{"id":1500,"date":"2014-11-10T18:17:12","date_gmt":"2014-11-10T18:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/?p=1500"},"modified":"2017-12-29T19:30:06","modified_gmt":"2017-12-29T19:30:06","slug":"evolving-definition-media-psychology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/evolving-definition-media-psychology\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evolving Definition of Media Psychology"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Pamela Rutledge, PhD<\/strong> <em>Director,<\/em> <em>Media Psychology Research Center<\/em><\/p>\n<h5><a href=\"http:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/mp-face.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-1504\" src=\"http:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/mp-face.jpg\" alt=\"mp face\" width=\"165\" height=\"161\" \/><\/a>ABSTRACT:<\/h5>\n<p>As new technologies emerge, we need new tools to understand and use them.\u00a0 The last half-century of changes in media and communications technologies are transforming individual lives, popular culture, and global economics relations. This essay explores the evolving definition,\u00a0opportunities and concerns for the field of media psychology. \n\t\t<div class=\"tabs-shortcode tabs-wrapper container-wrapper tabs-horizontal flex-tabs is-flex-tabs-shortcodes\">\n\t\t<ul class=\"tabs\">\n\t\t<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"#tab-content-1\">Citation\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n\t\n\t\t<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"#tab-content-2\">Author\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n\t\n\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\n\t\t<div class=\"tab-content\" id=\"tab-content-1\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"tab-content-wrap\">Rutledge, P. (2008) The Evolving Definition of Media Psychology.<em> The Media Psychology Review.<\/em> Vol. 7(2)\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t<div class=\"tab-content\" id=\"tab-content-2\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"tab-content-wrap\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Pam-200w-72dpi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin: 4px;\" src=\"http:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Pam-200w-72dpi.jpg\" alt=\"Pam-200w-72dpi\" width=\"95\" height=\"114\" \/><\/a><strong>Pamela Rutledge, PhD, MBA<\/strong>, is the Director of the Media Psychology Research Center (MPRC), Adjunct Faculty at Fielding Graduate University, and an instructor and advisory board member for UC Irvine Extension&#8217;s Social Media and Internet Marketing Certificate Program. A researcher, speaker, author, and consultant, Dr. Rutledge provides\u00a0assessments and guidance to individuals and organizations drawing on a diverse background in media communications and design, business strategy, and psychology. Dr. Rutledge specializes in social media applications and transmedia narrative applied to\u00a0brand development. \u00a0She has published both academic and popular work and gives presentations and workshops to internationally on Transmedia Storytelling for Marketing, Branding and Social Entrepreneurship and The Psychology of Engagement in an Experience Economy. She can be reached through www.pamelarutledge.com. \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t \n\t\t<div class=\"clearfix\"><\/div>\n\t\t<hr style=\"margin-top:10px; margin-bottom:10px;\" class=\"divider divider-normal\">\n\t\n<h3>Introduction<\/h3>\n<p><span class=\"tie-dropcap \">A<\/span>s new technologies emerge, we need new tools to understand and use them.\u00a0 The last half-century of changes in media and communications technologies are transforming individual lives, popular culture, and global economics relations.\u00a0 Public and academic recognition of the integration of media into daily life has reached a tipping point, and the demand across society for an understanding of how to think about the things they see, hear, and use every day is palpable.\u00a0 Psychologists are responding, applying the rich body of psychological knowledge and theory to the vast world of media experience.\u00a0 Media psychology is the result.\u00a0 According to\u00a0 Fischoff (2005), media psychology has only materialized as a separate field since the creation of a Media Psychology division in the American Psychological Association (APA) in the 1980s.\u00a0 Even in that short time, technological advances have revolutionized the media environment, generating opportunities and raising concerns.<\/p>\n<p>In spite of the obvious need, there is little consensus as to what media psychology actually is and does.\u00a0 Definitions within the profession vary from a narrow performance-centric view of psychologists in the media, to a global view of media\u2019s role in society (Gregory et al. 2007).\u00a0 Scholars working in the field represent a variety of disciplines, both in and out of psychology\u2014such as education, healthcare, business, and entertainment (e.g. Cline and Haynes 2001, Howard 2002, Krotoski 2005, Rudestam 2004).<\/p>\n<p>It is important to sift through the research for strains of commonality, but a definition for any field should not be created by looking backward, and certainly not in one that changes as rapidly as media psychology.\u00a0 A definition does several things: 1) it sets the compass and standards of a field, 2) it frames the work of its practitioners, 3) it creates an intellectual base camp for exchange and integration, and 4) it informs the public.\u00a0 In this paper, I will discuss some of the current definitions and the state of the field.\u00a0 I will argue that it is important to create an inclusive, concise and meaningful definition.\u00a0 I will also argue that in creating this definition, we must be open to integrating new understandings of the way the world works.\u00a0 Just as science has recognized the limitations of a reductionist point of view, I will argue that media psychology has a unique opportunity to use the exciting conceptual breakthroughs in fields like biology, network theory, and neuroscience, to craft a model that more closely reflects the human relationship with media.<\/p>\n<h3>Media Saturation<\/h3>\n<p>We live in a media-saturated world.\u00a0 More than 98% of U.S. homes have a television set (Rideout 2007).\u00a0 Sixty million Americans say that the internet helped them make big decisions or get through major events in their lives (Horrigan 2006).\u00a0 Video game and cell phone use is normal behavior for adolescents (Gee 2004, Godwin-Jones 2005).\u00a0 We see cell phones, computers, and televisions all the time, but the applicability of media psychology is less obvious elsewhere.\u00a0 For example, telemedicine and distance learning provide economical medical and educational services that overcome geographical constraints (Grealish et al. 2005, Luskin 2002, Rudestam 2004).\u00a0 Software engineers use motivation and persuasion to develop user-friendly computer interfaces (Fogg 1999).\u00a0 Interactive media and social networking provides socialization experiences and social connection (Auter 2007, Chaffee, Nass, and Yang 1990, Hom, Tai, and Nichols 2004, McLeod and McDonald 1985).<\/p>\n<p>If a field is defined by practice, then we would expect research to reflect the breadth of media psychology applications.\u00a0 Yet research in media psychology remains fairly narrow (Giles 2003).\u00a0 Of the approximately 200 articles published by the <em>Media Psychology Journal<\/em> since its inception in 1999, 80% involve television and over 50% of the research involves children.\u00a0 Derwin, de Merode, and Shayne (2006) also report that few researchers incorporate ethnicity or social and economic status. \u00a0While admittedly there are constraints in media-related research, such as the methodological challenges of rapidly changing technologies and social pressure on research agendas, the content of the journal only narrowly achieves the stated goal of presenting research at \u201cthe intersection of psychology and media communication\u201d (Bryant and Roskos-Ewoldsen 2005, 323).<\/p>\n<p>So, the definition remains elusive.\u00a0 Giles (2003) talks about the scope and evolution of media psychology, but never specifically defines the field.\u00a0 Others have suggested that media psychology is: \u00a01) the use of theories, concepts and methods of psychology to study the impact of the mass media on individuals, groups, and cultures (Fischoff 2005, 2); 2) a psychological perspective on mediated communication (Reeves and Anderson 1991, 597); and 3) a focus on the roles psychologists play in various aspects of the media, including, but not limited to, radio, television, film, video, newsprint, magazines, and newer technologies (Media Psychology Division 46 n.d.)<\/p>\n<p>While these are by no means inclusive, they show the difficulty in achieving a definition that is inclusive, forward thinking, concise and that imparts adequate information.\u00a0 The definition has been additionally hampered by two prevailing perceptions.\u00a0 The first is the popular image of a media psychologist as a psychologist who appears in the media.\u00a0 This may be partly attributable to the founders of Division 46 for Media Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA) in the 1980s who were primarily\u00a0clinical psychologists active in popular media, or to the notoriety of media personalities such as Dr. Phil. \u00a0(The division is since renamed The Society for Media Psychology and Technology.) This stereotypic model\u00a0views media only as a distribution channel and does not credit the psychologist with any training or understanding of media processes.\u00a0 From McLuhan\u2019s (1962) perspective, this leaves a media psychologist with very little to bring to the table. Within Division 46, members are still divided in their perceptions. \u00a0 Gregory, Cabiria, Hogg, Temenski, Rutledge, and Wells (2007)\u00a0replicated\u00a0a 1998 study by Luskin and Friedland \u00a0that is\u00a0summarized in <a href=\"http:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/what-is-media-psychology\/\">What is Media Psychology? A Qualitative Analysis.<\/a>\u00a0 They\u00a0reported that perceptions of media psychology tended to vary by age, with older members maintaining the narrow view and younger members seeing psychology as a tool to analyze and develop media.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the potent image in the public&#8217;s eye of a psychologist on television is both hard to shed and more easily visualized\u00a0than a psychologist who studies the behavioral and cognitive aspects of media.<\/p>\n<p>A second obstacle for media psychology to overcome is the pejorative view of \u201cmedia\u201d as an area unworthy of academic study or lacking in scholarly rigor (Giles 2003).\u00a0 The debate rages in academic halls and on blogs on the internet.\u00a0 How can something new, cool, and hip (and even fun) be scholarly?\u00a0 The error\u2014and challenge going forward\u2014is the placement of the word \u2018media\u2019 central to the definition.<\/p>\n<p>I conceptualize media psychology as understanding the process and interaction between human experience and mediated communication of any kind.\u00a0 Whether the media experience is going online to play World of Warcraft or watching a documentary on PBS, it is the interaction between the human and the media experience that matters.\u00a0 To make useful sense out of it, you have to know something about both, but psychology is the underlying foundation.<\/p>\n<p>A problem for the field is that media and communication theories lack substantial foundation and uniform theoretical approach without drawing heavily from psychology.\u00a0 In one communication theory text book, Anderson (1996, in Muller 2005) identified 249 separate theories, only 7% of which appeared in more than three other communications texts.\u00a0 Without psychology, these theories are left with the \u2018what\u2019 and the \u2018how many\u2019, but not the \u2018why\u2019.\u00a0 Without \u2018why,\u2019 we cannot predict or contribute to something better.<\/p>\n<p>Many\u00a0media theories draw heavily from cognitive psychology, although informed by different orientations (Muller 2005).\u00a0 Common foundations for media and communication theories are:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Social Learning Theory.\u00a0 The premise of observational learning and behavior modeling drives both public concern about violent media content and optimism about positive content of educational programs, games, and other media (Gauntlet 2005, Bandura 1986).<\/li>\n<li>Social constructionism. \u00a0The basis for social constructivism is that the individual\u2019s interaction with the environment, such as exposure to media messages, symbols and narratives, gradually shape his or her view of the world, self, and social reality (Postman 1985, Gerbner and Gross 1976, Gergen 1991, McAdams 1993).\u00a0 This is an common foundation in gender and racial stereotype research (e.g. Coltrane and Messineo 2000)<\/li>\n<li>Motivations, attitudes, and emotions.\u00a0 The use of this body of theoretical knowledge views individuals as selecting mass media experiences that satisfy cognitive, social and emotional needs (Rubin 2002).\u00a0 Early models incorporated motivation based on Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs; others draw from psychoanalytic theory and Sullivan\u2019s view of reciprocal emotion (Acton and Revelle 2002, Horton and Wohl 1956, McGuire 1974).\u00a0 Ball-Rokeach (1985), for example, examines what propensities encourage media use to escalate from a benign need satisfaction to an addiction.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>A Different View<\/h3>\n<p>Even drawing from media and communications theories and their foundations in psychology, we still don\u2019t get close to a definition of media psychology that will work in a rapidly changing world.\u00a0 I believe that this is because researchers have tended to view media-related research from a reductionist model.\u00a0 Reductionist theories view media interaction as unidirectional from sender to receiver, even when they incorporate environmental filtering and individual differences.\u00a0 For example, social constructivist theories, uses and gratification models, and agenda setting theories all describe an interactive process between media and society, but their models culminate with the receiver; there are no significant influences from the receiver back to the sender.\u00a0 Social cognition theories, such as Vygotsky\u2019s (1978), describe a more reciprocal but currently under-emphasized process. \u00a0Maletzke\u2019s communicator theory is a dynamic change model, but it is complicated and not widely employed (Wilson 1999).\u00a0 Other fields, however, have promoted the co-evolutionary effects of a dynamic network model as a much more realistic description of human-environmental interaction (e.g. Barabasi 2003, Strogatz 2003, Watts 2003).<\/p>\n<p>Evolutionary psychologists Tooby, Cosmides, and Barrett (2003) incorporate the importance of an interplay of multiple factors\u2014in this case media, humans, social organizations and institutions\u2014but they argue that natural selection acts to organize these relationships and that these interactions produce functional outcomes.\u00a0 From their perspective, the development process pays heightened attention to the factors that functionally coordinate the interaction between the media and the audience.\u00a0 In this process, both organisms are mutually affected and form feedback loops that cause reciprocal change throughout their evolution.<\/p>\n<p>Evidence from research on the neurobiology of social bonding and attachment demonstrates that new biological mechanisms appear to support functional behavioral changes. \u00a0This isn\u2019t a new perspective.\u00a0 Vygotsky (1978), Mead (1967) and Freud (Gay 1989) all emphasized the role of social interaction in creating internal structures.\u00a0 Wexler (2006) writes that the time between birth and early adulthood is highly plastic for brain maturation and that the physical structure of the brain is subject to shaping by the environment. The combination of new mechanisms and high plasticity suggest that there is great individual functional variability due to differing environmental influences on the development of the brain.\u00a0 Later in life, people conversely reshape their physical environment to suit their mental structures by altering physical structures, laws, standards of behavior, language and the arts.\u00a0 Because of the change in brain plasticity between youth and adulthood, successive generations can have significantly different internal structures.\u00a0 When we reach adulthood, we are less amenable to change and are more likely to try to change the environment to fit our internal structure (Wexler 2006).\u00a0 This is a biological description of what Prensky (2001) refers to as \u201cdigital natives\u201d and \u201cdigital immigrants.\u201d\u00a0 The generation that is growing up now will have different cognitive structures than their parents and will make different alterations on the environment.\u00a0 Because the media survives only by the attendance of the audience, these alterations will be reflected in the next iteration of media content.<\/p>\n<p>As media psychologists, we must recognize the evolving media environment.\u00a0 Part of our job will be to take up Postman\u2019s (1985) challenge of training the next generation to engage positively and productively with media; part will be easing the fears of immigrants learning to live in the new digital world. We also need to place the study of psychological processes within the context of mediated communications and recognize the dynamic role of these processes in interpersonal relations, social interaction and social structures.\u00a0 We need, in other words, a definition of the field that acknowledges the reciprocal relationship between individuals and media.\u00a0 Nearly 30 years ago, Cartwright (1979) argued for defining the field of social psychology as the interaction between social environments and social behaviors to make social psychology more relevant.\u00a0 This is the foundation of social ecology (e.g. Heft 2001), self-organizing management systems (e.g. Drucker 1988, Emery 1965), evolutionary psychology (e.g. Tooby, Cosmides, and Barrett 2003), complex adaptive systems (Young 2007), and research on social capital (e.g. Best and Krueger 2006).\u00a0 Without recognizing that media psychology is the dynamic interaction between human experience and media, we will make biasing errors in our judgments about correlations and causality.<\/p>\n<h3>Conclusion<\/h3>\n<p>Revolutions need new paradigms (Kuhn 1970).\u00a0 As psychologists and media professionals, we are trained and mentored by psychologists as well as media and communications scholars and professionals, many of whom learned from models within these distinct academic fields.\u00a0 In defining media psychology, we have an opportunity to establish a new paradigm that breaks free of traditional structures and engages the best minds across many disciplines.\u00a0 If we can learn to see media as a co-evolutionary function of human experience, our analysis and contribution will be much more powerful.<\/p>\n<p>The difficult and extraordinary thing about media is the breadth of its touch.\u00a0 While that makes a \u2018one-size-fits-all\u2019 definition difficult, it also means that for those of us who are trained in the knowledge of people and media, we can be much more instrumental in advancing the field and achieving positive social change.<\/p>\n<h3>\u00a0References<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Acton, G. 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Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order.<\/p>\n<p>Tooby, John, Leda Cosmides, and H. Clark Barrett. 2003. The Second Law of Thermodynamics Is the First Law of Psychology : Evolutionary Developmental Psychology and the Theory Of Tandem, Coordinated Inheritances: Comment on Lickliter and Honeycutt (2003). <em>Psychological Bulletin<\/em> 129 (6): 858-865. Accessed October 3, 2007.<\/p>\n<p>Vygotsky, L.S. 1978. Mind in Society. edited by Michael Cole, Vera John-Steiner, Sylvia Scribner and Ellen Souberman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.<\/p>\n<p>Watts, Duncan J. 2003. <em>Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age<\/em>. New York: WW. Norton &amp; Company, Inc.<\/p>\n<p>Wexler, Bruce E. 2006. <em>Brain and Culture: Neurobiology, Ideology, and Social Change<\/em>. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.<\/p>\n<p>Wilson, T.D. 1999. Models in information behavior research. <em>Journal of\u00a0 Documentation<\/em> 55 (3): 249-270.<\/p>\n<p>Young, H. Peyton. 2007. &#8220;Innovation Diffusion in Heterogeneous Populations: Contagion, Social Influence, and Social Learning.&#8221; Santa Fe Institute Accessed 07-09-038. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafe.edu\/research\/publications\/wpabstract\/200709038\">http:\/\/www.santafe.edu\/research\/publications\/wpabstract\/200709038<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pamela Rutledge, PhD Director, Media Psychology Research Center ABSTRACT: As new technologies emerge, we need new tools to understand and use them.\u00a0 The last half-century of changes in media and communications technologies are transforming individual lives, popular culture, and global economics relations. This essay explores the evolving definition,\u00a0opportunities and concerns for the field of media &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[108,89,227],"coauthors":[202],"class_list":["post-1500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-s14-theory","tag-media-psychology","tag-media-psychology-definition","tag-psychology-of-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1500"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1915,"href":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions\/1915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1500"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mprcenter.org\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}