I get lots of questions about media psychology, such as ‘What is media psychology?’ and ‘What does a media psychologist do?’ A big stumbling block is the common understanding of a media psychologist as a psychologist who appears in the media. That's the wrong answer. Here is a recent question: Dear Dr. Rutledge, I am conducting research in media psychology and stumbled upon this dissertation and I am more confused than anything. A recent dissertation defines a "media psychologist" as a psychologist that conducts a session with a patient on air. She compares what a psychologist does in private with a patient with what Dr. Phil does on air in front of a live TV audience. I conducted a phone survey where I contacted clinical psychologists in NYC randomly and asked how they felt about Dr. Phil and everyone said that they had a low opinion of Dr. Phil. However according to dissertation's thesis, psychologists rating were supportive of the "media psychologist"... Can you … [Read more...]
Does ‘No Such Thing As Bad Publicity’ Apply To Psychologists?
The ethical questions surrounding psychologists who appear in the mass media are emotionally-loaded and subject to much debate. But we also have to realize that there really is no such thing as just 'mass' media anymore in the traditional sense of uni-directional broadcast one-to-many media. The information flows are much more fluid and networked which has had a profound effect on society as a whole and individual behaviors, beliefs and expectations. It's impossible to isolate broadcast media within the broad spectrum of media channels, including Internet and social technologies, because the boundaries are coming down. New channels have web pages and stories show up on Twitter. Blogs and social media can fuel news channels as well. Whatever the media channel, bad publicity is pretty clearly bad for all professionals, but no publicity or presence can be bad, too, when people use the Internet to check the legitimacy of services and information and can’t find you. Here are … [Read more...]
Media Psychology: The ‘Field Whose Time Has Come’ Makes it to Times Square
Dr. Bernie Luskin founded the very first media psychology doctoral program in the United States (and possibly even the whole world) at Fielding Graduate University. In his time at Fielding, I'll bet I heard Bernie say “media psychology is a field whose time has come” at least a hundred times. And he was right, because an announcement of Bernie's APA Lifetime Achievement Award, including a photo of Bernie flanked by several former students and media psychology PhDs (including me!) made it onto PRNewswire display on Times Square. I mean, really, how cool is that? Even without Times Square, the field of media psychology is definitely a field whose time has come. Media psychology is responding to the awareness that technology and mediated communication are inseparable from almost every aspect of our lives. Media psychology is also exciting because it is continually changing, challenging scholars and practitioners to evaluate and understand what is happening in the “space … [Read more...]
