Forensic media psychology (FMP) is not yet understood by many. It is an emerging specialty offering growing professional opportunity because of its new applications to investigative and commercial technologies, litigation and its wider social use. There is increasing understanding of the importance of psychology in analyzing and understanding world events, economic and social tensions and global commerce.
The term “forensic” as it was widely and professionally used referred rather narrowly to investigation and fact finding for use in a court of law. Today, forensic increasingly refers to the scientific and behavioral principles and practices applied to fact-finding, analysis and explanations of many events for the purposes of litigation, academic research, promotion of products and services and more. Psychology is a tool used to examine and demystify the complexities of human behavior. Copyright issues, cyberterrorism, cyberbullying, security, surveillance, privacy issues, conflict and dispute resolution are areas in which applications of FMP are important. FMP is often the foundation for methodologies in analyses and interpretations of judicial deliberations and issues requiring judicial attention. Deception, unreliable eyewitness memory and jury decision-making in civil and criminal litigation take up large portions of court calendars. Reported media events via surveillance cameras, body-cam recordings and bystanders’ cellphone video recordings uploaded and shared worldwide in seconds can seriously influence public opinion even before a case goes to trial. Raw footage can add layers of factual and emotional complexity that may benefit from a structured and scientific application of forensic media psychology.
Psychological research has made many contributions to what happens in courtroom deliberations. It has:
- Refined interrogation and jury selection techniques.
- Popularized the use of psychological tests.
- Raised awareness among law professionals and the general public concerning the various social and psychological influences on eyewitness memory and jury decisions.
Forensic media psychology has a major role to play in providing accurate portrayals of psychology’s contributions in courtroom dramas to raise public understanding of the legal system.
Attention, persuasion, priming, associated memory management, cognitive ease, the halo effect, anchoring and implications from suggestions are but a few examples of psychology applied in forensic analysis of media-centric issues.
Forensic media psychology offers substantial research and professional opportunities for those who develop expertise.
Forensic Media Psychology Explained
- Forensic psychology includes many specialty areas in which depth expertise in analysis, research and psychology makes a difference. Specialties such as broadcasting, publishing, politics and public policy, commerce, entertainment and health care offer professional opportunities for those with unique experience and knowledge.
- With the proliferation and saturation of media into every culture, forensic media psychology can be a pervasive specialty of increasing significance across many fields, providing new careers and professional opportunity.
- The field of forensics will grow exponentially from the increased integration of innovations in technology and science, precedent-setting decisions in civil and criminal litigation and growing knowledge about the important implications of psychology to relate forensic data to human behavior.
In my view, schools of psychology, law schools, schools of television, media and cinema, business schools and schools of public policy will soon begin to include courses and concentrations in FMP. Legal professional organizations and the more innovative law schools already recognize the need to educate attorneys about basic psychology and human behavior. They will be the vanguard to partner with schools of psychology to offer FMP as part of JD programs in the finest law schools.
APA’s Div. 46 (Society for Media Psychology and Technology) is at the crossroads in all areas of psychology and technology. Forensic media psychology is a specialty in the early stages of official inclusion into the fields of media psychology and forensic psychology as they develop and expand in the same ways that cognitive psychology, pediatric psychology and other specialties in psychology have evolved. The time for forensic media psychology as a professional field of opportunity is here.
About the author
Bernard Luskin, PhD, has been CEO of eight colleges and universities. He served as CEO of several large media and telecommunications companies, including Philips Interactive Media and Mind Extension University. He has been faculty at Claremont Graduate University, Pepperdine University, USC, Fielding Graduate University where he is founder of the PhD program in media psychology, and UCLA Extension as founder of the MA degree program in media psychology and more. Luskin received lifetime achievement awards from APA, the UCLA Doctoral Alumni Association, the Irish government and European Commission.