Media Use and Well-Being: New Perspectives on the Risks and Benefits of Media Exposure

Leonard Reinecke, Allison Eden, Nicole Krämer
2016 Journal of Media Psychology  
The growing influence of media in our daily lives is hard to overlook: Media content in the form of communication, information, and entertainment demands a significant share of our leisure time and waking hours. Online and mobile media have further extended the scope of traditional mass media and make media content and computer-mediated communication available at any time and at any place. Concerns about the effects of this massive media exposure on the users' well-being have been a significant
more » ... driver of research since the early days of our discipline. Whereas the research agenda on media effects has long been dominated by a focus on the negative and unintended implications of media use, more recent research has also started to explore the numerous beneficial effects of media exposure, such as inducing elevation and other positive emotions via "meaningful entertainment", media as a facilitator of social interaction and support, or media use in recovery and the restoration of resources. The heterogeneity of the existing evidence in this research tradition suggests a complex relationship between media use and well-being. Consequently, gaining a better understanding of the underlying processes that drive media effects on well-being, or the situational and individual differences which may make some users more vulnerable to the risks and others more susceptible to the benefits of media use, remains a crucial challenge for the field of media psychology. The aim of this special issue is to showcase state-of-theart research that provides innovative insight into the interplay of media use and well-being. Research submitted for publication in the special issue should thus: • Address the relationship between the use of traditional or new and interactive media and psychological
doi:10.1027/1864-1105/a000191 fatcat:ixivyu4oszbhrek7mlt6klmkmq