ESSENTIALS OF MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY
LECTURE 1: INTRODUCTION
What is Media Psychology?
Locating Media Psychology. What can it tell us?
Can we define media psychology?
What are the themes and techniques of mediapsychology?
Theoretical and statistical models.The media psychology literature.
Macro: policies & government.
Meso: physical, socio-cultural, & community environments.Micro: individual factors.
MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY:
- Communication science.
- Social psychology.
- Psychology.
- Neuropsychology.
- Clinical psychology.
- Developmental psychology.
“We live invested in an electric information environment that is quite as imperceptible
to us aswater is to fish.” – McLuhan, 1969.
WHY PSYCHOLOGIST SHOULD STUDY MEDIA (OKDIE ET AL., 2014):
- High prevalence of media, but hardly reflected in psychological research or study.
- Examine the unique attributes of media and how those attributes influence human cognition, affect and
behavior (e.g., comparing media that vary in degree of realism toexplore the effects of violence on behavior).
- Little emphasis is placed on the psychological processes occurring while using media or the impact of unique
characteristics of media.
ATTRIBUTES OF MEDIA: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK (OKDIE ET AL., 2014):
Five key attributes distinguishing media (Table 1):
1. Fidelity (e.g., e mail lower vs. VR higher); photo realistic graphics. The more photo-realistic the portrayal of
the media is, the higher is it’s fidelity.
2. Privacy (e.g., Skype vs. CMC; anonymity and deindividuation; selective self presentation); the higher the
options are to hide yourself, the higher the privacy. Deindividuation = an individual is treated as a group
person/group ‘animal’.
1
, 3. Channel through which the media conversation occurs (e.g., audio, visual, multimodal). The more
information we get, the more information our brains have to process.
4. Interactivity (e.g., TV vs. Facebook; Directionality (mass media, one/two way communication & control)
5. Content (i.e. Content x attribute interactions); the effect the content are dependent on each of the first 4
attributes. It’s about the interactions between the content and the specific attributes, to understand
differences in effect.
- Dynamic theoretical models.
Overcoming unidirectional and static theories.
Media Psychological Research
- Older types of media had uniform media messages. E.g. propaganda that just sends ‘one’ message. Nowadays
there are no uniform media effects.
o No ‘hypodermic needle’ No uniform effects!
To understand the individual differences and effects;
- How and Why do media messages have effects, on Whom, under Which circumstances?
Moderating and mediating variables (later)
- Understanding individual differences , conditions and processes that lead to differential effects
Both sides
MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY: DEFINITIONS:
- Media psychology is the scientific study…
“… of human behavior, thoughts, and feelings experienced in the context of media use and creation.”
(Dill, 2013, p. 5).
“… of the cognitive processes and behavior involved in the selection, use, interpretation, and effects of
communication across a variety of media.” (Okdieet al., 2014, p. 180).
MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY: NO CONSENSUS ON DEFINITIONS:
- Because …
- Both “media” and “psychology” are themselves broad.
- Communication, cognition, and emotions are pretty fundamental to human experienceand therefore have,
by definition, foundations in psychological thought.
- A field that changes every time a new mobile app is released.
- The field must be representative of not only the work currently being done, but alsouseful for the work
that needs to be done.
2
, MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY: CONSTANT THEME:
The constant theme across these definitions is that media psychology is fundamentally concerned with understanding
behavior, cognitions, and affect as related to media use, processing, and effects.
Media x User = Situation x Person:
Media Psychology: Analytical structure:
Media Psychological Research:
- How and Why do media messages have effects, on Whom, under Whichcircumstances?
- No uniform media messages.
No ‘hypodermic needle’.
No uniform effects!
- Understanding individual differences, conditions and processes that lead to effects.
- Moderating and mediating variables.
MEDIA PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES
- Theories link concepts in order to explain something
- Theories describe, explain, and predict
- Theories reduce the complexity of reality
- Theories can be modelled
Main effects models
- Simple causal effects ( X Y)
- X affects Y
- If X, then Y
- More X more Y
Explanatory models of media effects using moderators
- Moderator M
- Analysis: (M)ANOVA: interactions, covariance
- X affects Y. However, the effect is qualified by the moderator M
- While M may have no original effect on Y
3
, - M is independent of X
- Statistical test with interaction terms
Explanatory models of media effects using mediators
- Mediator M
- Analysis: Regression, PROCESS (Hayes), Sobel’s test, Structural Equation
Modeling (SEM)
- X affects Y. However, the influence is transmitted via mediator M: thus, X
MY
- While original effect of X Y disappears/decreases
- Statistical test(s) with hierarchical regression (Baron & Kenny, 1986), with SEM, sobel test and bootstrapped
estimation (PROCESS, Hayes)
EXAMPLE EXAM QUESTION:
Lecture 1 (Introduction) discussed two types of effects with third, or “M” variables: Moderationeffects
and Mediated effects. Which of the following would be a mediation effect?
a. Watching a dog video produces positive emotion, which leads to more prosocialbehavior.
b. Watching a dog video produces positive emotion, but only for introverted people.
c. Watching a dog video produces a mix of positive and negative emotions.
d. Watching a dog video produces positive and negative emotions, which are stronger forneurotic
people.
Goede antwoord: A.
4
