Skip to content

Psychological Insights for Understanding COVID-19 and Media and Technology

02

The ‘infodemic’

This timely and accessible book brings together a selection of chapters offering insights into issues surrounding media and technology and the covid-19 pandemic. Featuring content on topics such as fake news, belonging, online relationships, and conspiracy theories, the book includes a specially written introduction contextualising the chapters
in relation to the covid-19 crisis. Reflecting on how
psychological research is relevant during a significant global event, the introduction examines the potential future impact of the pandemic on the practice and study of psychology, and our lives more generally, making it fascinating reading for psychology professionals, students, and academics.


The book is an edited collection of previously published chapters which we’ve brought together to explore important themes in psychological science and media studies that engage with people’s experience of the pandemic. That means it examines topics from fake news, to social media, conspiracy theories, belonging, online emotional lives, relationship formation and identity.

  1. “When (fake) news feels true” by Norbert Schwarz and Madline Jalbert from The Psychology of Fake News: Accepting, Sharing, and Correcting Misinformation
  2. “Connections “, from my own The Psychology of Social Media
  3. “When Do People Believe Conspiracy Theories? ” by Jan-Willem Van Prooijen from The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories
  4. “The dynamics of groups online ” by Olivia Hurley from An Introduction to Cyberpsychology
  5. “Belonging in an age of technology” by Kelly-Ann Allen from The Psychology of Belonging
  6. “How do online social networks influence people’s emotional lives? ” by Ethan Kross and Susannah Chandhok from Applications for Social Psychology
  7. “Online relationships formation” by Ilan Talmud and Gustavo Mesch from Wired Youth
  8. “Identity citizenship: Authenticity, intersectionality and a new populism” by Rob Cover from Emergent Identities: New Sexualities, Genders and Relationships in a Digital Era

The irony is that we are now being asked to place our trust in technology to at least partially get us out of this mess.”

p. 3, Introduction
%d bloggers like this: