On Thursday 21st of September 2023, the Media Psychology division organized the very first day of the media psychology at the University of Antwerp. The event was attended by approximately 30 scholars from various research fields including media psychology, political communication and health communication.
Given that the media landscape is undergoing rapid changes, this day focused on discussing the theoretical and methodological issues when studying an environment that is subject to constant changes. The day of the media psychology was kicked off by Prof. Laura Vandenbosch (KU Leuven, Belgium) who discussed the topic of malleability in mediated ideals. During this talk, Prof. Vandenbosch provided insights in a new paradigm to understand effects of digital media use in adolescents’ well-being. She not only focused on how to combine theoretical insights when studying different types of media channels, but also the practical considerations when exploring new research methods such as data donations. Afterwards, Dr. Fabio Votta (University of Amsterdam) provided a workshop on how to unveil the black box in the political advertising landscape. He discussed his research regarding algorithm audits in political advertising and also explained how to utilize scraping methods for gathering social media data. The last talk of the day was provided by research master students Tim Knöchel and Konrad Schweizer who discussed the different tools that can be used in every step of the research process. They focused on which websites and tools could be helpful when searching for literature, summarizing literature, engaging in data-analysis, and checking your reference list.
To wrap up the day of the media psychology, all scholars got to know each other through a massive speed-friending. During this one-minute talk, the scholars discussed their research and were able to further extend their network
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