SUMMARY
Essentials of Media Psychology (EMP)
MASTER COMMUNICATIEWETENSCHAPPEN
VU
Written by:
DBSSSuperZ
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2019
This summary includes 12 lectures and all obligatory papers
*Some articles are similar with the lectures. Therefore some articles are integrated with the lecture or vis-a-versa.
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Essentials of Media Psychologie (EMP)
,TABLE OF CONTENT
Lecture 1: Introduction Further discussed in class 4
ART 1: Missed programs (you can’t TiVo this one): Why psychologists should study media (by Okdie, et. al,
2014) 4
Lecture 2: Processing and Learning 6
ART 2.1: The Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processes (by Lang, 2011) 6
ART 2.2: Social Learning Theory and Social Cognitive theory (by Nabi and Prestin, 2017) 8
Lecture 3: Selective exposure (part 1) 9
ART 3.1: Selective use of news cues (Winter, Metzger and Flanagin, 2016) 12
ART 3.2: Selective Exposure in communication Technology (Knobloch-Westerwick, Westerwick and
Johnson, 2015) 14
Lecture 4: Selective exposure (part 2) 14
ART 4.1: The Problem of Media Habits (LaRose, 2010) 17
ART 4.2: Fast and Frugal Media Choices (Marewski, Galestic and Gigerenzer, 2009) 19
Lecture 5: Media, mind and brain 20
ART 5.1: The emerging Neuroscience of Social Media (Meshi et al,, 2015) 25
ART 5.2: Neural Prediction of Communication-Relevant Outcomes (Falk et al, 2015) 26
Lecture 6: Media violence 27
ART 6.1: Digital poison? Three studies examining the influence of violent video games on youth (Ferguson,
et al, 2015) 33
ART 6.2: The role of wishful identification in the effects of violent video games on aggression in adolescent
boys (Konijn, et al. 2007) 34
ART 6.3: Neural desensitization to violence predicts increased aggression following violent video game
exposure (Engelhardt, 2011) 34
Lecture 7: Emotions and media 35
ART 7.1: The Role of Emotion in Media Use and Effects (Konijn, 2011) 39
ART 7.2: Media-based emotional coping (Nabi, So & Prestin, 2010) 40
Lecture 8: Media-based reality 41
ART 8.1: Fictionality and perceived realism in experiencing stories (Busselle and Bilandzic, 2008) 44
ART 8.2: Perception of media realism and reality (Hall, 2009) 46
Lecture 9: Media Addiction 47
ART 9.1: Gaming addiction, definition and measurement (Spekman, Konijn, Roelofsma and Griffith, 2013) 53
ART 9.2: The relationship between addictive use of social media and video games and symptoms of
psychiatric disorders - by Andreassen et, al (2016) 54
Lecture 10: Media and Psychological well-being 54
ART 10.1: Media use and recreation (Reinecke and Eden, 2016) 58
ART 10.2: Appreciation of meaningful entertainment experiences and eudaimonic well-being - Bartsch &
Oliver (2017) 59
Lecture 11: Interactive media, presence and flow 62
ART 11.1: Avatar-Mediated Networking: Increasing Social Presence and Interpersonal Trust in Net-Based
Collaborations (Bente, Ruggenberg, Kramer eb Eschenburg, 2008) 66
ART 11.2: Theoretical Importance of Contingency in Human- Computer Interaction: Effects of Message
Interactivity on User Engagement (Sundar, Bellu, Oh Jia and Kim 2014) 68
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Essentials of Media Psychologie (EMP)
,Lecture 12: Morality and media 69
ART 12.1: Cyberbullying and traditional bullying in adolescence: Different roles of moral disengagement,
moral emotions and moral values (Perren and Gutzwiller-Helfenfinger, 2012) 73
ART 12.2 Morality: and Media Effects (Tamborini et al, 2017) 74
ART 12.3: Moral monitoring and emotionality in responding to fiction, sports and the news (Zillman, 2012) 76
Exam questions lecture 78
Exam questions Lecture 1 78
Exam questions lecture 2 78
Exam questions lecture 3 78
Exam questions lecture 4 79
Exam questions lecture 5 79
Exam questions lecture 6 80
Exam questions lecture 7 80
Exam questions lecture 8 80
Exam questions lecture 9 81
Exam questions lecture 10 81
Exam questions lecture 11 82
Exam questions lecture 12 82
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Essentials of Media Psychologie (EMP)
,Lecture 1: Introduction Further discussed in class
Definition media psychology: 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 psychology
● Before use (motivation, selection, needs) → During use
(processing, underlying mechanism) → After use (effects,
consequences)
● No hypodermic needle!!
o There are no uniform effects!
● Understanding individual differences, conditions and
processes that lead to effects
o Moderating and mediating variables.
Why do we need theoretical models?
We cannot study the whole world, media etc. What do we need to part out? We can only study a part. So you
study to make a guests, based on current studies. And therefore, we can make predict.
● Theories links concepts in order to explain something.
● So, theories: describes, explains and predicts
● Theories reduce the complexity or reality.
● Theories can be modelled.
Moderation and mediation models
● Simple main effect
o X effects Y
o If X → Y (causal)
o More X → more Y (correlation).
o Moderator (e.g. gender): A moderator make the effect X → Y stronger of weaker.
o Mediator: is the transmitted (via). The direct effect X → Y will disappear and goes via M.
Summary college
● At the intersection of Communication Science and Psychology
● Both media scholars and psychologists
● Relatively new field, increases with sophisticated new media technology
● No consensus on definition
● Not only describe media use, but rather explain how, why, by whom, when, what effects
● Individual differences, media selection, processing, and effects; both in positive and negative sense
● Often complex moderation and mediation models
ART 1: Missed programs (you can’t TiVo this one): Why psychologists should study media (by Okdie,
et. al, 2014)
The purpose of this article is to encourage psychological scientists to incorporate psychology into their
research.
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Essentials of Media Psychologie (EMP)
,Media psychology
Is the scientific study of the behavior and cognitive processes involved in the selection, uses, interpretation
and effects of mediated communication?
Mediated communication: It indicates any communication outside of face-to-face interaction that requires
mediated transmission (i.e. passing through a media channel).
The research has been done in two analyses:
1. Content analysis of media psychology space
− 1.6% of all articles are focused on media psychology
− The study of media has been neglected in major general journals
− Exceptions are telephone-based and Facebook
2. Analysis of Media psychology courses
− Minimal course offers
− Because of lack of interest in psychological research on media
Current study media
a. Educational Television
− Focuses on development benefits and possible cognitive delays
− Increase in interactivity and fidelity (realism) are likely to influence whether children learn
from educational programs.
b. Violent Television
− Less focus on media attributes and more on the psychological outcomes of media use.
c. Violent Games
− The primary focus has
d. Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)
− Defined as any communication between individuals that occurs via computer
− CMC has been used to study other phenomena rather than examining the psychological and
behavioral effects of CMC itself.
Attributes of Media
Does watching a violent TV program have the same effect if it is viewed on an iPhone or a large-screen HD-
TV? There are five attributes by which media vary.
1 Fidelity (realism)
The degree that a medium is detailed, complete and accurate. Fidelity should affect the psychological
experience of individuals. Fidelity influences the persuasiveness of a medium. Thereby, vivid
(levendig) messages are more persuasive. Increased message fidelity also increases involvement
with the message. As for example:
− Abstract ideas: Books and newspapers have higher levels of fidelity
− Visual scenes: Movies and TV’s have higher levels of fidelity.
2 Privacy
Maintaining high levels of privacy when using social media is non-normative compared with sending an e-
mail to a single recipient. There are two factors influencing privacy:
− Deindividuation: A psychological state characterized by low self-awareness, leading to
increased focus on groups rather than personal norms and standards.
− Self-presentation: How do you want to present yourself? Tactics to increase liking or status
and power.
3 Channel
Differences in channels between media may affect: psychological processes of social influence, motivation
and self-awareness.
− Persuasion: differences in the channel of communication can produce differences in
message processing, which in turn affect the manner in which people are persuaded by
messages.
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Essentials of Media Psychologie (EMP)
, − Self-Awareness: The channel that information is delivered may influence the state of self-
awareness. In other words, if a message is received through CMC, critical analysis is more
likely to occur.
− Cross-channel: Future research should examine how the combination of channels in media
may lead to similar of disparate outcomes.
4 Interactivity
This being communicated). Interactivity is composed by several components, such as:
− Directionality: The focus on the “effect” in one direction or another is an inadequate way to
examine media’s role in human behavior. I.e. Interpretations from humans depends on:
o Racial attitudes.
o Explicit and implicit attitudes
o The influence of political ideology.
− Control: Individuals using new media not because of having many choices, but also
because of having control over the content of the messages.
5 Content
It is likely that the same content via different media will differentially affect individual’s psychological
states and behaviors. Research suggest that narrative content is more persuasive, easier to
comprehend and more memorable that didactic information.
The usefulness of an attribute approach
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC’s):
De development of recent media technology to deliver information to a mass audience. Fidelity will also likely
to affect the learning process (like live videos, instant messaging, etc). It will result in greater learning, higher
engagement and a decrease in attrition (wrijving) rates.
Conclusion
There is minimal existing research on media, only on popular applied topics like TV, video and game
violence. With doing more research on the selection, use, interpretation and effects of media, psychology will
be presented with new research opportunities that can used in the development of more comprehensive
understandings of human behavior and of the validity of research practices themselves.
Lecture 2: Processing and Learning
Notes integrated in ART 2.1 and 2.2.
What are two classic theories that guide our understanding of media learning?
1. LC4MP
2. Social Cognitive Theory
ART 2.1: The Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processes (by Lang, 2011)
LC4MP
The Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processes is a model developed to investigate
real-time processing of mediated messages. It tracks the overtime interaction occurring between a message,
a medium and a user.
The LC4MP has five basic assumptions:
1. Humans are limited capacity information processors
o Information processing has three subprocesses
▪ 1) Encoding (selecting the information from environment)
▪ 2) Storage (creating van short-term representation long-term representation)
▪ 3) Retrieval (memory, retrieve the informative needed)
o Humans have limited capacity for info processing.
o Definition of cognition
▪ Cognitive: refers to any mental processes taking place during sensing, perceiving,
interpreting and remembering information.
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Essentials of Media Psychologie (EMP)
, ▪ Cognitive capacity: Total amount of information the brain can process.
o Cognitive capacity
▪ The total amount the brain can process
▪ Resource allocated (toewijzen van
aandacht aan verschillende processen)
< Required resources = there is no
attention a.k.a no focus
▪ Resource allocated > required
resources = there is attention a.k.a
focus.
o Cognitive Miser theory (Susan Fiske)
▪ Humans try to save their cognitive energy
▪ Humans are not systematic in their information processing
▪ Info will be processed when humans are motivated
o Pathways of cognitive resource allocation can be
▪ Controlled (voluntary) of the media user: goal-oriented usage of media
▪ Automatic (involuntary): stimulus properties direct the allocation or stimuli that are
motivationally relevant.
▪ Automatic allocation of resources: what draws our attention?
1. Features that are new and unexpected in present environment = stimulus
properties
2. Object (and features) that are motivationally relevant and important to us =
motivational forces
2. Humans have two evolutionarily old motivational systems (which draw our attentions)
o Appetitive system (approach)
▪ Promote survival
▪ Stronger than aversive when both
have low levels of activity
▪ Positive emotional messages
activates the system
o Aversive system (avoid)
▪ Prevent harm
▪ Stronger than appetitive when
activation in both are increasing
▪ Negative emotional messages
activate the system
→ side note to understand the figure: We respond more quickly to a threat, but when the threat is over our
spend mental resources shrink. We dedicate less resources to a threat then a desire.
3. Media is conceptualized as continuous and continuously varying streams of sensory
information
4. Humans activity is conceiving of as occurring over time
o Cognitive overload: One of the sub processes has insufficient resources to completely carry
out its task, the performance on that task will suffer
5. Communication is the ongoing, dynamic, continuous interaction between a message or
medium and a message recipient or user.
There are three primary categories of variables in the LC4MP which can be measured
1. Those related to the motivated cognition (Black-box)
● STRT (secondary task reaction time)
● Phasic analysis of heart rate.
● Parasympathetic activation is associated with attention to external stimuli → slow
heart rate
● Sympathetic activation is associated with arousal, emotion and motivation →
Increase the heart-rate.
● There are three primary categories of data that are relevant to emotional experience are:
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Essentials of Media Psychologie (EMP)
