Summary

The 21st century has seen the use of media technologies become thoroughly integrated with our daily lives: most of us feel lost without our mobile device in hand, check social media multiple times a day, and turn to digital entertainment in our free time. This shift has spurred the emergence of media psychology: a multidisciplinary approach to studying how people use, process, and are affected by the media and technology they engage every day.

This second edition of The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology brings together leading experts in the field to update what is a rapidly evolving area of study. Returning contributors expand chapters on the history and progress of media literacy, research methods, parasocial experiences, and race and the media, among others. New chapters tackle cutting-edge issues like artificial intelligence, research in media and social justice, the impact of deep-fakes and social media on conspiracy theories, the psychology of fandom, the self as reflected in avatars, the evolution of video games and virtual reality, and the psychological experience of the pandemic related to media use.

Together, this volume retains and broadens our understanding of the foundational aspects of media psychology, from research methods and theory to fields like cognitive and developmental psychology. It presents novel approaches to how we conceptualize, operationalize, and analyze media psychological phenomena. Building on the field-defining research of the first edition, this update collects scholarship covering the most essential developments in media psychology in the last decade.

Author Biography

Karen E. Shackleford is Professor of Psychology in Fielding Graduate University's Media Psychology doctoral program. She is a social psychologist who studies how people understand the social world and experience meaning through connecting with fictional characters and stories. She is the author of How Fantasy Becomes Reality, co-author of Finding Truth in Fiction, Editor of The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology and Editor of Psychology of Popular Media, a journal of the American Psychological Association. Her TEDx talk is called "Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter are Real" (tinyurl.com/SherlockHarryPotter).

Nicholas D. Bowman is Associate Professor of Communications in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He is a communication scientist and media psychologist who studies the cognitive, emotional, physical, and social dimensions of interactive media, from social media to video games and immersive digital worlds. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts and presented more than 200 original studies at regional, national, and international conferences (with more than 30 earning high distinction). He holds affiliate faculty positions focused on games and play in Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.

1. An Expanded Volume for an Expanding Field: Media Psychology as an Inherently Interdisciplinary Approach
Karen E. Shackleford and Nicholas D. Bowman
2. The Case for Media Psychology as a Distinct Field
Pamela Brown Rutledge
3. Media Literacy: History, Progress and Future Hopes
Edward Arke
4. A View of Social Media from a Clinician's Couch
Don Grant
5. Social Psychological Perspectives on Audience Involvement: On the Self and Other in Identification, Parasocial Experiences, and Social Surrogacy
Karen E. Shackleford, Melanie C. Green and J. David Cohen
6. Research methods, design, and statistics in media psychology
El-Lim Kim, Sara Prot, and Craig A. Anderson
7. Qualitative Research and Media Psychology
Patrick Sweeney
8. Doing Research on Media Psychology and Social Justice
Srividya Ramasubramanian, Erica Scharrer, and Shannon Burth
9. Emotions and Media Psychology
Katrin Döveling, Meghan S. Sanders, and Denise Sommer
10. The Psychology Underlying Media-Based Persuasion
Robin L. Nabi, Emily Moyer-Gusé, and Lindsay B. Miller
11. Race, Ethnicity, and the Media
Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz and Michelle Ortiz
12. Avatar, a Lasting Definition: A mediated self-representation that an intelligent user controls during dynamic interactions
Rabindra Ratan and Swati Pandita
13. Digital Media Use: From Problematic Use and Addiction to Healthy Media Engagement
El-Lim Kim, Patrick K. Bender, and Douglas A. Gentile
14. When Social Life Moves Online
David Westerman
15. Conspiracy Theory Communication and Its Effects
Joseph E. Uscinski and Asheley R. Landrum
16. Generative Artificial Intelligence as Creative Artificial Intelligence
Markus Appel, Tanja V. Messingschlager, Gavin Raffloer, and Perry A. Reed
17. Computational Methods in Media Psychology
Jacob T. Fisher
18. Finding Middle Ground in Cognitive Media Psychology
Richard Huskey and Ralf Schmälzle
19. Media Psychology and Moral Response
Allison Eden and Matthew Grizzard
20. Media Use and Identity Development
Marie-Louise Mares and Matthew L. Meier
21. Eudaimonic Entertainment Experiences
Arthur A. Raney, Mary Beth Oliver
22. Digital Games and Media Psychology: A Medium That Demands Our (Near-Constant) Attention
Nicholas D. Bowman and David Paul Peters
23. The Psychology of Fandom and Parasocial Experience
Rebecca Tukachinsky Forster and Gayle S. Stever
24. Tracking Research Quality and Reach in the Digital Age: Traditional Bibliometrics and Altmetrics in Media Psychology
Karen E. Shackleford and Nicholas D. Bowman

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