The Image of Psychology through the Eyes of the Media

Abstract
Psychology can be presented by the media in forms such as magazine or newspaper articles, and the most popular today is through commercials watched on TV. Psychology is presented in a form of science today compared to what it was viewed as in the late 1800s and onto the 1900s. It is more of a science nature because viewers have to think about the meaning of the article or commercial to understand the message that is being presented. Then, psychology was viewed as a form or common sense. Psychology was never really looked at as a science but rather as philosophy in the 1980s. The public was often confused with the subject of psychology because it was always
Although some forms of information being put out to the public are common sense, most that I had come across were more science like from my perspective. Psychology has drastically changed over the past thirty to forty years, but through the eyes of the media, exaggeration and hidden messages still take place today.
I personally feel that psychology that is presented in the media today is often presented in a sensationalistic manner rather than a more sober manner. By meaning sensationalistic, I feel that the media over exaggerates too much. Many reporters and commercials use this form as a way to catch the viewer’s attention. Many ways to engage the viewers include sex, conflict and fear. For example, a commercial comes on with a girl groaning and yelling in the shower, and the viewer comes to find out that the commercial is about the new amazing shampoo. Who would have actually thought about shampoo in a situation like that? That of course is just the introduction of the media industry. In the past, the public had been confused on the education of psychology because of the way the field would keep changing, and the different view points that were being stated (Ludy, 1986, p. 942). The forms of psychology in the late 1800s early 1900s were greatly written in popular magazines and newspaper articles. The stories were not talked about on TV or through commercials. During World War I