The Psychology of Media Formats
Not single titles but whole formats, and what our appetite for them says about us. Game shows, reality television, video games, social media, and the rest.
Game Shows
From 1930s radio through the quiz show scandals to today, the first in a series on why certain media formats never stop working on us.
Infomercials
The problem-and-promise structure, the machinery of persuasion, price theater, and why urgency is engineered to bypass judgment.
Soap Operas
Why the unfinished story pulls so hard, how characters come to feel like family, and what the social brain gets from a serial that never resolves.
Documentaries
Why a claim to reality changes how we watch, what true crime feeds in us, and how a documentary shapes the truth it presents.
Short-Form Video
Variable reward, a feed with no stopping cue, and novelty engineered to capture attention. What is actually known, and what is not.