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Session Submission Summary

Complex Emotions in Media-Psychology Research

Mon, May 28, 15:30 to 16:45, Hilton Prague, Floor: LL, Congress Hall I

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

The study of emotions in media psychology is enjoying a broad and growing appreciation among scholars who recognize the important role that affect plays in predicting media selection, in mediating media influence, and in forming the basis of individuals’ media experiences. In this regard, some emotions have received a preponderance of scholarly attention, including basic emotions such as fear, joy, and anger. Yet, the landscape of emotion is much broader and more complex than foundational scholarship may imply. For example, recent scholarship has begun to grapple with emotional responses to media that may be characterized as mixed affect, that may be difficult to describe unambiguously, or that are not represented in every language. Likewise, changes in media technologies and the interactive nature of many contemporary media experiences have encouraged scholars to begin to examine emotions that better reflect experiences of active media users who have agency rather than passive audiences that merely consume media messages.

In addition to the need to more thoroughly consider and conceptualize the role of complex emotions in media research, these mixed affective responses present challenges to researchers as they design studies and try to measure nuanced emotional responses. Pairing traditional mass communication methodologies with advances in psychophysiological and biometric data collection as well as considering creative approaches to study design and measurement may help overcome these barriers and provide interesting results.

As such, mass communication research and theory could both greatly benefit from more deeply exploring the complex emotional responses to media that permeate the everyday experiences of digital media users.

This panel will engage prominent scholars in media psychology to present brief overviews of emotions that deserve additional research attention in media psychology. These brief presentations, lasting approximately 2-3-minutes per presenter, will then be the basis of an audience-wide discussion for ways to expand the theoretical and methodological approaches to studying complex and understudied emotion in media psychology.

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