Category Archives: Uncategorized

Our paper “Melfi’s choice” – which analyzes viewer reactions to the moral conundrum faced by psychologist Jennifer Melfi after being sexually assaulted in the television drama “Sopranos” – received a top paper award at the recent AEJMC conference in San Francisco. Congrats to all coauthors for a wonderful job!

One of my thesis students, Paula den Ouden, had her work featured on the Network Institute blog over the summer. You can read about her project here: Feeling Present in an Impossible Virtual Reality

2015 has been an exciting year. I was offered a permanent position by the VU, I had several papers and book chapters accepted for conferences or publication, and we started work on the NWO grant “Smart use of smart media in transportation.” Perhaps most important for me personally, I welcomed my boy into the family on JuneContinue reading “2015”

Our study about ego-depletion and media use has been picked up by several news outlets. Speaking of depletion restoration, this happened while I was on holiday, so apologies this is a bit delayed! Here are links to the relevant articles: http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/07/binge-watching-guilt-is-self-fulfilling.html http://time.com/3029797/watching-tv-to-relieve-stress-can-make-you-feel-like-a-failure/ http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/watching-tv-after-work-makes-you-feel-guilty-and-like-a-failure-9626840.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10988554/Why-TV-at-the-end-of-the-day-leaves-workers-feeling-depressed.html http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/watching-tv-causes-guilty-feeling-30456496.html http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/general-news/watching-tv-to-wind-down-just-adds-to-guilt-1-6748942 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2704984/Tired-Then-don-t-slump-TV-People-stressed-exhausted-end-consumed-guilt-putting-feet-study-reveals.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490 http://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-to-tell-if-you-have-couch-potato-guilt-syndrome-2014-7 http://zeenews.india.com/news/health/health-news/tv-smartphones-as-destressers-lead-to-guilt-feeling_28930.html http://www.universityherald.com/articles/10566/20140724/using-media-to-reduce-stress-may-lead-to-feelings-of-guilt-failure.htm http://www.hngn.com/articles/36980/20140724/using-media-stress-buster-increases-feeling-failure-guilt-study-finds.htm http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-07-media-stress-guilt-failure.html http://lifewise.canoe.ca/Living/YourLife/2014/07/24/21829391.html http://www.counselheal.com/articles/10602/20140724/watching-tv-lead-feelings-failure.htm http://scienceblog.com/73539/using-media-stress-reducer-can-lead-feelings-guilt-failure/Continue reading “Guilty Couch Potato in the news”

Thrilled to announce that my MA student, Britt Hoeksema, has been awarded a GSSS Junior Fellowship for six months to turn her excellent MA thesis “Predicting enjoyment, appreciation, interest, and nostalgia from novelty in media content: The case of mashups” into a publication in an international communication journal. Way to go, Britt!

From 6:40 on co-author Nick Bowman from West Virginia talks about our study “Violence is a many-splintered thing.” The rest of the interview is pretty cool too! Thanks Nick! Violent Entertainment on the BBC And for those interested in the paper: Violence is a Many-Splintered Thing

August 1 I gave the following talk at the Hamburg Summer School. Although not my specific area of focus, it was really fun to think about the ways psychological knowledge about old versus new content may affect our response to remixed media. I focused mainly on novelty and familiarity since when I was making theContinue reading “Repeat remix remediate: Hamburg Summer School Research Center for Media & Communication”

Next week is ICA London! So very excited. Although I have a lot on my schedule, you can catch me  for sure at the following events: Monday, June 17 9:00-17:00, Berkeley – I will be at “Communication Science – Evolution Biology and Brains, Innovations in Theory and Methods” I helped organize this along with the brilliant duoContinue reading “My ICA schedule”

On Tuesday I gave a talk at Nijmegen University on the role of morality in narrative persuasion. Abstract of the talk and link to slides below! Stories have been used throughout history to communicate social information. Narratives increase emotional engagement in viewers by transporting them to the world of the story and characters. But howContinue reading “Morality and Narrative Persuasion”