Instructions

Psychology in the News Assignment

Purpose:

This assignment is designed to get you critically thinking and writing about how psychological issues are presented in the popular media. Magazine, newspaper, radio and television accounts of psychological phenomena often are presented more to attract an audience than to provide fully accurate information.

Task:

For this assignment you will compile a portfolio of media objects and reflection papers.

Step 1:

To complete this assignment, you will need to select five recent (within the past six months) media items. These can be magazine articles, newspaper articles, advertisements, commercials, radio broadcasts, or television news stories. For audio or visual items describe the item as closely as possible (e.g., by transcribing the script of a radio ad) or include a link to the item.

Step 2:

For each item, include a brief essay–one to two pages, double-spaced typing–on the connections between the media item and material from the course text or class. It’s essential to focus on the connections between the media item and psychological theories or research evidence.

Step 3:

For each item, search the library database using relevant keywords for your topic for at least one peer-reviewed article to support your ideas. Psychology cuts across many disciplines so feel free to explore journals in other areas such as business, education, health, and criminal justice.

Tip: When conducting your search in the library include a theory or principle plus a topic (i.e. Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Adolescents). Use alternative key words to improve your chances of finding relevant articles and create a specific search statement to help narrow your results." The example might be something like "("Body Dysmorphic Disorder" OR BDD) AND (adolescen* OR teen*)"

Step 4:

Submit final draft to your assignment folder.

Criteria:

Checklist of expectations

In order to be successful on this paper, be sure that you address all of the following:

__ Include an APA style cover page

__ Include summaries of five media objects with links or transcripts as appropriate

__ Address both the media object and the psychological principles involved in full detail

__ Include one article summary per media object (5 total)

__ Support your ideas with citations from the text or your peer-reviewed resource(s)

__ Be sure that your ideas are put together in a coherent and logical way

__ Proofread carefully to ensure that your paper is free of misspellings and typos

__ Proofread carefully to ensure that your paper has proper sentence structure

__ Include references and citations in APA style

This assignment is worth 100 points toward your final grade.