What Is Media Psychology?

Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsHistoryMedia Psychology TopicsResearch and PracticeThe Future of Media Psychology

Table of ContentsView All

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Table of Contents

History

Media Psychology Topics

Research and Practice

The Future of Media Psychology

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Our lives are constantly saturated with media and technology and, as a result, studying the impact of media has become an integral part of psychology. However, the field’s interdisciplinary nature and the constant changes in how people interact with media make the area of study difficult to define.

Media psychology draws heavily frompsychologyand communication scholarship, but also incorporates research from other fields, including sociology, media studies, anthropology, and fan studies. The field is scattered across many disciplines with many scholars who do not consider psychology their primary area of interest of research to be media’s influence on individuals, rather a subtopic within a larger subject of expertise.

In other words, media psychology is the effort to understand the constantly evolving connection between humans and media from a psychological perspective.

History of Media Psychology

Theroots of media psychologycan be traced back over a century to early studies on theperceptionof three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional canvas.

These ideas were applied in social psychologistHugo Munsterberg’s1916 book,The Photoplay: A Psychological Study, which was the first work to empirically explore how an audience responded to film.By the time television became widespread in the 1950s, psychologists had started to investigate how media affects children.

In 2003 the first, and so far, only APA-accredited media psychologyPh.D. programin the United States was launched at Fielding Graduate University. David Giles published the first survey of the field with his textMedia Psychology.

Since then, the field has continued to expand, with the emergence of several scholarly journals specifically dedicated to media psychology, the publication of additional books covering the area of study, and an increase in universities, including Stanford, Cornell, and Penn State, which dedicate an area of study and research to media psychology-related topics.

Topics in Media Psychology

There are myriad topics media psychology seeks to explore. These include, but are not limited to:

Uses and Gratifications Theory in Media Psychology

Media Psychology in Research and Practice

While many branches of psychology have more definedcareer paths, media psychology does not because it is a new area of study still in the process of determining its scope and purview. The most obvious goal for someone who wants to investigate the psychological impact of media is to become aresearch psychologistin academia.

Given the rapid growth of technology influencing how we get to know, communicate with, and understand one another, scholars who can perform media psychology research are increasingly necessary.

However, scholarly research is not the only path for people with an interest in media psychology. The ever-expanding world ofmedia technologiesleaves many opportunities to apply media psychology in a wide variety of industry settings, from entertainment to education to politics.

For example, people who design user experiences for everything from commercial websites to virtual reality require an understanding of how to create a user interface that is intuitive and engaging for people.

Similarly, it’s increasingly important to teach children lessons in media and cyberliteracy starting from a young age. Media psychologists are especially well qualified to design and implement programs addressing this.

While early media psychology research almost exclusively focused on the negative impacts of media, media and technology aren’t all good or all bad. It’s how we use them that matters. And, because media is only becoming increasingly ubiquitous, we must learn to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives.

Media psychologists have an essential role to play in these developments and, while they shouldn’t shy away from shedding light on thenegative impacts of mediaas it continues to evolve, they should also increase their focus on the way media can be used to increase well-being and prosocial outcomes.

The Social Media and Mental Health Connection

5 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Dill, KE.Introduction. In: Dill KE, ed.The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press; 2012.Brown Rutledge P.Arguing for Media Psychology as a Distinct Field. In: Dill KE, ed.The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press; 2012.Tuma RM.Media Psychology and Its History. In: Dill KE, ed.The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press; 2012.Fischoff S.Media Psychology: A Personal Essay in Definition and Purview.J Media Psychol. 2005;10(1):1-21.Stever GS. Media and Media Psychology. In: Stever GS, Giles DC, Cohen JD, Myers ME.Understanding Media Psychology. 1st ed. New York: Routledge; 2021:1-13.

5 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Dill, KE.Introduction. In: Dill KE, ed.The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press; 2012.Brown Rutledge P.Arguing for Media Psychology as a Distinct Field. In: Dill KE, ed.The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press; 2012.Tuma RM.Media Psychology and Its History. In: Dill KE, ed.The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press; 2012.Fischoff S.Media Psychology: A Personal Essay in Definition and Purview.J Media Psychol. 2005;10(1):1-21.Stever GS. Media and Media Psychology. In: Stever GS, Giles DC, Cohen JD, Myers ME.Understanding Media Psychology. 1st ed. New York: Routledge; 2021:1-13.

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Dill, KE.Introduction. In: Dill KE, ed.The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press; 2012.Brown Rutledge P.Arguing for Media Psychology as a Distinct Field. In: Dill KE, ed.The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press; 2012.Tuma RM.Media Psychology and Its History. In: Dill KE, ed.The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press; 2012.Fischoff S.Media Psychology: A Personal Essay in Definition and Purview.J Media Psychol. 2005;10(1):1-21.Stever GS. Media and Media Psychology. In: Stever GS, Giles DC, Cohen JD, Myers ME.Understanding Media Psychology. 1st ed. New York: Routledge; 2021:1-13.

Dill, KE.Introduction. In: Dill KE, ed.The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press; 2012.

Brown Rutledge P.Arguing for Media Psychology as a Distinct Field. In: Dill KE, ed.The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press; 2012.

Tuma RM.Media Psychology and Its History. In: Dill KE, ed.The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology. 1st ed. Oxford University Press; 2012.

Fischoff S.Media Psychology: A Personal Essay in Definition and Purview.J Media Psychol. 2005;10(1):1-21.

Stever GS. Media and Media Psychology. In: Stever GS, Giles DC, Cohen JD, Myers ME.Understanding Media Psychology. 1st ed. New York: Routledge; 2021:1-13.

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