It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results.
How Fantasy Becomes Reality by Karen E. Dill-ShacklefordFrom smartphones to social media, from streaming videos to fitness bands, our devices bring us information and entertainment all day long, forming an intimate part of our lives. Their ubiquity represents a major shift in human experience, and although we often hold our devices dear, we do notalways fully appreciate how their nearly constant presence can influence our lives for better and for worse.In this second edition of How Fantasy Becomes Reality, social psychologist Karen E. Dill-Shackleford explains what the latest science tells us about how our devices influence our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In engaging, conversational prose, she discusses both the benefits and the risks thatcome with our current level of media saturation. The wide-ranging conversation explores Avatar, Mad Men, Grand Theft Auto, and Comic Con to address critical issues such as media violence, portrayals of social groups, political coverage, and fandom. Her conclusions will empower readers to make ourfavorite sources of entertainment and information work for us and not against us.
Call Number: HM1206 .D55 2016
How Fantasy Becomes Reality by Karen E. DillIt's a common belief that the stories we encounter through mass media--whether in video games, action movies, or political comedy skits on Saturday Night Live--are just entertaining fantasies that have no tangible impact on our everyday lives, attitudes, and choices. Not so, says Karen Dill inthis lively and provocative book. As much as we may want to deny it, the images, sounds, and narratives that bombard us daily have ample power to alter our realities.Dill, the author of the single-most-cited study on the effects of video-game violence, draws on extensive research in social psychology to show not only the myriad ways--for good and ill--that media influence us, but also why we resist believing they do. Vibrantly written and packed with eye-openingexamples from everyday life, her wide-ranging analysis encompasses everything from gender and racial stereotyping to social identity, domestic violence, and presidential politics. She discusses the ways that super-thin models and actresses have altered women's self-images, dissects the manipulativestrategies of advertising aimed at children and medical consumers, and explains how the "fake news" of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report may offer more authentic and incisive coverage than the cable channels and network newscasts. She also assesses the growing importance of "new media" liketext-messaging, blogs, and Facebook in how we communicate and process information.In a media-saturated society, Dill argues, understanding precisely how these powerful forces affect us and learning how to deal with them are vital to the very way we function as citizens. How Fantasy Become Reality shows what we can do to move from the passenger's seat to the driver's seat as mediaconsumers.
Call Number: HM1206 .D55 2009
A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication by Richard Jackson Harris; Fred W. SanbornA Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication is the go-to text for any course that adopts a cognitive and psychological approach to the study of mass communication. In its sixth edition, it continues its examination of how our experiences with media affect the way we acquire knowledge about the world, and how this knowledge influences our attitudes and behavior. Using theories from psychology and communication along with reviews of the most up-to-date research, this text covers a diversity of media and media issues ranging from commonly discussed topics, such as politics, sex, and violence, to lesser-studied topics, such as sports, music, emotion, and prosocial media. This sixth edition offers chapter outlines and recommended readings lists to further assist readability and accessibility of concepts, and a new companion website that includes recommended readings, even more real-world examples and activities, PowerPoint presentations, sample syllabi, and an instructor guide.
Publication Date: 2013-07-15
The Media Equation by Byron Reeves; Clifford NassCan human beings relate to computer or television programs in the same way they relate to other human beings? Based on numerous psychological studies, this book concludes that people not only can but do treat computers, televisions, and new media as real people and places. Studies demonstrate that people are "polite" to computers; that they treat computers with female voices differently than "male" ones; that large faces on a screen can invade our personal space; and that on-screen and real-life motion can provoke the same physical responses. Using everyday language to engage readers interested in psychology, communication, and computer technology, Reeves and Nass detail how this knowledge can help in designing a wide range of media.
Media Psychology 101 by Christopher J. Ferguson"This book provides a thoughtful and balanced look at some of the hot topics generating headlines, such as media violence, body image, social representation and sex in the media.Media Psychology 101 will be a valuable addition to introductory courses and the public as a user-friendly overview of much-discussed issues. -Pamela Rutledge, PsycCRITIQUES There are few areas of modern social science that are as fiercely debated as media psychology. Written by one of the foremost experts on the topic, this is a concise overview of what is known√>=and not known√>=about how individuals are affected by and interact with various forms of mass media. The book critically examines research from cognitive, social, developmental, biological, and evolutionary approaches to psychology and addresses the interplay between media consumption and viewer behavior in such realms as advertising, body image, sex, and violence. Distinguished by its examination of research from a scientifically objective position, the book offers students not only current knowledge of media psychology but also the tools to challenge commonly held assumptions from popular advocacy and ideology. This text cuts across different psychological approaches to studying how individuals are affected by mass media and includes research from criminal justice and sociology. It considers critical debates in media psychology and how debates in science themselves can be influenced by processes such as "moral panic." Written in a lively, accessible manner, the book draws upon engaging examples such as Photoshopped model controversies, dubious advertising practices, and attempts to blame violent crimes on media to illustrate scholarly principles. Throughout, data from research studies are related back to real-world phenomena such as violence rates, advertising dollars spent, or changes in the news media. Written for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students studying media psychology, the text will also be of value to professionals in psychology, sociology, and criminal justice as well as individuals involved in public policy as it relates to media effects. Key Features Offers an objective, interdisciplinary approach to understanding media and behavior Draws from cognitive, social, developmental, and biological psychology, as well as criminal justice research and sociology Challenges the conclusions drawn from research to foster critical thinking Written in a lively, accessible writing style with engaging examples
Publication Date: 2015
Refiguring Minds in Narrative Media by David CiccoriccoHow do writers represent cognition, and what can these representations tell us about how our own minds work? Refiguring Minds in Narrative Media is the first single-author book to explore these questions across media, moving from analyses of literary narratives in print to those found where so much cultural and artistic production occurs today: computer screens. Expanding the domain of literary studies from a focus on representations to the kind of simulations that characterize narratives in digital media, such as those found in interactive, web-based digital fictions and story-driven video games, David Ciccoricco draws on new research in the cognitive sciences to illustrate how the cybernetic and ludic qualities characterizing narratives in new literary media have significant implications for how we understand the workings of actual minds in an increasingly media-saturated culture. Amid continued concern about the impact of digital media on the minds of readers and players today, and the alarming philosophical questions generated by the communion of minds and machines, Ciccoricco provides detailed examples illustrating how stories in virtually any medium can still nourish creative imagination and cultivate critical--and ethical--reflection. Contributing new insights on attention, perception, memory, and emotion, Refiguring Minds in Narrative Media is a book at the forefront of a new wave of media-conscious cognitive literary studies.
Publication Date: 2015
Media and Memory by Joanne Garde-HansenHow do we rely on media for remembering? In exploring the complex ways that media converge to support our desire to capture, store and retrieve memories, this textbook offers analyses of representations of memorable events, media tools for remembering and forgetting, media technologies forarchiving and the role of media producers in making memories.Theories of memory and media are covered alongside an accessible range of case studies focusing on memory in relation to radio, television, pop music, celebrity, digital media and mobile phones. Ethnographic and production culture research, including interviews with members of the public andindustry professionals, is also included. Offering a comprehensive introduction to the connections and disconnections in the study of media and memory, this is the perfect textbook for media studies students.
Publication Date: 2011
Communicating Unreality by Gabriel WeimannFrom interactive, real-time Internet broadcasts to video game-like images of smart bombs on television, our perception of reality is shaped by the mass media. Willing or not, we are a mass mediated society, and the electronic media, especially television and computer-mediated-communication, plays a vital role in our daily lives. Communicating Unreality reviews the images and meanings of our mass-mediated world. With careful attention to the integration of news and entertainment, fact and fiction, and event and story, author Gabriel Weimann examines our symbolic environment, where reality and fiction are almost inseparable. Through discussion of mass-mediated images of people, cultures, war, love, sex, death, community, and identity, we learn that there often exists a large gap between reality and reconstruction of "realities" as communicated by the mass media. This comprehensive and entertaining textbook can breathe life into the standard mass communication course. Students, professors, and everyone interested in the influence of the media will enjoy this book.