Psychology of Media & Technology

As part of Canvas8's Expert Outlook 2020 Report, I explain the cultural and behavioral drivers impacting media in the year ahead. Canvas8's yearly Expert Outlook brings together 42 expert viewpoints across 14 sectors. This year’s theme? HEAR ME!  Read the full report here: http://bit.ly/expertoutlookslideshare #expertoutlook2020 #mediapsychology

The race is on for consumer data.  But buckets of data aren't enough.  You have to be able to ask the right questions, have data scientists that know how to extract relevant and valid data and not lose sight of the fact that you're talking about human behavior--real people--not bots and widgets.  Data is only as good as your ability to extract the story it tells in human terms.

Showman, Beauty and the Beast and Pitch Perfect (1, 2 & 3) are all about the fundamental drive people have for affiliation and acceptance.  Social connection is essential to our emotional and physical health.  Social exclusion, from giving a toddler "time-outs" to outright rejection and bullying, triggers the same areas of the brain as physical pain.  

Predicting human behavior requires us to make assumptions about cause and effect, which are proxies for the consumers’ priorities, motivations and goals. Narrative analysis--identifying narrative and visual frames and customer stories--enables me to understand the “why” along with the “what” of measured behavior.  The "what: tells the past.  The "why" is the key to the future.  #mediapsych #datastrategy