Psychology and Media

Catalog description

The course focuses on understanding psychological concepts as they pertain to media consumption. Some questions we will examine throughout the semester are: How does media influence our attitudes and behaviors? Why do we have a preference for certain news sources? Why are some advertisements so memorable? What is it about some messages that makes them so persuasive? We will cover the connections between different forms of media and various topics, including bias and stereotyping, cognitive heuristics, language and social development, attitude formation, persuasion, politics, activism, group polarization, misinformation, mental health and well-being and more.