Media Psychology Matters » Positive Psychology

Prosocial Augmented Reality: Celebrating Youth Achievement

Pamela Rutledge — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:20:33 +0000

Where you look matters. Media producers count eyeballs and show you what you will watch. Let’s celebrate achievement, such as the fifth grade chorus from Staten Island, instead of spending our time and money consuming media about outliers, like LeBron James’ basketball contract, or irresponsibility and bad behavior, like Lindsay Lohan’s substance problems and [...]

What Courses Do I Take to Study Media Psychology?

Pamela Rutledge — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:30:58 +0000

Wondering what courses make up a media psychology curriculum is common particularly among people thinking about the next steps in their education. Recently a young woman from Athlone High School for Girls in South Africa posed this question, so I am sharing my response here. It is exciting to hear that people all around [...]

The Positive Psychology of Entrepreneurship

Pamela Rutledge — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:57:02 +0000

A version of this post appeared in my blog Positively Media on Psychology Today.

There’s a lot of buzz about entrepreneurship right now. This is especially obvious if you hang out on LinkedIn, Twitter, or cruise the Ning social networks. It is not surprising, given the amount of people looking for jobs due to [...]

Positively Media: New Blog on Psychology Today

Pamela Rutledge — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:08:26 +0000

I am very excited to announce that I have joined the blogging community on Psychology Today‘s website writing about the positive use of media and social technologies. My blog there is called Positively Media: How we connect and thrive with emerging technologies. The first posting is called Zen Moment: Social Media isn’t a “thing,” [...]

Reporting Our Way to a Happier World: The Pollyanna Effect

Pamela Rutledge — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:36:46 +0000

“Transforming the News Media into Honest and Balanced News” is the tagline of the online Swedish newspaper www.Tillit.info that exists for the purpose of disseminating positive news. (I posted a an update about this on my Facebook page and someone asked “How do you know” since the site in in Swedish. I wish I [...]

Defining Positive Media

Pamela Rutledge — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:29:24 +0000

What makes positive media? There is a huge pile of research looking at the negative aspects of media, particularly related to advertising. There are studies addressing social concerns about the impact of media on how people define themselves, success, society and, well, pretty much everything. The quality of the research varies, of course, but [...]

Website Hijacking to Spread a Message of Protest

Pamela Rutledge — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:31:51 +0000

The power of media to distribute information to a wide audience makes “stealing” media an effective method of disrupting or redirecting information flows. The Media Psychology Research Center homepage was hijacked yesterday by a Gaza protest group. (Thanks, Larry, for the heads up!) I have included a thumbnail of the intruding page below. The [...]

Fear Psychosis & Personal Enterpreneurship

Pamela Rutledge — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 18:47:02 +0000

Sramana Mitra has written a must-read column on Forbes.com, “Stop the Fear Epidemic.”

I have talked a lot about the climate of fear in the U.S.–it is a vehicle for attracting readers, viewers, voters, policy-endorsers, rights-waivers, and customers. It influences how scholars do research as much as how policy-makers legislate. The media often gets [...]

Post-Election Withdrawal?

Pamela Rutledge — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:38:09 +0000

I had a question from a reporter this morning about post-election withdrawal. What are all those people who have been “addicted” to websites, TV, and text messaging to follow the election going to do with themselves?

Call me an optimist, but I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. First of all “addicted” [...]

Happiness and Its Causes

Pamela Rutledge — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:34:13 +0000

For those interested in positive psychology, there is a must-attend conference November 24-25 in San Francisco “Happiness and It’s Causes.” In spite of obvious jokes about a happiness conference in San Francisco, this event brings an extraordinary line-up of people taking a wide-ranging look at positive emotions and mental states. While semantically, the word [...]