Categories
@salfordpsych applied psychology Blog engaging people media media psychology political psychology reflection

The age of celebrity politics

In an article published in the latest edition of The Psychologist magazine, I explore the contribution Psychology can give to understanding the phenomenon of celebritisation of politics.

http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-28/may-2015/age-celebrity-politics

 

Categories
Hong Kong media media psychology online technology

The end of TV? Broadcast crisis in HK

By Stephanie Szeto @stepszeto

 

There are only two free-to-air terrestrial television stations, Television Broadcasts (TVB) and Asia Television (ATV), in Hong Kong.  Owing to the financial crisis in past quarters, the ATV has been struggling with fund raising endeavour, in coping with consecutive financial loss and failure to pay salaries of hundreds of employees.  The posts on Facebook could tell that Hongkongers attributed ATV’s failure to their outdated drama genre and mismanagement. Media commentaries presented that their management should take the responsibility because the crisis originated from the internal organisational issue (Jin, Liu, & Austin, 2014).  Some people expressed views on posts that demanded ATV to give up their fight and the government should order ATV to surrender its free-to-air TV license to the Hong Kong Television Networks (HKTV, mentioned in the previous article).  As Lee (2004) found that Hong Kong audiences’ reactions to public media crises has become emotional and may explain the negative and less sympathetic comments of Hongkongers’ harsh reaction to the fall of ATV.

 

Some Hongkongers, alternatively, attributed the downfall of ATV to its fierce competitor, TVB which was assumed to monopolise the TV industry.  However, as Atkins (2010) mentioned that the impact of crisis is not limited to one organisation, TVB was also suffering from the decline of TV industry, despite reaching its peak in the 90s.  Today, the 24/7 access online providing abundant supply of entertainment, such as YouTube and iTunes, is the main culprit for downfall of TV industry.  During the dispute over free-to-air TV licence to HKTV, Mark Lee Po-on, TVB’s General Manager, claimed that there was not enough advertising revenue to support newcomer to the TV media market.  It may be the reason why there were internet rumours about reciprocal relation between TVB and the government that TVB delivered pro-government perspective to the audience and the government denied to issue a free-to-air TV licence to HKTV.

 

While people continue to discuss online about this evolving media crisis in Hong Kong, we will wait and see if there is any relationship of the ongoing situation with the heated debate of the 2017 political reform of the Hong Kong SAR which has been a focus of attention from a number of international media. One is sure that social media will be something we may continue to watch on.

 

 

 

Categories
Level 6 media psychology postgraduate research undergraduate writing

Qualitative Psychology Dissertations Online

This post originally featured on the Media Psychology UK, the blog for our MSc Media Psychology course at the University of Salford.  

By Jenna Condie

I’m often asked how to structure a qualitative dissertation and I find that seeing other dissertations can help to 1) recognise the structural similarities and writing conventions, and 2) recognise that all dissertations are slightly different and it’s perfectly ok to do your own thing too.  So I recently went on the hunt for some examples of qualitative psychology Masters theses to help MSc Media Psychology students in writing up their qualitative research.

I found a few qualitative psychology Masters theses online (see below) but PhD theses and undergraduate dissertations seem more available electronically (I’ve also included some examples of each below).  Perhaps there is gap for an online hub of Masters projects? If you know of one, I’d love to hear about it.

Masters:

*Found via the University of Edinburgh’s search option for Psychology Masters thesis collection here.

PhDs:

LSE Theses Online and the Open University’s Open Research Online are both fab repositories. Registering for the British Library’s Electronic Thesis Service EThoS is also a must.

Undergraduate dissertations:

  • Foskett, E. (2012) A discourse analysis using feminist strands of thought to analyse advertisements, Download from the MMU Psychology Dissertations Journal here.
  • Walker, S. (2012) “Follow, follow?”: A thematic analysis of how geographical location, social intensity & masculinity are predictors for ‘casting’ nationality with football, Download from the MMU Psychology Dissertations Journal here

Media Psychology:

Whilst searching, I also found a Masters dissertation on social media’s role in branding which applies cultivation theory…might be of interest to our MSc Media Psych students.

Quite a few of the dissertations uploaded to the MMU Psychology Dissertations Journal are also media related.  You can search the Journal here.

Get Writing

It’s great to see how others have conquered the challenges of writing up but there does come a point where you need to stop looking at other people’s work and focus on writing your own work in your own way.  Good luck!

P.S. Don’t forget to adhere to your University’s specific guidance on writing up dissertations and theses too!

Thanks to @DrAClements, @ClareUytman, @ej_odwyer, @spatialsyndave, @drshroyer, @cyberandrew, @marcdonncadh, @paulbyrneuk, @DrSharronH, @GalvinMary, @VickiMcDermott for their retweets and suggestions which informed this post.

Categories
learning media psychology online psychology twitter

The Self Online Week 2013

By Jenna Condie

This is short notice but I am relying on the power of social media to spread the word fast.  I am giving my annual #TheSelfOnline lecture tomorrow morning Monday 22nd April 2013 10-12pm in L312 for students visiting from Xaverian College.  If you are free, Psychology at Salford students are welcome to attend, especially those thinking about increasing their online presence for a summer of graduate job searching.  Also, I’m sure Xaverian students would really like to meet some of you too.

I am also giving the lecture on Friday 26th April 2013 to Level 4 students on the Individual Differences module at 10-12pm in MS G21.  Again if you are free, students in other year groups and on our masters courses are welcome to attend.  Please email me if you would like to attend this one j.m.condie@salford.ac.uk.

Here’s what’s in store:

I’ve titled this post The Self Online Week 2013.  If you can’t make it to the lectures, why not add your thoughts or questions around your online presence on Twitter using this tag #theselfonline.  If you do one thing this week, Google yourself and see what you find. If you do another, check out LinkedIn.

Categories
media psychology research

GOA project on media concentration and democracy

This post originally featured on the Media Psychology Team blog, written by Dr Sharon Coen, Media Psychologist and Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Salford.

“A large international project on media concentration and media diversity will explore the relationship between media ownership and the quality and diversity of information provided in the media on the recent EU financial crisis. The project, lead by Professor Hilde Van den Bulck,  Professor Peter Van Aelst, Professor Pieter Maeseele and Professor Jan Bouckaert will be funded by the University of Antwerp’s GOA BOF UA special fund for research.

The project will analyse media coverage of the EU financial crisis in four western-European countries, namely Belgium, Germany, UK and Greece to examine how different media structures and systems of ownership affect the quality of the information provided.

I am extremely pleased to be, in collaboration with Professor James Curran (Goldsmiths University), part of the expert advisers committee for the UK, and am looking forward to start working on this exciting project!

Sharon”

If you would like to hear more about the project, you can contact Sharon on s.coen@salford.ac.uk