By John Tommasino
High unemployment, daily Wall Street volatility, a national credit downgrading and global economic unrest; just keeping up with the news can be a depressing and daunting task.
The news is shocking but paying too close attention to the daily media output can distort your outlook on life if you allow it, a leading media psychologist recently told Laidofflounge.com. Media psychology is a study that utilizes psychology to understand media and technology use and its influence on individuals.
Dr. Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center, said the steady stream of bad and sensationalistic news in the mass media is driven by concerns about ratings and subscribers and often distorts the big picture. Mass media, regardless of its political biases, is also driven by the viewer’s need to feel reaffirmed about their own particular world views.
“People forget that mass media only exists at the pleasure of its viewers, if no one watched it would not exist,” Rutledge noted.
But today, the internet and the rise of social media have fundamentally changed the way people gather information. High unemployment figures are often touted by the media but the numbers can be misleading, Rutledge notes. New entrepreneurs who work for themselves and emerging home-based businesses are not figured into sheer labor statistics.
The media psychologist said the picture might not be as gloomy as the mass media paints it. Job seekers and emerging entrepreneurs have more free information tools at their disposal now than ever before. Sites like LinkedIn and Twitter allow users to network directly for positions and gather pertinent information about potential employers and potential opportunities.
“The big change in media is that all things are interconnected. The old model was that information was only available in a small amount of channels. It was controlled and filtered. The new model is now a peer- to-peer connection. The balance of power has changed, it’s now in the hands of the individual,” Rutledge said.
The empowering nature of social media was evident in recent months as users connected by the Internet organized revolts throughout the Middle East. But Rutledge notes that the new media can be a double-edged sword, as many fail to understand it and fear its power. Some British lawmakers recently called for government regulations on social media following the London riots.
“Social media is still new for people and we can either hide from it or we can understand it,” Rutledge notes.
For the job seeker, Rutledge recommends developing full social media proficiency as an asset for securing work and establishing employment goals. But users must first differentiate what they need social media for, whether their goal is marketing a business, networking or seeking another job.
Careful use of privacy settings and how much personal information you reveal on the Internet should be exercised, as information can instantly go viral.
“I think that people often confuse goals and tools. You need to establish what the capabilities of social media sites are before you start using them,” she said. “It’s easy to fall into assumptions about social connectors but they each have different meanings. It’s like anything else; you don’t use something unless you know how it works.”
A social network like Facebook is ideal for friendships but it has only limited uses for business. Twitter can be utilized for certain purposes but building an individual Twitter feed and an online following must be handled carefully with your individual goals in mind. LinkedIn is an ideal resource for professionals as it allows networking and posting one’s resume online.
Rutledge also notes that nearly unlimited information is available on the Internet pertaining to professional growth and geographic economics. A user can scan what skills are in demand and where the jobs are before continuing their own education or relocating to test the waters in another area and job market.
As the nature of employment changes, so will the standard definitions of working.
“The opportunities are changing and the hardest part is not having our careers confined by a job description but by our skill sets,” she said.
The internet also makes researching a potential market for a business simpler and entrepreneurs are “heroes”, Rutledge said, for taking their future into their own hands.
“These are people who are taking their energy and their creativity to redefine what it means to be working,” she said.
Dr. Pamela Rutledge is the Director of the not for profit Media Psychology Research Center. She is an adjunct faculty member at Fielding Graduate School, an instructor of media psychology at the UCLA Extension and an instructor and advisory board member of Social Media profiling and Transmedia storytelling at UC Irvine Extension’s School of Business and Law’s Internet and Social Media Program. She is also an entrepreneur, co-founding the consulting company A-Think Lab. She writes about media and emerging technologies on her blog, Positively Media at www.psychologytoday.com.
