The Use of Media in Media Psychology

Media psychologists have theoretical interests in both people and media, yet research investments considerably favor subjects over stimuli. An analysis of 306 studies, taken from the journal Media Psychology over the last 10 years, and from the most cited media experiments in other journals, shows that studies invested in tens of thousands of human subjects but the studies used small samples of media material that were often narrow and unrepresentative. The vast majority of experiments (65%) used single examples of media messages per condition yet they discussed large categories of real world media experiences. Analysis of specific selections showed that media represented in research are less variant, nuanced, and idiosyncratic than media found in the real world. Two categories of solutions are discussed. First, new statistical solutions promote more attention to media repetitions analyzed as random factors. Second, we review the advantages of uncommon research designs that emphasize stimulus investments, including single subject designs that collect intra-individual data and that construct unique models using the entirety, rather than samples, of messages that people experience.