Media
All sorts of psychologies
A new magazine, Psychologies, appeared on the newsstands in the
autumn: this is an English version of an established and very popular
French magazine. What is it like? To find out we took a look at the
first two issues.
Each has a cover photo of a celebrity, which makes them quite difficult
to distinguish from other magazines. Inside, the format is familiar and
in the ‘women’s’ magazine genre: taking a psychological approach to
personal stories, relationships, ‘How to manage ageing’, ‘The real
you’, ‘Revenge of the introvert’, and more.
A news and reviews section as well as coverage of beauty, well-being,
food and travel, all incorporate a psychological dimension. For
example, November’s health and beauty section covers sleep problems and
the significance of smell.
Like many women’s magazines, the tone is one of how to change and,
specifically, how to improve. The feature articles are quite long and
dense – more Marie Claire or Good Housekeeping than Bella, though there
are some quizzes (e.g. October’s ‘Who do you think you are?’).
And what of the psychology? Like other coverage of psychology in the
media, most of the articles are written by journalists and refer to
relevant research. Few psychologists are involved directly.
Psychologist contributors so far include Oliver James (on being scared
and getting to know yourself, in the October issue); Pamela Connolly (a
regular therapy column) and Linda Blair (tackling readers’ problems
each month). The magazine is well presented but, given the plethora of
other women’s magazines covering very similar stories, it is not clear
whether Psychologies will stay the course.
Psychologists contribute far more to Scientific American Mind, a
relatively new publication available in some shops and from
www.sciammind.com. Authors in the latest issue include Michael
Gazzaniga, Robert Emry, and our own Alexander Haslam and Steve Reicher.
The publication is amazingly ad-free, and the articles are engaging,
informative and clearly well pitched at an educated but general
audience (its editor guesses that less than 8 per cent of readers are
working scientists).
What is impressive about Scientific American Mind is the way
psychologists are trusted to write alongside journalists. Although the
editor tells us that they invest a lot more editorial work in people
who do not write for a living, and therefore scientists are paid
slightly less, the join is invisible. This suggests either good
editing, or that psychologists are getting the hang of communication.
Worth checking out.
Harriet Gross and Jon Sutton
THE Media page
invariably focuses on the way in which psychologists and their work are
featured in the media. Although valuable, this approach excludes the
many ways in which psychological knowledge is reported by those outside
of the profession, particularly the general public. Usually stored one
shelf below the glossies for both him and her lie a welter of weeklies
crammed with ‘true’ tales of incredible weight loss, infidelity and
medical marvels. Easily identified by the banality of their titles,
Best, Real, That’s Life, Take a Break and the like have circulations of
over one million copies a week and offer large cash incentives for
readers’ ‘true-life’ stories.
However, far from being true, some of stories in these magazines reveal
the gaping discrepancies between individuals’ understanding of their
conditions and current psychological theories. For example, in ‘Docs
cut Mum from my brain’ (Full House) a woman describes how on waking in
hospital following a fall and neurosurgery she was unable to recall any
details of her mother. The headline and the article as a whole suggest
that it was the neurosurgical intervention that physically sucked all
memories of her parent from her brain, leaving all other memories and
functions intact. This science fiction explanation is clearly at odds
with the very considerable body of knowledge regarding the organic
substrates of memory function. Similarly our colleagues in the Lesbian
and Gay Psychology Section of the Society might have something to say
about a story in the same publication the following week entitled ‘My
anti-smoking pills have turned me gay’.
Although they are frequently written in the first person, these
distortions do not spill directly from the individuals on to the page
unedited. The sensationalist tendencies of publishers must also play a
part, and an eye on these ‘real-life’ experiences gives a fascinating
insight into the genesis and maintenance of many modern psychological
myths. We are right to focus on the way in which our research is
portrayed in the media. However, whilst we may be permitted a brief
moment of self- congratulation/relief when a piece of psychological
research is reported faithfully in the broadsheets or on Radio 4, such
a narrow egocentric media watch may leave these myths to flourish
unchecked.
Sallie Baxendale
(Please note that some pictures may have been removed for copyright reasons)
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