De Gruyter Handbook of Media Psychology (De Gruyter Contemporary Social Sciences Handbooks, 15)

This book presents a survey of contemporary research investigating the psychological processes related to media consumption. As a rapidly growing and changing sub-discipline of mass communication, Media Psychology analyzes how media facilitate communication and how communication, in turn, shapes attitudes, emotions, and behavior. The handbook addresses leading ideas and debates in media psychology, persisting lines of inquiry and new areas of interest. Adopting an organizational approach that embraces a dynamic systems perspective, the book is subdivided into sections that examine nested compo nents of the larger system in question, such as audiences, messages, content and context, while also acknowledging that they do not function in isolation.