Culture and Media Uses and Effects

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Özen Odag
• Subject Area: Communication Sciences ; Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2017 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 339829888

Culture influences the ways in which individuals use the media and the ways in which the media affect individuals in return. The literature on the relationship between culture and media uses and effects is highly fragmented, however, and terms and findings have been limited to the confines of single subdisciplines of either communication or psychology, with little cross-disciplinary exchange. The current network aims to initiate a dialog between these disciplines and to develop more integrative theories and methods on the topic. It will therefore bring together media psychologists, diaspora communication researchers, and cross-cultural psychologists, to carry out cross-cultural and indigenous studies on media uses and effects by paying special attention to the methodological challenges involved. In particular, the network will examine how individuals with different cultural backgrounds, world-views, and values use the media, what type of ethnic gratifications they obtain from doing this, and in what ways these outcomes affect their cultural identities. Main deliverables of the network will be an edited book, several journal articles, and an agenda for future research – produced by 15 international scholars during four consecutive two-day workshops over a duration of three years.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks