Media Psychology Matters » Culture

The role for vigilantes: A little duct tape and plastic sheeting and all’s right with the world

Pamela Rutledge — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:51:32 +0000

by John & Pamela Rutledge

A version of this article was published on PsychologyToday.com in the blog “Positively Media.”

Dexter is a Showtime series about a serial killer with a code. He only kills the bad guys who deserve it. We love Dexter precisely because he finds bad guys and kills them before they [...]

“Did You Know” Version 4: Media Convergence

Pamela Rutledge — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:50:10 +0000

A reader of my PT blog let me know that there is a new version of the “Did You Know” video. It really summarizes the convergence of media technologies in a powerful way. I included Version 3 at the end of my last post because it is a wake-up call about the impact of [...]

Carried Away with Balloon Boy

Pamela Rutledge — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:42:59 +0000

This article was published on PsychologyToday.com in my blog “Positively Media.”

The big story today was the six-year old boy who was carried away in the family weather balloon. It was the ONLY story on the news radio channel during my drive home from the post office and I arrived back at [...]

Trends and Getting the ‘Truth’ from Social Media

Pamela Rutledge — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:40:53 +0000

Trends matter in audience profiling. Even a social or politically-based trend impacts messaging on a micro-level. Some trends are more directly applicable to audience profiling than others depending upon what audience you are trying to reach. Social trending is particularly important because it sets the tone and context of how direct and specific messages [...]

Fawcett and Jackson: Mourning the Loss of Cultural Icons

Pamela Rutledge — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:27:14 +0000

It would be impossible to not pause and ponder the implications of the deaths of Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Both were cultural icons tied to a specific time in U.S. pop culture. Their death forces us to deal with the passage of time and mortality (theirs and ours). It reminds us that we [...]

Twitter and Goliath

Pamela Rutledge — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:12:00 +0000

This was posted April 13, 2009 on my blog “Positively Media” at Psychology Today.

First it was “Dell Hell” and now it is “#AmazonFail.” For all the debates over the purpose, point, and value of social media, it is events like these that illustrate how important they have become and how powerful they [...]

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 [...]

Managing Expectations: Advice from Louis CK

Pamela Rutledge — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 04:44:13 +0000

I hate to admit it, but I had never heard of this comedian, Louis CK. This YouTube clip entitled “Everything’s Amazing, Nobody’s Happy” from Late Night with Conan O’Brien is hilarious. After you finishing laughing, think about the implications of his jokes: the psychological expectations that are becoming standard about the speed of [...]

Gossip Girl as a Parenting Tool

Pamela Rutledge — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:33:45 +0000

In a brief Q&A (2/22/09) in USA Today Weekend by advice columnist Dennie Hughes, she quotes me saying it’s okay to indulge in celebrity gossip. I think most people tend to dismiss gossip as pretty shallow stuff, in spite of what we read at the dentist’s office. And that might be true, except for [...]

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 [...]