Media psychology

Media has a lot of impact on a vast majority of people. Media is a one aspect that can touch every corner of the earth. And any message that is spread by the media is believed to be the truth. In the present scenario when we tend to believe everything the media tells us, we can never know when we are being manipulated by the media. Media psychology tends to analyse how the message from a media is being understood and interpreted by the common people.

Take the example of an advertisement, the company tries to sell a product to us. And to sell the product the company gives us various advantages of the product, we believe the advertisement and buy the product even if the product is no use to us. And with the same advertisements, when competition was increased the advertising companies pulled in big stars as brand ambassadors. And because we like the star, and we assume that the stars use the same product we tend to buy the very same product.

Media was used for social and political campaigns, as it reaches a wide range of people. In such cases the people tend to believe the information passed on by the media. But now days the channel or particular organization in media uses the advantage it has on the people for the personal advantage of the media. In cases like this it is important to know where to draw the limit and to retain the trust of the people on media.

When the impact made by media is so high it became important to understand the basic psychology applied by the media and also to understand the psychology of the audience. Thus the study of Media psychology was born. The study helps us to better understand the nature of the media and also the nature of its audience. Media psychology draws inferences from various disciplines like sociology, neuroscience, computer science, anthropology, rhetoric’s, communications, political science, and international relations. When so many aspects of study are involved the subject tends to be interesting and educating as well. And media being a part and parcel of our daily life it is necessary to understand the extent media influences the decisions and activities of an individual.

Questions:

• How to we conclude how much of an influence media has on people?
• Where do we draw a line with respect to media psychology?