Exploring the Psychology of New Media

Dr. Makana Chock, David J. Levidow Endowed Professor at Syracuse University Newhouse School of Public Communications, NY, understands the impact of being a woman of color with an endowed professorship.

“Academe is not without its own barriers for women, particularly women of color, so I take a certain personal satisfaction,” says Chock. “It also gives me the freedom to study things that I really think need to be studied and that I want to study, to help and work with students and help them move forward. Also, to mentor junior faculty. It's an opportunity, but it's a responsibility and I take it quite seriously.”

An internationally recognized researcher in the area of media psychology, Chock studies concepts that are ever evolving. With the increasing presence of artificial intelligence and massive impact of social media, the dynamics continue to grow and develop.

“Media psychology is the study of how humans interact with media and technology,” Chock explains. “We used to look at this from the point of view of how audiences were affected by media. A lot of what researchers were looking at was how humans were impacted by television or a film that they watched and absorbed or radio that they listened to.

“With social media, it's the interaction, not just with the media but with the other users and the ways in which this impacts individuals, who are now creators of content,” she continues. “It's not simply that you are impacted by somebody else's content; it's that you are creating content and you are responding to other users and interacting with the technology in ways that we didn't necessarily think of 20 or 30 years ago.”

Chock notes that humans have always engaged in social comparison and used it as a way to evaluate their satisfaction with themselves. “To some extent the satisfaction we feel is how realistic that comparison is,” she says.

Someone may look at a celebrity and understand that is not a realistic comparison, so the wealth or popularity of a celebrity won't likely impact someone's self-esteem. With social media, the people being viewed are to some extent peers and seemingly comparable.

Unlike a television show or film, which occurs in a finite amount of time, people consume social media over the course of the day. Each time someone checks their social media, they're exposed to different types of messages. She examines how people react to that constant influx of positive and negative information and reinforcement.

“People spend a great deal of time making sure that their social media presence—their face, appearance and life—look as positive or as wonderful as possible,” Chock says. “Because that's all we see, it can then lead to a sense of dissatisfaction or a feeling that your own life is awful in comparison. It has an impact on people's mental sense of self-satisfaction and confidence.”

Chock studies the ways in which people process and respond to persuasive messages in mass media and extended reality (virtual, augmented and mixed reality) contexts. She particularly focuses on health information, looking at educational campaigns around HIV awareness, drug use, alcohol consumption and environmental issues. How people consume media is also an area of examination.

“We look at how people respond to mass media messages,” she says. “Recently, we've studied vaccination messages particularly during COVID. How people reacted, the source of the media, the accuracy of the media and how likely they were to engage particularly if it was on social media.”

Of interest currently is the psychological processes involved in why people post, how they post and how this ties into responses to a variety of persuasive messages related to political issues and health issues.

“Media has this amazing ability to provide people with information about others not necessarily in their immediate circle,” says Chock. “It can tell stories about people in ways that move us and affect audiences, more so than say factual information. You have this sense that you are actually interacting with individuals from different groups, worlds and backgrounds.

“Depending upon what story you tell it can either be very negative effects … or you can have stories which provide people with insights into ways that people interact,” she adds.

She is the director of the extended reality lab at Syracuse, and she and undergraduate and graduate students are now focusing on new technologies. They are working on a number of studies related to how people respond to virtual, immersive and mixed reality media. One project that recently concluded dealt with how people respond to immersive media messages about diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) issues. It examines whether virtual reality is an empathy machine and if it is, what are people receiving.

“We had stories about Alzheimer's, blindness and Syrian refugees,” she explains. “What we're looking at is both the cognitive and emotional responses to this content. … Are you getting empathy, are you getting perspective, are you getting sympathy and how in turn does that relate to willingness to engage in pro-social behavior as it regards to these different groups and actions.”

The lab, which draws students from numerous departments and schools within the university, is also working on designing a game to teach media literacy on social virtual reality (VR) platforms. They conducted research on recruitment and grooming techniques. The game, which can be played in VR creates awareness of these techniques, is currently in the testing process.