Media and Social Life

Our use of media touches on almost all aspects of our social lives, be they friendships, parent-child relationships, emotional lives, or social stereotypes. How we understand ourselves and others is now largely dependent on how we perceive ourselves and others in media, how we interact with one another through mediated channels, and how we share, construct, and understand social issues via our mediated lives.

This volume highlights cutting edge scholarship from preeminent scholars in media psychology that examines how media intersect with our social lives in three broad areas: media and the self; media and relationships; and social life in emerging media. The scholars in this volume not only provide insightful and up-to-date examinations of theorizing and research that informs our current understanding of the role of media in our social lives, but they also detail provocative and valuable roadmaps that will form that basis of future scholarship in this crucially important and rapidly evolving media landscape.

Mary Beth Oliver (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is a distinguished professor in the Department of Film/Video & Media Studies and co-director of the Media Effects Research Lab at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research in media effects focuses on entertainment psychology and on social cognition. Her recent publications on these topics have appeared such journals as theJournal of Communication, Human Communication Research, and Communication Research, among others. She is currently an associate editor of theMedia Psychology journal.

Arthur A. Raney (Ph.D., University of Alabama) is the James E. Kirk Professor of Communication and director of doctoral studies in the School of Communication at Florida State University. His research primarily examines how and why we enjoy various media entertainment content, with specific attention to the role morality plays in those processes. His writings on these issues have been published in various anthologies, as well as in theJournal of Communication, Media Psychology, and Communication Theory, among others. He is currently an associate editor of theMedia Psychology journal.