-sex relationships. In other words, it may be a type of communication that is akin to male-speak, based on shared media activities, low risk self-disclosure, and teases, insults, and jokes. Males were credited with originating the majority of idioms in Hopper et al.’s (1981) study, and although Bruess and Pearson (1997) found that rituals are more prevalent in female friendships than in male friendships, shared activities emerged as the exception. The MDPI, which often stems from shared media experiences, is one ritual that seems equally prevalent, if not more so, in male relationships as in female relationships. Though men may be responsible for initiating more of these idioms than women, both men and women engaged in and enjoyed these conversations with their friends and romantic partners.

Obviously, additional research on male and female MDPI patterns is necessary. This research would benefit from a more equally representative sample of male participants reporting on same-sex and opposite-sex relationships. Moreover, questions may arise about whether this conversational form is restricted to young people; therefore, future research should attempt to establish whether these rituals decrease with age or whether these rituals are part of the talk of a new, media-driven generation and thus, are here to stay.

As interpersonal relationships and media become further integrated, constructing meaning about media experiences may become as common as constructing meaning about interpersonal experiences. Dayan, Katz, and Kerns (1984) proposed that media events (e.g., Superbowl) might promote a strengthening of social ties. Inasmuch, everyday media experiences may promote a strengthening of relational ties as they are shared and reconstituted by relational partners. MDPIs and other types of interpersonal interactions should continue to be studied as “effects of media” if we are to bridge the gap between two important facets of people’s lives in the 21st century, media and close relationships.
 

Authors' Note: A version of this manuscript was was presented at the annual convention of the National Communication Association, New York, NY, 1998. The authors would like to thank Sandra Pride Shaw for her assistance in data coding and analysis as well as August Grant and Marina Krcmar for their advice on the project.
 

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